Is it dark out here, or is it just me?

So here’s what happens. Everything’s orbiting around everything else. It’s exactly like a Sunday morning when everyone’s getting ready for church. And just when the earth is trying to run circles around the sun, the moon is running a circle of its own around the earth, and suddenly, but with plenty of warning, the moon gets completely between the earth and the sun. This is just like when you’re trying to see the final puzzle on Wheel of Fortune from the kitchen, and your husband walks through at the precise moment they start the ten second timer and stops in front of the screen and yells “Food Processor”! It’s a total eclipse of Pat Sajak. 

I just wanted anyone lagging in understanding here to be able to completely grasp the science of this monumental event. Because you know, everyone’s been talking about this eclipse like they had finally found Elvis alive in a banana tree in Guam.

So it got me curious. It apparently got everyone curious. There have been news stories circulating today about everything from outrageous hotel costs due to the influx of eclipse groupies to how-to stories about using a pasta colander to safely view the thing. My personal favorite was the observance of animals reacting to it in the Fort Worth Zoo.

I have some friends in the DFW area, and the animals had nothing on them. I mean, they aren’t exactly straightlaced when the moon is behaving itself. Did you think line dancing originated at a financial symposium with pie-charts? And do you think people lined up orderly to see the eclipse in a town where an armadillo can’t even get across the street and live to tell it? 

The people got a little too excited. The animals, not so much. Here’s what I read on apnews.com concerning the zoo reaction:

“‘In general, everybody was really well adjusted. Nobody was doing sort of bonkers behavior,’ said Adam Hartstone-Rose, a researcher from North Carolina State University who came with a team to Texas for the eclipse.

“He said in past eclipses, giraffes galloped. This time, the giraffes gathered more, but weren’t stressed out.”

This concerned me. I had been completely unaware of giraffes stressing out. Ever. What happens? Is Leroy Giraffe like, “I have four deadlines tomorrow, and on top of that, this tie is too short for my neck.” And Erma Giraffe says, “Do you think I’m a miracle worker? I knew when Stella Giraffe scheduled the baby shower the same weekend as the tax deadline, it was not a good idea, and now company’s coming and my tongue looks black and my knees are wobbling, and the pipe burst at the watering hole!” That’s when George Giraffe who is usually calm says, “WILL EVERYONE JUST SIT DOWN AND STOP STRESSING OUT? YOU’RE MAKING MY NECK MUSCLES TIGHT!”

It’s just not in my giraffe database. I thought they just walked around and ate leaves off of trees. What were the zoo observers expecting the animals to do at the eclipse? “AAAAHHHH! Somebody help me! The world turned dark for three minutes, and I didn’t remember to pick up the cardboard 3-D movie glasses thingies at the grocery store. Now we’ve all gone blind!”

No, I think the giraffes were cool with it. It’s the people who went sort of  – what was it – bonkers behavior. They were paying $2400 for hotel rooms that will drop back down to $111 next weekend, so they could see three to four minutes of total darkness.

I guess they’re pretty jealous to find out that I’ve seen it get dark for much longer, like ten hours even. Every night. That’s how you stub your toe. Darkness helps with that. A lot. I mean, while we’re putting scientific information out there.

It shouldn’t surprise any of you that I was pretty unprepared for the whole eclipse thing. I mean I kept forgetting it would happen. So today at two o’clock, and from a church office and not a $2400 hotel room, I said, “It’s time!” and ran outside followed by the rest of the office staff. It had finally stopped raining, and the clouds were moving enough to let the moon do its upstaging of the sun. We were trying to save our retinas, but we were keenly aware something historically significant was going on.

Pretty sure it was that I had gone outside without locking my keys in the building. It won’t happen again until 2045.