Friends, I have a crazy week ahead, mainly because I have to cram in a bunch of work in three days, not the usual five. That would be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, because two exciting events bookend the week. You all know about Monday’s eclipse, and we’re going to do our best to get into the path of totality, probably down Toledo way. The forecast is iffy now, but today was clear and sunny and after the winter we’ve had, we’re owed another clear one for this event, goddamnit.
And on Friday? Why, we’re off on another European adventure. Wheels up for…drumroll…Italy. First stop: Rome. We’ve got a house-sitter, but as usual, I’ve got 19 different to-do lists and they’re starting to be illegible. But we’ll make it. It’s been a very good year for the nest egg — thanks, Biden.
Depending on eclipse success tomorrow, a photo post, then sketchy until we get to the eternal city, I expect. But you all carry on.
Sherri said on April 7, 2024 at 9:26 pm
Rome! Enjoy some gelato for me!
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brian stouder said on April 7, 2024 at 10:38 pm
I’d say ‘Bon voyage’ – but that’s not Italian…! Anyway – have a great trip, and snap us a few pics!
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basset said on April 7, 2024 at 10:49 pm
Meanwhile, Mrs. B and I are just back from South Carolina with about a hundred pounds of clay. I mentioned a few days ago to little or no apparent notice that we were going down there to research family history… one of my ancestors was a potter.
Last year we found where his kiln was and picked up shards off the ground… this year we, I and our guide actually, shoveled up some clay near the kiln with plans to bring it home and make some new pots, get the family tradition going again.
We also looked at a many jugs and pots from the ancestor’s shop and brought one home, made ca. 1850 and he more than likely had his hands on it at some point.
Reconnected with a cousin I hadn’t seen in over fifty years, learned a lot, good trip.
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Deborah said on April 8, 2024 at 6:12 am
Wow, enjoy Italy.
The forecast for Santa Fe is saying cloudy all day today.
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Heather said on April 8, 2024 at 7:50 am
Buon viaggio! I’m on my way back home from sunny Florida today. At least it’s supposed to get up to 70 today in Chicago—it’ll help smooth the transition a bit.
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Jeff Gill said on April 8, 2024 at 7:55 am
My retirement goal is to study Hopewell period ceramics and maybe try to replicate some with local clays. Not quite your personal connection, Basset, but fun for me here in central Ohio.
Except today I’m in central Indiana, having just made eclipse biscuits on my harvest gold Whirlpool oven. My wife overcame her aversion to this house (her father’s) to join me yesterday. We will enjoy relatively clear skies they say on TV at 3 pm; at 7:30 am as the sun rose not a cloud in the sky.
Nancy, I trust you’ve left time to re-watch “La Dolce Vita” before departing. Hope you can post a picture from the middle of the Forum. After three years of staring at a grainy picture of it on the cover of my Latin textbook, keeping my head down hoping the teacher didn’t call on me to conjugate anything that day, I’d love to see it in all its (I’m told) trash-strew and stray cat littered glory.
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Heather said on April 8, 2024 at 8:32 am
Jeff, the Forum has a lot fewer stray cats these days thanks to a cat rescue built right next to the ruins in the Largo di Torre Argentina that has instituted a very successful trap-neuter-release program. Those ruins are where most historians and archaeologists believe Caesar was assassinated. There are still lots of resident cats there thanks to the rescue though!
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ROGirl said on April 8, 2024 at 8:51 am
You should see Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, it’s in a small church. And go to Hadrian’s Villa and the Tivoli Gardens (there are fireflies everywhere at dusk).
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Dexter Friend said on April 8, 2024 at 9:17 am
Gelato, ummm. Best ever was at Zingerman’s in A2. They have their dairy products made from milk from their own farm.
2 little items. I was laughing at a report that showed a reporter demonstrating how to not damage your camera and phone-cam . She said you must slip a lens from a pair of eclipse glasses over the lens to prevent damage during the event. Then I wondered…hell, is this right?
Item 2: Ken Griffey was mentioned last post.
In 1975 I and friends went to the playoffs. Batting practice was ongoing and I struggled to get past security to get through to the right field wall to perhaps catch a b/p dinger. I saw an opening and dashed to the wall, and immediately Ken Griffey hit a towering fly right to me. I caught it barehanded to polite applause from the gathering crowd. Of course I still have the baseball. I also caught a b/p homer hit by Ernie Banks and one hit by Michael Jack Schmidt. Yeah, a lot more too. I spent lots of time in MLB stadiums.
BUON VIAGGIO to the GP travelers.
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Dexter Friend said on April 8, 2024 at 9:27 am
OK, I got the fever…I am heading towards Celina for a slightly better experience of the eclipse. But what I am getting anxiety about is this attempt tonight by the Boilermakers to unseat UConn in that other basketball game that has been eclipsed by Caitlin and the super-strong Gamecocks. I know the ratings tonight will pale by comparison to yesterday at 3:00 PM. I suppose another supernova will take over the nation’s attention like Caitlin. For longevity, Caitlin will be the forever standard of recognition, basketball’s Babe Ruth. First name recognition, like Rihanna, Beyonce….
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Jeff Borden said on April 8, 2024 at 9:32 am
Driving through Indiana yesterday we passed sign after sign warning of heavy traffic and major slowdowns related to the eclipse. The signs urged people to arrive early, leave late and fuel up. So…be careful on that drive to Toledo.
I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love Italy. BTW, while in Rome, try to visit the Cathedral of San Clemente. It’s three churches in one: street level is a stunning Gothic building; below is an underground church circa 400 BCE, a time when Christians had to worship secrely; and below that is a pagan temple. It’s quite amazing…walking distance from the Coliseum.
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LAMary said on April 8, 2024 at 10:22 am
I am old and ear worm vulnerable:
“He took a hundred pounds of clay
And then He said, “Hey, listen
I’m gonna fix this-a world today
Because I know what’s missin'”
Then He rolled his big sleeves up
And a brand-new world began
He created a woman and-a lots of lovin’ for a man
Whoa-oh-oh, yes, He did”
This will be in my head until something else gets stuck there. Last Saturday it was Dominique by Singing Nun.
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Julie Robinson said on April 8, 2024 at 11:25 am
Noooo!!! No giving other people your earworms!
JeffG, a friend spent a semester in Italy and got really tired of the pinches and gropes on the bus. Wonder if that’s changed since the 70’s?
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David C said on April 8, 2024 at 11:37 am
Dexter an eclipse glasses lens over the cell phone lens will work just fine.
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Jeff Borden said on April 8, 2024 at 11:47 am
Gosh. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkysaw is declaring a state of emergency in her state because of the eclipse. Allocating $100,000 for occasion. Seems excessive.
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susan said on April 8, 2024 at 12:09 pm
Jeff Borden @11 …below is an underground church circa 400 BCE, a time when Christians had to worship secrely… Yah, I bet those Christians had to be really secretive about worshipping way back then!
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Jeff Borden said on April 8, 2024 at 12:20 pm
Doh! 400 A.D.!
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David C said on April 8, 2024 at 12:37 pm
I had a teacher at college who pitched a fit about BCE/CE vs BC/AD. “It’s PC run amuck”.
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Scout said on April 8, 2024 at 12:53 pm
Thanks to President Biden’s excellent economy, we are headed to the south of France in May for a Viking RiverCruise. We start in Aix-en-Provence and cruise to Lyon. We’ve splurged on a veranda room. This is our first ever cruise of any type and I’m JAZZED.
Nancy, have an awesome time in Italy. We loved Rome, which is where we started our tour. Then we went to Florence, Sienna and ended in Venice. One of my all-time favorite trips.
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basset said on April 8, 2024 at 12:56 pm
I don’t recognize the song, but “Sixteen Tons” is now stuck in my head.
Thought about a Viking river cruise this fall, more than likely we’ll go back to England though… see the places we missed when I got sick last time, maybe cruise on one of those narrow river boats.
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Suzanne said on April 8, 2024 at 1:00 pm
Ya’ll are really, really making me want to go to Europe. I was in Italy when I was in high school and haven’t been back since. It was a lovely place.
Gearing up here for the eclipse. Hoping it will be the rapture so that the Trump base disappears.
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Sherri said on April 8, 2024 at 3:32 pm
The clouds cleared enough for us to have a cloud-free four minutes of totality in Dallas. We resisted the urge to try to go anywhere else to optimize our chances, and just stepped right outside our hotel for a great experience. It was full on cloudy this morning, but about an hour before the eclipse started, the clouds broke up, and we just got passing clouds during the eclipse, and no clouds during totality.
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JodiP said on April 8, 2024 at 3:48 pm
No eclipse here in cloudy MN. It did get extra gloomy during totality.
Have a wonderful time in Rome! I agree with the recommendation for San Clemente. Fascinating history.
We were in Florence, Bologna and Milan last fall. We are starting to talk about where to go this fall. Chamonix and Grenada are front runners. I would like to see the alpine glaciers before they melt too much.
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Dorothy said on April 8, 2024 at 4:44 pm
Have an amazing time! One of my new friends here, met via quilting, is going to Italy a week from today. Wouldn’t it be cool if you crossed paths?! Can’t wait to hear about your adventures when you get back.
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David C said on April 8, 2024 at 4:48 pm
Well, it’s all over. I thought I was being raptured but then I remembered it’s laundry day.
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ROGirl said on April 8, 2024 at 4:52 pm
I’ve never seen an eclipse until today, and it was amazing. It took a long time, and the moon almost completely covered the sun except for a sliver at the edge, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees, it didn’t get dark but the sky got gray and the quality of the light was unusual, bright but washed out. There were a number of planes flying around in the sky and contrails from planes that had come through.
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LAMary said on April 8, 2024 at 5:57 pm
The too tightly wound, deeply closeted, anti Biden, believer that Obama destroyed healthcare, brother who got very angry when I used the word insurrection died this morning. He requested care to be withdrawn. He was the only brother I was still speaking to. Other than disagreeing about nearly everything we got along.
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David C said on April 8, 2024 at 6:08 pm
Sorry for your loss, Mary.
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Joe Kobiela said on April 8, 2024 at 6:20 pm
Invited down to Portland Ind airport, thought I knew what to expect as far as total eclipse would be like, was nothing like I thought it would be, spiritual, amazing, humbling, awestruck, 98-99 percent isn’t enough, total is the only way to really see it.
Pilot Joe
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Jeff Gill said on April 8, 2024 at 7:16 pm
Mary, so sorry for that loss; a complicated relationship doesn’t make death any easier to sort out (he said, muttering to himself).
The difference between totality and a 99% eclipse is like Twain’s contrast of lightning and a lightning bug. It really is an experience like nothing else you’ll have in nature. Glad I was able to get to where I could see it. As Al Roker said, the next viable total eclipse for me comes when we’re going to be nearing our own Smuckers jar.
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LAMary said on April 8, 2024 at 7:39 pm
Jeff I think my brother and I had mutual unspoken understanding that we were the survivors of a fairly effed up childhood. We are the two youngest kids and while we were both nearly feral after or mother died when we were young we managed to make to our three score and ten and a bit.He was wound up too tightly and I was not wound up at all.
.
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2024 at 8:23 pm
LA Mary, I’ve no doubt that all the nn.c regulars quietly exhaled and deeply inhaled, upon reading your news. The idea of disagreeing comprehensively, while genuinely gettin’ along with each other (for years and years) is both an aspiration and a tremendously mutually beneficial thing, indeed. Here’s wishing you and yours peace and strength, going forward
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Peter said on April 8, 2024 at 9:59 pm
First off, LA Mary I am very sorry for your loss.
Got back a little whole ago from watching the eclipse in Terre Haute. Travel wasn’t bad (three hours on the nose to get there from Chicago; just under five to get back, thanks to some roadwork).
People thought I was strange (well, stranger than usual) to go – after all, in Chicago it was over 90% partial, and it was guaranteed to be sunny, but my brother -in-law said even 98% is nothing compared to a total eclipse, and he’s right.
We were at the downtown Terre Haute festival, and the stage MC was counting down to totality, and then all of a sudden he was silent, and then “WHOAA!!!” and he was absolutely correct.
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Julie Robinson said on April 9, 2024 at 12:30 am
Mary, I am so sorry. It’s super hard to know your family is gone, even when the relationships are tricky.
The eclipse was kinda meh here, as expected. No temp drop, no significant sky darkening, no weird animal behavior. Dennis had all that in Bloomington and was thrilled. I’m glad he took the trip, and doubly glad he’ll be home soon.
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Dave said on April 9, 2024 at 1:35 am
I’m very glad that I got to see the eclipse here in Westfield, IN, not too far from where Jeff Gill was watching it. I’ve never experienced anything but a partial eclipse but when you can see stars and all the nightlights come on and it’s very dark, that’s an eclipse. I was afraid we were going to miss it because we were supposed to be in Virginia today but luckily for us, a change in plans resulted in our being home. I really wanted to see it. My son told me he heard a rooster where he was, near a farm, when it started getting brighter.
Holcomb, governor of Indiana, did the same thing, declared a state of emergency for April 8. https://abc7chicago.com/indiana-state-of-emergency-eclipse-solar-line-totality-2024-path-google-map/14612308/
Mary, my sympathies, so sorry to learn that you’ve lost the only sibling you still talked to, difficult as that may have been.
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Dexter Friend said on April 9, 2024 at 6:12 am
I have been wondering what the hell Al was talking about ; all I heard when I tuned in was Al saying he was going to be near a Smucker’s jar. OK, now I get it, as at first I thought he was talking about laying in jam sandwiches for the picnic.
Purdue just couldn’t shake loose defenders to get their 3s fired. Zach Edey got his 37 but Jones and Loyer were just stopped. In the end, Purdue never had a chance. UConn is strong and fast and just good, and full of men who should be in the NBA now or 2 years ago.
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Mark P said on April 9, 2024 at 9:46 am
I saw a good annular eclipse back in the 1980’s in Atlanta. It was interesting but not like what people describe a total eclipse. Everyone going to Europe! I can’t get my wife to go out the back door. Literally.
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Deborah said on April 9, 2024 at 10:02 am
So sorry LAMary, it’s the complicated ones that are hard. Did he have a wife and/or kids?
No sun drama in Santa Fe, it was overcast most of the day. Except we lost our Xfinity service because of the restuccoing going on at the condo building. The guys must have inadvertently disconnected a cable somehow. They were working right where all the wires come onto the building. Xfinity is coming late this afternoon to reconnect it. One of the workers said it was probably from the eclipse, he was laughing when he said it though.
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basset said on April 9, 2024 at 11:41 am
at least he didn’t blame it on Biden, Antifa, or the great lib’rul conspiracy.
meanwhile… making some headway on this pottery situation, may be able to get my hands in the dirt before too much longer.
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Jeff Borden said on April 9, 2024 at 1:00 pm
Any Wisconsinites here must be infuriated by the QOP senate candidate Eric Hovde. Bastard believes folks in nursing homes shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Just because. Fuck, I hate this political party.
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David C said on April 9, 2024 at 5:28 pm
Yeah Jeff. The carpetbagging piece of shit can haul his ass back to California. They always think they can pick off Tammy Baldwin, but she’s very well liked and we’re still pissed off about abortion (still illegal in WI). Hovde isn’t going to be able to find a position that will work.
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LAMary said on April 9, 2024 at 9:45 pm
No wife and kids, Deborah. Everyone in the family assumed he was gay, not because he never married but we all, independently of discussing it with each other, came to the conclusion he was gay. None of us had any problem with him being gay but as I mentioned, he was wound up really tightly and none of us wanted to upset him or more likely get some angry denials and possible loss of a good relationship with him. He had vicious temper and you never knew what would set him off.
And the brother I try not to speak to has been informed of our loss. This brother was sued by two other brothers. The three of them inherited my father’s business. One (dearly departed Richard) didn’t want to work at a lumber yard in NJ so an agreement was reached that the other two would buy him out. One brother (lets call him Garret) paid over the arranged time. Brother I don’t speak to (lets call him John) never paid. He also almost never showed up for work but paid himself very generously in salary and in lumber to double the size of the beach house he inherited. Very nice lumber, I understand. Rare woods, custom ordered…you get the picture. I was part of that lawsuit too since I owned a small share of the lumber yard. I never got paid. When I asked him what the hell was going on he said “you don’t understand.” I did understand. He’s fucking crook. I seriously hope he doesn’t try to get something from the estate of my recently deceased brother.
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Dexter Friend said on April 10, 2024 at 3:57 am
LA Mary, I am also offering condolences to you. I hope the legal procedures serve you well, too.
I was 31 before one family member, over many beers, confirmed my bachelor uncle was indeed a gay man. Before, I guess we thought he was an incel. Then I challenged this relative to reveal that he himself was gay. He denied it, gently. Of course he was gay, living with his life partner for 50-some years, dying at age 77.
Without my penchant for running my mouth off when drunk, I’d never have known any of this about my uncle. The other younger man , hell, everybody knew he was gay…a bear gay.
My uncle left me and my brothers and cousins each a nice monetary package. It is my emergency nest egg and I just let it grow, never have touched a dime yet.
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Jeff Gill said on April 10, 2024 at 7:30 am
Mary, have you read or seen “A Thousand Acres”? Jane Smiley’s novel is excellent on its own, but I think the film based on it is one that is (in my mind) unjustly criticized because it hews too closely to the words on the page. Michelle Pfeiffer & Jessica Lange summon up the author’s characters quite well, and Jason Robards is grimly, compellingly perfect as Larry Cook. If there’s a mistake, it’s Colin Firth who plays an American so frighteningly well, but almost more appealingly than his role calls for (I’m not sure he has it in him to be quietly broken and disturbed), and you marvel at how his accent disappears for two or three scenes before you notice Jesse and his part of the plot.
Anyhow, I have re-read the book & re-watched the film twice since Christmas as part of my coming to terms with a broken family trying to pretend to be normal under stress. The movie does fall short and I’m academically interested in the reasons why, but it’s a shorthand for the book to me and the flaws never quite come to mind as I’m working through the ideas and reactions and responses. Ginny’s solution isn’t mine, but I sure as heck understand the appeal of her choices.
So I recommend it with qualifications to anyone, but in particular when dementia is forcing family members to deal honestly, even if only to themselves, with the long-established fictions we tend to put up between reality and social interactions.
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Deborah said on April 10, 2024 at 8:21 am
Is there any family that’s not broken? Sure doesn’t seem like it to me. The older I get the more messed up families I see. Either the happy family was always a lie or things are sliding down the tubes fast, everywhere.
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LAMary said on April 10, 2024 at 9:24 am
I forgot to mention that crook brother looted the family house while gay brother and I were picking up the stuff from the deli for the gathering at the house after my father’s funeral. Gay brother and I returned to see missing antiques, furniture, my mother’s china which she boxed up shortly before she died and marked the box “for Mary.” Never got any of this stuff back but it is all proudly displayed in crook brother’s house. That fucker will probably outlive me even though he’s 11 years older and diabetic. He’s got a son who’s a bigger asshole than he is so maybe he’ll try to rip off my sons when I go.
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Heather said on April 10, 2024 at 10:19 am
LA Mary, I am sorry for your loss. Families are indeed crazy, especially when someone dies. My mother died when I was 16 and her brother, my uncle, tried to make off with the few items of value we had: jewelry, china, some Persian rugs, even our car! My guardian had to take him to court to get it back (to which he responded “that’s not how you treat family!”) and I haven’t spoken to or heard from him since.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2024 at 11:47 am
When one of my unmarried cousins got pregnant, my aunt and uncle went kind of nuts, and for reasons that make no sense, blamed the rest of the family. After many episodes of harassment culminating in my aunt gunning her car towards my grandmother in a parking lot, my grandmother cut that son out of her will. When she died, that son sued to challenge the will (he lost).
That was all thirty years ago, and the harassment has died done now, but it continued for quite a while.
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Julie Robinson said on April 10, 2024 at 12:05 pm
Our kids don’t want our stuff, so I don’t think they’ll be fighting over anything. Of course, we don’t have anything of much value anyway. I have seen the flip side and it’s ugly. So my condolences to everyone fighting this battle, especially Mary and Jeff.
I’m happy today because Dennis is home. I’m unhappy today because the bleeping TV is on again all the time.
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David C said on April 10, 2024 at 12:26 pm
What’s left of my parents stuff is a few pieces of furniture that are in my mom’s memory care apartment. When we downsized from their house to their senior’s apartment to mom’s apartment there were no squabbles at all.
I don’t think it will be the same when my mother-in-law passes. I don’t think that’s for a long time. She’s 92 and I’m betting on her making it to 100. My wife is one of eight children and most of them will be fine, but she has a sister and sister-in-law who are quite grabby, so I hope when she passes, someone locks everything up in a hurry or there will be trouble
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LAMary said on April 10, 2024 at 3:03 pm
I didn’t try to grab anything when my father died. Nor did two of my brothers. Just one and he went hard on my stuff and my recently deceased brother’s stuff. We’re the two youngest. He used to pick on us when we were much younger so I guess helping himself to things that were important to us was the adult version of breaking my crayons or throw my brother’s flashlight overboard into Long Island Sound. That flashlight was something that was saved up for for two months.
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Dexter Friend said on April 11, 2024 at 12:31 am
Crazy you say? My wife’s ex’s dad had money, selling off his string of hardware stores and buying a marina with many slips on The Grand River close to Lake Michigan. As he aged, a pastor convinced him to liquidate all his holdings, including all the cash from selling the marina, into valuable coins. Then the pastor convinced him to let the church hold the coins to avoid some tax situation, some bullshit like that. When death arrived, no will was found as it had been pulled from the lawyer’s office. The 2 children got nothing. The pastor had taken all the possessions and sold everything from the house. Then it was revealed he had taken the house and property too. Everything was in the church’s coffers. The pastor was thorough, anticipating every law suit. His thefts were ruled legal. Case closed.
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Icarus said on April 11, 2024 at 10:36 am
People are the worst. My mom claims her sister raided the house after my grandmother died. She didn’t have much but allegedly Aunt B got what she could. Now it’s a crapshack with a few pieces of furniture Aunt B said she wanted and I’m fine with her having them when my mom passes.
Eric Zorn shared this on his Picayune Sentinel. Written by a Trump FanBoy who ignores that Trump won by the slimmest of margins in 2016, and never had the popular vote.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-2028/
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alex said on April 11, 2024 at 10:56 am
O. J. Simpson croaked. Yay!
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Jeff Gill said on April 11, 2024 at 10:58 am
O.J. is not going to find the killers.
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alex said on April 11, 2024 at 11:04 am
Suddenly I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about the election. I think we’re entering Trump’s crash-and-burn phase. He’s gone wishy-washy on abortion and he’s about to face his first criminal trial. Pass the popcorn.
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