Endo Eclipse Day

A note: School has begun. A semblance of 'routine' is beginning to appear. The opportunity to dust off a couple of posts I began over the summer and never published has arrived. So, yes, you'll see a couple of stories here which might make you think you've time travelled. But eventually we'll be all caught up!

We were not in the 'path of totality,' but a partial eclipse is unusual too, so we were excited to experience it.

But there was a glitch. The peak of the eclipse in our area was expected around 2:45 and we had an endo appointment at 3. In a city a 30-45 minute drive from home. That ruled out the local library's eclipse event, and a few other cool viewing options. Instead, equipped with our homemade cereal box eclipse viewer, we arrived at our doctor's office building about 2:15.

Out on a busy city sidewalk, we watched the shadows in our cereal box slowly change. The light grew dimmer and weirder. Some people near us had eclipse glasses, some had viewers clearly made at the last minute out of office supply boxes. Some were taking pictures with their cell phones while debating whether it was safe to do so. There were a few familiar faces from the diabetes center, including our endo who was entering the building as we arrived. People from throughout the neighborhood and from all walks of life had seemingly abandoned their work to converge on the streets. While it certainly wasn't the viewing opportunity we would have chosen, watching it in a large and diverse sea of people was fascinating, fun and memorable.

"Doing some eclipse viewing, were we?" asked the doctor when we settled into his office chairs.

"Yup- why not?" I replied.

"Why not, indeed," he said.

We could have bailed on the eclipse viewing because of diabetes. Just like we could have bailed on countless other opportunities over the past 14 years. But we chose to find a way to make it work.

Why not?