Monday, December 20, 2010

Day 370

I love an eclipse. I've actually seen quite a few of these events. I've seen one total eclipse of the sun, half a dozen partial eclipses of the sun and countless eclipses of the moon. I haven't seen anything like the eclipse that starts a little later this evening though, mostly because there hasn't been one quite like this for 372 years. Tonight a solstice and a total lunar eclipse coincide for the first time in a very long time. We watched the full moon rise on our evening walk and later tonight I'll go outside again and watch the eclipse itself as it starts around midnight.

For the first time in three months I finally remembered that bulky and brushy trash pickup is tomorrow morning and hauled the large pile of dead tree limbs that have been an eyesore in our backyard out to the street to be collected. It's hard for me to remember "big trash" day, because the city won't let you bring your trash out to the street while it's on your mind. You've got to wait for one specific day each month and if you forget, you wait again until the same day next month. I'm not good at this sort of thing, although I guess it would be easier if I just marked "Big Trash Day" on my appointment calendar, like everything else I tend to forget. At any rate, all the unsightly limbs are finally gone. Now, I just need to replace the unsightly dirt with some new grass.

I tried using my iPhone camera on my walk with Dot and Dash tonight for the first time. This is much easier than trying to take pictures with a heavy DSLR camera around my neck while the dogs are tugging and pulling me around the next bend in the road. I actually managed to get a few halfway decent pictures while the dogs were busy smelling critters in the bushes. I think I'll try this again. I've missed a huge number of great photos on our daily walks over the years, simply because I didn't have a camera with me. I'm really impressed with this little camera. Too bad I have no control over the shutter speed or aperture though. Maybe there's an app for that.

Little Lexi, the new Dalmatian I met last Sunday at K-9 University already has a home. Sometimes a dog just gets lucky. I can't remember a dog in our rescue program finding a home so quickly for quite a while. She still gets to be "Dalmatian of the Day" though and today seems like a good day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day