Ring of Fire 2012

From Cliff Mass Weather Blog

Today we will have the first solar eclipse of the century visible to those of us in the United States. The map above shows what parts of the country will see it best, and I've learned that even here in the northern part of Washington, we should see 83% of it. Wikipedia has a really good link with everything you might want to know about it. It tells me that the last annular eclipse was in May 1994. The meaning of an "annular" eclipse is that it occurs when the moon's orbit passes relatively far away from the earth, so when it moves in front of the sun, a "ring of fire" remains around the moon.

Unfortunately for me, I've also learned from those two links that my chances of seeing anything at all is very low. After weeks of cloudless weather, they have returned today, Sunday, just in time to obscure any view I might have had. The Cliff Mass link gives the probability of cloud cover in our area around 6:44pm when it will begin. Sigh.

But anybody who follows these celestial events knows that you don't have to SEE it to enjoy it, or to be affected by it. Sometimes I think of how it must have seemed to people when they didn't know it was coming. We know all about it, but they must have thought the world was coming to an end. The world I live in is connected in ways that would have seemed like magic to them. In fact, this blog post I'm writing right now will be available to anyone with a computer in a very short while. How much like magic that seems to me, even today.

Yesterday I spent the entire day skydiving. It was the fourth time I've gone to Snohomish for the activity so far this year, and the difference between the way I felt yesterday and the first jumps of the season last month is surprising to me. The day after I made those first two jumps, I was sore from packing, climbing outside the airplane, and flying my parachute. Even though I get a fair amount of exercise, it's such a different usage of my muscles that I felt tired and sore. Yesterday I made twice as many jumps and packed for myself all four times and this morning (so far anyway) I feel just fine.

On Thursday I went with the Trailblazers on a long drive to hike part of the way around Baker Lake. I wrote about it here, and I was plenty sore after somewhere around twelve miles and a 150-mile car trip (75 miles each way). When I tried to climb out of the car, it took me quite a few moments to get things going again. But again, I woke the following morning and headed off to my exercise class, with a bit of stiffness but nothing major.

Friday was the only day between these two events. What amazes me is that I am capable of such activity at my age. It not only makes me wonder how long I can keep this up, but what I am doing right that allows it? I know people much younger than me who couldn't possibly have done these two things in a three-day period, even if they wanted to. Most people don't want to skydive, and a whole lot of people don't want to walk such distances. But I do, and as long as I can manage to drag these old bones out to play, I will.

It must be related to the old adage, "use it or lose it." I could not have begun with such a long trek, but now it's been a weekly activity for almost four years. And as I noticed with the skydiving activity, I'm getting accustomed to jumping again after the winter's layoff. Whatever the reason, I'll take it. Right now, on this day of the Ring of Fire, I'm grateful to be here on the planet, interested and involved in the world, even if I'm not exactly leaping out of bed yet.  Once I hit "publish," I'll get up and start my day. Watch the Ring of Fire if you can!