Apparently the consensus in our neighborhood is that Renee Lowe and I are, in fact, European. The fact that we are "quiet", play Frisbee, and have the oh-so-cosmopolitan bicycles are key factors. Oh, it could also be the fact that I sport ridiculously small swimwear with "PePe" embroidered on the backside. The irony is that we are probably among the few native Georgians in the neighborhood.
The solar eclipse just happened and it has me feeling cosmic and appreciative of our wondrous universe. It makes me feel pretty small and realize that most of my concerns are really trivial. I was amazed at how the quality of light changed and how the crickets began to chirp. Not to mention the crescent-shaped lights on the ground beneath the trees. We had a colander out viewing crescents on the patio because we had no solar glasses. Briefly, a cloud covered the sun and we looked up for a few seconds at the eclipse. Then some neighbors let us borrow their glasses. They are neighbors who for some reason we have never even spoken to, but people realize this is a rare event, so it makes us more human, more kind. This is an amazing time to be alive, with my daughter just turning 1 year old and now this truly inspiring event of nature. One can't help but feel gratitude and a sense of contentment. One of my favorite Carl Sagan quotes: “The surface of the Ea...