Did I tell you about my birthday? More appropriately I should ask, have I bored you to DEATH yet about my birthday? I actually can’t believe how much I have talked about it this year. It’s weird, like I’m possessed by a birthday-carer or something.
Anyway, doesn’t matter. I have to tell you about my husband’s gift! Not ONLY did he get me the present I *hinted* at by saying, “I would like a chamois to dry my car when I wash it,” (I love it when someone hears my answer after asking a direct question)—he also bought me a pair of binoculars. BINOCULARS.
First off, I love them. Actually, there’s a lot of background to this, and I wrote a long blog about it on my “spiritchal” blog, but I’ll just tell you the gist, which is:
With those binoculars—I saw Neptune.
Neptune, my friends! Never had I ever thought about looking at Neptune.
Originally, the plan was to use them to watch the moon rise. We did! It was the night of the full moon last Friday, and we parked at a field and watched the reddish-orangish orb slide silently over the ridge. And through the binoculars we could tell the surface is BUMPY.
I know, for those of you who have had this experience, I probably sound like a dip. But it was seriously amazing to watch—quite a spiritual experience. One that we repeated the following night by climbing a ridiculously steep mesa as a night hike with our kids so they could see it too.
But…Neptune! I was expecting the moon, but not one of the farthest planets in the solar system. And Uranus was there too, but I hate that name. Can we sign a global petition to change the name of that planet, please? It’s so icky.
We had this app on my husband’s phone that was a star map. If he held it up to the sky, the map of stars, planets, galaxies, constellations appeared. Then we could aim our binoculars at the different beauties of Creation.
It was amazing and cool and unexpected and wonderful. Still, a week later, when I shut my eyes, the images are still floating there, giving me joy.
And better, I still have the binoculars. They’re mine! I can use them any morning or night to see what is out there for us to see.
