A Reasonable Facsimile?

I woke up at 1:15 am this morning and went outside in hopes of getting a photo of the eclipse of the moon. The last full eclipse of the moon on solstice was almost 500 years ago, and I didn't have much hope of seeing another one in my lifetime. Much to my disappointment the sky was overcast and I couldn't see the moon. I went back to bed, laid there for a minute thinking to myself that maybe the moon had moved more to the south, and that I had missed it looking from the west side of the house. I got up and went back out to the south side of the house, looked up, slowly turned around while looking up at the sky, lost my balance, and about fell into a rose bush. The stupid clouds were still blanketing the sky, completely obscuring the eclipse.

As the French say "things are against us!' We have completely overcast skies in the Albuquerque area about 20 days out of the year. Why would we have a thick, cloudy sky on solstice during a full eclipse of the moon if the French weren't correct in their assessment of "things". When I came back inside, Stretch seemed to sense my disappointment in the weather, and crawled under the plastic of an empty water bottle box to imitate an eclipse for me. At 1:30 in the morning a gray and white Manx under wraps seemed a reasonable facsimile for an eclipse obscured by the clouds.

After the no show on the eclipse, Dawn made up for it by presenting herself most spectacularly on this solstice morn. As she stretched her crimson arms across the sky, raising herself from her peaceful slumber, yellow light reflected in the clouds as the sheets of night slipped off her golden bosom. Then purple burst into the clouds as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, bringing forth the sun as she gazed up on creation in light of a new day.