Susie's Snippets

Today I watched a solar eclipse, with all the excitement and giddiness of a 7-year-old. So, basically, the way a once-in-a-lifetime celestial event should be watched.
I squealed with delight when I saw the tiny thumbnail moon starting to cover the sun. I watched as it went from a wedge of cheese, to a Pac-man, to the full-on, total solar eclipse. It was stunning. It was truly phenomenal. And then I watched, slack-jawed, when the ring appeared.
It was a day I will never forget. Just 90 minutes or so, and only three minutes of total eclipse, but it was simply astounding.
While I stood gaping at this amazing wonder, I realized that we had the chance to view it through ridiculously inexpensive glasses. We could even take pictures! The crowd that had assembled in the area clapped and cheered as the moon totally covered the sun. Kids ran exuberantly around the square, parents hugged each other, and elders watched while sipping water. It was a community event to behold!
It also made me wonder what people thought who didn’t have the science, the explanations, and the cute little glasses. In other words, any time in our history, what did people think about a total solar eclipse?
Eclipses are included in most cultures throughout history. Across the globe, myths and legends grew up to explain an eclipse. Many of these involved the belief that the sun is being devoured by some animal, even mythical ones such as a dragon. In China, folks would bang drums and make loud noise to scare off the beast and return the world to daylight. In German cultures (again, historically), it was believed that the sun and moon were married and occasionally needed to be “together.”
In the seventh century B.C.E., a solar eclipse over Greece resulted in these words from the poet Archilochus: “Nothing in the world can surprise me now. Zeus has turned mid-day into black night and now dark terror hangs over mankind. Anything may happen.” Of course, the ancient Greeks are actually responsible for the word “eclipse,” which comes from the Greek word for “abandonment.” They thought that the gods were angry with humans and that the sun would abandon the earth. That would be a bad thing, certainly.
In South America, the Incans believed solar eclipses were a sign of the sun god’s displeasure. This would require leaders to try to determine the source of his anger and appease him.
Scholars have noted that two total solar eclipses were visible in North America in what is now southwest Colorado just two years apart in the 1250’s. These events coincided with a major exodus of the Anasazi people, who left their settlements for another area. Historians believe that a drought was the main cause for this departure, but astronomer Tyler Nordgren believes the eclipses could have affected these ancient people on a psychological level. In other words, having had two eclipses in two years, it was a “bad place, and time to move on.”
All-in-all, I’m glad we have the science to explain eclipses. More importantly, if I had needed it – and I didn’t need it – the eclipse cemented for me my faith that God exists and truly has created a marvelous universe (or ten or fifty universes).

My favorite food-related memory from childhood is red-tipped fingers. As I was growing up, pistachio nuts were always dyed red. For many decades after this practice stopped, I thought it was because red dye was considered dangerous. I found out just recently that was a complete misunderstanding on my part. According to The Spruce Eats, red pistachios used to be imported from the Middle East and were blanched and discolored. To make them more attractive, they were dyed red. In the 1980s, there was a huge increase in American grown pistachios. There was no longer a need to dye the pistachios red because they no longer had unappetizing stains.
Back in my childhood, red pistachios were a favorite gift for the holidays. I grew up with a bag of them in my stocking every Christmas. And every January, my fingers were red-tipped.
Why did my fingers get so red? The dye didn’t come off that easily. But in order to open the pistachios, I had to use my teeth to pry them apart, then get the nut from the shell with my fingers. The wet shells did cause the dye to come off on my fingers, so after about 10 nuts, my fingertips would be colored red.
Why did I have to use my teeth instead of my fingernails to pry open the shells? Because I bit my nails. Badly. My poor nails were far too short to pry open anything.
As I sat here tonight, eating about 50 pistachios and watching a Hallmark movie, I suddenly was overwhelmed by the memory of those red-tipped, little girl fingers. I might have escaped my childhood without that memory, had it not been for a terrible parenting blunder my father made.
I apparently didn’t bite my nails the first six years of my life. Coincidently, my sixth Christmas was the year I discovered pistachios. But that year, sometime in the early fall, my father was sitting next to me and picked up my hand and said, “I’m so glad you don’t bite your nails like your brothers.”
I had two older brothers and I guess they both bit their nails. I hadn’t noticed, to be truthful. But this was the colossal blunder dad made. You see, I loved my father and I always wanted to please him. But I idolized my brothers.
They bit their nails? Well, then, so did I. That very night, lying in my bed, I started to pick and bite at those fingernails.
Let me digress to say that I was able to quit that horrible habit in my late 20’s, but my nails have never been strong or long. I keep them clipped short to make sure I don’t fall back into that habit.
Fortunately, breaking the nail-biting habit coincided with pistachios being prevalent without dye and with my marriage to a wonderful man, who always puts a bag of pistachios in my Christmas stocking.
So while I sit here contemplating a few more pistachios, and looking at my unbitten nails, I remember that little girl. She wanted so much to be like her brothers, and she loved pistachios. Turns out, not much has really changed in all those years. Just the fingertips.

One of my favorite comedians, Bill Engvall, became famous for his tagline “there’s your sign.” He would use it after something was said that was really obvious to imply that the person making the statement was…well, shall we say, a little dense, and there was a snappy comeback. Here’s one of his examples.
Bill was driving on the interstate when he hit a stoppage. He got out of his truck and walked forward and saw a semi, wedged under an overpass. He was talking with the driver when the state trooper showed up and started walking toward them. Bill said to himself, “Don’t say it, don’t say it,” but sure enough the Trooper said, “Get your truck stuck?” and without missing a beat, the driver answered, “Nope! I was delivering that bridge and ran out of gas!” There’s your sign, Bill would say.
I found a lot of similar stories on the internet. One person related that when friends or acquaintances came to her home, they would notice the litter box and say, “Oh, have you got a cat?” She would quickly respond, “oh, no, that’s for company.”
I’m not sure if that won her more friends or not, but it was funny. There’s your sign.
Another gentleman indicated that he was looking for work and noticed that every job application had a blank for who to be called in case of an emergency. He said he wrote, every time, “an ambulance.”
There’s your sign.
Now, up until recently, I had not had any direct experience with being asked an obvious question (well, okay, sometimes folks will see me coming in dripping wet and ask, “raining?” – but I’ve never had a witty comeback for that). But that all changed a week or so ago.
I was in a shoe store. This store sells only shoes, nothing else. You could count the small rack of socks near the registers, but really, it’s only shoes. A young woman with three tattoos and green hair walked up to me as I entered and asked, “What brings you in today?” I looked at her for a moment and before I had time to think, I blurted out, “I’m interested in buying a refrigerator.”
She didn’t quite know how to respond, had that deer in the headlights look, and I couldn’t help laughing.
There’s your sign. Now let me say for the record that I don’t think her tattoos and/or green hair had anything to contribute. It was just a vivid picture.
By the way, and apropos of nothing, the easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement. I have discovered this truth about seven times in the last year. There’s my sign!

Many years ago, we took a family vacation with my husband’s parents, his two siblings, their children, and our son. It was a wonderful trip – one which we each enjoyed for many reasons.
One of the days, the four adult women went shopping at local mall. Typical for the region, it was a warm spring day and we all wore loose clothing, sunscreen, and sunglasses. We walked around the mall, laughing and shopping and at one point, encountered a jewelry-cleaning kiosk. The nice young woman cleaned my rings and then cleaned my mother and sister-in-law’s rings. Since they sparkled so nicely, I bought a jar of the wonderful pink cleaning fluid. (Let me digress to say that nearly 20 years later, a half jar of the product is still in my cupboard. Somewhere.)
We purchased a pretzel or some other treat and made our way back to the sunny parking lot. I was sitting in the back seat with my mother-in-law and we were all chatting away as we rode back to the condominium. Suddenly, mom sat up straight and said with concern, “That lady turned my ring pink!”
She held out her hand with her diamond wedding rings and waved it frantically. Now nearly teary-eyed, she kept saying, “That awful liquid is making my ring turn pink.”
Truthfully, I didn’t notice any pink tinge or color to her ring. They looked fine to me, though a little dull, considering they’d just been cleaned.
My sister-in-law was about to turn the car around and head back to the mall, when the last adult in the car started to laugh. She said, “Mom. Take off your sunglasses.”
Mom did remove her sunglasses, as did I. Then it was evident that the ring was absolutely fine. And clean!
Flash forward twenty years, and it seems I may have turned into my mother-in-law. On one of the amazing, warm and sunny days we have had in February, my husband and I were driving home on a country road. We were passing beautiful farms with fields, rolled hay, cows, and ponds. One pond after another were on this particular road.
I noticed the first pond was exceedingly blue. It was cobalt blue colored and stunning. I commented to my husband on this and he said, “It’s likely a reflection of the sky.”
When we passed the second pond, I said, “No, the sky is blue, but not this blue. It’s so bright!”
The third and fourth ponds were just the same. I finally decided that they must be adding some chemical to the water to make it so blue. But why would anyone do that? I asked my husband.
He glanced over to check out the fifth pond that was on my side of the road and began to chuckle. “Take off your sunglasses,” he said.
I dutifully removed them to see that the pond was clear and blue – reflecting the sky – but just a normal blue.
So I’ve become my mother-in-law. Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t find that jewelry-cleaning solution and clean my rings.