Last night, my friends and I enjoyed a small party in a parking lot in honor of the freakish lunar eclipse that occurred in the lovely night sky.

It wasn't really a PARTY exactly... I mean, nobody threw confetti, or mixed drinks or anything. Mostly we just stood there. Whatever. I live a slow life. We stood in a parking lot and stared at the sky. To me, that's a party.

My friend Q. is pretty much obsessed with the End of the World as We Know It. Naturally, being Helena Thomas, instigator of That Which Requires Instigating, I had to grab my dad's old study Bible, and find the part in Revelation about the full moon turning to blood, and gleefully hand it to my friend. Mostly to freak her out. Although the eclipse itself was pretty freaky on its own. It WAS a full moon, and for some reason, when it passed through the earth's shadow, it looked awfully reddish. And of course, dear Q. did look awfully freaked out, and began cataloguing recent earthquakes and so forth. I made a conscious effort to quit pestering her when she began asking if the sun had recently become black as sackcloth.

Of course, right around then, about eight million police and fire sirens decided to go off chasing after some accident or something. To her credit, Q. did not immediately assume that the fire sirens were driving off to put out a Lake of Fire or anything. (Imagine Lake Washington in flames! Whee! That'd be pretty!) She did look a little bit pale for the rest of the evening, but for the most part, she dealt fairly well with Obviously Impending Universal Upheaval.

Neil said: "There's only one proper response to all of this."

Q. and I looked at him.

Neil howled in the general direction of the moon.

And then, when I thought about it, it did seem like an awfully appropriate response, so I howled too.

"Nah... you need to get more yipping in there," advised Q. Neil seemed to agree, and demonstrated his yipping-howling skills. He did fairly well, too; he reminded me of nothing so much as an agitated baritone chihuahua.

Q. said: "Well you don't want to howl like a REAL coyote. They sound like screaming babies."

Ohhhh, how I miss the sound of coyotes howling...

I thought for a minute.

"I have another response to the eclipse that might be appropriate!" I said. Actually, I think I sort of yipped it. Yipping is catchy.

Neil looked at me curiously. Q. was staring wide-eyed at the sky.

I glanced around the parking lot. Nobody looking but Neil. So I pulled aside my long coat and pulled my dress up to the small of my back to moon Neil.

He blinked. Raised a somewhat-astonished eyebrow. "I think I was just... half-mooned!" he announced to Q.

"Well," I said, "I wasn't going to take my underwear off in the damned parking lot. It's COLD out."

"So... since the moon was covered, it was an eclipsed moon?"

"Yeah!" I laughed.

And then, cold and starving, the three of us went to get warm, eat something, and locate our other friends, who had apparently become marooned at the grocery store when the really exciting parts of the eclipse were happening. Alas, nobody had any molasses, or I'd have made moon cookies for the occasion. Instead, we had this weird Chinese soup (with tiger lilies in it!?) and watched a stupid movie. It was a nice ending for our little eclipse party.

Yip yip yip ooowww-oooooooooooooooo...

~Helena*