Kage Baker always said you might as well sleep through the Solstice Day. We were usually up late the night before, it was the middle of winter and often inclement weather; Los Angeles is apparently expending its entire annual rain budget in one swell foop, and the weather is currently the most inclement it has been all year.
It’s not raining hard at the moment, but neither is it clearing. The present default setting seems to be a soft, inexorable drip – just enough more than a mist to require you leave the windshield wipers on, but not so thick you can actually find a workable setting for the things. It’s dark, just dark enough to oversleep and then not know what time it is the rest of the day. It’s cold and getting colder, but is not yet cold enough to be bracing and excitingly wintry: it’s just uncomfortable.
Even Kage – fanatic writer – would have given up on this, and be either watching POTC movies or playing her beloved Monkey Island video games.
We’re in the dead, dark heart of winter. Time to fort up, light a fire, consume theobromos in all forms. And it is the longest night of the year. And the shortest day. In fact, there it goes …
Happy Solstice, everyone!
Kathleen, Kage and the Company 
Oh, dear! I suppose that means you really didn’t see a lick of the lunar eclipse? We had a misty moisty night, but we had nice clear air at 11:41, and a coppery eye looked down at us. Very cool when viewed through binoculars!
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Nope, not a glimmer came through here in Los Angeles. The clouds were so low, the Observatory itself was invisible from ground level, let alone the inconstant moon. However, I followed the progress of the eclipse on the network of NASA sites – it kept getting obscured and then I’d switch to another webcam. But I did see most of it, at least!
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Thank you for “one swell foop”. I have not heard that term in years and it brought back many memories.
Greetings from Petaluma, by the way. You don’t know me, but the Skolds suggested that I follow your blog. I love your writing.
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