BROMO ECLIPSE

**The Banters are back and Martha’s not happy about that eclipse!**

Martha, is something wrong? You seem really out of it tonight. Did I upset you in some way that I don’t know about?

No, Matthew. It’s not you…

Phew. Glad to hear that. It usually is me. Well, since I’m lousy at reading minds, especially yours, what’s up?

Oh I’m just BROMO today.

BROMO? You need a Bromo? I’m not sure we have any. Want me to check?

No Matthew. You’re thinking of Bromo Seltzer and it hasn’t been available in the US since 1975 because one of the ingredients was considered poisonous. I did read that it’s still available here in Canada but I haven’t bought it in years.

Oh, ok then. So why did you mention it?

I didn’t! I just said I’m BROMO today.

English, please?

Well it’s an acronym like FOMO.

FOMO?

Oh get with it, Matthew! Bonnie always tells me I’m a FOMO. FOMO’s suffer from fear of missing out. So today, after all the kaffuffle and brouhaha leading up the eclipse, after reading that over a million people were going to Niagara Falls to watch this phenomenal event, that Ontario schools were closed for the event, and that one Australian psychologist was flying to Texas in hopes of watching her 14th eclipse, because it’s such “an immersive and emotional experience” yadda, yadda, yadda, I decided to make sure I didn’t miss out on anything happening, like Armageddon, or a bear biting the sun, or a dragon swallowing it, or any of the many myths that have been spun about eclipses over the centuries.

Well they’re just myths, right? You didn’t really expect to see anything like that, did you? So you can’t be upset because nothing like any of that happened, right?

No. Of course not. You know me: I’m too rooted in reality to believe in stuff like that, but I’m still BROMO! 

BROMO, not FOMO?

Yes. It’s my acronym for Bummed, Ripped Off, Missed Out…because nothing happened!

Well, the eclipse did happen, Martha. We didn’t miss it. We were both outside for at least 15 minutes before and after. You were lying back on the patio chair with the safety glasses Joe gave us with your face looking straight up. I even took a photo of you for the record books. At one point, you yelled “Hey, I can see something happening” and you got all excited. You even handed me the glasses for a minute so I could see what you were seeing. You were so excited, you ran back inside to grab your iPhone, then tripped on the step and put your hand through the screen I had just repaired…

Yes, I know all that and I’m sorry about the screen, but when I got back outside, what happened? Clouds moved across that tiny blue gap overhead and I saw sweet nothing. I couldn’t even find a silvery speck! Nothing but clouds! Did the birds stop singing? Was there an eerie silence? Did Duffy run around in circles, bark or act weird? No, even he wasn’t impressed. He just sat on the patio looking at me yelling and acting weird.

Just being your usual self, right? <laughing>

That’s not nice, Matthew. But come on. Even you must be a bit bummed. For two days you were playing around with your cameras, experimenting with settings, making sure you could get something memorable. Hell, even though Bonnie and Addie weren’t in our area, they got better pictures on their smartphones than you did on your SLR. Not to mention that amateur woman photographer in the US who got that killer shot of a plane zooming away, as if it were coming out of the eclipse itself. That’s a photo that will make eclipse archives! If only you had taken it…!

Well I didn’t. That was just good luck for her, bad luck for me. 

Oh, how can you be so blase about it? Yeah, I know. We were just in the wrong place at the right time. Man, it didn’t even get particularly dark here. Must admit that it did get chillier though. And then, watching the news tonight, listening to all the crowds yelling and cheering…and that one woman saying how it was such a mystical experience “feeling one with the universe”. Like, I really would love, for once in my life, to experience something mystical or divine…

Aw I don’t know about you, Martha but I thought the birth of each of our children was a rather divine event. No eclipse compares to that.

Oh, of course Matthew. But birth is a real, natural event. 

So is an eclipse.

Aw gees, Matthew, humour me. Heck, just for once before I leave this earth, I’d love to experience something that isn’t, well, “normal”, “everyday”. It’d be awesome to experience something surreal, miraculous. Know what I mean? Like I’ve never seen a ghost, or an angel…or…a total eclipse of the sun! No wonder so many myths abound. I think people everywhere are looking for miracles, especially these days. You know, I read the Australian Aborigines believed the sun and moon were a man and woman in love, so the eclipse darkened the world to give them some privacy. Isn’t that just the sweetest idea?

Yes it is, but from what I’ve read, and if it’ll make you feel any better, most past civilizations didn’t associate eclipses with good things. Quite the opposite actually. I heard that in 2009, a financial analyst stated that stock prices tend to fall on eclipse days. 

Really? Interesting. So, I suppose I shouldn’t be upset for missing out. By the way, do you know what the North American Chippewa Indians used to do to try to stop an eclipse? They shot flaming arrows into the sky to rekindle the sun. And now, when I think of it, if I had lived way back and was a member of the Aztec tribe, who worshipped the sun, I might have been offered up as a human sacrifice to stop the eclipse. Guess I’m lucky to be living now instead of then, even if I didn’t get to see a wondrous eclipse.

See, there you go. Feeling better now?

Well, a little bit. It’s just that this was my last chance to see an eclipse since they say we won’t see this in our neck of the woods for another 120 years. Unless they can freeze me alive and revive me in time, I won’t be around in 120 years. And with my luck, it’d be all clouded over then too! Now that’d be a double BROMO!

Oh Martha. You’re hilarious. Well, at least you did say that reading all that brouhaha leading up to today was a refreshing change from the regular news that dominates the headlines, like the Ukraine/Russian war, Israel and Gaza. And I have to say that at least, for one week, you were so obsessed with the pending eclipse you didn’t talk my ear off with the latest news about Donald Trump! That was heavenly.

Oh, speaking of Trump, you just reminded me. I absolutely have to show you a video about Trump and the eclipse that was posted on his Truth Social site. It showed Trump’s profile silhouetted against the sun, like eclipsed? Give me a minute. You’ve got to see it. You’re gonna freak! Let me see if I can find it in my history…

Martha, any chance I can take a pass on that? It’s been so quiet around here while you’ve been reading all the eclipse stories instead of Trump headlines. And a quiet Martha is, well…forgive me for saying so…even more impressive than an eclipse!