sarah in nyc

Back in the 1970's, sunset prints were ubiquitous on bed sheets, on posters and on notebooks used by teenaged girls. The sunsets were the 1970's equivalent of unicorns used as a decorative motif today.  Amazon.com Widgets As we have been here in Santa Barbara I have realized that the ubiquitous sunsets that decorated my teen years were in fact California sunsets.

We are in Santa Barbara for a family wedding. The wedding is a multi day extravaganza, as it should be when relatives come from all over the world to celebrate.  Amazon.com Widgets We are here for a week. We brought our older son with us.It's a nice time for him to reconnect with family. Yesterday, we spent a little time on  State Street, the main business drag in Santa Barbara. My son found a soda store. That sold every imaginable and unimaginable soda flavor.  They also sold an impressive array of taffy flavors but I didn't bother to take pictures . There are always things that make me love Santa Barbara, like the fruit trees in every yard. A fresh off the tree orange is much better than a picked yesterday orange. I love how the air temperature during the day is always perfect against your skin. I can't quite get used to the car thing though. 

We are in Santa Barbara for a family wedding. The  Amazon.com Widgets

As I was listening to all of the preparatory hype about today's eclipse I remembered the total eclipse of 1970. Before that eclipse, my baby sitter, Mrs. Dee, told me how in getting ready for the 1918 total eclipse she and her family smoked panes of glass to prepare to see the eclipse. I hadn't smoked glass, nor did I get a pair of eclipse glasses. I went downstairs at the start of the eclipse to see if I could see it from the street. I met two of my neighbors and they both had eclipse glasses that they were happy to share.  If you stood on the front steps of my building wearing the eclipse glasses you got an amazing view. Our neighbors kept inviting neighbors and building staff members to try the glasses. While things looked pretty much the same without the glasses as each person looked at the sun in their eclipse glasses they each said "Oh! WOW!" Shadows just looked different. We then walked to Riverside Park with stops to admi...