Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Final verdict on blood moon? Whatever.

Note: you can’t take a good picture of the moon with your iPhone.

The author's photo
The author's photo

I watched April 15’s much-hyped “blood moon” in two phases. I don’t understand the science behind the blood moon but the entire internet said that it was something that happened rarely. I was determined to stay up and see it. I am tired of seeing pictures in the morning of the beautiful things that happened while I was asleep.

At around 8:00 p.m., I told the husband we would be watching a lunar eclipse. I even hyped it up, spitting out weird science that probably didn’t make any sense, but he was tired and only half listening, so he nodded with his hand up — a sign to shush because he and the television were having a moment. He was asleep on the couch by 10.

At around 10:52, I poked him and said, “Wake up — we have to go see the moon.” I think he forgot what he agreed to, and he stared at me blankly, lumbered around, put some shoes on, and oafed his way out the door behind me. He was pretty annoyed once he realized we weren’t just going to watch it from the front of our apartment building but instead walk to the park three blocks away and watch it from an open field.

Husband grumbled and moaned the entire walk to the park entrance, peaking before the eclipse did with, “This is stupid.” At that point, I more or less threw the keys at him and uninvited him from my moon party. He apologized, blamed his petulance on constipation, and stayed.

Sponsored
Sponsored

I sat at the base of a tree, head tilted toward the sky, willing my iPhone to take a picture that would make people regret sleeping through “blood moon” after I posted it on Facebook the next day. (Note: you can’t take a good picture of the moon with your iPhone.)

Husband stood next to me, knees level with my head, his face aglow with the light from his phone. There were a surprising number of people in the park, too. Only one other couple was there looking at the moon, and they looked like they had prepared for a sleepover party at Balboa Park, because they were in PJs, slippers, and wrapped in those quilts that are supposed to look like a grandma made them but are really the work of some poorly paid child in Bangladesh.

It was weird being in the park at that hour because I saw so many people doing other things unrelated to trying to watch an eclipse. There were couples walking around, dogs being played with, people doing solo runs, and kids who probably should have been at home but were instead at the park kicking a ball around.

Anyway, the Husband and I lasted about ten minutes during blood moon: Phase I. His boredom or anger or disinterest or maybe even built-up poop pain was palpable. Between his anger/boredom/IBS and my basic disappointment with how long an eclipse seemed to take, we headed back to the house. Husband took off his pants and headed to bed, telling me to wake him up when I was going back because I was going back. I sat on the couch and read while fighting the urge to cave in to my adult worries about waking up for work.

Sitting on that couch, I was pretty sure that the stupid moon would probably be entirely anticlimactic and that I would look up at it in awe while wondering why the fuck I thought it would be so interesting. BUT, I wanted the opportunity to be disappointed. The ability to feel disappointment is the ability to experience something. Sure, it stems from a hope or a dream being stomped on or rended in two, but still, at least tomorrow I would know that the blood moon was not worth staying up for until 1:00 a.m. Even if the blood moon was the most boring event to have ever been viewed, I would still tell everyone on Facebook that it was amazing and chastise them for not being so in love with the world around them that they chose sleep instead of the opportunity to watch the Earth pass over the moon.

At about 11:55, I went back outside. I didn’t bother to wake up Husband. I walked back to the park and noticed a cop car parked outside the entrance. I thought, Shit, they do enforce those stupid nighttime park rules. But, as I walked closer to the cop car, I noticed a lot of people were walking toward the park and the cop wasn’t saying a word to anyone.

I walked back to the spot where Husband and I had sat earlier and was surprised to see a large group of people scattered throughout the area — some with telescopes set up, some with blankets thrown around on the grass, a few with cameras sitting atop tripods. People on bikes, people holding hands, groups of guys with brown paper bags in the shape of beer cans in their hand. Being relatively new to San Diego, I have gotten used to doing a lot of things alone, just from lack of knowing anyone out here. It’s funny that I went to watch Blood Moon: Phase 2 alone and I actually felt incredibly UN-alone.

People offered drinks from backpacks, snacks from Ziploc bags, extra blankets. They chatted about our cool neighborhood. For having done less research than I normally would have done, I did really well on the whole neighborhood-choosing thing. Golden Hill has quickly made itself precious to me.

At some point, I realized I was there to see an eclipse and looked up at the sky. The moon was almost completely blotted out, and the blackness was slowly creeping across its face. I wouldn’t so much call it blood-colored, but the hue that rested on the part of the moon that had yet to fade to black was more of a rusty color. I think I saw Mars, too, or at least I noted that the brightly shining dot to the upper right of the moon was Mars. I could be wrong, but if I repeat this story, I will firmly declare that it was Mars.

Final verdict on blood moon? Whatever. However, I am glad I stayed up to watch it. I guess if I was more into science, the viewing would have appealed to me more. I kind of like it better when the moon is full and bright and so big that it looks like it is crashing to Earth and Will Smith is going to have to save us. An eclipse is sort of depressing, if I think about it too much and think about it in a metaphorical sense instead of a literal one. I guess this is why I am not a scientist.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Looking back at race relations in Coronado

A former football player recalls the good and the bad
The author's photo
The author's photo

I watched April 15’s much-hyped “blood moon” in two phases. I don’t understand the science behind the blood moon but the entire internet said that it was something that happened rarely. I was determined to stay up and see it. I am tired of seeing pictures in the morning of the beautiful things that happened while I was asleep.

At around 8:00 p.m., I told the husband we would be watching a lunar eclipse. I even hyped it up, spitting out weird science that probably didn’t make any sense, but he was tired and only half listening, so he nodded with his hand up — a sign to shush because he and the television were having a moment. He was asleep on the couch by 10.

At around 10:52, I poked him and said, “Wake up — we have to go see the moon.” I think he forgot what he agreed to, and he stared at me blankly, lumbered around, put some shoes on, and oafed his way out the door behind me. He was pretty annoyed once he realized we weren’t just going to watch it from the front of our apartment building but instead walk to the park three blocks away and watch it from an open field.

Husband grumbled and moaned the entire walk to the park entrance, peaking before the eclipse did with, “This is stupid.” At that point, I more or less threw the keys at him and uninvited him from my moon party. He apologized, blamed his petulance on constipation, and stayed.

Sponsored
Sponsored

I sat at the base of a tree, head tilted toward the sky, willing my iPhone to take a picture that would make people regret sleeping through “blood moon” after I posted it on Facebook the next day. (Note: you can’t take a good picture of the moon with your iPhone.)

Husband stood next to me, knees level with my head, his face aglow with the light from his phone. There were a surprising number of people in the park, too. Only one other couple was there looking at the moon, and they looked like they had prepared for a sleepover party at Balboa Park, because they were in PJs, slippers, and wrapped in those quilts that are supposed to look like a grandma made them but are really the work of some poorly paid child in Bangladesh.

It was weird being in the park at that hour because I saw so many people doing other things unrelated to trying to watch an eclipse. There were couples walking around, dogs being played with, people doing solo runs, and kids who probably should have been at home but were instead at the park kicking a ball around.

Anyway, the Husband and I lasted about ten minutes during blood moon: Phase I. His boredom or anger or disinterest or maybe even built-up poop pain was palpable. Between his anger/boredom/IBS and my basic disappointment with how long an eclipse seemed to take, we headed back to the house. Husband took off his pants and headed to bed, telling me to wake him up when I was going back because I was going back. I sat on the couch and read while fighting the urge to cave in to my adult worries about waking up for work.

Sitting on that couch, I was pretty sure that the stupid moon would probably be entirely anticlimactic and that I would look up at it in awe while wondering why the fuck I thought it would be so interesting. BUT, I wanted the opportunity to be disappointed. The ability to feel disappointment is the ability to experience something. Sure, it stems from a hope or a dream being stomped on or rended in two, but still, at least tomorrow I would know that the blood moon was not worth staying up for until 1:00 a.m. Even if the blood moon was the most boring event to have ever been viewed, I would still tell everyone on Facebook that it was amazing and chastise them for not being so in love with the world around them that they chose sleep instead of the opportunity to watch the Earth pass over the moon.

At about 11:55, I went back outside. I didn’t bother to wake up Husband. I walked back to the park and noticed a cop car parked outside the entrance. I thought, Shit, they do enforce those stupid nighttime park rules. But, as I walked closer to the cop car, I noticed a lot of people were walking toward the park and the cop wasn’t saying a word to anyone.

I walked back to the spot where Husband and I had sat earlier and was surprised to see a large group of people scattered throughout the area — some with telescopes set up, some with blankets thrown around on the grass, a few with cameras sitting atop tripods. People on bikes, people holding hands, groups of guys with brown paper bags in the shape of beer cans in their hand. Being relatively new to San Diego, I have gotten used to doing a lot of things alone, just from lack of knowing anyone out here. It’s funny that I went to watch Blood Moon: Phase 2 alone and I actually felt incredibly UN-alone.

People offered drinks from backpacks, snacks from Ziploc bags, extra blankets. They chatted about our cool neighborhood. For having done less research than I normally would have done, I did really well on the whole neighborhood-choosing thing. Golden Hill has quickly made itself precious to me.

At some point, I realized I was there to see an eclipse and looked up at the sky. The moon was almost completely blotted out, and the blackness was slowly creeping across its face. I wouldn’t so much call it blood-colored, but the hue that rested on the part of the moon that had yet to fade to black was more of a rusty color. I think I saw Mars, too, or at least I noted that the brightly shining dot to the upper right of the moon was Mars. I could be wrong, but if I repeat this story, I will firmly declare that it was Mars.

Final verdict on blood moon? Whatever. However, I am glad I stayed up to watch it. I guess if I was more into science, the viewing would have appealed to me more. I kind of like it better when the moon is full and bright and so big that it looks like it is crashing to Earth and Will Smith is going to have to save us. An eclipse is sort of depressing, if I think about it too much and think about it in a metaphorical sense instead of a literal one. I guess this is why I am not a scientist.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Gilbert Castellanos, Buddha Trixie, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Shane Hall, Brian Jones Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival

Grand Socials, gigs, and record releases in Del Mar, City Heights, Solana Beach, Little Italy, and Ocean Beach
Next Article

Tyler Farr, Blue Water Film Festival, Mustache Bash

Events March 21-March 23, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.