The Happiest Day of Your Life

SUMMARY: Which day was it?

Inspiration: Facebook June 22, 2021

A friend asked: "What was the best day of your life? You cannot count the birth of your kids."

I thought for a long time.

I'm not sure that it’s possible to define that. It would have to be something so amazing that nothing like it has ever happened before and nothing like it has ever happened since. But that would be just kind of sad, wouldn't it? Just one day like that? 

But maybe I simply haven’t had astounding-enough life-changing moments. Such as suddenly being freed from prison after having been wrongly convicted? Or someone you loved dearly was presumed dead and then suddenly you found them? Winning a presidential election? Didn’t know.  Would those be the happiest day of your life or would they be merely be anticlimatic or a huge relief after everything leading up to it? 

How about ending up with a house full of bendy aliens? Oh--well--that's pretty fun, but over and over. 

I can think of many days or times where happiness and contentment welled up within me and stayed with me throughout the day:

• Lying against a warm granite boulder in a sunny high Sierra Meadow next to a stream.(Picture me here (lounging and holding camera). Paradise!) 

• Sitting on the grass at an agility trial with several friends and laughing so hard we couldn’t stop. 
• Completing an important title in agility with one of my dogs that had been a struggle for us. 
• Arriving at Disneyland. Spending time there. Even just strolling. 
• Going on trips with my camera as companion and taking photos and just spending the time looking around and taking things in. 
• Learning that I was accepted to the Clarion West writers workshop. 
• Pulling off a successful surprise party.
• Winning a debate in a competition against a top-level opponent. 
• Watching an amazing sunrise or sunset with a lovely foreground as well.
• Walking or hiking early, at dawn, with my dogs and no one else around.
• Passing clever notes back and forth with a friend between classes as we walk past each other.
• Rereading something I've written and realizing that it's very good.
• Spending Christmas Day with my large family.
• Solving a problem at work that others weren't able to.
• Helping a dog learn something new and useful and cool and suddenly s/he gets it.

Once I started thinking, more and more things came to mind. Lots of happier-than-everyday days in my life. But I don’t know if any of the hundreds of days like that stands out from the rest. Which is fine by me: That means that I have had a steady influx of happy days over my many decades.

How about you?

• When I completed my college degree. 

I are bachelor of science!
No more pencils, no more books...
Sister is also happy with me.

Catching Up: Idaho for the Eclipse Day 3

SUMMARY: And it's the total solar eclipse!

This is the bed I slept in: Her grandmother's bed and the quilt that her mom made for her.

Mr Fox No.12 made friends in the household.

Guess what team the husband roots for?

Hostess making us breakfast. She made many meals for us. We were honored and stuffed to the gills.

Chatting before breakfast.

Mr Fox checks out some of the camera and eclipse gear.

The household dogs. There were "only" five. Some are duplicates here.

Tiny (old-dog rescue):

Max (missing one eye from nipping at a horse):

Bonnie (she worried a lot):

Clyde:

Rosie:

Clyde:

Awwww, someone gots spiderwebz on her noze! (Rosie)

Bonnie again:

Clyde again:

Bonnie yet again:

Camera all set up and ready to shoot some eclipses.

Here I am with all the paraphernalia.

Everyone had eclipse glasses.

Wayne, our host:

Tiny:

Ginger:

Max:

Bonnie:

Linda:

Mr Fox No.12:

As the moon ate away at the sun, you could see little images of the eaten-away sun under the tree...

Waiting... getting tiny bit darker all the time -- and colder!

Things got darker and darker and darker.

Getting pretty dark, nearing totality.

House and lawn are pretty dark, everything has an odd coloration...

Sun slips from a teeny sliver into...

...full darkness...    but with it looking all around us like we could see the orange of sunset at the horizon.

Dark and chilly.

Used a very slow speed to get enough light for the following photo, hence moving people are a bit blurry.  Quite chilled with the sun gone.

Linda videotaped.  When the eclipse slipped into totality, we and everyone else everywhere cheered and applauded. It was pretty awesome.

And it starts peeking out again.
"That sun?"  "No, that one."

Whew, the excitement was too much. Now we just hang out for a while.

The moon, eating away at the sun, and then eventually spitting it back out.

Same shot cropped so you can see the sunspots.

This is where I forgot to take the filter off the camera to get the corona. :-(

Oooh, peeking out again.

That night, to make up for the filter user failure, I sat out in the front yard and saw this.  Just drop-dead billions of stars, and the Milky Way.

I haven't yet sorted out all of the photos from going into the nifty old town that afternoon. Rest assured that we did.