Celestial and Terrestial (Comets and Wreaths)

I may have finally seen the comet Neowise this morning.  Last night, I left the curtains open slightly to enjoy the lightning show in the clouds.  This morning, when I got up at 4:30, I looked out that east-facing window and at first thought I was seeing a plane--that's how bright the light was.  I kept going out in the backyard over the next hour to see if it was moving, and it wasn't.  I didn't see a tail.  If I hadn't been looking for that comet, I'd have wondered if I was seeing Venus--and in fact, I'm still wondering.  But Venus has been in a different spot in the sky all week.  And this object was even brighter than Venus has been all week.

I do realize that all of the writing about the comet say that it should be very low to the horizon in the morning right now.  But often, we have a different view of the sky down here in South Florida.  I can see the constellation Orion for many more months a year down here than other places where I have lived.

Last night, in those last moments before dusk settled into twilight, we stretched out on the chaise lounges in the back yard.  We watched the clouds roll in and waited for the rain to start.  And when it did, we came in and stayed up much too late watching The Big Chill.  I have a copy of it, so I'm not sure how we got sucked in.

I kept thinking, I'll watch until the next scene is over--I want to see it again.  And scene by scene, I stayed up until 10:45.  It's no wonder that my morning was a bit more low energy than many mornings.

But yesterday I did get a start on my short story that revolves around 3 comet sightings.  And I'm not expecting today to be hectic, so I should be O.K.

Let me record a few more nuggets:

--Today is the feast day of Saint Anne.  I'm very surprised I haven't written about her before.  And now I have--see this post on my theology blog.

--In December, we had a Christmas wreath hanging on our front porch.  By mid-January, I had tried to make it multi-seasonal by taking some of the more festive stuff off, but it was starting to look tired.  This week-end, we turned it into something new with some ribbon and sea shell mixes that I ordered online.  My spouse did much of the gluing:

--I did think about all the shells we collected on Marco Island, all the shells that we left on the beach, because how many shells do we really need?  I'm trying not to beat myself up about that, about not realizing I would want to create a wreath.