-

The perfect song for the 12th Annual Solstice Story.

 Pablo Cruise Find Your Place in the Sun



Winter Solstice  2017, Dec 21st, 10:27AM

 Sunrise:  7:48am  Sunset  4:34pm
Yuck, 8 cold, freaking hours and 46 stinking minutes!

Compared to:

Summer solstice sunrise: 5:26am Sunset:  9:03pm
Hot damn, 15 hrs and 37 min’s of glorious sunshine!

You know what? I’m tired of fighting this battle every year. I’m sick of rejoicing in the long, languid days of summer and then plunging into a pit of despair during the interminable, numbing short days of December. You might say that I’m sort of like a dull male dog (is “dull male” an oxymoron?) heading to the veterinarian of seasons: life is great; see the nice doctor lady, wagging tail, get a doggy treat . . . and then, well, you know, suddenly you’re wearing the head cone of winter shame. Ugh. 

So, just move to FL full time, you might say, and quit complaining about winter, you whiner!  Ah, but grasshopper, you misunderstand me. I don’t want to die of heat prostration in the summer and freeze my ass off in the winter. Also, I don’t want to pack up the dog and Mrs Dear Leader and drive  back and forth across the country like a Sun-possessed Tom Joad. No sir, in my dotage I want some kind of consistency. I want dependable days and nights, somewhere that the solstice is a non-factor!

You say, “Dear Leader, that’s just crazy talk, there has to be a solstice.” I know, I know, the sun revolves around the earth, the days get longer and then they get shorter – blah, blah, blah. (What, you thought the earth rotated around Sun? Ha! that Copernicus guy was just an early elitist, a so-called “expert” - fake news! - trust me on this.)  Anyway, I’ve got  the real news for you.

Look at this:

Summer solstice Sunrise:  6:12  Sunset:   6:19
Vernal Equinox:                6:17  Sunset:   6:24
Autumnal Equinox:           6:03  Sunset:   6:10
Winter Solstice    Sunrise: 6:08   Sunset:  6:16

Just about 12 hours of splendid sunshine ALL THE FREAKING TIME!

And all you gotta do is  . . . move to Quito, Ecuador! (Well, you could always move to Nairobi, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur too, I guess, but I’ve been to Quito and it’s only one time zone a way.)  Then there’s this: Retire to Quito, Most Beautiful City in So America. Even better, a martini is only like a buck and a half!

So there you have it, problem solved.
Okay, there is one little detail – telling Mrs Dear Leader about my plan. But I’m sure you’ll agree that she will think it’s a great idea too!

 Be sure you check out this song as well - not only is it still a great tune but you get to see what 40 some years does to a guy. In my case, I can just look in a mirror (and thankfully I haven’t aged at all.) 



PS
In next year’s epistle plan on hearing me complaining about being bored because every day is the same. . .




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The One, the Only . . .

-
Image
    . . . Denny Kearns  Aug 22, 1941-Nov 16, 2023   Welcome aboard - you're in for a great trip! Some people are lucky to have one really good friend in life. Even luckier guys might have a few. So, what do you call a person who has a large circle of such friends? It has to be me. Yet the luckiest people in the world can't hold back the inevitable shrinkage of that circle. Mine recently had another large section taken out. I have lost several friends in the past few years – a price for living to a certain age, I suppose - e ach one as painful as the last and e ach with stories that begged to be told (along with some that beg to be left alone.) As far as I can tell, the only benefit  for those of us left in  this tightening gyre is that we tell those stories without fear of revenge!  And now I - no, all of us in his large fraternity of friends - have lost another. One Dennis C Kearns aka DK. We owe him many stories and here are mine. Where to start? As always, I guess, at the
Read more

Giving the Equinox its Due

-
Image
  As many of you know I am somewhat of a fanatic about the two solstices; hate for the summer but love of the winter.   While pondering my navel recently - during my first bout of covid - it suddenly occurred to me that I have spent all my time pontificating about the two solstices and haven’t given any attention to the two equinoxes, vernal or autumnal. Lucky for you on this auspicious date I am about to fix that. (By the way, for you Latin scholars equinox means “equal night.” Duh.) In many respects the equinoxes are more important than the solstices. After all, not much happens on the solstice (if you disregard height of summer and beginning of winter) but the equinoxes have a lot going on. Both days are pretty cool although I must admit that I have a little less enthusiasm about the vernal one. That's because we all know what comes after it: The. Worst. Day. of. the. Year. (For celestial  non- zealots that’s the summer solstice when it all starts heading downhill for thos
Read more

The Seinfeld Post

-
Image
    A Post About Nothing I've had some time on my hands during this recent stretch of hot smokey, weather and I got kinda cranky and bored. It's a very dangerous thing, me having time on my hands. It doesn't help that, along with a lot of other people, we recently had hail damage (new roof, car totaled.) We also found out - $2000 dollars later - that Dear Prudence has diabetes. Great. The  pièce de résistance: just this week we discovered we have a cracked sewer pipe. Hey, no problem what's another 10 grand - ha, I laugh at adversity! With that said, let's get on with the hilarity. I can also admit now that I'm a hoarder. I hoard tons newspaper and magazine articles, thoughts on various books I’ve read and even some doggerel that I wrote as an angst-ridden young man - angst that life has beaten out of me. Much of which is of very minimal value. (I didn’t say I was a good hoarder.) Basically, I collect ideas for things to write about but then lose track of them.
Read more