Every once in a while a span of 24 hours comes along that you want to hold onto. You want to keep it as fresh in your memory as the lettuce in your crisper drawer. Pictures work well, but they aren't the same thing as the actual 24 hours and when your camera battery dies, as well as your spare. . .well, memory needs to serve. Unfortunately, my memory works about as well as my old tonka trucks, sure it works, but it is rusty and parts fall off all the time. Therefore, I want to write it all down here so when I'm 80 years old, sitting in my hover rocker, I can download it straight into my brain and retell it to my grandkids for the 50th time.
I've already written about waking up on Saturday morning, and even though that was the biggest event, there was so much more.
Saturday, after I found out that I was going to have a son, I walked out of the doctor's room and realized that I really had to go to the bathroom. Yoon mi had to do a blood test so I was alone. My mind was reeling. I was trying to process what I had just heard, trying to figure out the best way to tell my parents and sister, and trying to find the bathroom. Luckily, I knew it was down the only hallway in the office. So, I walked in, found the toilet and just as I started, I realized that there were no urinals in this bathroom. I was in the woman's bathroom. Well, I had already started and this is Korea where it is common to find a urinal right by the door to the woman's stall so instead of pinching it off, I decided the best course of action would be to finish what I came in to do and quietly, yet confidently leave the bathroom. Luckily, when I was done, there was no one in the bathroom and no one in the hall; phew, crisis averted.
I called my family, but I was still in the doctor's office so I had to speak quietly and I couldn't get as excited as I wanted to be. Having to use the elevator to get down to the basement car garage, I had to get off the phone early, too. After leaving the doctor, we went to the local chain mega-store, similar to America's Wal-shop, ours drops the Wal and replaces it with an E. Anyway, while we were there, Yoon mi was diligently finding all the sample places and "seeing if we wanted to buy it." We didn't. Yoon mi was famished having been super busy at work and not having time to eat lunch. There were several things we needed to buy while we were there, but with both of us thinking about other things, we forgot about 90% of what we were supposed to buy and ended up buying a bunch of stuff we didn't need.
We went to a coffee/tea shop where we diligently changed our facebook status' and sent out some text messages with our news. Later, Yoon mi was tired so she went home and I set out for another ex-pat's birthday dinner. Gary is turning 38 or 47 I can't tell. He sorta looks like Vezzini from The Princess Bride. Anyway, he had his birthday party at a Korean beef restaurant where we all had to sit on the floor and cook our own meat. Now, don't get me wrong, I love cooking my own tender, juicy bits of beautifully marbled steak, I just absolutely hate doing it while sitting on the floor. This was the first time I've had red meat in . . . a long time. So, it was fantastic! After dinner, we decided to hit up the only bar in town that has a decent beer on tap. Now, with me trying to lose weight, I know very well that steak and beer are 2 things I should definitely not be consuming, but it was his birthday, what could I do? I had a beer. While at the bar, I was reminded that two other ex-pats, married, just finished their first semester of Master's and Bachelor's studies. So, we had a celebration that night of Gary's birthday, Amanda kicking ass in her Master's studies, and Bob with his Bachelor's work. But at least for me, the biggest celebration for my son.
By the time I left the bar, the Earth had just begun to cross between the sun and the moon, like a hiker between the mother and cub. However, instead of getting mauled, the hiker cast it's shadow on the cub slowly turning it a dark, burnt orange color. Eventually, as the moon became fully eclipsed, it darkened; an orb of blood dried for a week, lying on a black velvet sheet. I drove home and ran inside to get Yoon mi to come out and look up with me. It was freezing cold with a slight wind kissing my right ear, but I couldn't go inside. I had to watch this amazing eclipse unfolding in front of me. I went back in and grabbed my camera, ran out to the car to grab my tripod (yeah, I don't know why I keep them in two different places either) and set it all up. Just as I snapped off a couple pics, the battery died. Running back into the house to get my spare battery, the moon moved just a bit more so that it was nearly completely dark. When I got back out, I changed the battery and lifted it up for another shot. My spare battery was dead too. NO~~! So, I just sat there with a tripod and a camera with two dead batteries, staring at the moon. I know that many ancient civilizations have considered lunar eclipses bad omens, but I think that finding out my baby, who is going to be born in the year of the black dragon, is a son on the same day as a very rare total lunar eclipse is freaking awesome and worthy of remembering and re-telling when I'm old.
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