The Labor Day weekend was pretty good for us. On balance, we'd have to say it was stellar!
I had to work Saturday so that made this a not-long weekend for me. Sunday, however, we were able to bring mother-in-law home from the nursing facility. She was delighted to be home and is now in much better condition than before her brief hospital stay for surgery. She said of her last physical therapy session, "The therapist told me she I was going so fast with my walker she couldn't keep up with me! I told her, I have to, I don't have much time left!" That's my 88-year-old mom-in-law for you! After making sure she was settled in at home, sweetie and I set off looking for lunch and new sneakers for me. We had a nice lunch at Chipotle and found great shoe bargains for both of us –she finally got some good sneakers for herself instead of those really cheap ones– at Shoe Carnival. Then home.
The forecast called for excellent sky conditions Sunday and I had missed out Saturday night because of lack of sleep Friday. It's all related. So I felt I really had to go out to the observatory this night so that I wouldn't regret not going. As it turned out, I had a great time and was, in fact, very glad I went. I practiced locating the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) with the big scope. Not easy but I was able to find it repeatedly. I also got a gander at the beautiful globular star cluster M22, in Sagittarius. Tried photographing both of those objects through the telescope but it's still not tracking well enough. The sky was so clear that I decided to try some observatory portraits and got some very nice shots. I'll do that again another night since I've learned a few things on this first try. Among those things, I need to bring my good tripod, not the old broken one. Also, the ISO setting of 1600 introduced a lot of noise among the stars. Still, I love this photo and several others from the night. Left the observatory at midnight and got to bed before 1:30 AM Monday, Labor Day.
Today we rose a little late and got on the road a little late for a –seemingly– very hot ride from Oberlin. It was supposed to be a loop through the town of Wakeman and back to Oberlin but, well, I missed a turn and we rode too far south. We corrected that, got to Wakeman and a Subway sandwich lunch on their town green, and made it back to Oberlin. Not much of a loop but a challenging 33.9 miles on a beautiful day through splendid countryside of rolling fields and farms — and almost no motor traffic! Taking a shower, however, may have been the most rewarding part of the activities — we were so sweaty and sticky.
I lost sleep Friday night because Tasha has started vomiting again. Poor little kitty. It didn't seem so bad as the first time this happened and we took her in a panic to the emergency clinic. She had been off the medication since late July, however, and I'd hoped we wouldn't have to resume. With her problem continuing, though not severe, over the weekend, I felt I had to start her back on Prednisolone. I'll call the vet tomorrow and find out what course of treatment he recommends.
Tomorrow is Tuesday and back to work…. {sigh!}
Okay – I know I am way behind in commenting on this but I am having a slack day at work and am going back through the blogs of a few "neighbours" . Are you a telescope operator? I saw in a later post that you work in a library so I am now confused … (it doesn't help that I am blonde!).
Wow! You are behind on your commenting! Nice to sit back and peruse all those old posts, though, isn't it? I get paid for doing I.T. work at a public library. I volunteer as curator/director of a small college observatory which has as its primary instrument a wondrous century-old 9-inch refractor telescope. The observatory work isn't paid but it's still work sometimes, even if it's done for the love of it. So both answers are actually correct! Now, do you really think you had a "blonde moment?" — JamesG