Where were you when a monster ate our moon?

I wasn't sold on getting up early to see the lunar eclipse, so I told monshu that I'd leave it to hazard. If I woke up at the right time, I'd come have a look. It was a wide window (nearly two hours from start to finish), so chances were good. But then unexpected heartburn kept me up again and I thought I might sleep through it.

As it was, I awoke at 5 a.m. and went upstairs. The Old Man was awake, but managed to overlook my presence entirely. After he went outside again, I threw some loose jeans over my pyjama bottoms, pulled on a couple of shirts, and headed down to the parklet at the end of the block. It abuts the parking lot of Clark-Devon Hardware, so the view is pretty clear to the west even though you're looking uphill.

At first, I couldn't even locate the moon, which had been so outstandingly bright when I'd taken my evening stroll. Only a sliver of its lower right edge was still lit. Then I noticed a familiar figure standing at the edge of the lot and went up to meet him. He'd been watching it for a while and told me that he never saw the "blood moon" effect that had been so prominent in the hype.

The moon was nearing the horizon, so the streetlights along Clark Street were interfering with our vision and I suggested heading west of them. I figured the best vantage point would be the graveyard at Devon and Ridge, but monshu wasn't willing to walk that far so we just crossed the street to the 24th District Police Station. The lights along Schreiber were still kind of bright, so I suggesting moving again.

I actually meant that we should head up to Arthur, where the lights might be more hidden by the trees, but he thought I meant we should head to the corner of Schreiber and Paulina. Once there, I noticed that the nearest lamp was out leaving much of the police parking lot in darkness and I went to stand there. He soon felt sleepy and departed.

For a while, it seemed a good choice of location. Eventually, though, I deduced from the flow of cruisers into the lot that there must be a shift change at 6 a.m. Once guy even parked his cruiser, went into the car opposite, turned on its headlamps, and walked away, forcing me to reposition myself in order to preserve my view.

I figured that, cops being cops, sooner or later they'd want to know what the hell I was up to. Mr Headlamps-On asked as he passed by, "You alright?" He wasn't amused when I replied, "Someone switched off the moon!" A little later a cruiser stopped some yards away and the driver asked, "Sir, are you waiting for somebody?" "I'm looking at the moon." "What?" "The eclipse of the moon. There's an eclipse tonight." I was like, This was in all the papers, you know. That interaction must've been overheard among the knot of officers standing by the exit since one of them came up to me and said, "Someone said that you're a professor?" I disabused him and then did my best to answer his earnest questions.

By this time, the moon was emerging again from shadow, but it was hard to tell with the onset of civil twilight. I was chilled despite my layers, so while I briefly considered swiveling around to take in the sunrise which I knew was still nearly an hour off, instead I packed it in and headed home to a quiet house, calling my boss to let him know not to expect me in the office before midmorning.