. . . and as for those supposed 100,000 OR  300,000 (weird: news reports had it as either one OR the other!) visitors expected to witness the totality in Bloomington, I heard about a nearby music festival yesterday, to which hardly anybody came, and this morning, on our walk, I passed by a nearby Starbucks (which usually has 15 people in cars waiting for their turn at the window), and there were exactly two cars in line. Huh? That’s never happened.

It’s almost as if all the eclipse fear porn has nudged Bloomingtonians back into covid lockdown.

And here I thought I’d have to walk to what we call Solstice Hill (where we witnessed the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction at 0° Aquarius on Winter Solstice 2020), due to horrendous traffic jams; but this morning, I get this, from neighbor Jelene, who ends up being the only person with whom I will spend three hours witnessing the coming and going of eclipse totality.

“Should I just pick you up?”

Hilarious!

“Yes.”

But: jury’s still out. This, from Wendy Patterson last night, on twitter/X: