Scott D. McLean, MD

I appreciate everyone reading my weekly posts about this interesting year between medicine (1.0 FTE) and writing. I’m starting to get some of those unsettling questions, though, like, “What are you writing?” Puts me on the spot. I am unpracticed in apologetic hand waving and have a natural tendency to feel guilty. Afraid to confess I’m still sharpening my trusty No. 2 pencils – and the erasers are only lightly blunted. My go-to writing, regarding which I have the deepest experience, is the daily To Do list. I have many that have survived as archival specimens. “14 Jan 1994. Buy diapers, coffee, tequila, number two pencils.” You gotta love the classics.

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Today was the long-awaited total solar eclipse. You can appreciate the photographic evidence here that this was a real treat. “First contact” is supposed to be the beginning of the eclipse. Then second contact, then totality, then third contact, and finally fourth. Each capable of amazement. We saw clouds. Lovely clouds. No rain. Grey. I snipped small snippets of red thread from a new spool and handed these talismans to the gathered acolytes and explained that this was “to festoon your soul (or souls) with strong protection against goblins, F-16s, and naysayers.”

Twice we saw a slender crescent through the high clouds, and it did get dark. The security lights came on, and the cat looked bored. It was nice. The red threads fiercely battled the neighborhood evil spirits, and when the lights came back on, nobody had been possessed. Well, no humans. I’m never quite sure about cats.