The mysterious case of the disappearing moon

You're probably tired of seeing photos of the sunset or the moon that I've taken from my balcony or kitchen window. The thing is, I just don't take my camera out with me as often as I used to. So my blog material suffers.

Oh well. This one is a little different. It's a mystery. You see, the other night as I was walking from the living room to the bedroom I noticed the crescent moon against the sky that was still lit up from the sunset. So of course I had to take a few photos. This was my favorite.



Now this photo was taken at approximately 8:13 p.m. About half an hour later (or 25 minutes later) it was much darker so I decided to see what the moon looked like. And here's where the mystery comes in -- I couldn't find it. The sky was clear, but the moon was gone. Or so I thought. Dun-dun-dunnn! (I'm trying to add a little drama to the mystery.)



See it there? You can just barely see the tip of it peaking out from behind the mountain. So I did a little research and discovered that on this particular day (August 23rd), the moon rose at 9:55 a.m. and set at 8:46 p.m. I never realized that the moon set so early on some days. I found the moonrise and moonset times here.

And now that I know where I can look to find out when the moon will be full or when it will coincide with the sunset, be prepared for more moon photos.

Friday Filler

It's official. I'm ready for fall. The summer heat just keeps dragging on and it makes me really unmotivated to do anything. I'm looking forward to school starting at the university where Brian and I volunteer because it will help give my week a bit of a standard schedule. I'm much more productive when I have a schedule.

So here's my filler for the week...

Vaccinated!
Brian and I went for our second round of vaccines earlier this week. We thought we'd have to go for two more booster shots in a couple of weeks, but we got them all taken care of this week. We are now vaccinated and ready to go. Apparently, based on where you're traveling the doctor has to discuss certain vaccines. I already had a list of the vaccines we wanted and we added one more the doctor recommended. However, there were a couple of vaccines which we decided not to take. One was the rabies vaccine which consisted of 4 shots on three different visits. When she told us that the vaccine worked as well after being bitten (within a certain time frame), it was easy to pass up. She also asked us if we wanted the cholera vaccine. She said it would help prevent diarrhea, but was really only necessary if we commonly had this problem. But the thing was that she hesitated and smiled a bit every time she said the word "diarrhea". I think maybe she wasn't sure how to pronounce the word in English and not that she had the sense of humor of a 10 year old boy. But who knows. Maybe she finds the word "diarrhea" really funny. I prefer the German word "Durchfall". It comes from the German words "durch" which means "through" and "fallen" which means "to fall or drop".

In Other Words
Sometimes I love how well a German word fits its meaning -- like with Durchfall. It just sounds so much nicer than the English word. The German word for slug is another great example. "Slug" just sounds disgusting. But the German word "Nacktschnecke" is a combination of the German words "naked" and "snail". Naked snail makes you feel kind of sorry for the thing instead of making you want to pour salt on it. {Just for the record, I would never pour salt on a slug.} But it doesn't always work out that way with the German words. We have a bottle of Listernine sitting in the bathroom that says it provides "Zahn- und Zahnfleisch Schutz", which means tooth and gum protection. But "Zahnfleisch" -- it's a combination of the words "tooth" and "flesh". And every time I see the label I can't help but think "tooth flesh" instead of "gums". Tooth flesh. The word makes my skin crawl.

Friday already?

This week has been so dull I don't even have anything to post for Friday Filler. So instead, here are a couple of photos from last week.


I'm sure the moon would have turned out better if I had a tripod, but I didn't want to bother with setting it up. So I just balanced the camera on the railing of the balcony. The pointy thingy in the bottom right corner is Stephansdom and the vertical line of lights to the left is UNO-City (where the UN is located. I'm not sure about the other lights.


This photo was taken the same night and is a much clearer view of the moon. Either photo was enhanced except for cropping.

And here's a photo of the my first quilt. A friend gave me some fabric and asked if I could use it to make something for her son, so I figured it was a good time to make a quilt. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty pleased with the results. And my friend's son loves it. So I think it's a win.

Friday Filler

It's that time of the week again. Here are just a few snippets from my week.

Ouch!
On Wednesday Brian and I got our first round of vaccinations for travel later this year. As far as I can tell, there aren't any required vaccinations for Ethiopia, but there are quite a few recommendations. We decided to get six vaccinations, but only received three this week. We have two more appointments over the next 4 weeks for the remaining shots. The doctor had the strangest technique for giving the shots. She stuck all three needles into my arm at once, then injected each vaccine one at a time, then removed all three needles. I think I preferred that over three individual shots. So far, neither one of us have become sick from the vaccines. But both of us had a sore arm for a while.

Oops!
Periodically I'll check out the kids DVDs because they're nice to have on hand when babysitting. So a few weeks ago when I saw a cartoon about a guy and his lion and their trip to Africa for about 2 euros, I decided to buy it. The tagline for the movie is something about it being a great adventure for the whole family. Today I decided to watch it with a little boy we were babysitting, but we only watched about five minutes before I decided to turn it off -- due to profanity.

A healthier me
This past week Brian and I have made some pretty major changes to our diet. We were both tired of eating too many convenience and/or processed foods and we were ready for a change. I'm really quite impressed with us. :) Not only have we changed what we eat, but we've changed how we eat. I want to give it a few more weeks before I write much about it, but I'm really excited about what we're doing.

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carowallis1/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

At least you won't burn your bum

A couple of weeks ago I was babysitting a little girl and we decided to go to the park to play. Before we left, she insisted that I take my camera. "Just in case," she said.

And it's a good thing she insisted on the camera because I've been meaning to take a photo of this crazy playground. This is the main piece of equipment at the playground:


I've noticed that most of the playgrounds around here are quite heavy on the climbing apparatuses and this piece is no different. But what really gets me is the slide. There's nothing to sit on! You just wrap your legs around the two bars and slide down. Something tells me that playground equipment like this would never make it at the U.S. playground.

Friday Filler

Have you noticed it's been a little sparse here of late? I just don't have a lot of blog-worthy material these days. So I'm going to borrow an idea from some other blogs and each Friday I'll post a collection of random thoughts/observations/happenings. Hopefully it won't be too dull. Here goes:


Wake Up Call
Wednesday our mailman delivered a package to us -- at 6:45 in the morning! On the one hand, I was glad he actually brought the package to our door. Sometimes he just leaves a slip in our mailbox and we have to retrieve the package from the post office. But on the other hand, it was 6:45 in the morning. Now I know some of you are awake at that hour, but I generally am not. I wonder what time this guy starts his shift. Hopefully we were the first delivery of the morning.

Paging Alisha
Last week I was at the doctor's office and noticed the strangest things. Periodically, someone in the waiting room would just stand up and walk into the exam room. After the second or third person did this, I realized that the receptionist was calling the next patient. But she was using exactly the same tone and volume she used when talking to someone at the receptionist desk. And she was behind a wall and with her back turned to her, so it was almost impossible to hear her! When I knew it was almost my turn, I moved to the closest chair (which was still not in the line of sight of the receptionist's desk). I thought I was listening carefully until I noticed several people looking around. That's when I realized I had heard my name and it just didn't register. Hopefully I didn't look too foolish jumping up and rushing into the exam room.

And the winner is...
Several days ago I entered a giveaway to win a lovely quilt. Before I left a comment, I checked to make sure the contest was still running so I didn't look like an idiot entering a contest that was already over. The contest was still running, so I entered. But a few minutes after leaving a comment I got an email back saying that the contest had already ended -- and quite some time ago. It was from July 2008, not July 2009.

The other night

I took these photos from my kitchen window last Saturday around 9:15. I love this time of evening.