Kim Gaskill reflects on rainbows, their scientific and cultural meanings, and the phrase "rainbows and unicorns." She reads Urban Dictionary definitions and shares a personal update about a recent 60-day journey.
It's a new day. I'm Kim Gaskill and this is the Daily Spark. Rainbows and unicorns. I know you've heard that saying. This morning I got up and it's still quite cloudy. It rained quite a bit yesterday. I was with friends last night watching the Super Bowl and there was a beautiful rainbow last night, actually a double rainbow. And this morning when I got up, I I was thinking about that. Rainbows are kind of a cool thing. In Christianity, it's a sign of a promise. The Celts think it's new life. Everybody has their own meaning why rainbows are special to them, but really, scientifically, they're special too. We don't see white light with our— the visible eye. We only see rainbows when the light intersects with water droplets and it makes that white light bend. And when light— that light bends, we can actually see it with our eye. And we see it at a 42-degree angle, which means we all see it differently. I don't know if you realize that, but nobody sees the exact same rainbow when we're out looking at a rainbow. But what happens is that white light gets refracted and reflected by those water droplets and we see all 7 colors of the spectrum, and that's what a rainbow is. But I was thinking about rainbows, and some— for some reason, the phrase rainbows and unicorns got stuck in my head. And I know that you've used that before, and you've heard that before. I use it to signify, you know, it's not all rainbows and unicorns, meaning, you know, it's not all good and dreamy because unicorns are fake and they're not real, they're in our imagination, and rainbows are this scientific amazing phenomena. And so you say rainbows and unicorns meaning it's something that's not really true or not very likely. But when I looked it up in the Urban Dictionary just for giggles. This is what it says, and I've got to read it to you. Now, I'm gonna warn you right now, there's some language in it because it is the Urban Dictionary. But here it goes. The Urban Dictionary says rainbows and unicorns is a sarcastic expression of well-being used when confronted by a shitstorm or a clusterfuck of magnificent and awe-inspiring inspiring proportions. A series of painful incidents or unfortunate experiences. Okay, here's the example. It's 20 below zero, my hat froze to my wet head, a pigeon shit in my coffee, and some punk kid knocked me down and stole my wallet when I got off the train. So far it's all rainbows and unicorns. That would be probably how I would use it too. The journey that I've been on for the last almost 60 days, it hasn't been all rainbows and unicorns, but it is looking up. The other definition, short definition they give, is a way to demean what someone said by calling it complete bullshit. The guy says, same stupid shit for a hundredth time. Guy 2 says, I can't take this shit anymore. Guy 3 says, seriously, We are up to our ears in your rainbows and unicorns. So if you have someone calling your bullshit rainbows and unicorns, you might want to reassess what you're saying because they're probably calling you out and throwing the flag. But I actually hope today is all rainbows and unicorns in a good way for you. Catch you again tomorrow for another Daily Spark.
