RUMINATING ABOUT SPACE JUNK

I've never been crazy about having anything whizzing around in the dark - starting with june bugs, progressing to bats and then taking a big jump to little asteroids, big meteorites and now......space junk the size of a bus.

Now I admit I started out my life as a somewhat fearful child...and lots of things scared me, but I can't say I've become either a worry-wort or a hysteric personality in my dotage. But yesterday Jer and I were watching the mid-day news on Channel 4, and when the female talking head announced that the chances of being hit tomorrow by a piece of space junk from the bus-sized satellite due to enter our atmosphere were 1 in 3,200 I truly was taken aback! I waited for her to correct what she said -- that just couldn't be possible, I thought . But it didn't happen. I supposed she'd eventually announce that she meant something like "1 in 32,000," or "1 in 32,000,000." Jer and I looked at each other and said, "Someone made a mistake."

I told Jerry that those kind of odds are better than the odds of winning the BIG BANG lottery. If I could get odds like that I'd be willing to fork over some of my retirement savings to take a chance.

Since yesterday I've waited to see what kind of odds the scientists were really going to give. Nothing more was said on any of the newscasts we've been listening to, so a little researching online today produced the following:

The 1-in-3,200 odds of being hit pertain to any of the nearly 7 billion people on Earth. But any one individual's odds of being struck are about 1 in 21 trillion.

The quote goes on to say that the debris will only effect a 500 mile wide area - so perhaps that is why the odds differ. There was no further information given.

Now in addition to not being a particular fearful person, I also am not a very scientifically or mathematically oriented person, and I just have to admit that I don't understand what all this means.

If I am in this 500 mile wide window, I may react just as Chicken Little did -- THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! But I think NASA is pretty sure that Mira Loma/Jurupa Valley is not in that window and I will be spared having to see a bus-sized satellite hurtling at me.

So I'll go to bed tonight expecting full well to get up hale and hearty tomorrow morning and spend the day having my usual Friday fun without worry. I'm counting on the 21 trillion to 1 odds to be operational for me.

A BIT OF CHAZERI

The Dictionary of Jewish words defines the Yiddish word "Chazeri" (pronunced kah-zeh RYE) as "worthless junk." Although Jerry doesn't speak much Yiddish, he has a few words that he uses regularly, and Chazeri is one he has often used for a pile of my junk that he knows he doesn't dare touch. It's junk to him, but for me it generally is there for a good reason and every so often I thin it out, using what I saved it for, and either filing or tossing the rest. Today's blog is because it was time to tackle the chazeri I'd accumulated on the end of the davenport: several loose newspaper pages and a few torn magazine articles for a someday blog.


The first item I'd like to mention falls in the "Now I've Seen Everthing" category. Above is shown a new touch screen tablet now on the market; it was designed for children from 1 week of age to 4 years.

The designer, a mother of two and a networking entrepreneur, says, "Children are curious about touch screens. We are just leveraging their curiosity." It's called a "Vinci," as in you know who "Vinci". The specs say it is smaller than an iPad, it is suspended in a rubbery red frame to protect it, and it comes loaded with a few stories and games that encourage children to think about feelings, numbers, letters... "and more apps are in development."

It is priced to sell from $389 to $479. But alas, no Wi-Fi.

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The next item set aside in my chazeri was this photo:

I spent a long time looking at this simple picture. Obviously it is Obama going up an airplane ramp in the rain. But here's what I thought:

Is it really raining?
Who is than man following Obama? Does Obama have an aide whose job is to carry his umbrella?
Is this man doing a good job?
Who is getting wet, Obama? This fellow? Both?
Does this man know his umbrella is in the wrong place?
Doesn't Obama care?
Perhaps it stopped raining and neither of them are aware of it.

My newspaper comes very early in the morning and I don't think all that clearly right out of bed. Maybe an hour later I wouldn't have wasted my time speculating on all this, but still I find it an exceptionally interesting photo. Thanks to Jim Watson AFP/Getty images.

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Now I know I have a strange "area of interest" for my reading material. Probably none of you who read this blog, with the exception of my son whose reading choices are and always have been as eclectic as mine, will find this newish book interesting:



When I started taking Journalism in high school, one of the things we did was to publish a weekly newspapaer. As I worked through the flunkie jobs on the way to becoming editor, one of the things I most liked to do was to write headlines. To start with, I was given a certain number of inches to play with, and a certain number of Font styles to choose from. I had to come up with a headline that was acceptable to my "boss" (the page editor) and to figure out what font and what pitch I thought was best with it, taking into consideration our newspaper's style (and of course our school printshop's stash of fonts.) Each letter of each font had a "count" -- that is, how much space it would take up in an inch, so I had to quickly learn how to count by ems and ens to make up my good headline. Sometimes it took awfully creative wording to get a satisfactory headline of the right font and pitch!

I suspect that is one of the reasons why this book appealed to me - and it reminds me of my past. The book review in our newspaper written by Wesley Bausmith let me know that a whole lot more is in this book too:

Flying in the face of the digital-age mantra that "Print is dead," Simon Garfield's "Just My Type" takes an engaging look at the world of fonts, the building blocks of everything we read. With wit and insight, he enlivens a topic that few outside the graphic trades might ponder. He wants to change that!

Anyway, "Just My Type" is now on order through my friend Abe of Abebooks. And my couch is a bit less messy!

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There is one additional thing that is going on here in Southern California that is quite startling. The employees of the major grocery store chains (Vons, Ralphs, and Albertsons) have through their union been negotiating for several months on a new union contract. They are still very far apart in their offers, which mainly at this point center around medical benefits. The last strike to hit these three major stores happened in 2004 and lasted for four months. At the conclusion of that strike, there was still not a lot of satisfaction, and it was felt that both stores and employees suffered financially.

At this point in time, our economy being what it is, there is a lot of fear around. Finally the employees decided if no acceptable bargaining agreement was reached, they would go out on strike again tomorrow (Sunday, 9/18). In response, Ralphs announced that if a strike was called, it was going to shut down all their stores for the duration of the strike and at that time would re-evaluate each individual store to see if they wanted to put it back in business when the strike was over or if they would close it permanently!

I guess what makes this so shocking is that we have been Ralph's customers since 1994, when we returned from Istanbul. We know them and their products and their people like the back of our hand. At the end of July the nearest Ralphs store to us (but not the one we shopped at) closed down. To think that all of the stores might do so tomorrow, whether on a temporary or permanent basis, is just a shocking thought. And of course we can't help but think that all those employees who have become our friends through the years will have to juggle their finances which, if they are like many of the people we know, is a very scary proposition that we wouldn't want to be in.

So we are kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or waiting to see who is going to call "Uncle" first.

FINDING A HAPPY MOMENT

I have recently been looking for beauty in my neighborhood and to my dismay I have found nothing. I have been looking for the kind of beauty that blogger Friko has in her neighborhood. And if you've ever taken a look at her blog you'll know what I mean.

Now I suppose if I had a macro lens for my camera I might focus in on the very heart of a neighbor's flower and find something of beauty way down inside, but honestly, the apartment complex where I live is definitely not beautiful. In my better moments I compare it to a bunch of army barracks, and the environs are a place where a good Dorothy Lange photograph might have been taken. It's an interesting area -- lots of goats, a few dairies, lots of discarded tires and davenports along the county roads and high-power lines running aside the property but definitely not beautiful.

But recently, while trying to move my own pictures around on the new computer and putting them in folders where they will be easier to find, I kept coming across certain photos that made me really happy. So that's what i'm going to share with you today, along with a little description of them and why they make me happy. They are best when they are big, so if you double-click on the images maybe you'll see their specialness.


My youngest granddaughter, Justine, now 8, has always been a dramatic child. She was born laughing, but you'd never know it from this photo. Look at those eyes.


Our cat, Tigger, spent the last years of his life happily taking naps on the end of our couch. He died in September of 2008 and not a day has gone by that we haven't missed him. He gave us 18 years of happiness.


In a tiny village in Turkey called Kumbetkoy we stumbled upon this woman up on the side of a rocky hill tending to her grain. Her job was to keep turning it so the sun could draw all the moisture out. She was young, and this was her life.


Of course this picture makes me laugh. It is a "photoshopped" image of me, one I did when I was taking a Photoshop class and was learning how to use the various tools. I use it at Halloween for my Facebook account. (It's really what I look like when I'm not feeling well!)


I call pictures like this "Magazine Babies" as it seems to me that certain baby pictures are simply iconic and could be anyone's baby. But this is newborn Olivia, my youngest daughter's first child and my next-to-the youngest granddaughter.


One of my dreams had always been to go to North Carolina's outer banks, and when my cousin moved within spitting distance of Okracoke, my dream came true. We were shell-hunting the day I took this picture. I'm not even sure the house was occupied, but it was such a serene setting that as far as I was concerned it was just my cousin and me and the elements. Seeing this photo reminds me of a dream fulfilled.


Grandson Christopher is now 29. He will always look like this to me.

These photos make me happy.

THE PIG DID IT!

Usually I choose a book because I’ve read a good review, or I am familiar with the author’s other books, or it has come to me recommended by a good friend. I am not very good at picking books off a library shelf to read. Rarely am I satisfied, so I mostly don’t select my books this way – except when I’m desperate. Last Wednesday was one of those days.

But I couldn’t have made a better choice. Well, how can one NOT think a book entitled “The Pig Did It” would be worth reading. What on earth could the pig have done? I had to know.

So this book, a novel by Joseph Caldwell written in 2008 and the first in a planned pig trilogy, started me laughing on the first page and I laughed my way through it. Listen to what Ron Charles, The Washington Post’s reviewer, says about it:

The macabre comedy plays out in sparkling dialogue, including some hilarious speeches that are both incantations of Irish mythology and masterful bits of parody. Caldwell is a successful playwright, too, and his perfect ear for the non sequiturs of real conversation is a constant delight. If you love the Irish, if you've ever fallen in love or been spurned in love—heck, if you love bacon—you must read this irresistible novel.

It was my lucky day when none of the books I had on reserve at the library came in. It forced me to take pot luck on the shelves – and reading this pig romp has simply turned into having a feast of words and a belly-full of mirth.

I can’t wait for the next helping!

OH, GROSS!

Found on the Longmont, Colorado Library website today:

Public Notice: Bedbugs
August 19, 2011: Please be aware that an exterminator has confirmed bedbugs in 5 upholstered chairs at the Library. The chairs have been treated. Bedbugs are not a public health hazard and do not carry disease. This information is shared with you so that you may make an informed decision in visiting the library. Visit the CDC website on Bed Bugs FAQs and read more about this notice in the recent Press Release.

Now how awful is that?! Ain’t no place sacred anymore. Yep, the bedbugs’ll getcha if you don’t watch out.

I hate bedbugs, and I hate the idea of bedbugs. Actually, I hate the idea of bed mites even worse, but there doesn’t seem to be anything one can do about the mites. The bedbugs? Yes, you can call an exterminator who will make a valiant attempt to rid your house of them, but they are apparently just as hard to get rid of as lice in a kindergarten classroom. And if you’ve ever gone through that process, you’ll understand what I mean.

Bedbugs and cockroaches always seem to mean that one is not keeping a very sanitary house, but that isn’t the case, at least with bedbugs. Bedbugs don’t need a dirty house. All they need is a mode of transportation to get to new feeding grounds, and that can be a matter of hitchhiking on anything going anywhere. Hence the critters on a library chair. Did you ever in a million years think that plopping your behind down on a library chair might mean that you unknowingly deposit a bedbug or two in your own house and unwittingly start an infestation. (Methinks it probably takes two bedbugs to start a single infestation, unless the lone hitchhiker is pregnant.)

I do not ever want to see a bedbug in my house. If I do, I will first call an exterminator, but from my readings I will have little faith that every last bug will be found. So then I will buy an air mattress, which at night will be blown up and placed on my kitchen’s linoleum floor. There I will sleep. Or maybe I’ll sleep on the back seat of my car. I’ll certainly not sleep in my bed any more, that’s for sure. Or I might choose to move to a new apartment complex. I’ll decide which, if and when the time comes.

Now this may be an over-reaction, but I have a very hard time sleeping anyway, and if I thought there might be a bedbug or two waiting in my bed, I NEVER would fall asleep.

And now that I think of it, since Thursday will be wash day this week, I think I’ll turn my mattress over when I strip the bedding and give it a good inspection. I have some suspicious red bumps on my forearm, and I just wonder…….

STRANGE & STARTLING

I find it delightful to pick up a newspaper and read something other than depressing or discouraging political and economic news. So when I read in the LA Times yesterday about San Francisco’s “Parkmobiles” – bright red dumpsters filled with greenery that aim to bring postage-stamp-sized parks into the cement heart of the city – I had to laugh.

Although the city means well, some think the movable parks mostly provide a place for homeless hankie-pankie and a source of irritation for those who can’t find a parking place anywhere. Both complaints have been lodged.

On the other side of the argument, they also have provided an al fresco setting for fast food lunchers, a venue for little songbirds not usually found in the cement city, and a place for tired walkers to rest their aching feet. Two red dumpsters of greenery are already out working and four more are being prepared. On balance, even though I laughed when I saw the picture, I think the creator of those parkmobiles probably had a good idea.

Now we out here in the Riverside County boonies also have a piece of news that is every bit as unusual – and maybe more – than San Francisco’s. We have THIS! It’s a rock that’s going to become a famous piece of art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire Boulevard.


It was blasted out of the face of a Glen Avon quarry in the nearby Jurupa Hills in 2005, weighs 340 tons, is two stories tall and 21 feet wide. Furthermore, sometime soon it is going to be loaded onto a truck – a heavy-haul “transporter” with 208 wheels owned by a Portland-based company – and driven 72 miles into downtown Los Angeles, driven, that is, at the speed of a snail and only at night. Going ahead of it will be a crew of 15, various LACMA officials and police escorts. It’s estimated to take seven nights to get from quarry to museum.

There has been some talk about building a protective crate around it. The artist, of course, wants a pristine rock without scars, scrapes and pitting on its sides, but until we hear otherwise, we’ll assume it will go through the countryside as naked as it came out of that hillside.

I can hear you asking, “Well, for crying out loud, what kind of artwork is this?” I understand the artist is Michael Heizer; the name of the work is “Levitated/Slot Mass.” Eventually the rock will be poised over a 456-foot long, 15 foot deep concrete trench. Once in place, visitors will be able to walk underneath the massive granite formation and down a slope that will create the illusion that the boulder is levitating.

I admit to not understanding this type of art. And thinking of walking under any suspended 340 ton rock would gives me the same kind of heebie-jeebies that walking out over the Grand Canyon in a cantilevered walkway does – neither are anything I would choose to do.

But what I AM going to do is find out which night this big boulder will pass my apartment complex – and believe me, it will pass by, as we live next door to Glen Avon and that boulder has to come by if it intends to go to Los Angeles – and stake out my spot. If I want to see a moving boulder I’ll have to give up part of a night’s sleep. Actually, I think we won’t be the only residents of Country Village who will be attending the big boulder move; there may be an actual Boulder-Moving party, if enough people decide to attend.

But should I miss it, I will still have the option of seeing the boulder resting in the daylight, but that sure doesn’t sound like a once-in-a-lifetime event.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US

I have always acknowledged my husband’s engineering acumen and praised those traits that go along with it – exactness, tidiness, abilities in math and sciences, logic, and concentration. Moreover, the top of this man’s desk is a work of perfection: a place for everything and everything in its place. I have tried to take lessons from him, but I cannot live that way. I must have a little chaos around me.

To understand how it is we have been able to stay married for so many years, I have always maintained that I need him for his order, and he needs me for my creativity. The balance seems to have worked, though I suspect my creativity was the cause of his ulcer many years ago.

However, just this week I have had a glimpse into Jerry’s dark – or better to call it his “other” side. He has a desk drawer that I open whenever I need a postage stamp. I never paid much attention to what else was in it but I knew that there was at least a tiny screwdriver, a pair of old beat-up scissors, and a magnifying glass. I don’t go into his desk drawer much, but this week I needed a flashlight and while he was standing close at hand, I delved into the drawer and brought one out. “Oh, that’s not a good one,” he said. “There’s a better one in here.” He rummaged around and came out with a flashlight I’d never seen before.

I remarked on his need for two flashlights, and while pulling the drawer fully out I laughingly asked him what else he was hiding in there. I was astounded. I won’t say his drawer was as full as mine is, but considering his tidy engineering traits I was shocked.

It was the multiples that amazed me. I know he owns three magnifying glasses because I took one for use in my office. But who needs five measuring tapes? “Ah,” he explained, “one is metric.” The last time he measured anything in metric was in early 1993 when we returned from living in Istanbul. Maybe he is emotionally attached to it, although engineers aren’t noted for their emotionality over things.

His earliest ruler, showing a business name and address, says “Los Angeles 1” for a zip code and Lucas 0189 for a phone number. We decided it pre-dates 1955. He keeps it for sentimental reasons, he says. But he has 5 rulers in his desk drawer – just in case.

How many screwdrivers does one need in a desk drawer? 6? That number must be added to the number in the tool chest he keeps beside his desk. What about 3 flashlights, 3 tubes of pencil lead (for the pencil he no longer has.) He keeps a tiny bottle of ink for his long-gone ink pad. He has an old bi-color school eraser and half of an art-gum eraser. He doesn’t use those, either. And just in case you are wondering about the item that goes across the bottom of the picture: it is a telescoping back scratcher. It’s cute, but not as cute as the person who gives him a back scratch every time he asks.

Finally, he also has the world’s longest eye-brow pluckers, which he advises me are really for stamp collectors. He stopped collecting stamps a long, long time ago. Apparently he thinks he might take on that hobby again and wants to be prepared. What isn’t shown in this picture are the postage stamps that are most often my reason for getting into the drawer – those and the old beat-up scissors, which I declined to put in the photo, since I didn’t want anyone to think that we used such decrepit things!

Now just remember that this is his DESK drawer. I find it full of amazing, yet very undesk-like implements. It has made me revise my thinking about the secret life of engineers. I think my own engineer has unneeded multiples of odd things in his desk drawer. The contents of mine are much more mundane.

But before I show you mine, I have to explain that my desk does not have drawers. It has shelves on one end and a file cabinet tucked under the other end. There is a space between the top of the file cabinet and the underside of the desk, so that is where I keep my makeshift “desk drawer,” which actually is an old metal baking pan that my mother used, but which has long been repurposed into a desk drawer! And before you take a good look at it, I want to explain that it is also a multi-use drawer, a “Fibber McGee’s drawer par excellence.”

My secretarial treasures are in there, all willy-nilly for sure, but close at hand when I need them. So please don’t laugh. Just remember, I don’t have 5 rulers, 3 flashlights, 6 tape measures, etc. etc. etc. I have creative things!