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I'm off to help a friend pack and move for a few weeks. After that my internet time should be more back to normal. - Whatever "normal" is for me ;)

TTY soon!
 

Obama Water

I found these at a friend's house.




They also have Marilyn Merlot.




It's a very thirsty family.
 

Have some cupcakes with your milk

Friend's Son
Can I make cupcakes?
Friend
If you want to. Go ahead.
(Later)
Friend's Son
Can you help me with something?
Me
Sure, what do you need?
Friend's Son
This is the recipe...
(Friend's son points to a line that says 1 1/4 C of milk.)

Friend's Son (cont.)
Do I really have to put in eleven fourths of a cup of milk?
 

Having a "non" day

I woke up from dreams that stayed with me and my mind has wandered back to them several times today. Nice dreams I suppose, which may be why my mind keeps wandering back to them. That and/or I want to go back to sleep! ;)

A friend rescued me from my unproductiveness by having a computer crisis, so I spent a couple of hours there. All is now well in his web world.

A neighbor also filled me in on some current happenings in her life, which she already told me about three days ago, but she's just as upset now as she was then. When she's worked up she gets stuck in a loop, so I  listened. There's not much else I can do when she's like that.

Now it's past 6pm here and I'm having one of those "where did the day go" moments. I feel like I only woke up a few hours ago. - Which may be due to my still being 'in' those dreams!

I think Mango Ice Cream might solve all my problems. But "Mango Ice Cream" is outside.

I may still go :)
 

Overheard

Guy to his friend (excitedly):  If I don't go 3 for 4, you can pee on my cleats!!


(Seriously, I don't make this stuff up!)
 

In a galaxy far far away... I'll be having a panic attack

Yesterday's One Word exercise (Galaxy) reminded me of a fear I have of not knowing my way home if I ever get stranded outside of our solar system.

Who has fears like this? Apparently I do. Or at least one was fostered in me about fifteen or so years ago at a planetarium.

I was sitting in the dark auditorium, looking up at the (fake) night sky, as stars and comets and little arrows whisked all over the place pointing out this feature or that. I want to say the narrator's voice in this presentation was Robin Williams but I might be mistaken. Maybe Billy Crystal? Anyway, this was not like planetarium shows I'd watched as a child, with specs of light. This was a whole surround sound video type of thing.

At one point the video showed an example of just how small we and our planet are. The view zoomed out to show a continent... a familiar sight. Then further to show our planet.... also familiar (Look! That's home!) and then further out to show our solar system... (That's us! Third rock from the sun! Look how pretty our solar system is!) and then further out to show our solar system amongst many others.

Right about this point my brain came to a screeching halt as I realized that I had no idea which of those stars was our own solar system. Next the view zoomed to a picture of our galaxy. This made me feel a tiny bit better. Our galaxy's images are, again, familiar. Then they zoomed out to show our galaxy amidst BILLIONS of other galaxies.... and that's when I panicked. And this panic was not alleviated by the view zooming further and further and further out and my realizing OMG I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE MY PLANET IS!!! HOW WOULD I GET HOME if I was THIS FAR OUT IN SPACE??!!!!!!

I seriously panicked! I was staring at the ceiling of the planetarium thinking "I have no idea how to find or figure out which galaxy is ours!" I had no frame of reference. I know how to identify our planet within our solar system and I know that we (supposedly) live in a spiral galaxy, but if there were a BAZILLION points of light spread out in front of you, who would have the TIME (or the FUEL!) to check out the INFINITE number of possibilities! I couldn't even narrow it down to a cluster! No clue. No idea whatsoever how to identify which little spec of light might be ours, and which direction to go if I ever got "out" that far.

I had to keep telling myself, in my head, "You're still ON Earth, you're sitting in a planetarium in a museum, you haven't gone anywhere and oh btw, YOU VERY LIKELY NEVER WILL!!! SNAP OUT OF IT!!!" I even made myself look around at the room and the chairs and the people, to try to ground myself, but my brain kept yelling back at me "Yeah but WHAT IF???!!!"

You know what finally made me calmer? When the video zoomed back down little by little, back to our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, our continent, and then finally, to us. THAT put my whole body back into a relaxed state. Not my telling myself anything logical! No! My brain had been freaked out by images, and that's what it took to calm it back down. Those same images in reverse!

To this day I'm still surprised by how immersed I was and how freaked out I got once I couldn't recognize "landmarks" (space marks?) past a certain distance from "home." This has since been a source of amusement and slight concern to me. (Concern because who takes something like that seriously? Again, apparently that would be ME.)

So I thought about that again yesterday, when I had the word "Galaxy" at One Word (I also thought "NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!" - Which I quoted backwards yesterday. My bad. It sounds better to me the other way.) Anyway, I remembered seeing these once upon a time and wondered if I could find them again.

Dog tag showing aliens how to get you home.


I did. They're here: Location Earth Dog Tags. (And they come with a money back guarantee if aliens fail to understand the map and bring you home while you're wearing one of these.)

But they seemed to be lacking in information. So I looked up the original Pioneer Plaque drawing,

Click picture to "embiggin"

which still leaves something to be desired in its clarity, but all things considered, it's the best I've got at the moment. (More on that image here.)

Both images are now downloaded to my iphone, which puts me in a slightly better position if I ever leave Earth while out on a walk or running some errands (and also if my phone is charged and I have a compatible power source to re-charge it "wherever.") If, however, I'm ever abducted from my bed, I'm pretty much hosed. Well... if I were ever abducted from my bed I'd be pretty much hosed with or without directions to get home.

* FYI, I've never had a fear of alien abductions. The fear was really just about how I wouldn't know how to get home from too far out in space!
 

Overheard: Cell Phone Conversation

Man on cell phone

Oh ok, that's where they hold IMPACT. 
[*Note: The only IMPACT I know is a self defense class.]
(pause)
You have to be Mormon to get the discount.
(pause)
No, the price is the same but they give you two extra women.

Um.... what??? Lol!