Vintage

 I just returned from a shopping trip at a local department store.  I noticed a young – VERY young – girl with a pink shirt in hand go to the self-checkout aisle and start pushing on the screen.  I knew this youngster would not be paying for her selection, but her mother was nowhere in sight.  She continued to push at the screen until her baby sister approached her, and then the two wandered off behind a display and out of my sight.  I brought this event to the attention of the customer service rep who was helping me, and she became very concerned and asked where they were.  “They were right there,” I pointed, “but they walked off that way.  I just don’t know where there mother is.”  “They just announced a lost child,” the rep said.  “Really?” I asked, then added, “I think I’d shoot myself if I allowed my kids to run around a store without me.”  Right about that time, the shirt girl reappeared and began pushing at the screen again.  “There she is!” I said, “and there’s her little sister with her.”  The CSR went to the girls and asked where their mother was, and I saw shirt girl point off somewhere.  “Then you two need to hold hands and go be with your mother.  Go on…go on!”  The two girls walked away and the CSR followed them and asked the mother to keep her children with her.  As I left, the mother looked at me as if she was angry.  Why?  Because I’m not comfortable with her children getting carried off by some pervert?

I’ve noticed a gradual loosening of parental control over children over the years.  I used to go to PTA meetings but stopped.  I quit going not because I was unconcerned about my children’s school, or because I was nonchalant about their future, but because the noise from all of the children playing and carrying on (and the parents talking at the same time as the speaker, by the way) frustrated me to no end.  I even saw one child with a toy that his parents had brought for him to play with during the meeting – a toy gun that made noise!  I decided it was best for to stop attending before I slapped someone and got sent to jail. 

I’ve noticed an increase in rudeness in general, but the lack of parental control truly astounds me.  I’ve seen kids careening around stores in grocery carts, banging into the aisles and nearly running over customers, laughing uproariously.  I never saw those parents.  I wish I had.  I would have loved to express my dismay at almost becoming in-store roadkill. 

Do parents not care about their children anymore?  Are they TRYING to get rid of them?  Do they not care about their physical safety, or their future social skills?  These kids that today are allowed to eat food in the store as they shop learn that it’s okay to take things without paying for them.  Then the parents are upset because their pwecious widdle baby-wabies are prosecuted for shoplifting.  Alternatively, their kids-come-grownups have little idea of how to behave in public because Mommy and Daddy were so busy either trying to be their friends or ignoring them that they were never taught social norms.  Why don’t they have friends?  Why can’t they be successful?  Freud had it right – go and look at the mother.  Or lack thereof.

Please parents, keep your children with you in the stores!  Teach them (and yourselves) to respect others  by keeping your mouth shut when the speaker is speaking.  By respecting others you provide a role model for your kids.  When shopping, don’t allow anyone in your party to open any package until it is paid for.  Be responsible.  Teach them to be responsible.

Then the perverts will have a harder time getting to your kids.

Then you may be asked back to places you visit.

Then prices in stores may go down because the shrinkage will be less.

Then we may be able to feel more confident about our future, because we can be more confident in our future adults.

When I was about six years old, we moved to a suburb of Houston.  Every lot in our neighborhood was two acres of land, and there were many fields in the area where the weeds were higher than my head.  Our new neighbors across the street gifted my oldest sister with two cats, a male and female of the same litter.  The male was black, with a white triangle outline point above his nose, the point ending on his forehead and the lines ending on either side of his nose.   He was named Punch, but he was short-lived, being hit by a car only a few days after getting his new home.  Perhaps he was trying to visit his mother.

The other cat was named Jemimah, and to this day I believe her to be possibly the prettiest cat I’ve ever seen, save one.  Calico colored from head to tail, with a white ruff at her neck and white socks, she had quite a personality!  Jemimah made herself quite at home, and before long was entertaining male suitors.  Her first litter was eleven kittens in all, and in quite a range of colors!  Among others, there was the extremely long-furred orange cat, the short-haired tabby, a replica of punch, and one kitten that took Jemimah’s beauty crown.  This female was never named, but she had beautiful soft gray fur, with a mix of longer, pure silver hair.  She also had a white ruff, and she was absolutely gorgeous!

Jemimah was truly the matriarch of all she surveyed.  She had a grace and sense of pride.  We fed our cats and dogs our table scraps (and with twelve kids, there could be a pile of scraps!), and in the evening one of us would go outside and call “here, kittykittykittykitty!” until the four-legged furballs would come screaming in from every corner of the globe.  One night, Jemimah failed to arrive, and I held the best scraps for her.  “Here, kittykittykitty! Heeeeeere kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykitty!” I called, but still no Jemimah.  I decided to call one last time before forfeiting Jemimah’s dinner to one of her many progeny.  “Heeeeeere kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykitty!” I called one last time, and just as I was turning to scrape the plate, I saw our momma cat out of the corner of my eye.  She was running at top speed, just a blur as she slipped under the fence gate and, still a blur, she saw me watching her.  I could hear the brakes go on as she screeched to a stop.  She sat on her haunches, surveyed me briefly, and then proceeded to wash her face and ears as I watched in amusement.  When she finally finished her ablutions, she then sat there, just far enough away that I had to go to her to feed her, and waited on me to wait on her.  Obviously, her pride was damaged by being observed doing something so ungainly as running to dinner!

She was the ultimate kitty momma.  She was prone to stealing the kittens from the other cats’ litters, and one summer we had to raid her nest to retrieve the kittens she had stolen and return them to their rightful mothers.  Only once did she refuse to accept a kitten.  When the drop-dead gorgeously grizzled gray cat turned out to be a neglectful mother, we tried to put her babies in with Jemimah’s litter, but she refused to feed them; instead, she moved her kittens to a new site.  We tried in vain to save the babies, but they were too young and we were too inexperienced.  I cried as one by one, the beautiful kittens succumbed to starvation and died.  We never figured out why Jemimah had such antipathy towards her daughter, but of course, that is a secret that Jemimah took to her grave.  After her litter and the death of her kittens, the pretty cat eventually wandered off somewhere, never to be seen again.

 Jemimah, always tried to get into the house to have her kittens. We always knew when it was her time - not just because she resembled a furry barrel with legs - but because she always found a way to sneak past someone and run for the carpet under Mom and Dad’s bed. Once there, she’d dig her claws into the carpet and refuse to budge. We’d eventually entice her out with some cat food. Once we got our little grubby hands on her, we’d very gently and carefully pick her up (she loved to be cradled, so we had to flip her on her back, and doing that while she was so pregnant required some care) and carry her lovingly outside - then QUICKLY close and lock the screen door so she couldn’t streak back inside the house!

Jemimah made sure that her babies knew their business!  I remember being outside one summer twilight, and turning to see Jemimah walking toward the fields behind our house, with her retinue of kittens trailing her obediently.   We never had rats on our property near our house.  Jemimah was fearless, even taking on our neighbor’s German Shepherd.  Bullet never lost the scar left by our cat, as she tried to take his nose off one day!  The only time I saw here running from another creature was the day the mockingbird chased her across the yard.  They had both decided to set up housekeeping in the tool shed, and the mockingbird would have none of it.  She chased our cat across the yard each time Jemimah went back to get one of her kittens.  Eventually, all of her babies were ensconced in their new home – in the weeds along the septic line.  We had to be very careful about mowing the grass for a while! 

Jemimah was for a time, my best friend.  As a child, I faced my share of tribulations, and I would pick up Jemimah and cradle her, scratching her ruff and sharing my problems with her.  She never gave me solutions, but with her I always felt wanted.  As a matter of fact, she had problems letting me leave!  If I tried to remove my hand from her neck, she would place her front paws on my wrist and pull it back down to her neck for more scratching!  She was a cat who knew what she wanted!  I spent many an hour in our backyard, her paws around my hand, sharing my tears and talking out my issues.  Every child should have such a pet!

Her offspring were varied, but there was always a theme to the litters.  Her litters tended to be large – her first was eleven babies!  Orange was a popular color, as was gray (tabby) and calico.  And in every litter there would be a kitten with that Punch-like triangle over the nose – sometime white on background, sometimes a dark triangle.  They all lived, except for one litter which was smaller (she was much older at this time), only about four kittens.  They were all calico, and they all were stillborn.  I can only imagine that they were male calicos, which, I’ve heard, don’t usually survive.  There was one kitten that made it through the birth, but not the first few weeks.  It was a strange cat, with fur that looked like someone had snatched patches from the other cats and stuck it on her while blindfolded.  She had a gray tabby patch on top of her head, a triangle above her nose, calico splotches (the same calico colors as her momma) on her body, with patches of orange and silvery gray thrown randomly here and there.  I really wanted to see what she would look like as an adult, but alas, my younger sister, in her enthusiasm for the new kitties, accidentally killed it as she tried to make a new shelter for them with some bricks.  Poor girl, she took our anger for a while, and she felt absolutely horrible about the whole thing.

As I grew older and became more engaged in my school activities, my younger siblings began to take on the chores of feeding the cats and such.  Busy as I was with band practice, etc., I did not realize that Jemimah wasn’t at home for several days.  I was told that she had been disappearing a few days at a time.  It turned out that she had adopted another family nearby, and was spending time with them!  Traitor!  But I smiled and returned to my busy schedule.  One day, Jemimah just stopped coming back home.  I preferred it that way – not having to see her die, not having to bury her as we cried.  In my mind, she’s still out there in the field somewhere, catching rats and raiding some neighbor’s affection.

It’s so much better that way.

I do not know why this thought crossed my mind, but as I was exiting a local store today, I had a sudden, painful flashback to a time when I witnessed something that resembled a water buffalo tightly encased in black Spandex®.  Walking behind this woman as her thighs and buttocks rolled to and fro, her cellulite moving in almost hypnotic patterns before me, I wondered yet again what people see when they look in their mirrors.

The Bible states that there is a season for everything, as in “a time to sow and a time to reap”.  Well, that applies to things other than farming, as well, such as “a time to wear miniskirts and a time to damn well cover it up”!  I am sorry to be so judgmental and cruel, but I think I am doing a public service by asking certain people, especially women, to ask their husbands to hide all knives, frying pans, forks, and all other objects that can be used as a weapon to either make holes in their bodies or smash certain parts flat, and then ask them “Should I wear this?”  And I beg certain people, mostly husbands but also wives, to be brutally honest and say, “Honey, I love you just the way you are, but wearing that outfit in public scares young children and will prevent you from ever running for any kind of public office, and I’d hate for you to limit yourself that way!  Please let me burn it in an environmentally safe way, so as not to pollute the neighborhood!”

Ever since synthetic fibers were made and spandex® – I suppose I should use a trademark thingie, since I believe it’s a trade name - Spandex® made its debut, those bipeds who hold their physique in high esteem have been using it to highlight their physical charms. This is great as long as the charms haven’t succumbed to age, weight, or gravity.  However, when those forces act on the body, they don’t have the same action on the eyes nor the brain, so the continued use of Spandex® continues well beyond its effectiveness, rather like leaving fruit on the tree beyond its maturation date.  With much the same effect.  As much as I don’t like looking at rotted fruit on the ground, I try to avoid dangerous uses of Spandex® much more.  What is more dangerous than 200 pounds of buttock flesh encased in something similar to a sausage wrapper meant to hold in 50?  It can only be that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder – in this case, the Spandex® wearers.  They are suffering from a medical condition known as Spandex® blindness.  Bless their hearts.

What is the age beyond which Spandex® should be worn?  If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions, then you are beyond the Spandex® age:

►       Do you have children? Then either your figure is shot or you’ll embarrass them.  Hang up the Spandex®!  Do it for the children!

►       As you wear Spandex® and walk down the street, do you hear retching behind you?

►       As you wear Spandex® and walk down the street, do you hear giggling behind you?

►       Do you hear faint mooing sounds as you shop?

►       Are your thighs in danger of setting of fire alarms as you walk? Do they rub?

►       Is your waist measurement greater than Shaquille O’Neal’s foot length (both feet added)?

►       Men, in the above, add six inches because (and get your heads out of the gutter!) men always measure where they wear their pants, not where they SHOULD wear their pants!

►       Do young children stare at you when you wear Spandex® in public? Do they cry?

►       Be honest – when you put on your Spandex®, do you have a sudden urge to go to SeaWorld®?  Or the zoo?

►       As you walk, is the back of your thigh still moving from the last step when you are halfway through the next?

►       Are there any flapping or slapping sounds as you move around?

►       Are members of the opposite sex making obvious attempts to keep their eyes either focused above your neck or do they look off to the sides when talking to you?

►       Do you break a sweat putting on your Spandex®?  Does installing Spandex® involve gymnastic type moves that might qualify you for the Olympic team?

►       If you lift your foot straight out to hip height, is part of your thigh still dragging the ground?

►       If you trip and fall, is it registered as a seismic event?

►       Are your buttocks larger than bowling balls?  Are they not as firm?

►       Do you take up more than one couch cushion when sitting in your living room?

►       When you jump in a swimming pool, is there a tidal wave in Fiji?

►       As for Spandex® tops, can you use your bosom as a table?

►       Does your bosom turn corners a full second before the rest of you?

►       Are your triceps still waving long after your relatives have turned the corner?

Men: If you are not bicycling or engaging in other athletic events, or even if you are, ask yourself, “Why do I want women to see my package?  Is it really that impressive?  Can they even see it under my belly?”  And just so you know, the answer is “No, it really isn’t.”  I’m sorry, but someone has to break it to you.  But don’t worry, we usually fall in love with you for other reasons.

As a matter of public service, I beg of each and every man and woman to review the above list! If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, please restrict your Spandex® fetish to the privacy of your home!  Please get treatment for your Spandex® blindness! Remember, a beautiful world is the responsibility of us all!

Things that are caused by, may be caused by, or are suspected reactions of man-made global warming*:

and many, many more...

* These may not all be documented, but I trust that they will at some point. When scientists can get research grants to "prove" that it is true.

I was so excited when my sister, who works at NASA (whom I will refer to as NasaSis), invited my Handsome Son and I to watch the astronauts perform an Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA, aka “space walk”) this morning.  Joining the three of us was the first sibling of our very large family, whom I’ll now call SisOne.  NasaSis is extremely artistic, and among other duties in the past, has been working with the engineers on the spacesuit designs for a while now.  She has learned a lot about the engineering of the spacesuits, and the whys and wherefores of space design.  

SisOne, Handsome, and I met NasaSis on a very muggy but extremely breezy morning at the Johnson Space Center.  NasaSis took us to the mission control building, but we were too early, so we walked around the campus for a while.  She showed us “the mall,” which is a green area with two ponds, trees, and many, many ducks who, I think, owned the place.  This is where she comes when she needs a break from the stress of her job.  She told us she also sees deer on the LBJ campus; the campus has woods on one side, and they just kind of wander in sometimes.  She’ll walk the mall and sit under the trees near a pond and decompress.  It was a very nice spot, and we saw lots of turtles and koi and beautiful scenery, but I began to sweat like crazy in the humidity, so we began walking back to mission control building.  NasaSis told us about some of the things the engineers had to deal with when designing the space vehicles and the suits.  I will try to remember everything she said, but it was a lot to absorb, so – NasaSis, please forgive me if I forget something or twist something!  I will try to be faithful to what I heard (some of which was hard to hear because of the wind).

First, I was unaware of some of the physiological changes that occur in the human body in a weightless environment. I’ve heard of the lengthening of the body as the spine decompresses, and I knew that beads of sweat would ball up and float around in the air (yech!).  I did not think, however, about the body fluids balling up in the torso!  This is why their faces may look bloated if you see them on camera. This balling-up can make things very uncomfortable. NasaSis has a gal friend on the current mission, and she expects that it will take a more than a few days for her body to adjust, though her feet will probably remain narrower than normal until she returns to earth. 

NasaSis then told us how the suits were designed.  A special camera takes a 3-D picture of the astronaut’s body and each one gets a suit designed especially for him/her.  They add markings like stripes to the suits so that mission control can tell who is doing what when an EVA is in progress – otherwise, they all look like the Michelin man!  The layers of insulation that protects the astronaut from the cold of space also creates problems because, as it protects them from the cold of space, it holds in the astronauts’ body heat, and the astronauts can become very warm.  This causes sweat, which, as mentioned before, floats.  It also makes the astronauts uncomfortable.  Try working while sweat runs down your face, and you cannot wipe it off!   There is a bar inside the helmet that the astronauts use to deal with ear pressure.  They can press their nose against it to close off a nostril and blow to equalize their inner ear.  NasaSis said if they get good enough, they can “scratch” their nose while they are working.  All these little details that we take for granted!  (And while we’re on the topic of irritating space behavior, try working on a project and your tools are never where you put them!  Even though they are tethered, you can’t put anything “down” in space – things float, so every time you need your tool you must find it again.) 

The suits must not only be ventilated for breathing, but also for cooling.  There is a special “cooling suit” that is worn next to the skin.  It was described as “like the white long johns” but with tubing down each arm, leg, and side, within which is filled with cooling fluid.  It acts like a radiator, moving the heat from the body and dissipating in the cooling unit.  The suits also have to protect from micro meteors, so on top of all the layers of insulation, the outer skin has to be designed so that the body can move, yet tough enough to handle small razor sharp pebbles traveling at 17,000 mph!  One of the engineers actually bought hundreds of razor blades and had them honed to differing sharpness levels, then someone had to slash at the suits and record how well they stood up to the slicing.  I’m sure THAT was an exciting job!  NasaSis said that these micro meteors hit the spacecraft and get embedded in the handles that the astronauts hold, so the astronauts have to perform periodic “glove checks” as they work.  These micro meteors can cut the gloves, causing depressurization of the suit.  That is a very bad thing (duh!).  The astronauts must always be aware of their gloves.  We actually heard mission control remind the astronauts to perform a glove check as we were watching.  Since the Kibo Module was brand new, there hadn’t been much opportunity for the micro meteors to embed themselves yet, so the astronaut we were watching, Fossum, I believe, proclaimed his gloves to be “pristine” as he turned them over in front of the camera.

By this time, we arrived back at mission control.  Showing our badges yet again, we were allowed into the viewing room.  It’s exactly as you’ve seen on TV – lots of computer monitors, now bolstered by a few small TVs and laptops.  I notice a few homey touches, like the Buzz Lightyear action figure on the “Discovery” console.  It’s hard to remember that for them, this is their office.  To us, it’s a place where men touch the sky.  Buzz Lightyear grinning at me through the window really changed my whole view of mission control!  I got a picture of Handsome with mission control behind him, and then we settled down to listen and watch the drama on the big screen.

In front of us was a very large display, consisting of three screens.  The leftmost screen had computer code in various colors.  The middle screen displayed the current orbit and position of the International Space Station (ISS).  We could hear the radio communication between the astronauts in space, and with mission control.  NasaSis pointed out the grid of yellow squares in a panel on the right side of each console.  This is the communication system that allows each discipline (Flight Director, Discovery, CapCom, Flight Surgeon, etc.) to talk to each other or to listen on as many conversations as they would like.  The astronauts had not emerged from the ISS yet, so NasaSis continued to educate us on more space stuff.

She recommended that we make it to Florida for a shuttle liftoff.  It seems that the liftoff from a shuttle is way more impressive than that of  the straight line rockets that NASA will be moving to after 2010.  The straight rockets may also be easier on the fuel usage.  NasaSis said the engineers put a camera in a shuttle fuel tank to see how fast the fuel was actually used.  I put my hand parallel with the floor, up by my head, then steadily moved it down to my waist, and she said, “Yep! Like that.”

I heard the astronauts announce that they would be popping the thermal cover, and we watched as a hatch opened and we could see a glove and the top of a helmet. I was surprised at how long it took for the astronaut to exit the hatch.  On TV, I always see the astronauts when they are floating in space.  Watching the astronaut maneuver himself out of the opening, I realized how bulky and hard to maneuver the suits actually are.  The suits are pressurized, constantly wanting to make the astronauts look like the girl from “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” who blew up like a blueberry – arms out to the sides and torso all inflated.  The astronauts are constantly fighting this resistance to movement, so they have to have lots of stamina.  Even bending their fingers is a chore, because of the thickness of the glove and the pressurization.  As a matter of fact, there is a bar strapped over the palm of their hand to flatten that area, to allow the astronauts to close their hands.  If they didn’t have the bar, grabbing anything with the glove would be like trying to hold something with a balloon in the hand!  I noticed that as the astronaut was going hand-over-hand down the bar on Kibo, that he didn’t always bend his fingers and grab the bar, but would tuck his fingertips behind the bar instead.  NasaSis said the layers of insulation and the glove design also prevented the astronauts from feeling the action of the tools they were holding.  For example, if they were screwing something down, they had to know how many turns the screw should make because they would not be able to feel when the screw was tight.  We could hear exchanges like: “Expect 9 turns.” “Nine turns, roger…  Nine turns completed.” “Nine turns completed. Roger.”  They were constantly checking and rechecking with each other.  I can only imagine how detailed their checklists would have to be, to know for each screw how many turns are required to achieve the desired torque without stripping the screw!  That has to be a tedious job, to proofread their job lists!  These checklists appeared to be attached to the outside of their gloves with “rubber bands”.  I’m sure they were not just “rubber bands,” as regular ones probably would freeze and break in space, but it seemed so anachronistic to see such high tech on display, and there was something that looked like a shopping list tied to his arm!  NasaSis and I talked briefly about the sometimes advantage that low tech had over high tech – like how NASA expended so much energy into designing a pen that would write in space, and the Russians simply used a pencil!

One thing that I had noticed before but did not realize the significance was the mirrors on the outside of the gloves. I thought it might be some kind of display, but they are just mirrors.  They are used to read the dials on the life support system for the suit. The display for the suit is written in “mirror language,” so as the astronaut holds up his glove, he can read the display on his glove as if reading a paper, and so he knows the status of his suit.  Another one of those little details!  Details for these men and women can mean the difference between life and death!

NasaSis says the people that she works with are so wicked smart that she feels – how do I put this – mentally insignificant?  She has learned not to talk in terms of weight. "It's MASS!"  She sits in at their meetings and tries not to say anything, but there are times when she is able to make significant contributions, somewhat to her surprise, I am sure.   Their mental operations are so “up there” that sometimes they cannot see basic flaws which need to be addressed.  It’s pretty cool, having a sister who makes contributions to the space program.  She’s had to learn a lot in a little bit of time.  For example, all of the acronyms!  And there are acronyms inside of acronyms!  That was overwhelming her in the beginning – the jargon of space is a language all its own.  “EVA” (Extra Vehicular Activity) instead of “spacewalk”.  Strangely enough, the space suit is known as the EMU (Extra vehicular Module Unit).  NasaSis said that in the beginning she would write “EVMU” in her notes, and people were freaking out: “What’s an EVMU? Do you know something we should know?”  She laughs about it now, but I can only imagine the red face in the beginning!

Another shocker that I learned on my day of discovery was exactly how dedicated these astronauts have to be.  NASA has to select them not only for physical fitness and knowledge, but these astronauts have to have the proper psychological traits – to be able to be isolated for long periods of time without freaking out or getting depressed, but also for dedication to their mission.  For example, the gloves are fit tightly so they can be functional, but they can also at times rip out fingernails!  These astronauts have to stay on mission, so they deal with the pain and keep on going.  Also, the g forces put on them during takeoff are suddenly relieved at some point heading into orbit.  This physical stress – the pressured AND the relief – are a shock to the system and can be rather rough on the men and women.  Then, there is also space sickness, which I think we can all figure out.  These have got to be some pretty dedicated people, to chance their lives going up and coming down, as well as their possible physical changes in weightlessness.

As we watched the astronauts attach the Kibo module, we saw them using a cordless drill.  The cordless drill was invented by NASA, one of many creative solutions for problems in space that has spilled over into our daily lives.  To see a list of such items, you can go here:

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/shuttle.htm

On our way to lunch, we continued to discuss the spacesuit design.  NasaSis said the lunar suits will be significantly different than the ISS suits.  For example, the ISS suits have boots that pretty much are non-moving.  Astronauts don’t use their feet much on the ISS, mostly their hands.  However, on the lunar surface, they will be walking, so the boots will be less stiff.  Also, the lunar astronauts will be bending over, looking at things and picking stuff up, so the location of the life support devices will have to be moved from the chest area, where they would block the downward view of the astronaut.  Also, the suits will have to work with the astronaut’s center of gravity – the little bit of gravity on the moon would be enough to tip an astronaut over should they be off center, even a small amount.  Handsome Son suggested a fanny pack type of arrangement (moving it from the chest to the waist), and he was close!  NasaSis they were looking at something like that, but the equipment is so bulky that it would prevent them from bending over – but they are still looking at it.  This is why there are SMART men and women!

As we watched the astronauts tightening screws and unfolding what looked similar to canvas bags (some kind of crew work area for later crews, which was actually made from the same stuff as the outer layer of their spacesuits), I could see the Earth sliding below them many miles below.  While they were focused on things only inches from their eyes, this gorgeous panorama was playing itself out below them.  NasaSis said it was a shame that they had so much to do while they were there that they didn’t really get to stop and enjoy the incredible view.

Before we left Mission Control, a large group of Air Force medical students arrived.  They were taking part in a tour, and we were allowed to hear their all-too-brief briefing given by a NASA flight surgeon.  He quickly gave them an overview of the different consoles and the responsibilities of each area, focusing, of course, on the flight surgeon desk.  It takes years just to become a doctor, but to become a space doctor takes several more years on top of that!  He described some of the physical things the doctors have to understand, such as during launch:  the astronauts must sit for two or more hours with their legs above their hearts, which increases the fluid load in the torso, which puts additional pressure on the heart and causes increased filtration in the kidneys.  This means the bladder may be full when ignition begins…and he didn’t go any further than that, but I think I got the idea.  He said that some of the medical problems they’ve encountered included kidney stones and dehydration, but not really lacerations.  I suppose the pilots are very careful about that!  There are two medically trained officers on each mission (EMT trained), so minor emergencies can be taken care of – as long as they don’t run out of medical supplies.  Another one of those things I take for granted:  that my doctor won’t run out of plasma or blood if I’m bleeding!

Before we left, NasaSis took us to the “rock pile,” which is where the mobile units are tested.  We were able to see “Mars” as well as the “Moon”.  The Mars simulation had  large red rocks on a sandy-to-pebbly soil, with a well defined hill.  The Moon simulation was primarily rocks of uniform size, about one inch or so, and gray, and had several craters of different sizes.  We were very careful not to disturb anything and did not climb the hill nor descend into the craters, as the sites had been carefully graded and designed, to give the units a full testing of their capabilities.   We got pictures of everybody on Mars and the Moon.  I don’t know if NasaSis could hear me over the wind, but I stood in front of the Mars hill, stuck out my hiney and said, “Look! I’m mooning Mars!”  She laughed, but I’m not sure exactly what she was laughing at!

NasaSis said that Mars was a rocky surface, whereas the Moon surface was like shattered glass.  The man who created the rock pile still works at NASA, and was one of the original space suit designers.  His name is so appropriate: Joe Kosmo!  NasaSis thinks the world of him, and has learned a lot from this visionary.  He had to fight for funding for some of his ideas, and it has paid off.  Would that there were more men like him!

I am sure that I have left something out of this record, but there was so much so fast!  I love science and science fiction, so to be able to peek into this world was very exciting for me.  I thank my sister for inviting us, and for the brilliant men and women who make our world – and space – more interesting!

With the nomination of Barak Obama as the Democratic Presidential candidate, I began to wonder what I would like McCain - or any candidate - to say.  There is so much that I wanted to include, and I'm writing this, like, really, really late at night and my brain cells are half asleep and I must be up early in the morning and my sentences are starting to run together....anyway, I would love to hear this from a candidate: