The paper arrived

I intended to come up for air quite a while ago when the newspaper hit the driveway, but neglected to do so, being engrossed with conversation between foodies I was reading. I'm still not done with it, but a small moment in the discussion about a chef being fanatical about not letting the guests she was cooking for into the kitchen sparked happy memories in my brain.

Back in Savannah our kitchen was connected to our living room by only a doorway (instead of the apartment having an open floorplan), and Reagan and I each used it to our advantage from time to time. Sometimes for a special occasion, and sometimes for no reason at all, other than a good idea, one of us would make a special dinner. Many times these suppers were so special that the cook would forbid the other person from entering the kitchen, for fear of a glimpse or whiff being caught and ruining the surprise. Many good evenings.

There haven't been many opportunities for us to cook for each other like that in the past year of living at home. Even though my mom is not forbidding with use of her kitchen, the two couples in the house operate in their own orbits, which just happen to overlap at the all-important hub of food making. Almost as much as I look forward to getting our own place to live next year, I'm excited at the prospect of visiting friends, patterning to their orbits, and cooking for them.

Speaking of orbits, at dinner earlier today my brother answered an astronomical question that has lurked in the back of my mind for several years. In the past I've oft wondered why all of the solar system seems to be on a relatively flat plane, and whenever we send probes into space we send them parallel the plane made by our orbit, not perpendicular to it. The short answer is: centrifugal force. I'm not enough of a scientist to trust myself with the long answer.

Now that I think about it more, it seems pretty obvious, so I'm not sure if this is news to anyone other than me. In that moment, though, I was glad to have other small bits of science knowledge to share, culled from recent blog readings. Proof that my new regimen is doing something!

The bit I shared was that it was recently discovered that the northern lights are caused by solar winds. (Again, the short answer.) Inspired by that and wishing to make it useful inspiration, I brainstormed 3 similar phenomena of a "natural" origin for a fictional setting, either to illustrate or describe in a story.

1) Star-lances - laser like beams that show up in our atmosphere, similar effect to that of light streaming through a piece of dark paper with tiny holes poked in it, except all the beams come from individual sources (or do they?)

2) Daysparks - plasmatic waves pushed through the air at dawn cause certain particles to explode. Very tiny pinpricks of light that burst and disappear. Not known to have enough heat to start fires. ;P

3) Sky-ripples - A phenomenon much like our aurora, but not at the poles, and looking like the wavelets of a stone dropped into a pond.

For whatever reason I didn't want to limit myself to sky lights of natural causes, so I pushed myself to double my output and imagine phenomena of human making:

4) "God's hand" - formation made by jet trails in the stratosphere/ionosphere as spacecraft move to and from the pass-point in and out of the atmosphere

5) Glistening web of strings where we patch the ozone

6) Hail of stars from outer space: satellite/robot we sent into orbit collects and hurls space-junk back towards the planet and it incinerates upon reentry.

I have a feeling I'm gonna look back on that in a few days and be terribly embarrassed. Such is life.

Another new decision for the day: science news is a good conversation starter. I vow to read more about it and grow my knowledge to enhance my discussions on scientific topics. Besides, it's handy to know something about science if you want to dabble in science fiction.

The other epic posts I was reading today, by the way, was this one on Velveteen Rabbi about her visit to Hebron and Bethlehem. Many good thoughts and good links there.

Tonight's study was much more focused on quality than quantity, and the thinking and relaxing was good after a day of activities finishing up my birthday celebration. (Dinner with family (good, good time with them) and watching Charlie Wilson's War, which was a gift). The sun is now rising. I'm hungry, and my only real option is crackers or the shortbread cookies from Reagan's MRE. (He was at Camp Pendelton today, shooting guns with other Marine hopefuls, and had field food for lunch.)

I want to angst about my personal quests for meaning, but I want to sleep more.