Feburary 1, 2003

Five years ago I was living in Nacogdoches, Texas, preparing to move to Boston for a new job. I had just come back to Nacogdoches (pronounced ‘nack-a-doe-tches’ – silent ‘g’) from my last apartment-finding trip to Boston. I had exactly one week left before the big move.

I was in that “I’m going to miss everything” stage – friends, co-workers, potholes, restaurants, sights. And I was really going to miss my barn. The whole time I lived in Nacogdoches I had lived in a fabulous apartment that was one-third of an old barn. The apartment was very large and open with the bedroom upstairs and everything else downstairs. My cat Dickens LOVED to run laps around the barn at top speed. It was like the Cat Indy 500 in there sometimes. The barn was behind a house that had a pink flying pig mailbox and belonged to the world’s best landlords. If I could have packed up the barn and the mailbox and the landlords and brought them all to Boston, I would have done so in a heartbeat.

So that morning I was lying in bed, sleeping in a little, although I’d already checked the sky through the bedroom window: sunny and bright blue. It was January but it was a warm day. A nice day for running errands and finishing up the packing.

A loud roaring sound, sort of like thunder but louder and longer, opened my eyes. My bed started shaking – I thought it was the cats, but no, they were on the bedroom floor freaking out, ears flat and tails frizzed. We looked at each other and couldn’t figure out what the roaring and shaking meant. The whole barn was rattling. I still couldn’t see anything outside my window but blue sky, utterly cloudless. It went on for at least 30 seconds, maybe a minute. When it was over I ran all over the apartment looking for clues and finding none. I looked through my front window and saw my landlord standing on the driveway behind his house, looking at the sky and scratching his head. I figured he was as confused as I was (though I found out later he could see exactly what had happened).

I went back upstairs to my bed and called my dad to tell him I’d just experienced my first earthquake. My dad was skeptical. While we were talking I could hear my step-mom in the background. They’d gotten up early to watch the space shuttle fly overhead as it came down to land. She said, “They’ve lost the shuttle.” All three of us realized at the same moment that the noise I’d heard and the shaking I’d felt had been Columbia coming to earth in pieces in East Texas.

The rest of the day was surreal. I watched CNN report the tragedy on my landlord’s television (mine was already on the road to Boston). It was weird to know more than the CNN reporters.

I did run some of my errands that day, although parts of town were roped off by FEMA as they salvaged pieces of the shuttle. I couldn’t get to my bank and post office – a piece of fuselage had landed in the parking lot.

The rest of that week was a blur. The town was taken over by FEMA and news reporters. I was packing and doing last-minute things. All of us were in shock, trying to process what had happened. I kept remembering the Challenger disaster in 1986 – like a lot of school kids that day, my friends and I sat in the cafeteria watching the footage over and over, watching the shock change our teachers’ faces into unfamiliar masks.

A friend of mine told me that to him the Columbia tragedy just wasn’t the same sort of iconic tragic moment that Challenger had been. I can see that. By 2003 our world had changed so much compared to 1986. No more Cold War, post-September 11^th (although we hadn’t yet gone to war in Afghanistan or Iraq). And of course, post-Challenger itself. We had seen this before. I suppose it’s like an inoculation when you’ve experienced that kind of tragedy – the first sting of shock means it won’t sting quite so fiercely the second time around, although the tragedy may resonate just the same.

But I disagree with him. Columbia was more real to me than Challenger. As a middle-school student I saw what happened on television and felt part of a national emotional reaction. Five years ago I was shaken out of bed as the space shuttle, the one we had all begun to think of as reliable and really by this time rather ordinary technology, fell apart in the sky overhead. The crew was lost.

It had seemed like such a nice ordinary day.

The space shuttle program is scheduled to be retired in 2010.

In memoriam:

Rick D. Husband, mission commander; Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; and William C. McCool, pilot. Standing from left are David M. Brown, Laurel B. Clark, and Michael P. Anderson, all mission specialists; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist from the Israeli Space Agency.

When Paper Cuts Are a Good Thing

Isn’t this beautiful? The Art Studio in our museum has a paper-cut curtain in one window. I was in the Art Studio one morning this week (to assist with a program teaching 2^nd graders to paint pictures of birds from our natural history collection - which is another story entirely) and was completely distracted by this curtain, and by the shadows it made on the wall.

The curtain is made of tyvek – which means it’s waterproof – and can be cut to size. I love it so much that I'm going to advertise for free here: It also comes in red and green. If you’re interested (and have a little money to spare), you can find it here.

Girl, Step AWAY from the Ruby Slippers!!!

This link was sent to me with a fairly “isn’t it shocking?” and ‘tsk-tsk’ preface. As I read the article, I was not at all shocked. I couldn’t figure out where the shock came in.

And then.

I scrolled down…

To the pictures and the dialogue…

And I literally gasped aloud. I may have even put a hand over my heart to stop it from failing.

Museum person’s cardinal rule: Don’t manhandle the treasures. And definitely don’t WAVE THEM AROUND.

New rule: Don’t let billionaires who won’t let anyone be the boss of them near the treasures.

The woman should be ashamed of herself.

Keepin' up with My Worryin'

I come from a long line of worriers. My great-aunt Margie used to say, “I’m gettin’ behind on my worryin’” and I have to say, I know exactly what that means.

These days I try to keep ahead of my worryin’. Always good to have done my worrying, so when the hypothetical occasion I’ve been worrying about becomes real, I’m already prepared with my worrying script, as it were.

Here’s what I’ve been worrying about lately:

- Matilda Rose – Heath Ledger’s daughter. So awful for such a little girl to lose her dad and then be hounded by the paparazzi through it all. She may not be hounded yet, but wait till they find her. Poor child.

- Deodorant. Not that it doesn’t work, but that it works really well and will eventually kill me.

- Other things I use everyday that science may eventually discover will kill me: chapstick, Dawn, silk long underwear, Jergen’s and Kiehl’s lotion, cheese, Brita water filters, paper towels, earrings, forks, etc.

- That after the hoopla of this election, everything will stay EXACTLY THE SAME.

- Even though I have NO PLANS to move, I worry about my eventual move. How will I move 2 (fat) cats who hate to fly or drive to my next home? I spend some time on this every week or so.

- Also move related: which items of furniture will I move, and which ones will I leave or sell and replace on the other end? This one can take up hours, especially on the weekends when I can wander around during daylight hours and view everything with a critical eye.

- That by the time I ever save up enough time and money to get back to Australia they’ll have changed it entirely and I won’t recognize it any more.

- That there are no interesting straight single men any more.

- Professional worries: fire and funding and legal issues, damage from sunlight, rogue moths, federal tax laws, storage space, how to display that bald eagle, and how to save my favorite elephant.

- I worry that ‘American Idol’ will never go away. It’s okay for now, but I do hope it’s not a permanent fixture in the world. Those poor people who honestly believe they can sing – I worry about their crushed egos. And about the tone-deaf world around them, which is apparently unfazed by the screeching sounds their favorite ‘singers’ make…

- That we’re going to go into another recession.

- Messy parts. Every morning when I ride the T I stand in front of people who were lucky enough to get seats and I look down on their heads. The number of messy parts on the heads of Boston’s workforce worries me a great deal. How will these people ever succeed or get promoted or be taken seriously?

- That I’ll never get to read a new Elizabeth Peters/Amelia Peabody book because I’ve read them all and she’s getting on in years and has lost interested in feeding my addiction.

- I worry that I’ve left something off this list.

Why Bother?

I saw a woman wearing these shoes on the train today. (She wore them with black socks.) The picture hardly does them justice. Metallic leather hippie clogs with studs, a bejeweled buckle AND a black patent-leather strap. Wooee.

This is wrong. A crime against basic aesthetic common sense.

Either you prefer comfort without benefit of style - which many of us can understand - or you prefer a ‘style’ comprised of any everything shiny.

But please not both at once.

It’s tacky.

And incompatible with the human eye.

Britney, Stop Being a Moron: A Simple How-To

Britney, stop being a moron. I write this because I am profoundly, deeply, devotedly not interested in you, and I would like to return to a world where the story of your sad, pitiful life doesn’t chase me from television to laptop to magazine covers with the dedication of a maddened attack dog.

I want you to get better, partly because it just hurts to hear about yet another of your mistakes, partly because I wish you would go away.

So listen up, sweet pea. What follows is a practical guide. You follow these instructions and things will get better. Guaranteed.

1. Stop thinking about yourself. You’re really not that interesting. And your poor mind needs something new to chew on after all this time. It’s bound to be like week-old gum in there by now. Think about someone else for a change. Like maybe your sons.
   

2. Learn to be a mom. It’s okay. Lots of young parents start out scared and ignorant, making all kinds of mistakes. But you’re past your use-by date on that excuse and it’s time to do your job. No one forced you to have those babies but you did. And now they’re your responsibility no matter where they live. If for whatever reason you don’t feel like talking to your own mom about this, get help from another mom. The world is full of good moms. Sadly, they don’t get as much press as you do, but I guarantee that someone you know is, has or knows a good mom. Good moms love to share the wisdom. And girl, you are in dire need of someone’s wisdom, since you clearly have none of your own. It’s free. All you have to do is ask.
   

3. Read a book this month. A real book. Go on. I dare you. It will be good exercise for your brain. Preferably a book about parenting.
   

4. Move out of LA. You need to go somewhere without so many paparazzi, like Iowa, South Dakota or provincial Portugal. Stop encouraging them. It’s like inviting ticks to feast on your blood. You need to recall a life lived unwitnessed and they need to get some other hamster wheel for their own entertainment.
   

5. Take singing lessons. You were allegedly talented once, although it’s been a mighty long time since anyone heard you sing something properly. Invite some know-it-all super-duper voice teacher to give you lessons, even if you think it’s just to show off your fabulous voice and put him in his place. Try singing something hard, in a clear true voice, on key. No sex-kitten breathy moany business either. Real singing. (Re-)Learn to belt it out.
   

6. Make something. Do something constructive. Paint, write, clean, plant, knit, bake, scrape, carve, tidy, scrub, cook, hoe, sew, vacuum, whatever. Even if it’s something you usually pay someone else to do. You need the benefit of seeing your own good intentions embodied in visible results.
   

7. Dance. I hear you’re pretty good at it. It also makes you feel like a million bucks. Maybe learn a new routine or a new kind of dance. Dance hard.
   

8. Stop shopping. Buying stuff is not going to make you feel better. And frankly, you’ve got enough.
   

9. Wean yourself. From coffee, cigarettes, paparazzi and shiftless men. There are books, programs, clinics and counselors to help you with this. It doesn’t have to happen overnight, but you need to take steps.
   

10. Look ahead. In a few years’ time (it’s shorter than you think), your sons will be old enough to think and talk for themselves. They will judge you more harshly than anyone else in the world, and they have the right to. Of all the people you’ve failed (except for yourself), those boys feel it the most. If you want to have even one leg to stand on in the pool of their good opinion, start acting like the mom they need you to be. Put down the cigarette, girl. You can do this.

Snow Day!

The snow fell overnight and into the afternoon.





A lunch-time view of the neighbors' backyards.












Hmm, what shall I read today?





















A useful tool... especially when used by someone else.... to clear the neighborhood sidewalks!




A little soap opera to while away the morning...? (Favorite quote of the day: "All we have to do is figure out how he's going to kill me after we're married and I'm home scot-free.")






















Snowy gorgeousness





Snow boots and the Boot-scraping Hedgehog









Mr. Dickens revels in indoor coziness