Torn paper

In art class yesterday, Aaron's task was to create a Yom Kippur-related piece using paper that is torn, not cut. So here is G-d striking down an evil man. Aaron says, "He's been evil for a long time; see how he's old?"

Therefore repent, all you evil old people - and younger ones, there's still time to clean up your act. Teshuvah, tefilah, and tzedakah can avert the severity of the decree!

Astronomy

Eighth graders at Jordan's school do a year-long project on a subject of their choice, and Jordan's choice is astronomy. He recently had to write a proposal, and he will eventually be conducting research, shadowing or interviewing professional astronomers, creating something astronomy-related...not sure what exactly. All of this is still in the formative stages. While he is musing, I thought of a bunch of astronomy questions that I thought might be accessible and interesting to a middle schooler, which are also interesting to me. Some of these I mostly know the answers to (though there would always be more to learn), and some of them are genuine questions of mine, as in, if I were doing a project on astronomy these are questions I myself would want to answer.

1. Are there planets outside our solar system? How can we tell? Can we see them in telescopes?
2. What kinds of things are out there in space? Stars, planets, and what else? How can we tell the different things apart?
3. Where are the big telescopes? Why are they in those places? Are there any problems or conflicts about the big telescopes?
4. Can you do astronomy in Seattle, where it is cloudy much of the time? What can and can't you do?
5. What is the life of an astronomer like? Do you have to stay up all night? Do you have to  live in a certain place?
6. Historically/globally, which people did astronomy, within a given culture? Did you have to be rich? Male? A priest? 
7. How about now, in the US - what kinds of people do astronomy? What are the problems with racism, sexism, etc. in astronomy?
8. Why did people do astronomy historically - what were they trying to accomplish? 
9. How about now, in the US - what are astronomers trying to accomplish? Are they trying to make the world a better place or help people in some way? Are they trying to get rich? Benefit their countries?
10. Spaceships and telescopes must cost a lot. Who pays for them? Why? Do they hope to get anything back for it? Where does the money come from? Who does it benefit?
11. I heard that astronomers just crashed the spaceship Cassini on purpose. Why? What was Cassini doing?
12. What spaceships are out there in space now? What is their purpose? Are they working? Will we crash them too?
13. Someone told me you can tell time by the Big Dipper. How do you do that?

I am not planning to pursue these questions... I have enough projects! But it was fun to think of them. I shared them with Jordan but I don't think he adopted them.

In closing, here is Cassini's last portrait of Saturn.

Ankle screws

Dale had surgery yesterday to remove the screws from his ankle. It would have been an office procedure with just local anesthesia (I was even invited to watch), but unfortunately the screws had broken, and the procedure had to be done in the operating room. The broken screws were not too bad; it didn't hurt (Dale didn't even know it had happened) and his doctor was unconcerned. This kind of screw only tends to last 6-9 months and in Dale's case it had been 7 months. However, it's still a disappointment. Nobody wants to go to the OR if they don't have to. 

Fortunately it all went very smoothly. The operation was on time, which was amazing to me, I was prepared for them to be anywhere from 2 to 6 hours late. (Last time they were 6 hours late.) The surgery itself was as it should be: four small incisions, two where they used a screwdriver to remove the piece of the bolt and two where they used something like an "easy-out" tool because it was the broken end of the bolt. We have learned that Dale needs extra time to recover from general anesthesia; he is dizzy and pukey when he wakes up, and no amount of fancy antinausea drugs seems to counter this; he just needs time. Now he's home and reasonably comfortable. He had to wear a boot at first, but only for a day while he had a bulky bandage on. Now he can switch to a more ordinary bandage and a regular shoe. He doesn't need crutches, and his pain is minimal. He took a post-surgery day off work to rest and then expects to be back to business. He is overjoyed not to be screwed any longer.

Even though everything was basically ideal, it's still a tiring day, being in the hospital. You can't have a loved one under general anesthesia and not be at least a little bit concerned about the outcome. Even just being surrounded by other people having surgery is kind of exhausting; so much illness and trauma and disability, waiting to be repaired. But thankfully we're fine. They gave us the screws to take home.

Identities

Part of Jordan’s school paperwork for eighth grade referred to the idea that many kids at this age try out “different identities.” 

Jordan: I don’t know what that means, “different identities.”
Me: That’s a thing where kids decide that they are a different kind of person than they used to be, sometimes all of a sudden. Maybe a kid who used to be all about sports suddenly changes his mind so that now he really just wants to read all the time. Maybe someone who didn’t used to do their homework decides that now they want to be a total homework-doer. Maybe someone who had been wearing colorful clothes decides to wear all black. That was me by the way – when I was in middle school, or I forget what age actually, I wore all black all the time. My mother used to ask me if I was going to a funeral. But I really just liked black.
Jordan: Only black?
Me: I remember that really every single piece of clothing I wore was black, every day. I don’t know why. When I describe it it sounds kind of extreme. But it was just what I liked right then. I guess I was kind of a goth. Then later I changed to being a hippie and wore rainbow tie-dye and grew my hair long. So that was a change of identity. Another time I had very light blonde hair that was short and spiky.
Aaron: Do you have any pictures of that?
[I don’t have many pictures of myself as a teenager, except for things like the junior prom. But I did find this picture of myself camping with my parents.]



Both kids: That is YOU??
Me: How can you even need to ask that? I look exactly the same as I do now.
Them: No you do not.

Oh well.