Long Stem Rosette

A present for Valentine's Day.

Explanation: The Rosette Nebula (aka NGC 2237) is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers. But it is the one most often suggested as a suitable astronomy image for Valentine's Day. Of the many excellent Rosette Nebula pictures submitted to APOD editors, this view seemed most appropriate, with a long stem of glowing hydrogen gas in the region included in the composition. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this rose are actually a stellar nursery whose lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars. The stars in the energetic cluster, cataloged as NGC 2244, are only a few million years old, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula is about 50 light-years in diameter. Happy Valentine's Day!

Credit & Copyright: Adam Block (Caelum Observatory) and Tim Puckett

Two more posts today.

Happy New Year

Click to enlarge
Glad to be done with 2007. Hoping 2008 will be better all round. Election magic would be nice.

A Few More Memories of Christmas

The year Richard was born, my husband was working as a department store Santa. So, here they are together. Richard was a very unusual Santa's lap baby, in that he didn't cry. I think it was because he recognized Dick's voice. Since I taught the kids that Santa was a story that wasn't real, this is the only picture of either of them on Santa's lap that exists.

I've always liked this picture -- it is so unlikely that the person under that outfit is a tall, slim, 21 year old. A young actor getting experience at everything he could, rather than an older man down on his luck.

There was the year we had to attach the top of the tree to the curtain rods with guy wires because that year's crop of kittens, Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, kept climbing it and pulling it over. You can't see the wires here, but this was the tree and that is Fafhrd and Mouser playing with an ornament they've knocked over. And, yes, I know that Fafhrd is supposed to be very tall and the Mouser short and sleek -- and when they were fully grown, my boys fit the myth. Meanwhile, Mouser was older than Fafhrd, and so bigger for a while.

There were the college years, when the tree was decorated with origami cranes and strings of popcorn and cranberries. I think that this is the one the lot owner wouldn't let me pay for. The kids were so young, Julie less than one, that even though the naked tree was there when they went to bed, they were amazed at the decorations when they woke up. They were so delighted with the decorations we didn't get around to presents until about mid-morning.

There was the tree in Fairbanks that Julie brought home at the beginning of Christmas break that got frozen on the bus and proceeded to drop needles by the fistfuls, until it was half bald by Christmas morning. The last day of school before break, the teachers asked if anyone knew someone who needed a tree, and Julie said that we couldn't afford one and so they gave it to her. We could have afforded one, really. However, I'm not too proud to take a perfectly good tree.

The year that I was waiting tables and the tips were so good that the presents threatened to lift the tree to the ceiling it looked a lot like this. This tree was at my parents' house a couple of years before we moved to Fairbanks. And, at this point Richard and Julie were the only children in the family, and it was all for them. All the presents and all the attention.


And then there was the year we were driving to Big Delta from Fairbanks and ran into a white out and had to turn back. We ended up having sandwiches at the only restaurant in town that was open and feeling very grateful indeed. Not only was someone feeding us, which in my exhausted state from driving for three hours at 6 mph with full knowledge that the lives of my children depended on me was more than I could have done, but the skid that could have smashed us into the mountainside or over the cliff hadn't. For a while there I had been trapped in the nightmare that we had wandered into the Twilight Zone and nothing existed except for the seven feet of snowy road that I could see directly in front of me. In one way, that grilled cheese sandwich was the best Christmas dinner I ever ate.

There were the wonderful "Granny Christmases" that Maya, Julie, Ted, and I had when I was in California over Thanksgiving. We had Granny Christmas for several years because I had a month vacation at Catholic Community Service. Then I left there, and my next two jobs not only did I not have a full month vacation but I was needed in November. Sad. I loved those November vacations. A week with Julie, Ted, and Maya. A week with Kate. Two weeks with Mama and Aunt Flo. Thanksgiving dinner with Ted's family -- a wonderful experience with relatives coming out of the woodwork.

Click on photos to enlarge

Christmas Meme

This one came from Scarlett, who started this meme herself just for us, and calls it “12 of my favorite things”. Here are her rules:

Please share 12 of your favorite Christmas things: they can be memories, traditions, songs, presents, beliefs, whatever it is about this season that you love.

I'm supposed to send it to 12 people, but I'm just going to open it up to anyone who wants to continue it.

1. The year that Richard had just turned 12 and Julie was a week away from 10, I bought them new bicycles. I put cards on the tree with hints, which led to hints, which led to hints. They followed their hints around the house and finally out to the garage, where they were so busy looking for another hint or a wrapped box that they didn't see the two bikes until I gave them a few verbal hints.
2. For years Christmas dinner was curry. When we returned to California from Fairbanks, we had Christmas with my parents, which was a traditional meal. So, we had curry on Boxing Day (December 26).
3. When Julie moved out and was dating Ted, they went to his parents for Christmas, and Richard and Kathy and I went to visit Julie and Ted for Boxing Day -- and, of course, had curry.
4. One year in Fairbanks, a friend of mine spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with us. The two of us sat up all night listening to music and making snacks and talking. Finally it was so late that I realized that I couldn't stay up till the usual time for opening presents, and if I went to bed right then it would be noon before I was willing to get up again. So, we woke the kids, opened presents, and had breakfast before I went to bed.
5. When the kids were very young and I was going to college, I put them in the stroller Christmas Eve and went out to see if there were any cut price trees. The lot owner helped me pick out the nicest tree that would fit in my apartment and then wouldn't let me pay for it.
6. When the kids were younger than that, I used to hold Christmas on December 27 so I could get them presents on the 26th -- they were too young to know the difference and I could get them much better presents at the after Christmas sales.
7. When I was about 14 Daddy had a pair of diamond and ruby ear rings made and froze them in an ice cube. Then, before we started opening presents, he brought a glass of orange juice with that ice cube in it to my mother. She had to be told to look in her glass, since she was paying attention to us kids open our presents.
8. For my 12th Christmas I received a wood burning kit and a paint-by-numbers kit, which was a good thing because that day I broke my ankle with the skates I'd received. Daddy was home with scarlatina, and so the two of us wiled away the hours of our convalescence painting and burning wood together. Since I couldn't go out, I couldn't get home late, and since I couldn't do chores, I couldn't get in trouble for that, either. It was probably the best time Daddy and I ever spent under the same roof.
9. I used to love going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, even after I became an atheist. But then the Catholic Church stopped doing Latin mass, and I never bothered to go back. There was something about the Latin, the singing, the incense -- it really made me feel connected to the time in my childhood when I went to Catholic boarding school and began every morning with mass.
10. These days, Mama and Aunt Flo are living on fixed incomes and helping my niece Kristie out more than they should, so they tend to skimp on their own nutrition. Julie, Ted, Richard, Kathy, and I get together and send them a box of steaks. They enjoy them for months.
11. The year that Mama was engaged to Daddy and Aunt Flo was engaged to Uncle Wes, when I was nine, unknown to each other, the two men bought Mama and Aunt Flo the same satin lounging set -- one was red and one was blue.
12. Before my father died, we would always travel from where ever in California we were living that year to Modesto, where my parents had grown up. We would stay with my father's mother, and spend part of Christmas day with her and part with my mother's parents. I was the only child in the family at the time, and most of the presents under the trees at both houses were for me. I was the center of attention and I loved it.

Twelve Days of Christmas Tree © Peter Y. Chou, WisdomPortal.com

Six Pack Abs Can't Shake Like A Bowlful of Jelly*

Go to Keep Santa Fat and sign the petition to stop this nonsense and let Santa get on with the season. Remember, as the campaign says, "It's not Xmas if he's not XL."

The Keep Santa Fat campaign will donate one pound of food to Second Harvest for every signature on the petition.

* Keep Santa Fat.com

Portrait of Saint Nick courtesy of Keep Santa Fat.com

Wow, What Meals We Had*

I thought that since I had told you about the time I figured out how to get Colleen to holiday dinners on time, I would tell you my other holiday solution story. Particularly since it also involved recognizing that what I was doing wasn't working and shifting from complaining/talking to acting.

My grandfather's side of the family hails from the deep south. Lovely people in many respects, but very southern about race. My mother couldn't seem to get over the fact that other races existed and called them by various derogatory names. Over the years Forrest, Colleen, and I all three tried to get her to stop. We told her it humiliated us. That it made her look petty and ugly. That we couldn't believe she could use such cruel words. Nothing worked.

And then one Thanksgiving, when the table was full of relatives and my friend Linda, Mama said something about a black man, calling him what no one should call another person. And, instead of telling her how I felt about it, I was struck by inspiration, and said, very loudly and very clearly, two compound nouns of a sexual nature that I don't think had ever been spoken at my mother's table before. Shocked silence. Mama then took up her conversation, as though my venture into Tourette's hadn't occurred. Pretty soon she said something about a Mexican woman, calling her an equally nasty word. And I repeated my earlier comment. Well, I think I reversed it this time -- the first time it had been xying cder, and this time it was cding xyer. Again shock, again carrying on as though it hadn't happened.

However, a couple of days before Christmas Mama called Linda, who had been invited to share that meal with the family, and asked her if she could control my mouth.** Linda's answer was that the only person who could control my mouth was Mama, which Mama didn't get.

So, there we were at Christmas dinner, same cast as before, and Mama used her black person word again, and I repeated my original response. This time Mama decided that she had to do something about it and said, "Joy, you mustn't use words like that." And I responded, "Mama, I only use them when you use your filthy words. But, from now on I'm going to use them every time you use your filthy words. Because, no matter how much my words embarrass you, it is nothing to how much your words embarrass me."

Problem solved. My mother may still use those words, but not in front of me.

* Change of title from Julie's comment.
** How Mama thought she could do that I have no idea.

Holidays from Hell

You must visit Julie's blog and read The Ghost of Thanksgivings Past and discover what holidays were like for us when we lived in California and went to Mama and Daddy's for Thanksgiving. You will quickly realize that it was not a Norman Rockwell painting. For one thing the visual is all wrong. Daddy was 20 years older than Mama, a short, skinny man with naturally black hair his entire life. Mama is still slender and would die before she let her hair go white; indeed she has no idea of how white it is because she hasn't let it get there. And the turkey didn't look like that! No, it was all dried out and falling apart.

In addition to the sarcasm and short temper and the overcooked food that tasted of cigarettes, there was one misery that stood out for me and made me want to spit nails. You have to understand that when I was growing up, if I was one minute (I am not exaggerating here, one, 1, a single, a unitary, one minute) late, I was in trouble. Usually Daddy took my library card away, but sometimes I also got grounded. So, I tended not to have much patience for people who were allowed to be late in his house.*

And Colleen was invariably late. Dinner would be scheduled for 2:00. Everyone else would be there by 1:10, since it is rude to arrive just in time to eat. At 2:00, Colleen would be nowhere to be seen. At 2:15 Daddy would start to carp and complain and generally carry on and make everyone miserable. Talk about how inconsiderate she was, how she always expected the world to stop for her, how no one else counted in her universe. This would go on until she arrived, usually well after 4:30.

During this time I would suggest that we eat at 2. That if Colleen arrived and had to eat alone she wouldn't repeat the behavior the next holiday. And how would Mama and Daddy respond to this sensible suggestion? Why, they never responded at all. I could have not been in the room for all the notice they gave me. One year I had mentioned this to Forrest's new wife a week or so before the holiday, and when it was happening she looked at me and said to Forrest, quite loudly, "Joy's right. They totally ignore her when she suggests that we not wait for Colleen." And they ignored her, too!

And when Colleen finally arrived, everyone would act like she was on time, we would gather to eat, and the parents would say not a word. If I said anything, she would look at me like I was crazy and give some excuse for why she couldn't get there on time and act like it was just this once, and Mama and Daddy would scold me for making a fuss. And I would quietly boil, having fantasies of butchering the three of them and dancing in their guts. How I managed to get through the holidays the first few years we were back from Fairbanks, I don't know. I was certainly reminded why I had left California in the first place and really regretted going back.

Finally, after the kids and I had been back in California about two years, and we had gone through this routine for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter twice, I had enough of it. Realizing that doing the same thing and expecting different results really is crazy, I changed my tactics. That Thanksgiving I called Mama a few days ahead and asked when dinner was going to be served. And she said, 2:00.

"Fine," I told her. "I've made reservations for 2:15 at Black Angus for my kids and me. If our butts aren't on your chairs by 2:10, we will go have dinner there. I am never waiting for Colleen to grace us with her presence again in my life."

About 45 minutes later I got a call from Colleen. "Joy, Mama just called me. She says Dad is tired of us kids being late for holiday dinners and he says that at 2:00 he is locking the door and if we get there late we can stand on the porch and watch everyone else eat. So, be sure you're there on time!"

There are three points about that.
1. Daddy was so generally unreasonable and demanding that of course Colleen would believe Mama when she cast him as the villain.
2. Colleen never was late for a meal in that house again.
3. While I had thrown Colleen to the wolves, she called to save my bacon.

*Except Aunt Flo, who is always late, one couldn't be upset about that and besides, she would never be late to a meal because she would be there early to help.

Norman Rockwell, Thanksgiving

Armistice Day

"Armistice Day is the anniversary of the official end of World War I, November 11, 1918. It commemorates the Armistice with Germany, signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front (World War I), which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month." While this official date to mark the end of the war reflects the ceasefire on the Western Front, hostilities continued in other regions, especially across the former Russian Empire and in parts of the old Ottoman Empire."

My grandfather, Percy Herndon, continued to fight in Siberia. He never talked about the war, at least not to me. I only know that he fought the Red Army in Siberia and his part of the war didn't end as soon as the Western Front did.

Currently, we celebrate Veterans' Day, honoring the veterans of all wars, on the Monday closest to November 11th.

Cartoon: Clifford Berryman, 1928. American Treasures of the Library of Congress.
Photo: P.F. Herndon, and his sister Julia.
Text: Wikipedia.