Last Saturday I got to cash in my prize. Sweetie even came out from MN for the tour! I also brought Andrew, JD, Laurie and their kids, Lorna, Stef and Doug. We had to get to the zoo early, but Marie, the elephant manager and our host, met us and brought us up to the Mezzanine.
When we arrived, Kandula was getting his bath.
The ladies, Shanthi and Ambika, were eating in another stall. They also were throwing hay onto their backs – apparently back-hay is very tasty:
Marie answered many of our questions. The kids wanted to ask about the elephant poo – how much do they poo in a day? Turns out, each time they poo, it weighs as much as a 7-year-old boy!
Next up for a bath was Ambika – Marie had to leave us, as she was in charge of bathing Ambika. So, Becky came up to answer our questions and supervise us.
After her bath, Ambika went to the “sandbox” stall, and started flinging sand on her still-wet back. Turns out this is good for their skin, because as the sand dries and falls off, it helps to exfoliate their skin.
We stayed in the barn for an hour and a half! It sure didn’t seem like it. After the tour, we walked around much of the rest of the zoo. We even checked out the elephants again – we just hadn’t gotten enough! Oh, and the keepers were out in the yard, and recognized our group…I’m sure that was a good thing, and not because we were terribly annoying 🙂
While I’m not the biggest astronaut and “human spaceflight” nut, I have always wanted to see a shuttle launch…or a rocket launch…okay, I wanted to see something big with fire behind it rise up into the sky. Given that the shuttle program was coming to an end, I began to realize that I needed to get on the ball and hustle down to Florida for a launch. A small number of NASA employees are elligible to get tickets to see the launch from the NASA causeway – you know the place with the giant countdown clock that you see on TV? Since these last several launches were so well-attended, a lottery was instituted for these car passes to the causeway. I started putting my name in last fall, but never got picked. So, I did what members of the non-NASA public had to do, I gathered up my family and dragged them down to Florida, and staked out a claim on public land for the launch.
Because this has been such a crappy and hectic year, I wasn’t able to drag everyone (or even just my husband) down for launches earlier in the year. So, we were stuck going to the last launch…when a million people were expected to descend on the Space Coast. No problem. We could deal with it, if only for a day.
To make this a real event, I also invited my Mom and my aunt, Maggie. Mom flew out to DC ahead of time to enjoy July 4th in DC, then the three of us (Mom, Andrew, and me) piled into the car early Thursday morning and drove the 15 hours to Cocoa Beach. We met up with my aunt in Cocoa Beach – she had flown in earlier on Thursday and checked into our hotel. None of us was optomistic that we would see the launch – Friday’s forecast for launch was just 30%, as was Saturday; Sunday’s was a bit higher at 60%. We had to leave on Monday, so if the shuttle didn’t launch over the weekend, we wouldn’t see it. No matter – we would make an adventure out of it either way.
Friday morning we set the alarms for 3:00 AM with a goal of leaving for Titusville and Space View Park by 4:00 AM. As we drove, I checked the weather and launch forecast again – it still didn’t look good for the 11:26 AM launch time; 30% for “go” was predicted. We forged ahead anyway. Along the way, we passed cars and trailers parked along the road, and if we squinted we could see the bright spotlights lighting up the launch pad. We wondered if we should also stop…but our plan was Space View park, and we were sticking to it.
Traffic wasn’t actually bad until we were very close to Space View park – we circled around a bit, and finally found a pay parking lot charging just $15 (which, frankly, we didn’t care about – we just wanted to park the car and find a place to park ourselves). We had packed to be there all day – we brought our airline friendly storage, blankets, chairs, a cooler with drinks and picnic fixings, picnic basket, bag of snacks – so we grabbed everything except the chairs, and trudged out to the park. It took a couple tries to figure out where exactly we should way, but eventually we staked our claim, laid out the blankets, and got ready to wait.
And wait. And check the status updates. And wait.
Each check of the shuttle status seemed to end with a version of the phrase, “the chance of launch remains at 30%”. So we were making plans for Saturday – deciding what we would do differently, where we might try to wait, and how early we might want to try to show up.
And as we waited, more and more people showed up. People were everywhere. Everywhere – including one dumbass and his (near-adult) boys on top of the Gemini program monument. Thankfully a few cops finally came through and made them get off of the monument.
Clouds threatened rain. We were “misted” on. Blue sky peeked in and out. We had no clue what the weather was going to do; if it would permit the launch today.
And waited. (Chocolate and potato chips might have been consumed before 10 AM.) And the crew continued to ready the shuttle, and the countdown and planned countdown-holds, continued. Each update, still with the caveat that launch was only a 30% probability.
Then word came down – they were exiting the final planned hold, with 9 minutes on the clock. Launch would happen! The weather cooperated, if barely, to permit the launch. We all waited, watching our clocks, listening to the flight control team on several radios. More people pushed into the park. I took Trevor and my camera and nudged my way up closer to the water – around the bush that threatened our view. We thought we were in the final 30-second countdown…the crowd counted (without a nearby radio). No launch. What happened? Then word came that there was a 30-second hold. The countdown started again (once a nearby onlooker pulled up the radio channel with the control room chatter). We counted along.
10….9….8….7….6….5….4….3…2
…
1
…
blastoff!
I held my camera over the heads of the crowd, aimed as best I could, and held down the shutter (in “sports, continuous” mode). It took a little bit for me to see the orange glow rising. The crowd was clapping, and we watched the glow rise with a cloudy-tail behind it. Unfortunately the clouds were low in the sky, so we soon lost view of the shuttle.
A few people started leaving, but the guys behind me kept saying, “wait for it, people, you don’t want to leave yet.” So I waited. And it seemed to take a while….and then I knew what they were talking about.
The sound. Or the feel. It’s hard to say. Certainly the sound of the rocket hit us, but it was more of a feeling. A rumbling deep in the gut that spread out to every part from my toes to my head. And it kept going for what seemed minutes, though probably less. And that is probably the memory I will carry from this experience – the rumble of a rocket thrusting a fragile vessile of human life into space.
Memories are starting to come through the fog, particularly when I started looking through my flickr stream. Last night I started realizing that everything I’ve done with Dad in the past couple months is the last thing of that kind that I will ever do with Dad. Had I known, I would have cherished them all more – but then, I suppose, they wouldn’t have been real moments with Dad.
On February 5, we were supposed to have a 100th birthday party for my Grandma Evelyn. She had different plans, passing away just two weeks shy of 100 years. So I decided that Mom, Dad and I needed to do something fun that day (partly, too, because I was leaving MN the next day). I happened to find the Hudson Hot Air Affair in Hudson, WI, just across the MN-WI border. This will forever be the last “event” that I went to with my Dad. I know I had a great time…I think he would say the same.
I find myself trying to remember the day. I know we got up waaaaay too early so we could be there for the mass ascension. I remember that it was very foggy that morning, and that I drove because Dad was feeling a bit dizzy. (This dizziness is what finally got him back to the cardiologist, and was almost certainly caused by his decreased blood flow from his bad heart. It didn’t go away, and kept him from working all of February.) I’m certain he and I were a bit snippy in the car because he either assumed I knew where I was going or because he was not giving me very good directions (can’t remember which).
Sadly the mass ascension didn’t happen, but many of the balloons still set up so that we could see them, take pictures, and talk with the balloon pilots. Honestly, I was just as happy seeing all the balloons on the field as I think I might have been with the mass ascension. Mom and I certainly made fun of Dad as he wandered off without us to take pictures. I also had the presence of mind to get Mom and Dad together in a picture with the balloons in the background. (Of course, there are very few pictures of me and Dad in pictures, because we are the family photographers…sigh.)
After walking around the balloon field, we went into the school (whose grounds were being used as the balloon field) where they had food and crafts for sale. We started with cocoa and treats to warm up. Then we perused the crafts. I think Dad bought something, but now I can’t remember what it was – might have been something to help him keep warm at work (he’s a carpenter, and often works outside in MN winters). I also picked up some jewelry for my mom and aunt (which they’ll get at Christmas, if I can find them again). I’ll admit that Dad was having some trouble getting around at this point – but we all just assumed that the heart surgery would take care of these problems…at least after his long healing process.
I suppose that if I had known that this would be the last big event that I went to with Dad that I might have cherished him more. Maybe I would have followed him as he wandered off to take pictures. Maybe I wouldn’t have snipped at him for not giving me clear directions in the car. But then…that’s what we always did, so in so many ways this was a typical outing with Mom and Dad. And maybe that’s what I should be cherishing right now. The real moments we had together.
The National Zoo was blessed this year with two litters of lion cubs, totaling 7 cubs. They started to let them out for public viewing Dec 18 for short periods of time. I dragged Andrew to the Zoo on Christmas Eve so we could see them.
Luckily the cubs are not cute at all…they’d have a hard time being taken seriously if they were cute. You can see for yourself in the pictures I took below:
That last post was more of a reference for me so that when I do another gingerbread project, probably next year, I’ll remember what recipes I used and a few tips on what worked. Now, I want to give just a quick tour of my final gingerbread lion habitat – heavy on images, light on text.
The primary purpose of the habitat was to house the seven new lion cubs, so I made all seven of them, along with their moms.
One interacting with a visitor and one sleeping:
Two were wresting and on was playing with a ball:
One was playing with Mom and a “fire hose”, and one about to pounce on her sleeping Mom
The lions needed a place to eat and drink, so I put the food in a animal rib cage, water in a boring trough:
For the visitors, I had a “savannah lookout”:
And I made a few visitors to see the cute cubs:
Finally, I wanted to spruce up the final entry, so I added a few decorative touches:
For several years I’ve mused about making a gingerbread project around Christmas. Each year I watch specials on the Food Network about gingerbread competitions, and I wonder if I could do that. The one project in the back of my mind is a mad scientist’s lab or an astronomers observatory – how cool would those be in gingerbread?
This year, though, was my year to jump in head first to the world of gingerbread. Why this year? Because the National Zoo in DC was holding a contest, Gin-GRR-bread Habitat Contest, to make a gingerbread habitat for the lions, including the 7 new cubs. The prize? A behind-the-scenes tour to meet the cubs! So the prospect of seeing the little guys (or girls) up close was my reason for getting into gingerbread this year. (I fear that I may be addicted now, but we’ll see if that holds up next year.)
This post is to document my process for anyone else who is thinking about getting into gingerbread and wondering how hard it is. The short answer is that it’s not that hard, but it takes a lot of planning if you want to do something overly detailed. I admit that I may be a bit of an overachiever, especially for my first project.
I started by making a model of my creation out of cardstock. This is crucial, but I forgot to take pictures of my model, and it is now all crunched up in my home office. The model should be the exact size that you want your project, and tape or glue it together to see where your seams will be. This will make sure that your measurements are correct and that the structure will stand. It will also make sure that you have all the pieces that you need to make whatever structure you’ve designed. (Of course, there are patterns online, so you could skip this step if you weren’t making an original design, like I was.)
The next step was to bake my gingerbread. I found this recipe in a quick websearch – follow all of their directions about cutting the pieces, baking, and trimming baked pieces. (Trimming baked pieces is important for structural integrity, though royal icing can cover a lot of flaws if necessary.)
I painted a few details on my gingerbread pieces before baking – the paint was gel-based food coloring.
With my gingerbread pieces made, I needed to cover my wooden base with something edible (because of the rules of the contest &150; if you’re doing this for fun, no need to be quite as complete). I decided on crisped rice bars (also know as “Rice Crispie Bars”, but I didn’t use the name-brand cereal, so we’ll go with “crisped rice”). I looked around on the internet to see what recipe was recommended for crisped rice bars when using them for sculpting rather than eating. The two things I picked up were: eliminate the butter and crush up part of the crisped rice cereal. So the recipe I used was: 10-ounce bag of mini marshmallows and 6 cups crisped rice cereal (before crushing any). Once the cereal was measured, I crushed up a few handfuls of it until it measured 4.5-5 cups. Melt the marshmallows and then stir in the cereal. The crushing makes the end product a bit more dense, which is good for sculpting.
I covered my wooden base with the crispie treats. I also wanted to make a moat for my habitat, which I thought I’d do with poured sugar or icing, so while it was still relatively warm, I cut a trench into the crispie-treat-base. You can kind of see it in the picture below.
Next up, I needed windows for part of my creation (the idea was to have a little “lookout” where visitors could feel like they were part of the lion pride…the bottom floor of the lookout was within the lion enclosure and had really big windows). I found a few ideas on the web for gingerbread house windows, many of which were not see-through. I needed see-through windows, since I wanted to put a few visitors in the lookout, looking out on the lions. The best idea for see-through windows was to use hard candy. This could be done using pre-made hard candy, placing an opened piece in a window hole, then baking it in the oven until the candy melts. However, I couldn’t think of any hard candy that would have melted clear, so I made my own. (UltimateGingerbread.com has a page of window ideas, including the hard candy recipe I used.)
After making the hard candy, I poured my windows (I put them on a silicone baking mat, which made them very easy to remove when they were hardened and cooled later). Then I quickly colored the rest with some blue gel food coloring, and poured it in my moat-trench to make water.
With my base ready, I could start assembling my habitat. I used the recipe for royal icing on the same webpage where I got the gingerbread recipe. I noticed that a few of my larger gingerbread pieces were a little unstable (I was afraid they would break), so I started by strengthening them a little with graham crackers.
Then started assembling the structure, starting with the inner walls (the ones next to the moat), then the outer walls, keeping it close enough that my walkway would work. When I put out the final walls, I discovered that I had cut them a little short, so that the area under the walkway would have been visible. I didn’t feel like baking more gingerbread, so I improvised with a stack of pretzels (visible in the picture below)…in the end, it really fit in with the overall look of the habitat, so I was happy with how it looked.
Then the lookout structure went up. I spaced it away from the left wall using the gingerbread piece that will be used as a roof for the lion’s shelter.
Before finishing the structure, I wanted to make my people figures. This was because I wanted to have a couple in the bottom of the lookout, looking out on the lions. So I made up some gumpaste, using a mix from JoAnn’s. I colored it using gel food coloring. From it, I made all 7 lion cubs, 2 adult lions (the moms), and a few people.
I also needed a staircase for the lookout before attaching the top. I did this using a rod pretzel and cut-up pieces of Trident gum attached with toothpicks. I actually added a little royal icing to keep the gum on the pretzel a little better.
Then I put in the staircase, and placed the people in the bottom of the lookout (also deciding on the placement of the lions). Then I put the main floor on the lookout, along with railings for the staircase.
Next came doing something with the ground. I had a large “rock” made from crispie rice treats that I covered in grey-colored royal icing. Then started on the grass…I originally thought I’d use the grass-tip on the icing bag, but found that the royal icing I made wasn’t stiff enough to do it right. So, I started with a layer of green royal icing (because I’d already started trying to pipe the grass in, so I just iced the bottom so it would all be even). In the end I used coconut colored with green and a little yellow coloring.
After adding the lions,
Then…the tree. Ahh, the tree. It looked very cool when I was done with it. Plan A had been to use bendy straws covered with sculpting crisped rice treats, but that failed utterly. Instead, I used a few rod pretzels connected with royal icing and toothpicks. My downfall was putting the tree on before delivering it to the judging site…or in using pretzels instead of a dowel screwed into the base and tightly secured…but more about that later. I attached it to the base, using a Nilla Wafer cookie to help stabilize it (oh how naive I am). For the leaves, I used corn flakes with green-colored royal icing mixed in. (I added more after the picture below was taken.)
Next, I finished the lookout, complete with a windows, railings and a roof.
Finally I added the finishing touches – the people, railings, benches, and some decoration along the base of the design.
I’ll write another post taking a tour of the completed habitat…here I just want to close with saying that the tree, unfortunately, didn’t make it the judging of the contest. First it toppled as I was carrying it to the car, so I replaced it when I dropped off my entry. But then, it toppled again less than a week later on display at the zoo. Boo.
One thing I learned was that I really need to trust my gut instincts. I had thought about waiting until we got to the zoo to attach my tree in the first place….that would have been a grand idea. Once the tree broke the first time getting into the car, I thought I should maybe not put it back on…that might have been a good idea, too, since the second time the tree toppled, it did quite a bit of damage, which I couldn’t fix. Even before I constructed my entry, I had considered using a dowel for the tree…that probably would have been the best idea.
Still, a very fun project, and I’ll certainly enter again if they have another contest next year.
I’m a day into being 39, and it’s not so bad. I’m not actually one of those people who dreads certain ages; there’s no point in it really. In fact, I look at the “big numbers” as excuses to get all my girlfriends together – since they’re scattered across the country, I need an excuse every now and then!
I have to admit that 38 hasn’t been the best year….parts have been great and parts have not been so great. I was looking forward to 38 because 37 seemed to suck pretty hard. Now, I can hardly remember why 37 was so hard because it’s been eclipsed by the curse of 2010.
I suppose 37 sucked because I had just graduated (which was a good thing) and was on a job hunt (which was the bad thing). It was a year-long hunt that only garnered three interviews (still, not bad compared to most recent science PhDs without PostDoc experience). And it looked like I was going to have to take a job in Mississippi…without my husband for at least the first year. 37 felt like I was in a holding pattern the whole year. I was just getting out of that pattern when I turned 38 – I had been offered a job at my current work, doing the part of my job that I loved, and had just started working full-time. The rest of my life seemed like it should fall into place nicely.
That lasted until January, when my kitty (Ares) was diagnosed with cancer. Another kitty (Duncan) had been losing weight. January through March were all about sick cats and getting them to eat. The house had a pall of sadness…it was bleak. Things turned around for Duncan when we figured out how often we needed to feed him. We had to wait until July to hear about Ares, but then the news was good – remission!
(I’m happy to say that my little girl, Artemis, has been healthy – we’ve told her that she is to stay healthy, because we can’t deal with another sick cat any time soon!)
On the plus side, we got a dog in May…you know how some women yearn for kids? You know, they have an ache in their hearts when they see others with kids? Yeah, I could give a crap about having kids, but I had that ache for a dog. So you can imagine how happy I was when we got Aurora.
I also accomplished a goal that I set in February – biking 50 miles in one shot. I honestly wasn’t sure if I could; I thought this was maybe too big a goal. And yet, in September, we did it!
I got to have a fun girl’s weekend with my BFF in June…wasn’t sure we’d be able to figure that out, given our busy schedules (and her cute little guy!), but we did it. Not sure when we’ll manage again, but I think we’ve proven that it can be done.
So, I guess that parts of 38 were very stressful, but there was some awesomeness as well. I’m looking forward to 39!
We decided to cap our biking year last weekend with the Back Roads Century ride, doing the 29-mile route. The ride looked like it would have pretty scenery and the course was described as “moderately hilly,” so we didn’t think it would be too bad…especially since we did 50 just a couple weeks ago.
The ride starts in Berryville, VA, about 60 miles from our house, so we got an early start. The day started out on the bad note when we were just 15 minutes from home and the “check engine” light went on in Andrew’s car. We debated for a minute, then decided that it would be bad if we were off in Berryville and the engine conked out. So, we turned around and moved all of our stuff to my car.
We got to the start point in pretty good time, though, and took off after re-filling our water bottles. The scenery was very pretty…once I learned to ignore all the road kill. In fact, the ride could almost be called the “Road Kill Century.” Oh well, look up, not down, because this is far better to look at:
This is also horse country, so there were loads of horses at all of the farms along the way. For a while it seemed that they were all shy of the road, though, until we came upon this pair:
Note the home burial plot in front of the horses. I really wanted to take a closer look at the gravestones, but refrained – I wasn’t sure how the homeowners would take it if they were to see me stomping around.
Around mile 12 there was a beautiful rest stop at the Burwell-Morgan Mill. We actually kept a fairly good pace on the first 12 miles – there were hills on the way, but most of the uphills were immediately preceded by downhills that allowed a little momentum into the uphills. At the rest stop There were snacks and a Charlie Casabona’s Trio, a trio that included a hammered dulcimer. We stayed a little while to refuel and rest.
After the rest stop, though, things got ugly. There was a scary downhill, which I rode the breaks on (because I couldn’t see the bottom and it was very steep). Of course, this was later followed by an equally scary uphill. I made it about halfway up the hill and then walked the rest of the way.
Yeah, and there were more hills, and bigger hills than were on the first leg of the trip. And then more hills, and then more, and then more. I made it up a few of them, but not up all of them. The second, and last, really big one was killer. Several bikers were walking up it, so I wasn’t alone.
After Andrew and I stopped for some water and caught our breath, we went on again…and I had a flat. Yup. Flat, flat, flat. Turned out that there was a small piece of glass in my tire. When we pulled out my spare inner tube, it appeared to be the wrong size. So, with the last few electrons in my phone, I called the roadside assistance, and we waited.
It took a while, but the roadside car came, and the guy fixed up my tire very quickly. Then we were an our way again. There weren’t any more really big hills, but by this time my legs were pretty much spent. I made it up a few hills (very slowly), but I also walked up a couple…I just couldn’t do them all.
When we made it back to our starting point, there was a big picnic. We picked up our t-shirts and water bottles, and then grabbed a well-deserved lunch.
I wore my helmet camera for the ride (and only missed a small part of the trip due to not turning it on), and made a time-lapse of our ride:
I haven’t been scrapping very much lately…as many of you know, 2010 has been a difficult year, so motivation to do much other than go to bed has been pretty low. Â Then, when I would want to scrap, I’m faced with this mess:
Yeah. I have to navigate the mess, a commitment just to get started. So…no scrapping.
Enter the scrapbook convention and The Original Scrapbox. After much discussion, Andrew and I decided that it would make both of our lives a little better – mine because I could scrap again with an organized area, and his because he wouldn’t have to stare at that mess in the living room all the time.
Here’s the result:
When I’m not scrapping
When I am scrapping
Going up to Laurie’s to scrap this weekend inspired me to finish getting all of my scrapping stuff put away (I’d done most of it as of a couple weeks ago, but still had a few little bits of stuff hanging out until this past weekend).
Finally got back to my 2006 pictures, doing a few at Laurie’s, and continuing Sunday and after work Monday and today. It feels so good to be creative again. Here are a couple of my favorite layouts from the past few days’ efforts:
Back on May 1 my husband and I biked up to Reston for the annual Reston Pet Fiesta. I told Andrew that if we went to the Pet Fiesta that it was very likely that I would want to take a dog home, and that I would probably not take no for an answer this time. He still said we could go.
Once we got to the Pet Fiest, we started at one end of the row of tents filled with dog and cat rescue groups, dog treat vendors, pet charities, and pet product vendors. We stopped at every rescue looking for a dog who would “talk” to me. We made it to the end of the row, with no dog prospects. I was disappointed, but knew that I didn’t want to go home with the wrong dog. We turned around and made our way back to where we started, and I kept stopping at the rescues in case there was someone I had missed.
When we were nearly back where we started, I saw her:
I can’t say what drew me to her. Maybe it was because she wasn’t running around like a crazed dog, unlike many of the dogs up for adoption. Maybe it was her eyes. Somehow, though, she spoke to me, and I went to sit with her. It became clear that she was a real sweetheart. The rescue’s owner suggested we take her for a little walk and get to know her. That’s where I snapped this pic:
Long story short, we decided to take her home. We had to bike home first then drive back to pick her up, and I could hardly wait. She seemed to fit right in:
We’ve had her now for almost 2 months, and she really does fit into our household well. The cats still aren’t completely sure about her, but they are all starting to come around in their own time. Duncan has refused to hide from the beginning, and he’ll walk right past her without flinching (though he will sometimes grump at her for being to close even when he’s the one who put himself so close). Artemis comes out occasionally, even braving walking past Aurora to get onto our bed at night. Ares? Well, he’s been hiding most of the time, but today he did get within a couple feet of a sleeping Aurora by choice.
It’s still a little unbelievable that I finally have a dog – I’ve wanted one since my childhood dog died in 1992. It wasn’t practical until now. And even now I wonder if we should have waited given that Ares is going through chemo and it’s maybe not the best time. But I was tired of waiting, and Aurora has turned out to be the perfect fit for our household. It might go without saying, but I’m so happy she’s a part of our pack now.
I'm an astronomer, cyclist, scrapbooker, reader, movie-goer, cat-and-dog-lover, wife, gamer, and all-around-wonderful-woman...not necessarily in that order.
