The Great Pumpkin Run

Oh my goodness, I haven't blogged since April! 2019 was a crazy year. We bought a house, Dave severely sprained his ankle, and work was even crazier than the year before. I'm determined to get back to blogging in 2020. So here it goes...

To deal with stress and anxiety, I started running again. I hadn't done that for years, so I decided to set a goal and seriously dedicate myself to meeting it. I signed up for The Great Pumpkin Run 5K in Allentown.

starting gate

The race was in the beginning of November. I signed up in September. My goal: To run the entire race without walking. Walking three miles is easy. I love hiking. I can walk two or three times that distance. So I had to run. My first step was to download a free "couch to 5K" running app. It had an interval training plan that I could listen to while I ran. It cued me when to walk and when to run, building up to running longer and longer, three days every week. I got my running music playlist together and started.

almost 3,000 participants

After the first run, I walked in the door, collapsed, and told Dave I was going to die and I couldn't do it. He said it would get easier. It did! I kept at it every week and felt myself getting stronger and in better shape.

The race was getting closer, but I hadn't run a full 3.1 miles yet. I was close, and I hoped I could do it on race day.

getting toward the finish line

The morning of the race, it was 20 degrees and I wore four layers. This is the Lehigh Valley in November, after all. It has snowed on Halloween here.

The race started with a giant hill. Ugh. I hate running up hills. There was an incredibly steep hill at the very beginning, and the entire first mile was uphill. I told myself to keep going because I WAS GOING TO RUN THE ENTIRE RACE. This hill was not going to defeat me after I worked so hard to reach my goal. I slowed my pace and kept going up the hill.

Yay!

I did it! I ran the entire race. People were cheering on the sidelines along the route through Allentown, and that felt great. At this point, I was listening to audiobooks instead of music while I ran, and I wasn't even paying attention to the book during the race. I was taking in the experience. It was fantastic. I was truly proud of myself for doing it.

I finished my first 5K in 37 minutes and 27 seconds. That's not great, but it's not bad for a first time. Next time, I want to do better.

Pupdate November 2018

Jedi continues to be his hyperactive, sweet, loving self. During the day, he hangs out in my home office with me while I work. Around three p.m., Jedi wants attention so he starts knocking things over. He knocks over books, photo frames, my box of the Endless figurines from the Sandman...anything in range. One day he swiped at these books with his paw, turned around, and looked at me.

Hellooooo! I demand attention now.

Crazy beagle. Sometimes I want a change of scenery so I sit on the couch downstairs with Jedi while I work. This turns into a constant battle. I like to sit on the end of the couch next to the end table. I can have my tea within arm's reach, my phone, etc. Jedi likes this end of the couch, too. Any time I get up, he immediately makes his move.

The look on his face...

Dave wanted to get Jedi used to swimming. Of course I got Jedi a life vest. He wasn't super thrilled about this development.

He didn't hate it as much as I thought. That's it for Pupdate November 2018!

Tea Runners rocks

I drink tea every day. Lots and lots of tea. I am by no means a tea connoisseur or a tea snob, but I do like a good cuppa. When I found out that tea subscriptions exist, I thought, sign me up! So I did my research and ordered a monthly subscription from Tea Runners. They seemed to have a good selection process, a good variety of teas, and generous portions for the price. I anxiously awaited my first box.

I got the all black tea box. You can also get herbal tea and the original variety box. The February teas are delicious! Earl Grey is my favorite tea so of course I like that one. I'm drinking the Wild Arbor Black right now, and wow. The Ruby Black was also good. I haven't tried Valentine Breakfast yet.

The portions are generous- even more so than I was expecting. I should get many pots of tea from each of the four packets. I like how each packet has information about the tea, steep time and temperature, caffeine level, how much tea to use per 8 oz., and whether it's pure or a blend. The box came with a nice note for the month, too. I can't wait for next month's teas!

An interesting side note: One of the people behind Tea Runners is Jewel Staite, Kaylee on Firefly. Go Browncoats! That's not why I picked Tea Runners to try a tea subscription, but it was a neat surprise.

Best wedding cake ever!

Check out this wedding cake.

It's my wedding cake! Dave and I went to Hawaii for two weeks in January, and we got married. We didn't tell anyone about this until we got back. I will blog about the Hawaii trip at some point.

My mom wanted to have a party for us, since we didn't have a reception. I vetoed this idea but suggested my parents could have a cake for us at Easter dinner.

I knew the cake was going to be a caramel cream cake from Sweet Eats, but I never expected it to be the most perfect wedding cake Dave and I could ever have, including both of our favorite ships from Star Wars (mine = Millennium Falcon, Dave = X-Wing).

My parents special ordered the topper with our names and the date of the wedding, and they bought the little ships and put it all together themselves. Sweet Eats just wrote "Congratulations Jen & Dave."

Dave and I were completely surprised and floored by this amazing Star Wars cake. I couldn't have come up with something this good if I had done it myself.

KOTOR 2

I finally finished KOTOR 2 today. I was insanely excited when they released this game for Macs, since I loved the first one, Knights of the Old Republic. It's a Star Wars game, and in this one, unlike the first, you start out as a Jedi. I had heard that this game was kind of unfinished because its release was rushed, so I installed some fan-made extra content (the Sith Lords Restored Content Modification) that was supposed to smooth out the rough spots and fix fan complaints. Here's my character, Coraline Magnus.

Coraline Magnus

When I first started playing it, I couldn't stop. I'd stay up late. I'd play any chance I got. And then I stopped. Because here's the thing- in KOTOR 2, there are times when they force you to play as your companions. I'd rather just play as my main character. When yet again I thought something exciting was about to happen and it cut to me having to play as someone else again, I got a little disgusted. So I took a bit of a hiatus through the fall, while I moved and settled in to the new place. I took it up again this week and finished. I was almost done when I stopped.

It's a great game, and I enjoyed it. Using Force powers and wielding a lightsaber is a lot of fun. While I didn't play without the modded content so I can't compare, the end was completely anticlimactic. I'm asking myself, that was it? Hm. I'd still recommend playing. The journey is great. But the payoff just isn't there at the end.

Siri's bedtime stories

I talk to Siri. So do lots of other people. In case you don't know, if you have an iPhone, you can talk to the phone and it will answer your questions or perform certain tasks for you. This "digital personal assistant" is Siri. My Siri sounds like a guy, but you can have a woman's voice, too.

There are plenty of posts out there about all the crazy things you can ask Siri and Siri's funny responses. But I've never seen these...

Sometimes I ask Siri to tell me a story, but I never tried asking for a bedtime story.

Huzzah! I tried again the next day. What would Siri tell me now?

And another?

I love Siri.

KOTOR

This post has been a long time coming. One distraction leads to another, and things end up getting put off longer than they should. So instead of saying, “I recently played through the best game ever,” instead I’ll say…A couple of months ago, I finished playing through the best game ever- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, or as I’ve come to know it, KOTOR.

That's me!

I used to be heavily into video games when I was a kid. I played Atari with my cousins until I got blisters and joystick claw hand, and once I got my Tandy (Who knows what that is? Yay for us Tandy owners!), I played things like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. I LOVED those games. Somehow I never got into console gaming or newer computer games. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it seemed like those games were all about fighting and I preferred games in which you had to figure things out? I don’t know. I do enjoy Asteroids, after all, and there’s no thinking there.

Dave knows that I used to play video games. And of course he knows the deep love I have for Star Wars. He had been telling me that I should check out a computer game called KOTOR. Sure, I thought. It’ll be like the other games I’m not interested in. Shooting and fighting and boring. Dave was certain I would enjoy KOTOR, so he bought it for me out of the blue. (He’s good like that.)

Yep, so he was right. I was immediately hooked. This game feels like Star Wars in a way the prequels never achieved. You pick your character and soon become a Jedi (that’s when the game really kicks into high gear). You explore different planets and talk to a wide range of different people and aliens. You go on side missions while working toward completing your main goal. It’s an adventure game. It’s a role-playing game. There are challenging parts, but it was never so hard that I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do next.

There is fighting, but once you become a Jedi with Force powers, it’s AWESOME. I decided to focus my character’s strengths on Force powers instead of fighting skills. I still did a good bit of fighting with a lightsaber. But I also blew people back with Force waves and persuaded them with my mind powers. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

You can choose to be a light side Jedi or a dark side Jedi. I went with the light side, and I eventually got enough light side points to be a master of the light side, which helped when I used Force powers. If you’re a dark side Jedi, you start to look withered like the Emperor.

I had to make myself take breaks from the game. That’s because I’d sit down to play the game after work, and the next thing I knew it was midnight. It sucks you in. The other characters are interesting and have their own backstories and issues. And Carth! Carth rocks. You can take two characters with you as you travel around, and I almost always chose to bring along Carth. He amused me.

So thanks to Dave, I love KOTOR. There’s a KOTOR 2, but they don’t make it for Macs. I think I found a way around that, so hopefully soon I’ll again be wasting more hours than I should in the Star Wars universe.

Update!

I've been seriously neglecting the blog over the past month. Between the holidays and an extended dogsitting stay, I haven't had much time. Let me start the new year with some things that have happened since the last update, random-style...

Celtic Classic

I'm going back to September for this one. Several friends and I went to the Celtic Classic in Bethlehem, PA. I kept calling it Celticfest for some reason, but that's not its real name, even if that is the website. This event was a lot of fun. I can see going to this every year. We went on Saturday. There was a parade, performances, and Highland games. Okay, so my favorite part was the half and half- half Guinness and half Harp. That's good stuff. My boyfriend says that is gross. He is wrong. I will admit that I prefer to mix Bass with my Guinness, but Harp is good, too.

Wildwood

My cousin and I went to Wildwood one day in the summer. We gorged on Mack's pizza and birch beer. YUM. This led me to finding out that Dave had never been to Wildwood. So he and I went down for a day. We walked the boards and ate tasty boardwalk food. It's fun going places with him that are familiar to me and seeing them afresh through his eyes. And so...

Philly

I went to Philly and did touristy things! Again, Dave had never done this stuff, and it's old news to me. But walking around Philly was fun. I even went to the boring Liberty Bell. And there is photographic evidence.

We ended the day meeting up with a friend and her kids at the Academy of Natural Sciences. We saw the ever-present yet still-awesome dinosaurs and a special exhibition on chocolate.

Florida

I took the quickest trip I've ever made to Florida. My cousin moved back to NJ, and I helped. I flew down, we packed her car, and we left. We drove straight through, which is something I've done in the past but definitely forgot how LONG it takes. It was longer with two dogs in the car. But I'm glad she is back now, so it was worth it.

Cape May

Some of my relatives from Indiana came to visit. We planned to meet up with them and some other relatives in Cape May. Before meeting up with the family, Dave and I wandered around the town because yep, he had never been. It was fun. I have mentioned in the past how I like Cape May in the offseason. It's peaceful and beautiful.

That's me on Higbee Beach. We walked around the state park and went to see the ocean and the shops on Washington Street, too. (Higbee Beach is on the bay side of Cape May.)

Peddler's Village and New Hope

These places aren't new to me, but they're always fun. What was new was discovering that the chocolate shop at Peddler's Village has one of the best things I ever tasted- chocolate covered s'mores. That's s'mores covered in an additional layer of chocolate. Okay, so when I can't get to Peddler's Village, I've found that the smorez bark from David Bradley Chocolatier is just as good, if not better.

Walking outside when it's probably too cold to be outside

Dave and I like to go for walks. It's hard to give that up when it gets cold. There's a park near where I live that we go to a lot, and we discovered a hidden lake there.

This was in the fall when the leaves were turning. It was very pretty. We also often like to walk around Merrill Creek. Last time we went there was snow on the ground. I think we're pretty much done with our outside excursions until the spring.

Kenobi is still adorable

My parents gave Kenobi a sweater for Christmas.

I thought this pic of him wearing his sweater/begging me for treats needed to be shared. He is doing well for an almost 14-year-old beagle. He has kidney disease and heart disease, but his arthritis medicine has made him like a young beagle again, and at dinnertime you'd never know he was an elderly dog. I adore him, as ever.

Downton Abbey costume exhibit

My mom and I watch Downton Abbey. We discovered that there is a touring exhibit of some of their costumes, so we went to Winterthur in Delaware to see it. It was fantastic! I especially loved the hats. I want to wear 20s hats. Lady Mary's costumes were absolutely gorgeous.

Misc...

To wrap up, some random things...I have been playing the game KOTOR, and I love it. That's Knights of the Old Republic. Dave thought I'd like it a lot, and he was right. I've also been enjoying more tabletop games. I binge-watched Wil Wheaton's TableTop, and now I can't get enough. Luckily, Dave is a willing participant in my reawakened love of gaming and doesn't mind at all that I'm going to ask him to play games he has never heard of like Carcassonne and Forbidden Island. I used to play a game called Diplomacy in high school. I probably shouldn't have told Dave that it got to the point that my friends wouldn't let me play as Great Britain anymore because I'd crush everyone with my mighty British navy.

That's it for the update. I'm sure as soon as I publish this post I'll remember things I wanted to include. Too bad! Next time- Doctor Who or food. The Whoathon has been delayed, but not forgotten.

Summer of Jen - a Jen update

I sort of got away from posting personal stuff on my blog. I've been blogging about Doctor Who and baking, but not much else. Here's an update.

I'm not even sure where to start. My boyfriend is wondering why I haven't mentioned him at all on my blog. That's not completely true. He was one of the friends I mentioned when I wrote about going to New Hope. I tweeted about him once, but he isn't on Twitter. It was something about feeling like a Capulet dating a Montague. He's a Yankees fan, and I'm a Red Sox fan. Anyway, I suppose this post will be about stuff we've done together.

The above photos were taken at a diner in his hometown. We both look thrilled to be having our pictures taken! Yes, we're both wearing Doctor Who shirts. Dave's Yankees hat/Doctor Who shirt combination makes me think of the rare Hodgman nerd/jock convergence. I think Dave prefers photos of both of us together.

This is a shame because I like taking pics of him, especially when he isn't looking.

The above photo and the two below were taken on Mount Parnassus. We both love doing things outdoors, so we've been doing a lot of that the past few months. Dave took me on a climb up a mountain. Hm, more like a giant hill. Or a tiny mountain. A literal climb. You aren't exactly supposed to go up there. It's blocked off by a fence. However, the fence has been cut through, and we climbed up.

There's a nice view from the top. I was in the zone taking photos, and I think he was worried that I was going to topple off the edge. He tried to keep me away from the cliffside as best he could.

One time we went to Spruce Run. We stayed up all night, hit a diner at 4 a.m., then drove out to the park. This is why I look like an insane person in this photo. I hadn't slept for quite some time.

The benefit of staying up all night is that it's much easier to catch a sunrise. Dave found some skeletal fish, so I posed with one.

That's his hoodie. He's a tall guy. Very tall. Much taller than me. One day we drove out to Sandy Hook. I had never been there. We walked for hours and hours, and we saw New York from the beach. We've been to Merrill Creek a couple times, too. It's fun to walk there. It's a beautiful place. We have season passes to Dorney Park. There is nothing like going to Dorney on a weeknight for a few hours before they close. No lines! I'm spoiled now. I don't know how I'm going to wait for two hours to get on a ride again when we've been waiting five to ten minutes to get on roller coasters and not at all for other rides. I love the log flume. I don't know why. It's just fun.

One weekend we headed to the Poconos. I had been to Bushkill Falls with my cousin, and I thought Dave would like it.

There are a handful of waterfalls and several cool trails. It's a great place. How do I know Dave is the right guy for me? We start walking around and he says that it looks like Ewoks should be wandering around the place. (Another clue that Dave is perfect for me? He finds a documentary about the Revolutionary War on tv for us to watch, and we start talking about plate tectonics. Ah, we're so wonderfully geeky.)

Dave taught me how to play a game called quoits. I had never heard of this game. I'm terrible at it, but it's a lot of fun. I do tend to get ringers, but otherwise, I am bad. I need more practice. Oh, and I don't have any other pics, so I'm going to keep using ones from Bushkill.

Dave has introduced me to the wonder that is iced coffee, so now I'm addicted to Wawa mocha mint iced coffee. This is probably payback for me addicting him to Dunkin' Donuts Oreo cookie coolattas. We've spent some time hanging out with our mutual friends who live in North Jersey, which is always a good time. We've hit the farmers' markets in Easton and Quakertown. 

Maybe I should say a little bit about Dave? He's smart and creative and geeky and funny and wonderful. He is also thoughtful, considerate, kind, and a genuine good person. He is incredibly supportive of me. He's super cute and sexy. :) He's awesome. 

How about some non-boyfriend related news? Kenobi is showing signs of his age but otherwise doing well. I have discovered that the UK tv show Being Human is amazing. I haven't been out taking photos too much, and I miss it. Update over! Time to return to baking and Doctor Who.

Grandmom is awesome

I wrote a blog post last year on how awesome my grandfather is, so it’s about time I wrote about how awesome my grandmother is. I’m not sure where to begin. My maternal grandparents have been a huge part of my life. I mentioned some of these things in the post about my grandfather, but they bear repeating. I think this post might turn into a disjointed series of stories, so here we go.

When I was younger, my grandparents often hosted extended family dinners on Sundays in the fall (and other random times during the year). My grandmother is a fantastic cook and baker. Her meals were delicious, as were her homemade desserts. I say that I inherited my culinary skills from my grandmom. Here’s something that exemplifies the kind of awesome that my grandmother embodies. We always had dessert after these meals. Sometimes it would be tapioca or rice pudding. I don’t like tapioca or rice pudding. Did I go without dessert? Nope. Grandmom made vanilla pudding especially for me so that I could have dessert, too. My grandmother’s meals and desserts have become the stuff of legend in my family. 1-2-3-4 cake, chocolate cake, crescent cookies, mini cheesecakes…lasagna, cavatellis, vegetable soup, escarole soup (that’s Italian wedding soup to non-Italian families), eggplant parmigiana, scalloped potatoes…anything she ever made was the best ever of that dish. My grandparents hosted holiday dinners, too. My parents, aunts, uncle, cousins, and I gathered at their house for Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. My grandmom cooked everything. When the holiday dinner was turkey, my grandmother cooked an extra turkey breast just so everyone would have leftovers to take home. This is how thoughtful and awesome she is.

I was a good student. From when I was small through high school, there were very few times when I didn’t get straight As. I’m not bragging- I’m just stating a fact. My grandparents took me out to dinner after each marking period/semester to celebrate my good grades. I loved those dinners with just the three of us together. They were great. Anyone who knows my grandfather knows that he is a TERRIBLE tipper. He hates to tip. I think his barber gets a quarter for cutting his hair. I’m actually serious about that. Grandmom was always in charge of tipping when we went out to eat. Pop-Pop says that the waiters and waitresses love when they see Grandmom coming into the restaurant because she tips them so well.

When I was in college in Rhode Island, my grandparents drove up once every year to spend a weekend with me. They met my friends. We went out to eat. It was fun, and it meant a lot to me. My grandparents used to visit my cousin in Florida every year, too. They drove all over the place! My grandmother kept a diary of each trip that she and my grandfather took together. I always thought that was a great idea.

My grandmother goes everywhere with dog treats in her handbag. All the family dogs go running to Grandmom because they know what she has for them. It’s pretty funny. The same goes for when the dogs go to my grandparents’ house. Kenobi runs to Grandmom like a nut and ignores everyone else until he gets his treats. That’s treats with an “s.” More than one.

Many Saturday mornings, Kenobi and I go with my mom to spend time with my grandparents. Kenobi sits on Grandmom’s lap, and they both love it. We chat and watch The Golden Girls. It’s fun.

I don’t usually put photos of others on my blog, but I don’t think my grandparents would mind me sharing these. I took them over ten years ago at my cousin’s wedding in Florida. The DJ invited all the married couples to dance and gradually asked couples to stop according to how long they had been married. My grandparents were the last ones on the dance floor.

I could say that my grandmother is kind and good and wonderful, but then I’m just listing adjectives. She has had a series of health problems in recent years, yet she never complains about it. She still loves to laugh. She is still the nicest person in the world. She and my grandfather still kid each other like always. I’m so very lucky, not only because my grandmother is so wonderful, but also because she and my grandfather have been there for me my whole life. I’m grateful for that.

On being a curmudgeon

I was talking with some friends about how things were going in my life, and I said something along the lines of "things are marginally better for the time being." The past few years have been rough, but stuff is starting to turn around a little. I'm not where I want to be, both literally and figuratively, but sometimes I can see myself getting there. That's an improvement on where I was even six months ago. Anyway, one friend suggested that this comment would be great on Jen branded greeting cards. Another friend suggested I blog about it. I present Jen's greeting cards for curmudgeons.

A disclaimer- my dog is incredibly loving and cheerful, but occasionally he gives me grumpy old man looks when I go to take his photo.

He was much younger in the first and third photos. Now he is an old man beagle. In the above photo, you can see how his face has turned grey.

Kenobi and I can be curmudgeons together.

Random quotes I like

Here are some random quotes that I've either come across recently or that have been brought to my attention again.

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.  I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature."  

Of course I start off with Austen!  This is said by a character in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey.  I love everything about this quote.  Personally, I don't let a lot of people in.  My close friends mean the world to me.  I would do anything for them.


"I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me."  

I'm a big fan of Shakespeare.  I generally prefer the tragedies and histories to the comedies, but Much Ado About Nothing is one of my absolute favorites.  This quote comes from that play.  Beatrice says this to Benedick during one of their verbal sparring matches.  The entire play is filled with funny, clever, biting dialogue between the two of them.  For me, their banter makes the play.  I adore Beatrice.  She is independent and smart.  She holds her own against Benedick.  Beatrice rocks.

"I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick. Nobody marks you."

"All I want is the taste that your lips allow."  

I like how this encapsulates, in one beautiful turn of phrase, lusting for someone.  I'm talking purely physical lust.  (Sorry family- this is what you get for reading my blog.)  This quote comes from the song "Give Me Love" by my guilty pleasure, Ed Sheeran.  In my defense, I only like when he rocks out acoustically.  I don't really like his songs as they are released as overprocessed singles.  Ooo, but when this cute ginger Brit is by himself with his guitar- good stuff.  Ah, that is embarrassing to admit.


"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."  

A friend sent this Desmond Tutu quote to me a few days ago.  I tend to be quiet and reserved, and he was encouraging me to speak up for my beliefs.  It's similar to Edmund Burke's "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."  As for the Burke quote, I've seen several variations on it, and I could not find a definitive answer as to which is correct.

That's it for quotes!  Next time- food or Doctor Who.

Let's go to Europa

Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, has said that he wants to go ice fishing on Europa.  I do, too.  I started thinking about this again recently after watching a stupid movie.  I thought it was going to be a good space flick, and it ended up being a lame found-footage movie.  The surprising thing about this movie was that it got a lot of the science right.  There was even a clip of Neil deGrasse Tyson and his ice fishing comment.  Europa is one of the moons of the planet Jupiter.  It's slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, but it's big enough so that when looking at Jupiter through my small telescope, I can see it along with Jupiter's three other large moons.  Pretty cool.

Europa (top right) with her sister Galilean moons; image courtesy NASA/JPL

I am an insane astronomy junkie and got completely sidetracked while looking for NASA images of Europa.  I could look at NASA photos for hours.  I'm mesmerized by the planets and their moons.  Anyway, the above is a composite photo showing Jupiter's four largest moons, called the Galilean moons because they were discovered by Galileo.  Clockwise from the top left, they are Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede.  They're beautiful.

So, Europa.  Why is Europa so interesting?  Europa is one of the two top candidates for finding life outside of Earth in our solar system.  (Enceladus, moon of Saturn, is the other.)  Europa is covered in ice.  The same extreme tidal forces from Jupiter that make Io the most volcanically active piece of real estate in the solar system generate enough heat in Europa to melt the ice and create an ocean of water under the surface.  Every place on Earth in which people have found water, no matter how hostile the environment, people have found life.  The ice on the surface of Europa is several miles thick, which should be thick enough to shield living things from the massive amount of radiation emitted by Jupiter.  Microbial life.  Possibly multicellular life.  In my wildest dreams, the Europan equivalent of fish.  I'm not talking about intelligent life that could communicate with us.

Europa's cracked ice surface; image courtesy NASA/JPL

The premise of this bad movie I saw was that astronauts were sent from Earth to land on Europa and seek out life.  I wish!  We don't have the technology right now to do that, and NASA has become so risk-adverse that they wouldn't even if we did.  We could send a robotic lander, though.  Several missions like this have been proposed only to be shot down in favor of yet more Mars missions.  Once MAVEN reaches Mars, NASA will have two rovers on the surface and three satellites in orbit.  NASA has become fixated on Mars to the detriment of the rest of the solar system.  There is not one mission in preparation with funding that would visit the outer planets.  New Horizons is on its way to Pluto, and Juno is on its way to Jupiter, but nothing is in the pipeline to follow them.  I was disappointed that in the latest round of approvals, a mission to Uranus was shelved.  It takes a long time to plan and execute these missions because of the vast amount of time it takes to travel so far away.  They need to get on this before I die!  I'm serious.  If they approved a mission to Neptune or Uranus this year, it probably wouldn't get there until I was retirement age.  I'm already never going to see people walk on Mars or even the Moon.  I'd like to see more photos of Neptune and Uranus and find out more about these mysterious ice giants.  The only mission to visit them was Voyager 2 in the 80s.  We have a couple of photos and a little bit of data from flybys of each planet.  That's it.  So many questions!  No answers.  No way to get answers without going there.  

I digress.  Europa.  I firmly believe there is some kind of life there.  Those ruddy stains on the surface- scientists believe that they come from the subsurface ocean bursting out through the cracks in the ice.  What is making it that color??  As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."  A mission to Europa could find it.  I came across something interesting- Objective Europa.  It looks like this group wants to make the bad movie come true, as a one-way trip.  Go for it, Objective Europa!  There's no way people could survive the intense radiation that deep in the Jovian magnetosphere, but since they aren't planning on coming back, I suppose that's not an issue.  Not that I think Objective Europa will happen, but we need something to inspire people.  The current generation of astronauts and engineers saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon.  That was supposed to be our first step out into space.  We need to get out there if our species is to survive.  Low Earth orbit isn't good enough.  There's a reason the Drake Equation has a spot for how long civilizations last.  Odds are, they don't.  Ah, nothing like pessimism to end a blog post.  So, here is a random astronomy factoid that rattles around my brain.

The Moon is far away.  

Yeah, Jen, of course the Moon is far away, you say.  No, but it really is far.  Let's say that a basketball is the Earth and a tennis ball is the Moon.  That's to scale.  How far away would they have to be to accurately represent the distance between the Moon and the Earth?  Stop and think about your answer before you read on.  Most people would probably hold them one to two feet apart.  Not even close.  Think of your average classroom.  I'll hold the basketball and stand at the front.  You take the tennis ball and walk to the back.  That's about right- almost twenty-five feet away.  See, the Moon is far away.  So the next time the media is freaking out because an asteroid is passing between the Earth and the Moon, don't worry.  The Moon is 238,900 miles away.  That's a lot of space.  

I love photos like this.  Image courtesy NASA/JPL

Hyperbole and a Half and depression

I like the blog Hyperbole and a Half.  It's funny.  It's creative.  It's brilliant.  The author of that blog, Allie Brosh, has a book coming out this month, and I'm looking forward to reading it.  Two of her posts really resonated with me.  They were more serious posts than usual.  The topic was depression.  The thing is, when you have depression (Suffer from depression?  Struggle with depression?  Those seem like clichés.), sometimes it helps to know that someone else knows exactly what you are going though.  It's not that I want other people to feel like this, but seeing that you aren't alone in your suffering (okay, I said it) and seeing that they can keep going, that helps.  Depression is so isolating, even a "wow, I do that, too" moment, a connection with a complete stranger, is something.  It's important that talented, creative people with a voice, like Allie Brosh and Stephen Fry, speak out about depression.  I think it's hard for people who have never had it to understand what it's like- how it's more than feeling sad.  People have told me to "snap out of it."  If only it were that easy.  Anyway, these two posts do a great job of relaying what it's like.  They are worth a read:  Adventures in Depression and Depression Part Two.

Since this subject is such a departure from my usual blogging, I will punctuate this post with photos of the gentleman beagle.

He wrapped himself in my TARDIS blanket. I did not do this.

I think one of the reasons I admire Allie Brosh's posts about depression so much is that it's so hard to write about this.  Where does one begin?  It's something that's all-encompassing.  It's not always the same.  It's feeling black depths of sadness or feeling nothing- like being in a numb fog.  A character in a book I read years ago said how at least bi-polars got to experience the highs; the best we depressives get is approaching normal.  Alas, that line stuck with me, but the book's title did not.

The beagle wants belly rubs.

My depression has been with me so long, I can't say when it began.  It has certainly been all of my adult life.  There are times when it is worse than others.  There are times when I feel almost normal.  It has been particularly bad of late.  That's the kind of bad that sucks the joy out of things you normally enjoy, that makes you not want to get out of bed because there is no point.

He likes to eat stuff outside and pretend that he didn't.

It has been worse.  Thoughts of suicide often accompany the worst periods of depression, and I have not been immune to that.  When the pain and the self-loathing and the feelings of worthlessness are overwhelming, you get to thinking, well, I just want it to be over.  I just want peace.  I don't have a good answer as to why I haven't done it.  I never had the guts?  I couldn't be bothered because of the enormous apathy that accompanies my depression?  Because I'm an atheist, so I know this is the only shot I get at life?  Because my friends send me top ten lists of why I am awesome?  (Yes, that has happened.  I have some great friends.)  Those are all factors, but I think that the real reason is that because as hopeless as I feel sometimes, there is a nagging in the back of my brain- you can't do it because things might get better one day.  It's like that grain of sand at the end of The Neverending Story.  It's all that's left of Fantasia, but it's enough.

Find the beagle.  He is in there.

What else does depression make me do when it's at its worst?  I hibernate in my bedroom.  I turn down offers to do things with friends or family just so that I won't have to see people or go outside.  I curl up under the covers with my dog and want to be left alone.  I don't have the energy to do anything.  It's not always like this, mind you.  And sometimes even when it is, I force myself to go out and do things, and it makes me feel a little better.  Seeing my friends helps.  Traveling helps.  Taking photos helps.  Watching the Red Sox win helps.  Okay, I threw that last one in because they won game one of the World Series tonight.  GO SOX!

Again, he did this himself.  He likes my blankets.

Shall I end on an optimistic note?  That would be so unlike me, but I'll try.  I have been letting depression dominate my life lately, and that's going to stop.  I have a plan as to how I'm going to accomplish my goals.  Hell, I HAVE goals.  Now is the time for me to fangirl a little more over Hyperbole and a Half.  Here are two of my favorite posts.

The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas

The Alot is Better Than You at Everything

They're funny!  Read them!