7 Quick Takes Friday #62

See more 7 Quick Takes Friday contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

It is hard to believe that a whole week has passed, but it has. Now I sit on the sofa, as I do nearly every Friday night, with Murjan, my cat who refuses to be more than a few inches from me whenever I am home, beside me and my computer on my lap, the television running in the background. My, but we are creatures of habit even when we have irregular work lives! (Or, at least, I am.)

1. Surprise! Last Friday night as I finished up 7 Quick Takes, I was surprised by a knock at the door. It was a mother-daughter duo from our prayer group. They had just finished an evening of the rosary routinely said by a group from the Spanish Mass. (I attend the Spanish Mass at times, but the rosary group is a little challenging for my uneven Spanish skills -- reading, writing, and listening are no problem, but speaking is generally accomplished with some effort.) Lupe and Rosa, Donnie and I spent the next couple of hours, sitting on our deck as the sun dove behind the mountains and house and disappeared. I don't get much chance to just be lazy with friends, so it was a real treat.

2. On Saturday afternoon, I walked back out onto the deck again, having spent the morning cowering in the house while the sun beat down at the level of 110 degrees. Little worked for cooling off. Ice cream melted before I could get it into the bowl. So, I sat in front of the fan and spent my "found time" reading, another activity I don't get to do often enough. When I finally made it outside, I noticed that the large, 3-wick candle we had placed on the table on the deck was a molten pool with three wicks floating in it. Now, that's hot!

3. Sunday was just as hot, so once again we cowered inside during the day. After evening Mass with Doah, we were sopping wet with sweat because the air conditioning in the church we attended in Doah's nearby city had stopped working. (Our mission church has no air conditioning and needs none; it was built in the days when people knew how to make buildings that stay cool or warm based on their structure.) Feeling a real pull, therefore, toward an air-conditioned location, we decided to watch a movie. We chose Super Eight, a rather interesting science fiction flick. Ah, the wonderful feeling of cool air! When we walked out of the theater in the late evening, we were greeted by -- cool air! Yes!

4. On the Fourth of July, Shane and Lemony came over for a BBQ. It is always wonderful to see the grandkids, Nathaniel and Nikolina, especially since they both had problems at birth that required much medical care. Nathaniel will be out of the woods entirely in three years, and while Nikolina may never have all the internal organs that others have, she is doing very well: at age two, no one can tell from looking at her or watching her that she has any abnormalities at all. At the end of the day, we sat on our deck, high up on our hill, and watched the fireworks from our little town and from the nearby city. A satisfying end to a satisfying day!

5. Work, crazy work! That is all I can say about the rest of the week. I never even made it to my office on Tuesday and Wednesday. I had so many meetings in the headquarters building that by the time I was done, the day was also done. Thursday and Friday I was in my office, but for some reason every single appointment or meeting began late. The meetings this week, unlike the typical boredom I have to put up with, were fascinating, even if I did arrive late to every single one of them. As I explained to my secretary, the logistics of the days were totally out of kilter but the content of my days was marvelous.

6. Because of not making it into my office on Tuesday and Wednesday, I ended up working very late into the evening on Thursday, catching up. One of the last things I did was get into a discussion with one of the senior managers about the topic of humility (long story as to why that topic, related to one of his employees), and he told me about a Tolstoy story on the topic that he loves: "Otets Sergij" (Father Sergius). We spent a couple of minutes tracking it down on line, and he forwarded the URL to me. All the way home, I looked forward to sitting down with a cup of tea or can of tonic (soda to those not from New England and pop to those from the Pittsburgh area) and, relaxing, read the story. Alas, when I opened my computer to go to the URL, I found a note from someone I work with, reminding me a about a report due the next day, about which I had forgotten. With sinking hopes of a relaxing end to the almost-over evening, I sat down to write the report, then I decided to rebel. Enough is enough! I went to bed. For the first time in a long time, I got a full seven hours of sleep and woke up feeling pampered this morning!

7. NASA. As I sit here, reflecting on this week's high moments (well, the salient moments; they are not always "high"), I am simultaneously watching the history of NASA's shuttle from first flight to today's final flight on a show called "When We Left Earth." Seeing the faces of the astronauts and cosmonauts, and especially hearing their voices, is a treat and a sadness. I worked with many of them a decade ago, both on their Houston campus and in Star City, Russia, and one of the astronauts invited me, together with his family, to a private viewing of his launch from Cape Kennedy. Among these memories is the sad one of the disintegration of the Columbia over Texas. On that shuttle were four of my former colleague. To this day, I remember vividly what happened because one of the photos in my office, given to me when I left NASA, was a view from space, signed by the astronauts and cosmonauts with whom I worked, among them Rick Husband, the commander of the Columbia. Every day, I see his signature. It is impossible for me to forget this tragedy.

Well, I did not mean to end on a somber note. Let's all look forward to a joyful weekend!