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!

The Last Night Launch

I know this not because I have been good at keeping track of NASA events since I last worked there in 1999 but because a friend recently returned from Cocoa Beach where he watched that launch. (That reminded me a little of the night launch of one of the astronauts who had been my student. He invited Donnie and me to join in his family in celebrating the launch at a reception where he joined us on video since all the astronauts on the crew were quarantine prior to flight. As it turned out, we never made it to the up-close-and-dangerous launch near the pad on Cape Kennedy because Donnie had to return to work, so we turned over our special passes to local friends, Linda and Robert, who took their grandson. It was a dream come true for them, and I always felt good that we were unable to attend because Linda died from cancer unexpectedly just a few months later.)

Well, back to the last launch, I suppose I am not the only person intrigued to know what “last” really signifies. Is it the last of a become-routine 20-year-old program that will subsequently come up with new and exciting events to come? After all, the International Space Station (ISS) is going to continue orbiting the earth with additional crews aboard, brought up by the Soyuz capsule from Baikonur, Kazkhstan, a capsule that is intensely small (I have been in the model at Gagarin Center for the Training of Cosmonauts at Star City, Russia where the cosmonauts and astronauts train, so I know just how small. I am under five foot, and even I felt wedged in.) Or is it now an opportunity for the space program to migrate to commercial companies? After all, all good things must come to an end, right? Or do they?

There seems to be a wide-spread fascination with last things. Look at all the movies with that word in their title: The Last Samurai, Last of the Mohicans (a book, too), Last Man Standing, The Last Starfighter, and many more. I am sure you can list a number of additional ones with no effort at all.

I imagine most of the “last” stories a sense of loss (in that something is going to be anymore) and a sense of gain (in that something new may be coming along it replace the last whatever it was). When the space program began the two superpowers of the world were the USA and the USSR. For decades, we were in a race for space domination. Then, along came the Soyuz-Apollo mission. The astronauts and cosmonauts found out that they had more common interests and concerns than differences, and the space programs found that they could progress more rapidly through collaboration than through competition. During the last decade of the Cold War, while the two countries sparred with each other, the space programs developed join programs, including joint missions to Space Station Mir and culminating in the ISS program, which always has a mixed crew—if the commander is American, the crew is Russian and vice versus. So, since hearing of my friend’s observation of the last night launch, I have been reviewing in my mind the history of space flight and especially the exciting years of 1998-1999 when I was contracted to put together a language program for the ISS program, due to launch a couple of years later. Isn’t reviewing what we do with last events?

There have been a number of other lasts in my life —- the last child, the last day in any number of locations, the last course before being earning a degree, the last day at various jobs, and more. None of them were stopping points but stepping stones to new adventures or a new turn in the journey of life. What have been the lasts in your life and where have they led you?

7 Quick Takes Friday #8

This has been another week of tripping. So much has sped by so fast that I cannot believe that it is time again already to contribute to the 7 Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. So, here goes with a quick review of the life of a gypsy, as I seem to have become.

1. Friday saw me in Georgia, where I did some training for the employees of a branch of our organization. They usually get trained trainers, people who are assigned to our training division, but I love training, so I had picked a particularly difficult problem for them and had put it into an interactive, case-study format for reflection and discussion. They clearly enjoyed it because they begged to work late to do more of the problems that I had brought. For me, doing some training along with my “inspection” time takes the sting off the visit by the “big boss” and lets me get to know our branch personnel as individuals. I did feel somewhat embarrassed before them because I come so rarely (once every 1-2 years) that I could not remember all their names, but they forgave me for that. They left with hugs and the comment that now that Lizzie lives close by perhaps I would come more often. It is nice to be wanted. It is nice to have people ask for more of my time, not less of it! It is nice to be viewed not as the “big boss” but as the “great supporter.”

2. The weekend was lovely. I spent it with Lizzie and Blaine just over the line in South Carolina, where Blaine seems to meet with some anti-Mexican prejudice but is holding his own nonetheless and claims to be generally happy there. Lizzie came to my rescue through a shopping trip. I always forget something when I pack. This time it was my underwear. Given a week-long trip, that definitely needed to be replenished. Princesse, the cat from Tunis (see Twitterlets on the sidebar) who had been flattened by a falling mattress was, Lizzie thought, ready to have the wire removed from her jaw, so we went together to pick her up from the vet after Lizzie had dropped her off enroute to my hotel. No such luck! A slow healer, Princesse has to wait another three weeks. She is not quite herself. She usually attacks visitors – I guess she thinks she is a dog – but she calmly let me pick her up and pet her. Perhaps having had to rely on humans for a lot of support the past two months will have mellowed her permanently. That would be a positive outcome although Lizzie says she thinks it is the feisty spirit that brought her through when the vet was uncertain whether she would survive. At any rate, the weekend was a great joy and success, except for the hour I spent with Lizzie at her gym – I still hurt! It is difficult for mothers to keep up with daughters. Perhaps I should not try!

3. Supper on Sunday was a special event. We ate at a Mexican restaurant in South Carolina, so we did: Lizzie, Blaine, the director of our Georgian branch, his wife, his immediate supervisor who had traveled east with me, and me. The branch director has always been cautious around me, and therefore it has been difficult to get to know him. His wife, on the other hand, turned out to be a pleasant extrovert who had no hesitation in plunging into any topic at hand. She, for whom my rank was meaningless, and I clicked, as they say, and that, along with the ease in atmosphere quickly established by Blaine and Lizzie, led to the director, for the first time ever, lowering his affective filter, enjoying the dinner, and losing his caution in my presence. That changed relationship was evident during our next-day meetings. He had apparently been reluctant to bring his wife. I am certainly glad that he chose on the side of lack of caution.

4. Tuesday found me in Alabama, where I met a long-time friend who has recently moved to a center that is co-located with our Alabama branch. That evening our branch employees and I went to dinner at a seafood restaurant -- well, almost went to dinner. Right after our appetizers were delivered, the restaurant kitchen caught on fire, and we were all chased out into the street. The fire trucks came while we waited and then finally the manager said it would be another hour or two and forgave us our bills. That was not the way I would have wanted to get a free meal! Actually, the situation was a tad more complex. Everyone wanted to march off to another restaurant as soon as we had egressed from the restaurant, but "ruthless ethical" me (as I have sometimes been called insisted that we wait until we had a decision from the manager as to whether we should pay for the meal. We ended up with a free meal (or start of it) nonetheless, but with clear consciences, which can be more nourishing than food.

5. While at our branch office, I ran into someone who worked in another corridor, a very special corridor not occupied by anyone from my organization. It was a special program for school students about space travel. NASA helped set it up, and astronauts come periodically to help make presentations on space to school students. (NASA's involvement in K-12 education impressed me when I was working at NASA-Houston ten years ago, and it still impresses me.) This particular project had put together a relief of the Mars surface in a special room made to feel like you are in outer space, and the students build their own rovers. The overseer of this project had a background in engineering. How ideal! More ideal -- he exuded excitement in the possibilities of children to explore outer space either later in life as astronauts or right now on a mock planet.

6. After 11 hours of flying, I made it back home to California Wednesday evening -- yippee! -- just in time for an evening of Bible study with the group I meet with each week that includes Sr. M, a family who attends the Spanish mass at Old Mission church, several active attendees of the English masses, and two fellow secular Franciscans. Ah, that is what I love about California, the blending of various population groups, where we can learn from each other and grow together. Wednesday night we also had a special Bible scholar guest. While it had been a long day, following my late-to-bed-early-to-rise sleepless start of the day as a result of our late-night Tuesday search for a restaurant that was not on fire, the interesting discussions that ensued at our study group kept my attention flowing when I otherwise might easily have ebbed into sleep.

7. Today I had off from work! Yeah! I love when I have off from work and am in town because I can attend the daily mass. I had to drop off something for our Thanksgiving outreach at the parish office, did not talk as long as often I do, and so ended up in the chapel a few minutes early (a rare occurrence). Sr. M grabbed me as I came in and asked if I would do the reading. (Sure. I always remember the readings better when I am the one doing the reading! Who doesn't?) After mass, I spent a leisurely afternoon over coffee (for her) and milk (for me) with a fellow parishioner whom I had not seen for a long time. She is, in fact, the parishioner who always helps out with RCIA and had been very supportive for me during my time in RCIA. She told me that she had signed up for clean-up after the church-sponsored, town-wide Thanksgiving dinner next week because I am always on the clean-up crew and it had been too long since she had had a chance to work with me. Since she usually helps with something other than clean-up, I felt very honored. Finally, the perfect day off ended with catechism class. Since I had not expected to complete my work in Alabama so quickly, I had not expected to be back in time to teach catechism, but, lo, there I was! My wonderful co-teacher had the lesson plan under control, and I could relax and enjoy interacting with the teenagers. (I just found an interesting book that I am eager to begin including in our class work: If God Loves Me, Why Can't I Get My Locker Open?).

And now, I think I had better follow the drift that has been carrying me while I have been writing this post forth and back, to and from the land of slumber. At this point, I shall only sally forth into slumber and wait until morning for any return to a life and day that will start with 503 emails to be answered (I peeked!)

Good evening -- or good day, as it may be in your part of the world, and my God bless you whatever time it is!