2:27 A.M.

The explosion rattled the windows and doors and echoed through the neighborhood. It was sudden and sharp and over in a couple of seconds. It caused an adrenaline surge because it was a surprise in spite of the fact we had been warned hours ahead of time.

It was Shuttle Endeavour returning from the International Space Station to Kennedy Space Center breaking the sound barrier as it descended southwest across the coast before turning north above the Everglades and lining up with the runway somewhere near Fort Lauderdale for the final glide in.

From there it goes to a museum on the west coast. Atlantis goes up next month and when it returns we will have no manned space capacity at all. Which is where we were in 1960. Except then the future was still ahead of us and we were just at the start of our big adventure.

A Good Question

So, Mom was sitting on the couch last night when she suddenly asked, "What day is it?" Sometimes she asks, sometimes she just guesses and sometimes, when she guesses, she guesses right. Last night was an ask.

My brother and I both said in unison, "It's Monday, Mom."

She said, "Really?" and I said "Yes. You had French toast for breakfast, yesterday, remember? Which makes yesterday Sunday and today Monday."

"Monday."

"Yep. All day."

Well, I wonder how that happened?"

Earning the Treats

This last platelet donation started off on a delicate note as the nurse in charge hit--or sideswiped, at least--a nerve on the way in. She and her assistant were joking about it being that kind of day and how she was doing that to everyone. I told her, in that case, I wouldn't take it personally but then they admitted they'd only had one other donor in before me so I told her I'd take it semi-personally.

My previous donation had started very well and we were about halfway through when the nurse had to leave to take care of a patient upstairs (the donations are done at the local hospital and the product is used almost immediately) and cursed me by saying, "Everything's going along fine. You haven't beeped at all." Whereupon, as soon as she was gone, I began beeping all over the place. (Fortunately, in addition to an assistant to monitor the situation, they give me a pointy stick which I can use to poke the touch screen of the apheresis machine with my free hand to restart it whenever the beeps shut it down.)

This session was just the opposite. I beeped almost continuously from the start until about two thirds of the way through when suddenly everything cleared up and flowed through to the end.

I declined the offer of a meal ticket in the hospital canteen "They have prime rib, today," and a T-shirt silk screened with a Hawaiian surfing scene. I did take a second chocolate chip cookie for my troubles.

Brain Teasers

We went to Mom's neurologist where her vital signs were very good and she failed all the tests. She couldn't come up with the year, month or day. (Hey, she spent eighty years in the Twentieth Century, of course she's more comfortable there.) She couldn't name the president or explain what was "different" about him. She did remember, after concentrating on it, which town she was in. And she completely failed the pop quiz at the end. (The doctor asks her to remember three words and then, later, when she least expects it, asks her what the words were. For the record: "magazine", "purse" and "picture.") I did like her response: "Why does he need to know that?"

The doctor renewed her prescription for the Exelon patch and we'll see him again in six months.

Idees Fixe

For the last four or five days Mom has been having little repetitive OCD sessions where she'll sit for maybe a half hour or more studying a catalog she got from Vermont Country Store. She's stuck on one page, and one offering, in particular. As a result there are several pieces of paper lying around near her all bearing one or more variations of the following inscription in her crabbed chicken-scratch handwriting: "Maple Syrup $19.95 Buttermilk Pancake Mix $8.95".

My brother noticed the other day and asked her "What's all this for?"

"I want these for Bob's birthday presents," she said. (Both of their birthdays are coming up next month, a week apart.) "They're a surprise."

"I'm Bob," Bob said.

She looked at him and said, "Oh, Damn."

We're thinking of just going to the supermarket for supplies and making pancakes for breakfast on both birthdays.

The Phantom Spaceship and the Invasion of the Lizard People

Endeavour lifted off this morning on its last voyage. In spite of the fact it was a perfect morning over Cape Canaveral and in spite of the fact it was a perfect morning over Cape Coral and in spite of the fact you can actually see the shuttles lift off from over 250 miles away, we saw nothing. There was a strategically placed cloud between here and there completely blocking any view of the launch. I ended up going back inside and watching the shuttle separate from the main tank on TV.

Meanwhile, on my way out to the front lawn to attempt to watch the launch I noticed one of the ubiquitous lizards clinging to the inside of the screen door. (As far as I can tell these little guys infest almost every square foot of the area and provide the base of the food chain for owls, hawks and other smallish omni-/carni-vores. Back when my brother had a dog, she used to chase them continuously,) I opened the door and nudged it off. It dropped to the walkway, went about three feet, turned and ran back not just into the foyer but straight on into the house.

When I came back in after not seeing anything, it was still plopped right in the middle of the living room. I tried shooing it out, nudging it first one way then another toward the front door and succeeded in getting it to hide under a recliner where it remains.

Vicarious Expertise

Well, it seems my many years of listening to "Car Talk" have finally paid off.

My brother has been having semi-regular problems with his "new" used truck usually ending with me driving out to wherever he is stranded to deliver a jug of gasoline. (In spite of the fact that I paid for a Carfax report on a vehicle he was looking at, he went and bought a completely different one without doing any serious research on it. Of the numerous relatively small annoyances happening with this truck, one is the unworking fuel gauge.)

This last time the truck died on him he claimed to have put fuel in it just recently. I told him, based on the symptoms and my NPR automotive experience (and from the sound of the starter grinding) that I thought it was either vapor lock or a dead/dying fuel pump. I had also suggested the fuel pump the last time it happened. He tried starting it with the gas cap off to no avail.

The next morning he took it to the shop and spent all day there as they had to cut bolts away to lower the gas tank and replace the fuel pump.

Called it!!!

Thanks, Tom 'n' Ray!