jumpingfish

1. Talking to Alan

I made the mistake, years ago, of telling Alan that I had explained to a roomful of fourth graders that it probably made sense that Pluto’s status as a planet was revoked. It made sense, I told them, because we now know that there are other bodies beyond Pluto, some larger than Pluto itself, orbiting the Sun in the dark, distant recesses of our solar system. I told them that Pluto is one of that vast group.

I said all this to Alan who was sitting across the dining room table from me. The words had barely left my mouth when his characteristic grin went grim. And his son who was also at the table almost jumped and with a startled look on his face turned to look at his father, waiting to see his reaction.

There was no particular reaction. Alan smiled (although as I recall it, his eyes had widened a bit), and he patiently said, “I’ll have to explain it to you sometime, Dave, when we have more time.”

2. Listening to Alan

Last Friday, Alan sat before the cameras, as he has been for a week, now. He and the New Horizons science team were talking to the press about the things they had learned that day from the most recent images from New Horizons.

They were all science in that press conference. Talking about methane ice and nitrogen ice and carbon monoxide ice. About flowing glaciers of nitrogen. About ice mountains and in-filled craters. About Sputnik Planum and Hillary Montes and Norway Montes. About Pluto’s atmosphere extending out 100 miles from the surface.

Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute link

And then there was a question directed to Alan that brought up that word, planet. Here is what he said.

You know, there’s been this controversy where astronomers and planetary scientists have largely been on different sides of it. I think that you and the public just like we on the science team can pretty well tell what we’re dealing with.

[At this point, for a brief moment, his eyes sparkled and his mouth betrayed a smile. And then he continued…]

It’s very hard not to call an object like this with this level of complexity, an atmosphere, with potentially an internal ocean, certainly with complicated seasonal cycles, and certainly a big complicated system of moons … uh … a planet.

I think I just got that explanation he promised.

Several years ago, I sat around a table in the evening with some of the most important people in my life. The incandescent light of the place glowed on our faces as it has so many evenings over the years.

I was talking about an uncertain job and a desire to teach. My cousin was trying to convince me to take the jump. “We have to get you to do this,” she said. But as we talked, I must have said something that revealed a bit of my worldview, my pessimism and cynicism. Because other cousin’s son looked at over me with wide eyes and said, “But David, you’d never be able to tell the children that!”

It was true. And I never took that jump, which is probably just as well, because I am deeply cynical and unforgivingly negative about the system of this world.

But this week. Oh my heavens, this week. The supremes several times spoke in ways that I never would have dared hope for. And there’s talk of the battle flag coming down from some of its many perches in the south. And the president stood before a full Mother Emmanuel congregation and gave an amazing eulogy.

He spoke with no teleprompter. He spoke with and nodded to and smiled at those around him. He spoke his words that made even a cynic stop and listen. He spoke amazing words. 

And at the end… At the end of those words he paused and gazed at his hands on the podium. He stood there quietly for a moment and then several moments longer. Quiet filled the sanctuary. And then he slowly looked up, and he began to sing.

The President of the United States of America stood in front of them, in front of us, and he began to sing Amazing Grace (video).

It was enough to bring tears to the eyes of even this cynical wretch.

1. 

The rain continued to fall, today. Hours of it. Delicious hours of it. Half the day. Delicious. At least the trees are likely of that opinion.

On the other hand, our neighbors a block down the street might see it differently. Runoff there tends to course down the center of their block, racing thru backyards on days like this, assaulting patio doors and flowing out the front if they’re not careful to construct passive (and active) waterworks to divert the torrent.

And Bill across the street probably doesn’t see it as deliciously as the trees, either, as the saturated ground forced us to call off our planned posthole-digging, fence-moving party today.

But the trees. (And it really is always about the trees, isn’t it?) The trees must find the rain that we’ve had to be a relief from the brutal drought of the last many years.

2.

Bang. Slap! BANG!

A loud slapping-swatting sound came from down the hall.

“Oh, oh,” I said. 

I heard a mumble come from the fair and industrious Trudy and the sound of triumphant footsteps crossing the living room floor.

“Was that what I think it was?”

Another mumble. “Yes…”

Then from the dining room, she added, “I don’t understand why those big roaches won’t just stay outside.”

Probably because they are fleeing the rain the trees find to be so delicious And probably because they are fleeing the toads whose song we can hear out back at this very moment.

It has been raining, of late. The tomatoes and the cucumbers and the peppers and watermelon and grass and trees and weeds are celebrating with a showy show — green, the likes of which we haven’t seen in many years.

According the the Lower Colorado River Authority, two weeks ago, 14 days precisely at this very minute, the Lake Travis lake level was 629.48 feet above sea level. At the moment, it is 630.54 feet. That’s a lake level rise of one foot. One foot in 14 days!

But here’s the thing of it. The historical average level for Lake Travis is 670.47 feet above sea level.

Let’s see, at the current rate of one foot in 14 days, let’s call that two feet per month, we only need it to continue raining as it has been for another … 20 months. 

Non-stop rainy, drizzly, stormy days for a year and a half. That’s all we need.

Outside it was cool and crisp. There was a slight breeze blowing. We took the dogs for a walk.

We took them for a walk into the night. Into the fresh air washed clean from the rains of the day. Down the block. Over to a vacant field where the wildflowers have been left to grow. To where the grass is high. Into the wild.

To say that Miss Izzy and Mr. Guinness live lives of leisure does not quite capture the reality of it.  During the day when we are at work, they can wander in and out of a doggie door. Out into the backyard and back into the house where they certainly nap in luxury most of the day. Out into the hot sun and then back into the cool house when they’ve had enough. But of course like any dogs, at the end of the day, they are eager to go out beyond borders of their little Eden, out into the wild.

For us this night, the wild was was not very far away. Just down and over a couple blocks. To a vacant lot where the grass is long and the wildflowers grow. Along the edge of a soccer field, on a path well-worn by soccer moms and soccer dads and soccer kids. Not all that wild after all, but wild enough for Izzy and Guinness.

They were pulling at their leashes. They were enjoying the cool and crisp, enjoying the breeze. Izzy stopped and raised her head. She gazed into the vacant lot, peering over the long grass at shadows in the distance. 

“Ok, miss Izzy. Let’s go,” I said, stepping off the sidewalk into the grass and the wildflowers.

She leapt off the sidewalk following me, bounding over the grass the was over her head. Bounding once. Bounding twice. Keeping her head up. Bounding thrice. And with that third bound, she decided that she’d had enough. She stopped and pulled me back to where we had come from, where the grass and the weeds wouldn’t scratch at her belly. Back from that little bit of wild. Back to the sidewalk, where Guinness patiently awaited her return.

He had no interest in the grass or the wildflowers or the shadows in the distance. And now, neither did she.

Because you see… we don’t have country dogs.