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Saw this in The Stranger this morning, in Anna Minard’s morning news column. As she said:

Watch This Interview with a Tornado Survivor: Just watch it, I’m telling you.

Wow:

Until I saw this, I had no idea that the sun rotates. Beautiful.

At the Crocodile! Live and in person!

An amazing show. The music was awesome. And I haven’t been on the fringes of a mosh pit for a long time. Love! After the show we lingered outside, talking for a little while. Then headed over to the coffee place. Then when we were headed to the car, finally away from the crowds, one of us noticed that Rob Wright was walking along right in front of us. Someone said, great show, thank you! And he acknowleged that. And someone said something else maybe? And he acknowleged that too? And then I said, no, stop! And he turned around! And I gave him a hug and said, “I saw you twenty years ago and it was memorable, and tonight was even better.” And he acknowleged that too. I can’t believe I managed to do that without bursting into tears.

While I write this I’m watching the episode of ST:TNG wherein Geordi falls in love with the holodeck version of Leah Brahms. I keep seeing these shots of this treacherous asteroid field. But a few nights ago I was at the theater showing of “The Best of Both Worlds” (Aaa! What a night!) and during the extras, we found out that some of the early asteroid fields were filmed using granola. Ha! Granola! And sure enough, the asteroids totally look like granola!

In other words, it’s been a good week.

Pop quiz: what do I do when I’m upset with my husband over some minor issue?

a. Talk about the problem before it becomes a major issue.

b. Stew for a bit and then forget about it.

c. Overreact and start a ridiculous argument.

d. After brushing my teeth, place the toothbrush back in the holder next to his toothbrush, but facing away from it.

e. All of the above.

Just now I saw something strange out the window, looking east. At night we often see the bright white lights of airplanes as they turn west and then south toward the airport, so at first I thought it was four or five airplanes in close succession… except they looked too close together, and they were bright red lights. As I watched, more appeared. Six, seven. Two that had been so close together I’d thought they were from one plane separated and became two planes. Eight, nine. That was enough to drive me back down the stairs and get the binoculars. By the time I’d made it out onto the deck the clouds had obscured all but two of the lights. I raised the binoculars, found one of the lights, and saw that there were more coming up from the far ridge, and that they were indeed quite red. Bing! Aha! Lanterns! Burning lanterns being sent up, like the ones we saw in Yachats last July before the fireworks show started. I must say I was relieved. I’ve seen other weird inexplicable stuff up in the night sky, and it was a very nice feeling to figure out a sane, normal reason for this weird sight. Came back upstairs, announced my findings to Big M, and he said “Oh yeah! Chinese New Year!”

Of course!

Happy New Year!