Tag: gravity

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Visative

My computer said, “Looks like you’re in Penn Hills, PA.”

I replied, “What ’bout it? You trying to start something?”

“No,” the machine said, “just asking, you know, you want the local time and weather?”

Yes, I’m at Mom’s house in Penn Hills, back to help out as I can. I went out to get fresh morning air at 9 AM. Humid, warm air slapped my face. I’m dribbling sweat from my pits. I’s 73 F with a high of 84 F coming up. Light rain is expected at 5 PM. The Neurons are like, what is this stuff, humidity?

A stranger in a strange land vibe flucuates. Mom and Frank are the same as ever but gravity is apparently stronger here. They move more slowly, even sluggishly. I’m noticed the same gravity effect on myself; steps I used to quasi-bound up — couldn’t do too much bounding, with their steep rake, narrow confines, and small tread — are carefully navigated. Humidity and gravity. I never expected them to betray me.

My visit is open-ended but I think it’s on a short leash. I want to give my sisters and Mom’s boyfriend a little break from having to do everything for Mom.

Yesterday was a travel day. Left the house at 11 AM and arrived at Mom’s place at midnight. Two flights. Both United. One of the two was on-time for a 50% rate. Not bad? I had to scramble between flights in Denver as the next flight was already boarding. It seemed like over half the people on my United Boeing 737 flight rowed were in the same straits. We rushed out of the jetway like ants scrambling from an anthill under duress.

I’m in the kitchen, sipping coffee, listening to the upstairs sounds drift back down to me as they awake and dress to meet the day. I let them sleep in. I know how good sleep can feel.

With that background, The Neurons fed Dire Straits, “Sultans of Swing”, into the morning mental music stream. Released in the U.S. in 1979, this was the one which first made folks like me ask, “Who are these guys?” Since its release, I’ve grown fond of Mark Knopfler’s many talents. This puts it all on display.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. As noted, I went onto the coffee car already and got my caffeinated assist. Here we go.

Cheers

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Grafloofvity

Grafloofvity (floofintion) – Natural phenomenon that causes people to move toward animals, talk to them, pet them, and play with them.

In use: “Among nature’s powerful forces, grafloofvity is especially powerful when it comes to baby animals like goats, sheep, deer, cats, and dogs, and bird, causing many to forget everything else and just admire the animals while making noises at them.

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Skipping Stone

Did you see it?

Did you see that stone skipping over the waves,

defying gravity as if it was nothing,

touching the water and flashing off like a blade of sunshine

never stopping?

Yes, that was me.

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Thinking

Tucker, one of the household cats, has a sweet quiet nature that hides multiple insecurities. He’s needy and anxious, shadowing my activities, sleeping on the desk beside me, seeking my lap. His other dominant trait is that he’s a fighter. He loves attacking and fighting other cats. They know this and avoid him but he’ll seek them out. So I end up segregating them. He often ends up locked up in the office. He has food, water, a litter box and windows. It’s a warm and cozy space, and the primary place my wife and I spend our time. Yet, he wants out.

He wants out because he has other places he enjoys sleeping in the other rooms, but he also wants out because he knows the others are out there. I frequently talk to him about all this as I pet him, explaining that I don’t blame him, because this is his nature. While explaining this to him two days ago, I experienced an epiphany about the part of the novel I was writing. It was a eureka moment.

I couldn’t help but think of this yesterday. I subscribe to Delancey Place. They post excerpts of non-fiction books. The featured book was ‘1666: Plague, War and Hellfire’ by Rebecca Rideal. The book excerpt was about Newton and his thinking on gravity, along with the apple falling from the tree to the ground.

“Whatever he was contemplating as he sat under the apple tree on this autumnal day was brought to a sudden halt when, above him, a stem holding one of the plump apples strained and snapped. The speckled red fruit thumped to the ground and, in a flash, Newton had a groundbreaking epiphany. It became clear to him that the fruit had been drawn to the ground because gravitation worked to pull things together and hold everything onto the Earth, and that its gravitation must extend beyond the sky, into space, and to the moon itself. Following where Galileo and Kepler had led, and Einstein would later follow, in 1666, Newton had started:

‘… to think of gravity extending to the orb of the Moon … and deduced that the forces which keep the Planets in their Orbs must be reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centres about which they revolve …'”

Chuckling, I compared my contemplation with Newton’s. Mine pale by magnitudes, of course, but I love the natural comparison and realization about how our minds work to evolve insights and furnish ideas. So cool.

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