We build our entire  life around those celestial objects in the sky (you know, day, night, months and season)– and we hardly ever remember to look up at them and marvel at them. And, we missed it, again. For the fourth or eighth time, we have taken our token first or second grader to Perkins Observatory

to meet with the Astronerds (their word, not mine) while they split open the dome to let us see the sky through the telescope. We were there — we didn’t miss the night — but we mist the view. It was cloudy. Again. Everytime we have ever gone there… it is cloudy.

There is so much to say about this place — tucked away off a busy highway, far above the city, that never dreamed surbubria would encroach so deeply into its space with all of its light pollution — poaching out the vibrancy of the stars.

When you walk through the doors of this building, you know something is different. It’s quiet — but it’s underneath all the other noises in that building. It’s quiet… like walking into a church. There is a hush — although you can’t hear the hush… but it’s there… where did it come from? As if all that oak in the building has transformed the space into a quiet forest. It’s certainly not the astronomers who are quiet.  They’re nuttty and loud and so excited to show you their spheres, orbs and constellations.

Rather than white oak church pews, this building is filled with globes and computers. Rather than hymn books, there are maps. There are white oak desks, high ceilings… and it reminds me of the favorite library where I used to study in college. There is no sound in these kinds of places… all that’s left to do is to ponder and do your work. There is no time in these places…(I’m struggling with the quiet thing — there’s a story here.. but too tired for that now.)

We listened to the talk… cleverly and artfully designed for kids. Isn’t it magnificent to watch someone so knowledgeable, and so professional take his story down to the level of a child? You can’t help but wonder from what place his words come from — a heart that is still amazed, that is still in awe over the wonder of  the falling star — and who is all too eager to share what he knows. He told us that when he was about 10 years old, he sat outside with his father’s opera glasses, and watched Jupiter’s moons move — he sat there for hours. When he was ten. He sat still for hours and just sat in amazement at those moons.

He is still ten. In his heart. The same wide-eyed wonder of a little boy.

Sadly, again, we could not look out of the telescope. But he did tell us about Venus — how there is so much pressure there that it would crush you, and the temperature is 900 degrees, (want to know what would happen to you if you were in 900 degrees? Put a chicken in the oven, and turn up the heat to 500 and watch.) And it always rains there — sulphuric acid rain. Who knew Venus was so inhospitable?  The Russians sent a spaceship there — it lasted 20 minutes before the atmosphere destroyed the ship. But they were proud of the pictures they got in those 20 minutes.

He also warned us, that on the next clear night, to take our kids outside to see this — or he would come to our house and do something terrible to us. I’m warning you now, to get outside and see this for yourself. Here it is: The Three brightest objects in the sky form a perfectly straight line in the western sky. The moon, Jupiter and Venus, for the Moon-Jupiter-Venus Conjunction.

I could not take a picture of this — I am not that skilled — so I went to Flickr and found this — when the Moon, Jupiter and Venus formed a triangle — in 2008 – in Australia!  So, Carolyn… right now we’re looking at the same sky!

NASA says, “This arrangement will be visible all around the world, from city and countryside alike.”

You can see this in the city!!! We saw it tonight. And I had forgotten about it — but my husband and I went outside to take a walk, and there they were — all lined up… one powerful straight line… and I remembered… and we called the boys out to see it — because I do not need that Astronerd coming so my house. They are so bright, nothing can hide their power. Everywhere. And, from what I’ve read, Jupiter and Venus will keep moving closer until the middle of March.

Our littlest son got  it — “It’s really rare to see those lined up in a straight line like that.” Wow… nothing like watching moons for hours… but he got it.

Isn’t it funny that a God who is timeless actually created time. He used those majestic celestial orbs that we gaze at to give us some way to grasp time… to quantify time. A moon gives us our month. We can completely understand that… or can we?

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:14-18

That little use of the word “separate” just gives me a window into the character of our great creator. Separate. Can you imagine being so vast that you can order day and night into categories? He simply puts a divider into His filing cabinet to separate the two — day and night. Just with a little file divider? It’s that simple for Him. And yet, He doesn’t even need to call it day and night — knowing that we, in our minds, need a day and a night. and a moon, — because we cannot grasp timelessness.

And we need something to separate light from darkness.

That concept, alone,  is just as vast and mind-boggling as pondering how all of those celestial beings keep moving, like clockwork, and not one of them falls out of line or misses a step. And, how much we count of those beings to do their part. We count on them. We know exactly what time the sun is going to come up, before it does… and it never fails us.

It’s true. Surprisingly, decades of studies by National Institute’s of Health have revealed that the tiny insects, fruit flies, which, thankfully, bear little resemblance to people, share, alarmingly, much of our genetic heritage.  The list of human-related topics fruit fly researchers are currently working on is surprisingly broad in scope: cancer; birth defects; development of the respiratory and circulatory systems; cardiovascular development and disease; taste, sight, smell and hearing; learning and memory; brain disease; sleep; drug abuse; aging; and diabetes.

Fruit Flies are multiplying like crazy this year. Once I get rid of them in the house, they come home with me every single time I come home from the grocery store with a bundle of bananas, grapes or apples.

The grocery store is full of them, and I even see them in restaurants. I cringe when the waiter leaves the bottle of wine sitting open on the table. I just know those fruit flies, those tiny red-eyed animals — known to scientists as the species Drosophila melanogaster, are heading for my wine.

This fall, I’ve also noticed quite an increase in the number of google searchers looking for rememdies. The search string people type in makes me laugh:

How to catch fruit flies with honey?

I guess it goes from the adage that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar? Perhaps. Actually, honey can play a dominate role in catching the fruit fly. You can trap the fly into your empty wine or beer bottle, and dab some honey around the top rim of the bottle to “catch” the fruit flies as they try to crawl out. That’s a yummy proposition. I’m ruthless when it comes to fruit flies, because, after all, researchers now know that flies don’t even have hearts.

What do fruit flies do when I’m sleeping?

Really? This is what concerns you? Maybe, this person was merely driven to madness trying to get rid of hte fruit fly… because they are so tenacious, and figuring out what they do at night, could give the searcher some insight. Interestingly,  Joan Hendricks, a sleep researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, has turned to Drosophila to study sleep. Information that has demonstrated a nearly identical set of working parts in higher organisms such as mice and people, by studying the circadian rhythm of flies. Hmmmmm.

Why are Fruit Flies attracted to Mirrors?

Good question. Because, they are always on my bathroom mirrors. Maybe they’re vain? But take advantage of this — put some poison, the Diatomaceous Earth on the mirrors, as you’ll know that’s where they’ll be walking. All you need is a thin film… a bit messy, but oh so effective.

Can an Exterminator Get Rid of Fruit Flies?

Interesting. I think you would have much better luck with a good plumber, to clean your drains, and heading to your hardware store for some  Diatomaceous Earth.

 The Scoop: How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies

• The ultimate fruit fly trap is still, a dark beer or wine bottle, with a bit of fruit, or vinegar inside as bait. Forget about covering the top with saran wrap, and sticking pin holes in them. The fruit flies will crawl right out. Instead, cover the top of the bottle with a sprinkling of Diatomaceous Earth. You could do the saran wrap thing with pin holes, just be sure to give the saran wrap a sprinkling of the DE.
• Clean your drains with baking soda and vinegar.
• Wipe a thin film of Diatomaceous Earth on your mirrors.
• Diatomaceous Earth is harmless to humans. Feel free to sprinkle some of the powder on the bannans you bring home from the store that are sitting in your fruit basket.
• Repeat every time you go to the grocery store.

The rats and mice used in research may be waning, as scientific labs are increasing the number of fruit flies used in research. Perhaps, those of use plagued with fruit flies could open our kitchen up to scientific labs who could have a field day working with the flies we have. Are we expecting a “fruit fly” activist group to stand up to protect their interest?

Out of necessity, I’ve built a better mouse trap — fruit fly trap. My fruit flies are just too darn smart to fall into a simple glass of wine and drown. Mine, instead, simply walk along the edge of the glass picking up enough juice from their feet to satisfy them before flying off to mate somewhere else, and increase my population of drain flies. I had to do something. With the combination of warm weather and watermelon around here, I’ve been inundated with flying pests. Technically, I don’t actually have fruit flies — I have drain flies. These have little red eyes, and are harder to catch with a slap of your hand than the slower moving cousins, fruit flies.

My solution is cruel, but effective. I simply sprinkle Boric Acid Powder or Diatomaceous Earth around the rim of the wine bottle where the poison is picked up on the fruit fly, and eventually kills the fly. I’ll even add a slip of a banana into the bottle just to ensure the bottle has enough “odor of fruit” to attract the flies.

Like I said. Cruel.
But effective.

Here’s my post on how to get rid of fruit flies with a do-it-yourself fruit fly trap.

Get rid of fruit flies easily with this 6-step method to zap a fruit fly: Remember, to keep the fruit flies away, you’ll also need to clean the drains.

• Your bait is apple cider vinegar, a banana, bread (they like yeast), or red wine — or even a few drops of left over beer, (if there is such a thing).
• Pour your bait into a bottle with a narrow neck. A Corona Beer bottle is perfect. Because, fruit flies tend to be picky, as you have learned by now. A Cuervo beer bottle can work too.
• Now, take some liquid dish soap, honey or vegetable oil and rub it around the top of the bottle opening, along the insides down into the jar.
• The fruit flies fly in, and even if they do hover around the top of the liquid, they slippery soap makes it impossible for them to make their way out of the jar.
• Check your bottle. After a few hours, microwave the entire bottle to kill any eggs they might have dropped.
• Continue until fruit flies are non existent.

This is the fruit fly trap you’ve (I’ve) been looking for. The ultimate death trap for fruit flies. And yes, Mom was right; you can catch more flies with honey. And yes, the fruit fly is breeding, living and laying eggs in your drains. There’s no doubt that the fruit fly is smart. Most fruit flies will figure a way out of the trap we’ve set for them. But I’ve out-witted them. You really won’t have to spend a dime on this trap, as you already have the stuff in your pantry. Plus, I have some expert advice from Asapest.com.

I’ve seen fruit flies hover around the top of a wine glass, and mate, and then I have 2 million more fruit flies. They don’t drown. They have figured out a way to fly up through the tiny pin hole in saran wrap that was designed to trap them. I’ve watched them crawl around the outside the rim of a wine glass, knowing better than to fly in, because they’ll drown. The traps I set turn into breeding grounds for more fruit flies. I even sprinkled odorless Boric Acid Powder around their favorite resting spot, my bathroom mirror, and they crawl around it. Read more below for the how-to’s on this awesome fruit fly trap.

To keep them away, follow these tips from Asapest.

1. Clean the buildup from the lining and the surrounding areas of your drains. Use a long, wire drain brush – similar to a bottle- washing brush – to scrub inside the drain.
2. A bleach solution and nylon scrub brush can help eliminate the buildup around the edge of the drain.
3. One reason for shower and tub drain clogs is the hair that collects in traps (the curved portion of the drain that holds water). Try bending a thin wire hanger to pull out some of this hair. Put a hook on one end and pull out as much of the debris as possible.
4. You also can rent a snake, a device that winds through drain clogs using old-fashioned arm strength.
5. Once you’ve cleaned the drain of hair and buildup, try using a plunger to push any remaining debris through the trap and down the drain.
6. Instead of caustic cleaners, try keeping the lining of your drains clean a couple of different ways. First, I use an organic drain cleaner about three times a year to keep my sink drains and tub drains flowing smoothly. Try Bio-Clean which uses enzymes to break down the organic matter that lines and clogs drains.
7. Also, use a drain freshener of salt, baking soda and white vinegar weekly to keep scum from building up in drains. Pour a half- cup of salt, then a half-cup of baking soda followed by a cup of vinegar into the drain. Let the drain foam for as long as possible, even overnight, then flush with boiling water.

Every night I sprinkle baking soda down the kitchen sink. And, a little bit in the tray in the refrigerator underneath the ice and water dispenser.

To keep them away from bananas and tomatoes, I sprinkle baking soda on them as they sit on my counter, and wash it off right before eating.

Four 10-second swabs was all it took to see if I’m a potential Bone Marrow donor for my friend Seth. The lobby was filled with people filling out forms of their own medical history, a table laden with a big iced-chocolate cake stood by, and stacks of sterilized swabs sat waiting in their envelopes. Over 350 showed up for the event, a visible outpouring of love. The nurses are shipping the packets out Monday, and then, there is the 10-day waiting period to find a match. If we aren’t able to help Seth, we’re all in the BeTheMatchRegistry to help someone else. Just knowing that fact gives me a marvelous feeling.

If you’re considering it, but afraid of what it entails; please know that the procedure was quick and painless. Four 10-second swabs. More details about the procedure can be found here.

Our celebration is mixed with our anxious and patient wait for Seth to wake up. Please remember his family in your prayers.  Let’s just hope that Seth is giving himself a much needed rest before he embarks on his next phase — the bone marrow transplant.

From my Newspaper Column for the SNP

She has removed the password from his Caring Bridge site, because she wants to spread the word. Seth needs prayers. The next 24 hours are critical. Feb 5, 2010 was supposed to be a day of celebration. The date would have marked the end of Seth’s 6-year battle with leukemia. Instead, Seth received more chemotherapy for the illness that was supposed to leave the 13-year-old alone by now. They also received the devastating news that not one of his 3 sisters is a bone marrow donor match.

Yesterday, a throbbing headache led Seth back to the hospital, where they learned he is now septic. He has no white cells to fight the infection. You can read the details and updates here.

All I can think about is the day, 9 years ago, when Seth was dressed like Robin Hood, running around the tree house in our backyard. Wendi, loving mom, made the costume. She made all of Seth’s costumes — including the Obi-Wan Kenobi , Buzz Lightyear, and Jedi Knight costumes. We were always impressed by her talent. The sun lit up Seth’s golden hair, and his blue eyes twinkled at me as he gripped his light saber, wondering if I was going to take away the light sabers because they were all hitting too hard. Our boys were so young and small then; we could pick them up with one arm, and hold them tight. All day long, I’ve been stuck on that day, trying to will it back. I just want to help my friend.

But we are not there. We are here. His parents want to help spread the word about bone marrow donations. I will do my part. Wendi says, “It’s one of the few organs you can donate without being dead to do it.”

Each year, we donate our blood to stock the blood banks, and this is as routine as filling up the car with gas. But how many of us have ever considered donating our bone marrow?

For some, fear is the reason we’ve never considered this gift. Fear can always be traced to unknowns. Here is what is known: No pieces of your bone are taken. Seventy five percent never need surgery; in most cases you’ll only need to give peripheral blood stem cells, which is similar to donating plasma. A bone marrow donation is a surgical procedure, done under anesthesia. Yet, both are treated as outpatient, and you go home the same day. Some donors are sore afterwards; some are not. In 2-7 days, most donors are back to normal. Most donors say they would do it again to save a life.

Thanks to advances in medicine, many of us will be hearing more about transplants; they’re increasingly becoming a path to save lives. Sometimes, it’s the only hope people have. Just like Seth, over 70 percent are unable to find a donor match within their family. Yet, even with a registry of millions, many patients still cannot find a match.

You can visit www.BeTheMatch.org to join the Be The Match Registry online. They’ll mail you a kit so that you can simply swab your cheeks at home and mail it back. Or, you can register in person February 20 at Premier Women’s Health, (614-459-1000 Ext 2007), from 8 a.m.– 1 p.m.

Since he won’t be getting a bone marrow transplant from one of his sisters, Seth hopes to get his marrow from “someone famous…. that would be cool.” Wendi wrote on Seth’s Caring Bridge web page, “In my eyes, the person who shares this gift of life with my son may not be famous, but will be truly heaven sent. An angel. A lifesaver. What more could you ever hope to be in this world?”

Fifty million plastic bottles were consumed in the U.S. alone last year. Thirty eight billion didn’t quite make it to the recycling bin — and ended up in landfills. We have until the next millennium before they decompose — but how exactly does plastic decompose?  Does it give off fumes? Do toxins leach out into the soil during bio-degradation?

Flowers here made from plastic milk bottles, from Anthropoligie’s Flickr Pool.

I hope those scientists are wrong. A 16-year old Ontario student figured out how to decompose plastic in just three months. He makes my heart sing. An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii. It’s been growing since the 1950s.

Some of the plastic slivers end up along the beach, where they look like sand. Little fishes and crabs confuse plastic slivers for food, putting plastic into our food supply.  Someday we might just have a beach made out of broken plastic slivers. I find this horrifying.

The Farmer’s Almanac Gardening Calendar tells me that today and tomorrow are not good days for planting, according to the moon. But come Saturday, I’m starting some seedlings indoors.  It may be early, but I never do have melons in time for July 4th. Gardening gives me a way to create more soil; to create more earth; to create something green in this oh, so plastic world we live in. I can hardly wait.

When cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water,
clouds build over the lake and eventually develop into snow showers and squalls.

The intensity of lake effect snow increases when higher elevations downwind of the lake force the cold, snow-producing air to rise even further.

This effect occurs in many locations throughout the world, but is best known in the populated areas of the Great Lakes of North America.

If it wasn’t so cold; it would have been raining.

Is having more time to look at the stars. I know Winter Solstice is bringing us longer days… but it’s still pretty dark around here. Here’s an article from my newspaper column.

I saw no stars on that cloudy night at the Perkins Observatory. Instead of stardust, the astronomers there sprinkled my mind, and the minds of the first- and second-graders there, with wonder.

They reminded me that when we look up, we see the past; the light is already billions of years old. They reminded us that our vast galaxy is just beginning its life. Our 4.5 billion-year-old sun is still less than halfway through its life. The future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past we’ve seen.

These concepts are staggering to comprehend, but the gem here comes from remembering what my seventh-grade history teacher used to repeat: “You can’t understand the future until you understand the past.” Four hundred years ago, Galileo turned his telescope away from the sea and began to look at the heavens, and thus 2009 is our International Year of Astronomy (IYA).

Galileo’s shift of his telescope changed the world not simply because he looked, but because he observed the sky night after night while meticulously filling in the details in his observing log. He saw that the stars do shift positions, and when one star vanished, he discovered not a star, but a moon hiding behind Jupiter.

Because our word shares the same sky, astronomy is a great unifier, and may even hold our potential for world peace. Satellite pictures of our earth show us the geographic boundaries of our continents, while the political boundaries vanish.

This revelation led astronomers in Iran to create StarPeace, a project of IYA to hold joint public star parties near the borderlines of two neighboring countries. On Dec. 4, people from Indonesia and the Philippines came together to make a peace bridge on South China Sea, with teachers and astronomers offering free public viewings of the stars through high-powered telescopes.

The amateur astronomer George Eric Deacon Alcock discovered five comets on his own through meticulous viewings and recordings in his observing log. Backyard astronomers, like you, can use their eyes, telescopes and binoculars to create their own observing logs. Binoculars provide a wider field of view than telescopes.

In the winter, no other constellation is more distinct or bright as Orion, the Mighty Hunter. This month, if the sky is clear — a minor  miracle — look for three bright stars that form Orion’s Belt. One of the brightest stars in the night sky, Rigel, represents Orion’s foot. His two shoulders are made of the stars Bellatrix and Betelgeuse.

Orion will wait for you; he will remain recognizable in the night sky for the next 1 to 2 million years, making it one of the longest observable constellations.

As we stand solidly on earth looking up, we can barely fathom our place in a galaxy that is showing us our billion-year-old past. But imagine, for a moment, looking at earth from space, where there is no solid footing. An astronaut once revealed to me the universal secret astronauts hold: They are homesick. Not for earth, but for space.

He described the familiar heavy pull of gravity as the carrier sped back toward earth, and he instantly felt a longing for the lightness he knew in space. With tears in his eyes, he also added, “The earth looks beautiful from space. The earth glows, and it pulsates with energy.”

Russian and Chinese cyber spies have inserted software into our electrical grid that could disrupt our system, says, The Wall Street Journal. Should a war or national security crisis hit the United States, the officials said, the spies could shut off our power. In addition to the electrical systems, nuclear power plants and financial networks, water and sewage systems are also at risk. Senior Central Intelligence Agency official, Tom Donahue said last year there were cyber attacks in “multiple regions outside the U.S. The outage was followed with extortion demands.”

The silver lining, if there is one, lies in our national trade relationships. Officials say they “don’t see an immediate danger. China, for example, has little incentive to disrupt the U.S. economy because it relies on American consumers and holds U.S. government debt.” Was this the reason they exported our jobs to other countries?

Shaken to my core, I put the newspaper down, sipped more tea, and walked back to my bedroom to adjust the blankets so it looked as if I really did make my bed. I turned on the light without even thinking, and then I realized how much I take for granted.

The story itself sounds more like a fictional plot for a James Bond movie than a riveting account in my morning newspaper. A story so creative and fantastic that I almost wanted to spin the tale out for my boys to hear, as entertainment, like the pirate stories we read. But I won’t say a word to them. The story stays with me, and my lips are sealed.

The Associated Press photo of Robert Moran, who wears that blue-checked shirt and monitors the electrical grid in Dallas, could be our new everyday American Hero, like the flight crews were on April 14, 1970.

I need to dissect another miracle; to reassure myself these good things do happen. I peered over to Wikipedia to read the account of Apollo 13, when they said, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” When the number two oxygen tank of Apollo 13 exploded, the cause was tracked to an unlikely chain of events where one problem fell like dominoes on the next. “Considerable ingenuity under extreme pressure was required from the crew, flight controllers and support personnel for the safe return.” The world watched the riveting drama on television. Electrical power was severely limited, making even voice communications difficult. There was a point when the crew was asked to suspend urine dumps, as that could alter the trajectory of the spacecraft. The lives of the crew hung in the balance like the flutterings of a feather.  As a result, one crew member even ended up with a severe urinary tract infection from limiting his water intake. Ironically, or miraculously, depending on your view, the crew’s lives may have been saved by the same malfunction that caused the danger.

Our world is rich in stories like these; stories of successful failure. Cyber spies are really birthing the stories of our next generation of American Heroes.  Although, I can wait to read it’s next entry on Wikipedia.

Inside my mind, things look different today. That mountain of laundry doesn’t make me cringe. I can’t wait to turn on the washer and watch that hot water spill out at my command; it is my privilege to wash those clothes today.

In case we ever do reach the point of a flu pandemic, these essential oils, especially oregano essential oil, will be my weapon.  Besides the usual remedies,of  Oscillococcinum, and Dolivaxil, which always work, I’ve found an even cheaper way to fight the flu and ease an achy tummy.

Peppermint 100% Pure Essential calms an upset stomach. You can drink the tea if you have some… or you can use the oil. Mix one or two drops of peppermint oil with 1/4 cup of olive oil. (The essential oils must be diluted before they touch skin; they are too strong for skin contact.) Rub this on your belly, and you will soon notice an instant feeling of release in your belly. This is GREAT for kids; they want to be touched and cuddled anyway when they’re sick, so they love having you rub their belly with the great smell of peppermint. Peppermint is so soothing, that even the smell alone will calm an upset stomach.

Oregano Oil is a known anti-viral, anti fungicide and anti-bacterial agent. Oregano oil has a bitter, medicinal smell, too harsh for direct contact with the skin, and you only need a tiny bit of this powerful oil. I mix one drop of oregano oil with the olive oil (just add it to your mixture above) and the oil will soak into your belly and kill the bugs that are swarming around your belly. I’ve even used oregano oil to get rid of the effects of a “bad meal,” that left me sick.

Cinnamon oil is a natural anti-viral oil that you can add. The anti-flu formula pre-mixed with cinnamon, nutmeg and thyme is known as the Oil of Thieves. The reference to thieves is not because the oil “steals your sickness,” rather this is related to the legend of the band of thieves who raided houses during the Black Plague during the 17th century. The thieves were stealing from the sick, surrounded by the plague, yet never became sick themselves. The thieves were caught, and appeared before the judge. “How have you escaped the great plague?” he wanted to know. The thieves were actually from a long family of perfumers who knew the power of oils, and covered themselves with the “Oil of Thieves” to protect themselves.

Just a note on essential oils. The bottles are small, and inexpensive. You only use a drop at a time, and they last for years. They are a great investment, and they work so hard.