Hello, I’m Veronica
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
-
Celestial Strings of Pearls
When I take the dog for a walk after dark, I never know what to expect in the night sky above me. We live in an area devoid of city lights so the celestial show is clear and sometimes dramatic. Ursa Major (aka Big Dipper) often makes an appearance. Venus is the brightest
starplanet low in the western sky at twilight. And the full moon, seemingly biggest as it rises just above the pine trees, can be breathtaking. But none of this prepared me for the bold processional streaking across the heavens last Thursday night.
It could’ve been Santa Claus and his reindeer for all I knew. Sitting around a backyard fire pit with friends, having drinks and swapping stories, one of the women suddenly shrieked, “LOOK!!!” and pointed skyward. At first it didn’t register what we were seeing (nor at second, nor at third). I can only describe it as a tiny string of bright pearls, two or three dozen in the strand, perfectly spaced and moving silently across the sky. Neither pulling nor pushing, they simply proceeded in a line as if drawn to some unknown destination. It almost looked like the one-after-another cars of a roller coaster, heading up that first steep incline.Our group was at a loss to explain this extraterrestrial. We thought it might be the neatly arranged contrails of a stealth fighter. Or some faraway electronic billboard advertising in Morse code (only with dots, no dashes). Turns out we weren’t even close. Our little alien spacecraft parade was the latest launch of Starlink satellites from SpaceX.
You’ve probably heard of SpaceX, even if you don’t know much about what they do. Founded in 2002, SpaceX is one of Elon Musk’s ambitious companies, with the “modest” long-term goal of colonizing Mars. While they design and launch the spacecraft to make that happen, SpaceX is providing Starlink Internet service to under-served areas of the globe by building a “constellation” of satellites around the planet. 42,000 of them.This is technology way beyond my understanding, but here’s the basic setup. A transmitter somewhere on earth sends the Internet up to one of those satellites and the satellite then rebounds the signal back to you. If the satellite loses your direct line of sight, it can hand off the signal to one of its buddies and your Internet service continues uninterrupted. SpaceX earned the license for a ten-year window – starting in 2019 – to complete its Starlink constellation. At last count they’ve already got 4,000 of these little guys in orbit.
Starlink satellite Credit Musk for identifying a market in need. Mars may not be on my bucket list but faster Internet service certainly is. Two years ago 10,000 Earthlings signed up for Starlink subscriptions (at $599 USD for the hardware and $120/month for the service). Today? Fully 1.5 million customers are bouncing data back and forth with all those satellites. My rural location here in South Carolina (and the s-l-o-w speed of my current Internet provider) make me a prime Starlink candidate. Later this year, I’ll also be able to switch over my cell phone service. Yep, Elon Musk is literally taking over the planet. Come to think of it, maybe the entire solar system.
A “string of pearls” before the satellites go their separate ways Whether or not I subscribe to Starlink, I find the satellite technology fascinating. We have a lot of “space junk” circling Earth but this constellation of man-made stars seems more elegant. They’re launched in strings of up to 60, separating once they’re high enough. Each satellite’s thruster is powered by krypton and argon. They talk to one another to avoid collisions. They’re currently undergoing “dimming” to appease astronomers by taking a back seat to the real stars in space. Finally, these satellites can “de-orbit”. In other words, when they’re time is done (even satellites don’t live forever), they return home for a proper burial, which means burning up entirely as they attempt reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.
Starlink satellites x 42,000 Several websites track the continuing launches of Starlink satellite strings (like this one). You can find out exactly when they’ll be passing overhead in your neighborhood, destined for their rightful place in the budding constellation. If you see them stream by, remember, it’s not Santa and his reindeer (wrong month). It’s a string of pearls designed to provide you with faster Internet service.
Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
-
Hail, Caesium!
I acquired a taste for Caesar salad later in life. After decades of boring lettuce/tomato and franchise salad bars, I learned to branch out a little. Caesar, with its romaine, croutons, Parmesan, and distinctive dressing, has become my go-to at restaurants. But I always double-check my “hold the anchovies, please” because even a thimbleful would put a damper on things. Kind of like caesium-137.
Small but mighty You probably don’t know much about caesium. Pronounce it just like the salad (or like “seize” in Seize the day!). Caesium-137 is a nasty little byproduct of nuclear fission, deadly enough to turn your life into a… uh, half-life with just a brief introduction. So here’s the story of the little caesium capsule – a.k.a. Little Caesar – that could get away, and did.
It’s a simple enough task, really. Transport an item from Point A to Point B, like the new washing machine we just had delivered from Home Depot. But let’s make the job a little more challenging, shall we? The distance you have to travel shall be almost 900 miles. The journey itself shall be on the oft-barren Great Northern Highway of Western Australia, which isn’t always the smoothest of rides. Finally, transport a potentially lethal substance… without dropping it.
“Little Caesar” was t-i-n-y You’d think radioactive caesium-137 – no matter how small an amount – would be literally welded into the delivery truck it rides in. Instead, the pill-sized capsule – already parked inside the density gauge equipment it was a part of, was placed in a “package”, then attached to the truck with four mounting bolts.
Now then, imagine you’ve just completed the long and boring four-day drive to the nuclear waste treatment facility in Perth. You hop off the truck, walk around to the back, open the doors, and discover not only a broken gauge and a missing mounting bolt, but no caesium-137 capsule. In fact, the delivery truck wasn’t even inspected until nine days after arrival.
This scenario raises a half-life of questions for me. First, just how bumpy was that Great Northern Highway? Second, even if the gauge broke open and the capsule got loose, how the heck did it escape, not only out of the package but out of the entire truck? Finally, we’re talking about lethal goods here. Wouldn’t some sort of alarm go off if Little Caesar skipped town? I’m guessing someone is answering these kinds of questions as we speak, and his/her seat is a little warm.
The fearless search committee imagine being a member of the ad hoc search-and-rescue crew. Not only are you looking for something that can kill you just by being in close proximity, it’s the proverbial needle in the haystack, only the needle is the size of a paper clip and the haystack is a highway longer than the coast of California. No matter, you’re handed a radiation detection device, the keys to a truck with flashing hazard lights, and off you go. Oh, and by the way, you can’t go faster than 30 mph or your detector can’t do its job.
This isn’t the first unintended release of Little Caesar. He escaped in much larger quantities from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 and from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011. You can read about nine other incidents involving “LC” here, including one in Seattle four years ago and one in Thailand in March.
At the time I saved this story in January, Little Caesar was still at large. Worst-case scenarios were running rampant. What if LC bounced to freedom on a populated area of the highway? What if a hiker happened upon the capsule and threw it into his or her backpack before returning home? Or, God forbid, what if a bird snatched the capsule in its beak and transported it to its nest in the middle of downtown Perth?
LC was hiding here Three months later (this week), I caught up with this story. The run-of-the-mill conclusion is that Little Caesar was found just six days after his escape, off the highway in a remote area not far from the truck’s point of departure. The radiation detection equipment sounded the alarm and led the search team right to our little friend.
A close-up of the escapee As for what happened once LC was found? A 20-meter “hot zone” was set up around him to fend off the inevitable lookie-loos. He was given a thick casing of lead in case he was feeling “radiant”. Finally, Little Caesar was scheduled to be transported to the county health facility for further examination. Yes, I said “transported”. No word on whether or not he made it to his final destination.
Some content sourced from the ABC News article “Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
-
Another Peg in the Car
Our daughter gave birth to her firstborn this week, a precious little bundle with rosy cheeks and strawberry blonde hair. For her and her husband, life has changed forever. And for our granddaughter, barely two days old now, every sight and sound will be a complete and utter mystery. In other words, her game of life has only just begun.
The 1960s edition I was only nine or ten myself when I started playing at life. Not real life, of course, but the board game in a box by Milton Bradley . “Life” (as we simply called it back then) was a significant rung up on the board game ladder. Once discovered, “Don’t Break the Ice”, “Hi Ho! Cherry O”, “Chutes and Ladders”, and the well-worn “Candy Land“stayed on the shelf forever. Win or lose, “Life” was a ton of fun pretending to be an adult. After all, we kids had no idea what we were doing.
The original board The genius of “Life”, like “Monopoly”, is that its players are too young to understand what they’re playing at. In Monopoly, you buy and sell real estate, mortgage properties, and pay income tax, and somehow all of this is “fun” (especially when you win and become the one and only landlord in town).
In “Life”, you’re making decisions ten or fifteen years ahead of your time. I find it ironic “Life” is a game for kids yet it skips the entire chapter of childhood. The first move is to “Start a Career” or “Start College” (you choose). If you start college you “Borrow $100,000 from the bank”, so you’re already saddled with debt. You pay taxes or get a refund. You earn raises or sometimes lose your job. Wait, this is fun? You bet it is. You’re a kid and you don’t know the meaning of “responsibilities”.
Eventually, the colorful cardboard path of “Life” takes you by a church, where you get married and add a spouse peg to your car. Soon after you have babies (more pegs) and soon after that you buy a house. The meandering path continues, until it stops “years” later at either “Millionaire Estates” (you’re rich!) or “Countryside Acres” (you’re not!)When “Life” is over, it’s time to account for your accomplishments, which means simply adding up all of your cash. The player with the most money wins. Wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation with St. Peter? Hey Pete, I won The Game of Life because I had the most money! Open up the gates – I’ve earned my entry!
“The Game of Life” has evolved since it was first produced many years ago. My childhood plays were on the 1960s version, which included a folding rectangular board with the wandering path for the cars, little plastic mountains you’d pass through at the corners, little plastic buildings you’d pass by here and there, and, smack-dab in the middle, a giant spinning numbers wheel to determine how far your car would go on any given turn.
Linkletter The 1960s version also had insurance policies, promissory notes, and stock certificates. Art Linkletter, who promoted the board game on TV, smiled out at you from the center of the $100,000 bills. Finally, your choices on your final “Day of Reckoning” were “Millionaire Acres” or “Poor Farm”, depending on the size of your bank account. But even before you chose “Poor Farm” you had a last-gasp chance to win the game by betting all of your money on the numbers wheel.
Today’s edition The newest version of “Life” seems the same, with the little mountains and plastic buildings and giant numbers wheel. But look closer and you’ll find the game is delightfully “PC” now. You can perform “community service” or “good deeds” (which translate to monetary value at the end). Your career choices include less traditional vocations like “Hair Stylist” and “Athlete”. Your housing includes a mobile home or a “luxurious mountain retreat”. You can even sue other players to the tune of six figures. Today’s kids might actually understand that aspect of the game.
Finally, in a full-on nod to modern times, “Life” wants you to know it’s “Your Life, Your Way”. Accordingly, you can choose pets instead of kids. And the little people pegs are no longer just pink or blue because… you know.
Here’s the last word on “Life”. The corner of the box top gleefully shouts, “Now with one-time assembly!”, meaning as soon as you put the mountains and buildings and spinner into place, the board is good to go every time you play it. Now what fun is that? Just like “Mouse Trap”, half the enjoyment of “The Game of Life” was putting the whole thing together. At least we kids understood how to do that. As for what the game itself represented? Not so much.Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
-
Phantom Farewell
Tonight, hours after this post goes public, my wife and I will attend a local stage production called Lovesong. It’s our first foray into the offerings of our community theater so we’re really looking forward to it. Lovesong has a run of five evening performances and one Sunday matinee while it’s in town. A check of the theater website indicates about 20% of Thursday’s seats have been sold. By my calculation, that’s about 80% less than any Broadway performance of Phantom of the Opera.
Maybe you heard. After 35 years and 14,000 performances, last Sunday the curtain dropped for good on Phantom of the Opera. Its creator, Andrew Lloyd Weber, was on hand at New York City’s Majestic Theater to offer the cast and crew a personal farewell. He claimed their final performance as the best he’d ever seen. You’ll forgive Andrew for being a little sentimental after all these years.
Theater District, Midtown Manhattan, NYC Whether the stage production, the 2004 movie, the glorious soundtrack, or even the books on which it was based, you’re familiar with Phantom. It’s a captivating story; part haunting and part romantic, with a lead character who has you wondering, “Is he real or imagined?”. Reading Phantom’s synopsis (which you can do here), I realize I overlooked some details of the story the one and only time I saw the show. No matter. The sets and the songs will stay with me for life.
Phantom took my admiration of stage performances to an entirely new level. The one time my wife and I saw the show, in San Francisco in 1997, it literally took our breaths away. The only shows we’d seen prior were the “off-off-off Broadway” offerings; the kind where they recruit locals just to fill out the cast. Phantom left us yearning for more of the best, including seeing something on Broadway (which we did years later with Les Miserables, deserving of its own blog post).
Phantom was also a technical marvel. What other show boasted a giant chandelier swinging out over the audience and threatening to fall? Or a staircase giving the optical illusion of descending several levels as the Phantom dragged Christine downward? Or the subterranean lake the Phantom rowed across, where you swore you were looking at a giant body of water right there on the stage?
Every Broadway production seems to have three or four unforgettable songs. Phantom was no exception. The show kicks off with an orchestral version of “Phantom of the Opera”, turns sweet with Christine’s solo “Think of Me”, and overwhelms with the duet All I Ask of You and especially The Music of the Night. The latter includes one of the most powerful notes I’ve ever heard, when the Phantom sings, “Close your eyes… and let music set you… FREE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E…!”
Deservedly, Phantom won the “Laurence Olivier Award” for Best New Musical in 1986, the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1988, and pretty much everything else it was nominated for. Besides the London and Broadway productions, Phantom enjoyed nine worldwide tours and one revival. Over its 35 years, Phantom employed 6,500 people and played to over twenty million theater-goers. Phantom even had a short-lived sequel, Love Never Dies, debuting in London but never making it to Broadway.Sadly, Phantom’s closing can be considered a casualty of the pandemic. The show was suspended from March 2020 to October 2021 (when all Broadway productions ceased). After reopening, attendance was sporadic because patrons were still hesitant. Meanwhile, Phantom’s production costs continued at a staggering $1M/week, which eventually became unsustainable.
Phantom was originally slated to close in February but once theatergoers found out, the show experienced a brief resurgence and lasted another two months. I don’t expect Lovesong to extend its little run at our community theater. Thanks to Phantom of the Opera however, I’m simply excited for the potential of a wondrous stage performance.Some content sourced from the CNN.com article, “Final curtain comes down on ‘Phantom of the Opera’”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
-
Crescents and Con Artists
Every Christmas without fail, my family enjoys croissants as part of the morning meal. We pop them into the oven after seeing what Santa left in our stockings (but before unwrapping anything under the tree). So last week, as I loaded our Easter ham into the garage frig, a tantalizing thought occurred to me: the leftover Christmas croissants are parked right next door in the freezer. Could they possibly be as light and flaky as they once were, four months after their initial rise-and-shine?
If you know anything about authentic croissants, “rise and shine” is a fitting description. Thanks to some seriously active yeast, croissants rise to a soft, pillow-y consistency. Thanks to a whole lot of butter (and a little egg yolk), croissants finish with a pleasing sheen on their delicate, crispy crust. If there’s a more decadent baked good on the planet, my crescent-shaped ears are open and listening.
Austrian kipferi Croissants have been around a long time. They got their start centuries ago in
FranceAustria as the more pedestrian kipferi yeast bread roll. Eventually the French stepped up the game using leavened laminated dough and butter, ending up as the light, flaky, many-layered version you know and love today.Croissant means “crescent” of course (which is why I get hunger pangs whenever I gaze at the moon). Croissant also has an elegant pronunciation. Turn the “roi” into a “weh”, drop the final “t”, and keep the sound a little inside the nose. Cweh-saw. Congratulations! You speak French.
Even “crescent” has a dignified definition: a shape resembling a segment of a ring, tapering to points at the ends. Can you picture it? Sure you can, because now you’re thinking of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. They’re so “American”, aren’t they? We take a centuries-old, meticulously refined shoo-in for the Baked Goods Hall of Fame and reduce it to sticky, doughy, fast food; vacuum-packed into a can you open with a spoon.
The Poppin’ Fresh family [Speaking of Pillsbury, here’s something you didn’t know about the Dough Boy, otherwise known as “Poppin’ Fresh”. He has a family! His wife is Poppie Fresh, his kids are Popper and Bun-Bun, his grandparents Granpopper and Granmommer, and his Uncle Rollie. Don’t forget the dog (Flapjack) and the cat (Biscuit). In the 1970s you could purchase the entire clan as a set of dolls.]
BK’s “Croissan’wich” Pillsbury isn’t the only crescent con artist out there. Burger King made a name for itself with its popular Croissan’wich breakfast entrees. And Galaxy, the Williams-Sonoma mail-order croissants my family and I enjoy at Christmas, start out as frozen minis, rise impressively overnight on the kitchen counter, and bake to an excellent knock-off of the bakery-made originals.
The preparation of authentic croissants requires time and attention we Americans don’t have the patience for. Watch the following video (which is thirteen minutes long so… maybe not) and you’ll learn what it takes. At the least, you’ll understand why I pay almost $4.50 for a single croissant from Galaxy/Williams-Sonoma.
Most of us wouldn’t make it past the initial “pre-dough” step in the video, let alone the labor-intensive lamination (folding/flattening), forming, fermentation, baking, cooling, and storage. We’re talking hours and hours in the kitchen here, and that’s assuming you have the right equipment. No wonder we’d rather just whack a Pillsbury tube on the counter edge and produce “crescent rolls” hot out of the oven 9-11 minutes later.
Still, I implore you to watch the cweh-saw video. The star of the show is Frédéric from Boulangerie Roy Le Capitole, narrating the process in his beautiful native language. This man could be saying … and then we drag the smelly garbage out to the back alley for the cats to dig through and I’d still be glued the sound of his words. Or, listen to our lovely video host and her delightful French accent (with the occasional incorrect word sprinkled in).
Lamination = Layers I was so mesmerized by the French voices I really don’t remember much about the croissant-making itself. But it’s hard to forget the facts. Making an authentic batch takes three days. A croissant is 30% butter and can have as many as fifty layers. French bakeries have “bread laws” to protect their artisan products. Finally, you can “hear” the sound of an authentic croissant by pushing through the crispy crust to the softer layers inside.
To the matter of my Christmas… er, Easter croissants, I’m happy (and satisfied) to report they tasted just as good last week as their holly, jolly predecessors a while ago. Apparently four months isn’t too long to wait for good croissants. But three days is too long to make them from scratch so I’ll keep buying from con artists.Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
About Me
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
Follow Me On
Subscribe To My Newsletter
Subscribe for new travel stories and exclusive content.
Life In A Word 