The Cosmos and the Bonus Stars

I'm on the mend from this flold now, at least I hope I am, my husband had a downturn for a day or so but I've got no time for that so hopefully, determinedly, I'm almost better.  I've had very few of these really bad cold/flu things that I can remember in my whole life.  I recollect one that really knocked me out for almost two weeks, conveniently during the holidays,  so much so that I was barely able to teach at my customer site early in January.  This one has not been that bad.

I remember when I was very young there was a popular book titled Cosmos, by a gentleman who at the time wasn't very well-known, named Carl Sagan.  This turned out to be the hot item to get for Christmas if you were an intellectual adult, or perhaps were just into outer space and our pursuits therein.   My dad was wild about this book.

I think he suggested I read it or look at it but I was too young and there were too many words and at that age I didn't sit still long enough to read.  Today, I would be all over the book.  I've been thinking about this book a lot this holiday season.  I think I have a vague recollection of the cover, black with lots of stars, but I'm not sure.  What I do remember is a review of the book that ties in the two big hits of the season that year.

First, there was Cosmos, and second, there was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad flu that everyone was getting.  There was lots of congestion and an associated cough—a productive cough that caught you unexpectedly and regularly off guard and sent little spatterings all over the place.  It was a mess.

I remember what the reviewer of Cosmos said, but here's the interesting thing, I remember the review, but I didn't read the book, nor did I read the paper or watch the news, so I'm thinking my mother must have found the review funny and read it aloud to my father and me.  The reviewer said the thing that had helped him make it through the terrible flu was having Carl Sagan's Cosmos to read.  He further said that what with all the coughing he'd been doing he was fairly sure that starry scape had a lot more man-made stars added to it on his copy of the book.

To this day when there's any bout of cold or flu going around smack in the middle of the holidays, I always think of Carl Sagan and Cosmos.

The Big Boy Update: I do it.  Oh boy, does he want to do everything.  Everything.  He's becoming much more conversational about things.  Although... he also seems to be verbally regressing to his sister's level of babble when he's tired.  But he does know how to talk, and when he wants to do something he will tell you he wants to do it himself.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Pick me up, or else.  She likes to be picked up.  Maybe it's for comfort, maybe she just likes you.  Maybe she wants you to feed her or get her, "oooce."  She wants to be picked up a lot.  She will come over to you, put one arm up in the air and do her best cute/pitiful look and hope for the best.  If you don't get her message, she will sit down on the floor and wail in despair.  It appears we have created another baby feedback loop.  We are working to correct this.

Someone Once Said:  Abstract design is all right—for wallpaper or linoleum. But art is the process of evoking pity and terror. Creative art is intercourse, in which the artist renders emotional his audience.