Saturday, September 24, 2011

Blue Skies and Space Junk


 Holy Flyin' Cosmos!
The sky is a nice blue, the sunlight is bouncing off little puffy clouds, 
a gentle breeze is leading the leaves on the trees in a slow dance. 
After a blistering summer the temperature is finally tolerable.

Uhhh ... Whut? 
You say a satellite is burning on re-entry into the atmosphere and is expected to break into twenty-six pieces as it crashes in all its conflagrated glory somewhere upon this precious Earth? As big as a bus, you say? 
Is that, like, one of those big customized rock star cruisers, 
city bus or the infamous short bus?

Shall I put Cat and Turtle in their crates and go sit in the park for a while? 
What do you mean you don't know and can't tell me
when and where it's gonna land?
A communications satellite has gone incommunicado?

Can you tell me what it looks like? NO?! Beautiful.
The last time I saw "space junk" of any note it was hanging 
off a middle-aged man who delighted in doing the "moon walk" 
as he danced naked across our living room floor. 

Which brings to mind another concern: wardrobe. 
A giant flaming charcoal briquette may come crashing into
my bedroom some time during the next twelve hours 
and I gotta have the right outfit. What should a grown woman wear 
if she's anticipating a re-entry?

I won't light any candles; given the circumstances they'd be redundant.
Hey, NASA, just tell UARS to bring a nice bottle of wine.
I'll make breakfast. 



3 comments:

dive said...

Oooh … Beautiful twisty bark and pretty little pink helicopter seeds. You really do have an eye for autumn, Speedway.

It's morning over on this side of the pond and not only did NASA lose control of their old satellite, according to the news here they now don't even know where it fell. Nobody's seen it.
I suspect, therefore, that is it over at your place, relaxing with a bottle of wine and complimenting you on your choice of outfit.
Have fun, you two!

Speedway said...

Oh, thank you, Dive. I was walking along one day, happened to look down the street to my right when I saw all these black, gnarly shapes against the green leaves. It was so pretty, I had to have a picture.

As usual, jeans and a t-shirt. I just didn't it to come crashing through my ceiling and all they'd find under the jagged cinder was a hank of hair ... and a t-shirt

Speedway said...

PS, Dive, NASA *thinks* that, after much complicated calculation, that the satellite fell into the south Pacific. Hell, even a satellite has better sense than to retire to the Midwest.