Never so glad to see a parachute....

Welcome home Barbara!

Waiting for the deorbit burn....

I'm watching the live feed and waiting for the deorbit burn. Updates are also released here.

About Jews and Rabbits.

While I was stranded at the Orlando airport while returning from the Shuttle launch, I had the time and the Internet connection to do some preliminary research on the difficult relationship between Jews and Rabbits. I concluded that whether a gift of a rabbit would be appropriate or inappropriate was linked between the intended purpose of the rabbit, the time of year in which the rabbit was given, and possibly the form the rabbit took.

Rabbits as food.

Suppose you gave a Jew a rabbit to eat.... Well, rabbits are not kosher (see primary restriction on chewing cud and cloven hoof). Certainly most gentiles, and in fact many Jews question the value of remaining faithful to the dietary restrictions in the Torah, and subsequently developed by the rabbis that are now encapsulated in the laws of kashrut or "keeping kosher." Does it really DO something, to bury a fork in the ground because it accidentally touched meat and dairy? Does God really care all that much about it? Isn't kashrut fundamentally about keeping people from getting trichinosis from undercooked pork anyhow? Interesting questions for the purposes of debate, but ultimately up to each person to decide. And so you have two options here -- if you give a Jew a rabbit to each with disclosure, it's probably only an ettiquette issue, and they'll quite possibly decline. You've only revealed that you're not knowledgeable about kosher law. But if you give a Jew a rabbit to eat WITHOUT disclosure, it's a far worse thing. You're encouraging another person into sin. This is, by Jewish law, a sin in itself.

Conclusion: If you give a Jew a rabbit to eat, you're encouraging him to break a fundamental law of kashrut.
Suggestion: Don't give a Jew a rabbit as a snack. It may TASTE like chicken, but it's not nice to lead a person into sin, whether you agree with it or not.

Rabbits and Easter.

Suppose you gave a Jew a rabbit in the spring.... The line between Christianity and Judaism is fraught with peril, and in the spring, the line between Jews and rabbits is intense. After all, it's spring, it's beginning to be warm, flowers bud, baby animals arrive on the scene -- what could be more heartwarming than a rabbit that shows up on a beautiful spring day and hides brightly colored eggs for the joy of children? And yet, the superimposition of Christian folk-activity on the heaviness of the Jewish ritual of Passover may be the second most fun-unbalanced time of year. And you hear it over and over -- what's the harm in a few dyed eggs? It's not like it's about JESUS.... But it *is* about Christian interpretation of rebirth and resurrection, which draws an undeniable connection to Jesus and to Christianity for Jews, and is a line that we dare not cross, because when you give a Mouse a Jewish child who's got Easter eggs, well, the next thing you know, he'll want you to get a visit from Santa.

Conclusion: If you give a Jew a rabbit in the spring, he'll associate it with the Easter Bunny and question whether your motives are perhaps more ... insidious.
Suggestion: Don't give a Jew a rabbit during Passover.

Rabbits as Hats.

The only place where I could find an actual correlative connection between Jews and rabbits had to with hats. Improbable? Perhaps. Wikipedia has this to say about that:

"Samet (velvet) or biber (beaver) hats are worn by Galician and Hungarian Hasidim during the week and by unmarried men on Shabbat as well. Some unmarried men only wear a samet hat on the Sabbath and a felt hat during the week. There are many types of Samet hats, most notably the "high" ("hoicher") and "flat" ("platcher") varieties. The "flat" type is worn by Satmar Hasidim, and some others as well. Some Rabbis wear a "round" samet hat in a similar style to the shtofener hats, however made from the Samet material. They are called beaver hats even though today they are made from rabbit."

Conclusion: Some Jews wear rabbit hats.
Suggestion: It's probably okay with a Jew if you give him a rabbit hat.

It's probably just not okay with the rabbit.

Holding my breath....

The last few days have had me holding my breath, waiting for conclusive news about the tile damage on Endeavor. This morning's CNN report indicates that they are more concerned about further damage to the orbiter that could impact the schedule of upcoming missions, but are not so concerned about a catastrophic event that could mean harm to the crew, and that's reassuring to hear. Nevertheless, I'll be watching with bated breath until Barbara and the rest of the crew are safely back on terra firma.

I'm watching the Orlando Sentinel's space blog, The Write Stuff for information, and enjoying their account of the mission on other topics as well. They also have video of press conferences and the launch.

NASA's website also has great video of the launch (much better than mine!) and images from each day of the mission -- images and video can be accessed here.

So for now, I'm distracted, waiting for the next news.

Words fail me.

I'm waiting in the Orlando airport for my flight home, and each time I feel an airplane rumble past on the runway, I'm reminded of the sensations from yesterday evening's launch of Endeavor.

The opportunity to see again so many of the teachers who shared Barbara's fervor for both space and education for all of these years was incredible. I'm pleased to report that teachers don't apparently age, they just go on to found space science organizations of their own.

For now, I just want to share one image: a group of teachers in the bleachers at the Saturn V viewing site, chanting with tears in their eyes:

Give me a B!
Give me an A!
Give me an R!
Give me a B!
What does it spell?
BARB!

It was an undeserved honor to be with them for the launch.

An interesting question

I set up an account with statcounter.com, which allows me to see some very basic information about visits to my blogs. What browsers people use, what countries they come from, and sometimes there's an interesting tidbit in what search terms landed them at this site.

I can't resist raising a question that brought someone to this blog -- and offering to make an effort to answer it.

The question is this:

Why would it be inappropriate to give a Jewish person a rabbit?

Initially, all I can think is that the answer probably has to do with what you expect the Jewish person to do with it. But it's an interesting enough question that I never thought of that ... well, I just wanted to acknowledge it.

Oh, and I also want to point out that this is, as far as I know, the only search string that returns me FIRST in the list of results. I can't tell you how important it made me feel.

Go Barbara!

In 1987, I was a newly minted college graduate with a degree in the extremely business relevant area of Fine Arts, looking for work. I'd done some radio broadcasting. I'd done some work in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library's AV section. I'd used a mainframe. I'd studied religion. In other words, I had utterly no marketable skills.

So I contacted an agency for secretarial placements, and somehow ended up with a job as the Administrative Assistant to the Coordinator of the NASA Teacher in Space Project. My primary task -- to handle the public mail for Barbara Morgan, who had taken on the role of NASA's Teacher in Space, after being the backup to Christa McAuliffe. I mailed educational materials around to the Teacher in Space Ambassadors -- the 2 teachers from each state who were semifinalists. I gathered some statistical information about their speaking and educational engagements. I enjoyed the heck out of hanging around NASA Headquarters, and all of the interesting people who worked there.

But I'm not well-equipped for a life of secretarial support work. As I enter midlife, I'm amazed that I was able to hang on as long as I did, honestly -- it's a miracle, really. After about 2 years, I left for a job handling logistics for a Navy RADAR program, entered government contracting, moved into IT systems work, and never looked back.

But I always said that if Barbara ever flew, I'd want to be there.

Then about 3 years ago, I had a baby, and a lot of things fell off my own personal RADAR in the interference of long nights, diapers, bottles, pacifiers, daycare drop-offs and wet milk-smelling kisses. And it snuck up on me.

Last Friday, I came to the sudden realization that I'd nearly missed it. Barbara's mission, STS-118, was scheduled for next Tuesday, August 7th, at 7pm. I panicked. How could I have let that sneak up on me? I must have been distracted, chasing my 3-year-old son. And that very thing nearly prevented me from following up on the dream of 20 years to watch Barbara fly.

I have not for one night been further than 20 miles from my son, and on that one night, he was at his grandmother's house as a kind of "testflight" of his own. We both survived the separation that night, but there's no question that I felt the extra tension on that particular heartstring until my boy was back at my side the following day.

And so the prospect of jetting off to Florida and leaving my family behind was just not something I felt prepared to do on short order -- asking my husband to take over child care duties for 2 full days was the icing on the cake. I decided to try to get a good-wishes message to Barbara, and send my love with my friend and former colleague Ed in the public affairs office.

My husband told me I was nuts. "GO!" he insisted. I had no idea how to even begin to make arrangements. But Ed quickly responded: "they're having a conference. Here's the contact information."

And 20 years later, the hospitality of the Teacher in Space community is fully intact -- I got a happy-to-hear-from-you from everyone I spoke to, and a seat on the bus to go view the launch, and with the other "friends of TIS," a welcome to the conference activities. One of the conference participants even offered to let me "bunk" for the night I'll be there.

And so a few hours of arrangements later, I have tickets, a car, a hotel room, and a seat on the bus for the show I've been looking forward to for nearly my entire adult life. I'm sure my excitement pales by comparison with Barbara's, and any of the members of the Teacher in Space community, but I'm still hardly able to contain my delight, and my prayers for a safe and joyful launch and return. My camera is packed!