Today I dropped by Walgreens for Covid-19 vaccination #8. Remember those innocent days of early 2021 when we all believed it’d be one & done? Okay, two if you got the Pfizer, but you know what I mean.
Along with the Covid booster I got an annual flu shot, the stronger version for over-65s. That on top of my weekly Ozempic self-injection, plus a bloody half-hour with our dermatologist to have a troublesome cyst removed from the middle of my back. That one required sutures, which are smarting now the lidocaine’s worn off. It’s been a tiring day. I’ll be taking antibiotics for several days, and Tylenol over the weekend.
When I read SpaceX’s Polaris mission would include a spacewalk I expected, I don’t know, an actual walk in space? Like someone floating around outside the capsule or crawling about its surface, connected by a tether? And given that this is a commercial mission, not one conducted by conservative old NASA, maybe even without a tether? Something more SpaceX-y, anyway, not some guy poking his head and upper body out and moving his arm like a robot. Were the other three crewmembers holding his feet from inside so he didn’t drift away?
Pretty timid stuff. Gotta say, though, the new spacesuits and helmets are cool.
SpaceX, speaking of, is launching more Falcon 9 rockets than ever from Vandenberg AFB, 600 miles west of here. I monitor the schedule, set my cell phone alarm for evening and night launches, and go outside with Donna to watch. From here they’re sometimes visible, if the conditions and lighting are right.
So far we haven’t had much luck. There was one night launch, month before last, where we actually saw a spot of flame climbing in the west and the beginnings of a shock cone and wake, but it wasn’t very pronounced, not the freaky sky-spanning “space jellyfish” we’ve been hoping to catch on video. There was another launch last night at 6:45 p.m., an ideal time, with the sun still over the Pacific, for space jellyfish generation, but haze and smoke from the large southern California wildfires prevented us from seeing anything.
One of my favorite bloggers, Nancy Nall, questions the recent “assassination attempt” on Donald Trump. She expresses her disbelief, and the reasons for it, in a recent blog post, then goes on to comment on Melania Trump, who has joined her husband in suggesting Democrats were behind it all. What I love most are Nancy’s comments on Melania, where she describes her as “the ho’ wife,” footnoting it with a disclaimer: “Sex work is work.” I took the liberty of copying that part of the post:
Melania’s recent contract negotiation must have called for something similar, because the ho’ wife* is carrying his water, too:
https://t.co/ZCTwZSqZND pic.twitter.com/KKA6anTEYC
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) September 10, 2024
*obligatory disclaimer: Sex work is work.
Speak it, Nancy!