Don't Lose Your Head

Planarian Schmidtea mediterranea - photo by Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado 
TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE: In science class this afternoon, the kids learned lots about planaria, masters of regeneration. Their teacher had found some planaria in the creek near her home and brought them in for the kids to see.

Cut the head off a planaria, and it grows a new one! Cut its tail off, and it grows a new tail, and the tail sectio you cut off grows a new head. Cut its head AND its tail off, and it regrows both, and those cut off sections grow a new head or tail. Crazy! Planaria can also grow two heads, and can regenerate an entire half of their body if you cut them head to tail down the middle. Fascinating!

This evening, we watched a video about planaria via the Exploratorium's Web site. Planaria expert Alajandro Sanchez Alvarado narrated it. Scientists are very interested in animals who can regenerate body parts, because that regeneration is fueled by stem cells, and if it works in other animals, perhaps it can be true of human parts, too. 

The science teacher also talked about  planaria eyes, which are really just primitive photo receptors or pigment cups. It tied in nicely with what last Sunday night's Cosmos was all about!

FEAR NOT: This afternoon we watched a captivating TED talk by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. 

Some of the content was similar to what we heard when we were fortunate enough to see him in Seattle at a Town Hall presentation. He talked about the process of launching, and how beautiful Earth is from space, likening it to "a self propelled art gallery." 

Photo: NASA

Hadfield also spoke of how coming back to Earth in a Soyuz is like "riding a meteorite."  

The astronaut had a very specific message in this talk, much of which was about "changing caveman reactions" to fear.  The title of the talk is  "Chris Hadfield: What I learned from going blind in space."
It's definitely worth 15 minutes of your time. http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from_going_blind_in_space

SPOILER ALERT: I would encourage you to watch Hadfield's talk (link above) *before* you read CJ and Annabelle's reflections on his talk. Here's what CJ had to say ...

Chris Hadfield talked about how it was being blind in space, which, of course, is not good. Chris said that while he was spacewalking, some anti-fog (which was composed of oil and soap) got into one of Chris' eyes, blinding him in his left eye. This gave the eye pain, and tears from the left eye came into the right eye, completely blinding him. This made it so that Chris could not see anything, which is pretty bad when you're in space.

However, Hadfield didn't panic, and he eventually got back in the ISS. A fellow astronaut of Chris' wiped out some crust from Chris' eye with a rag, and that situation was over. Something from that that I am able to apply to my life is that Hadfield decided *not* to panic, and that made sure that he made it back in alive. That basically says: "Don't panic and you'll be fine."

P.S: Chris Hadfield said that now they use Johnson's No More Tears instead of anti-fog.

And Annabelle's perspective ...  

Commander Hadfield was out for a spacewalk, when suddenly his left eye snapped closed and hurt. He went blind in his left eye. What did he do? He jokingly wondered if that's why we have two eyes and continued working like it was nothing. No panic, no "OMG GUYS I NEED HELP!!!" He just kept working. Now, you see, in space your tears don't fall. So Chris' crying blinded eye had a huge ball of tears and whatever irritated the eye. Soon, the ball got big enough to go break surface tension, letting the tear-irritant mix to go over the bridge of his nose and into the other eye.  Chris Hadfield was blind.

He had to get help from his fellow astronauts and they found out it was just anti-fog (a mix of soap and oil) in his eye. Now they use Johnson's No More Tears instead of anti-fog.

What I learned from Chris Hadfield is that it can take awhile for childhood dreams to come true, and that you should never panic when you walk into a spiderweb. Also, use Johnson's No More Tears.

GOING FOR BROKE: Huger Action Week continues, and today's the halfway point. The kids had their usual cereal breakfast (.91), while Christian and I had our usual, coffee (.41 for the pot), totaling $1.32. Today was the monthly "Pizza Wednesday" at the kids' Shoreline school. We skipped that, because it would have been $2.50 apiece for a single slice of pizza (plus a pop and salad if they wanted). Instead, we bought a whole Little Caseser's pizza for $5.41, including tax. A splurge really, but a way for the kids to have a 'pizza Wednesday' and conform to our budget. The good news was, that $5 was pizza enough for their lunch AND dinner, bonus! I had a stick of pepperoni for lunch (.25), and Christian had leftover chicken nuggets from last night, which had already been expensed in yesterday's budget. That brought today's total to $6.99 with no dinner for me or Christian leaving $14.01 to go. We were $5.22 under Tuesday, and $6.68 under on Monday - that meant we were $25.92 ahead so far. My thoughts turned to happy hour ... The cheapest place in town we know of is Norm's in Fremont. Dare we do it?

We did. During happy hour their 'bottomless' sodas are $2, and any microbrew on the menu is $3. We ordered a (enormous) bowl of their house made potato chips for $4.99. When all was said and done (two sodas, four beers and plenty of chips for all), the damage was $21 and change. Yee haw. So going close to the bone Monday and Tuesday meant we could actually go out on Wednesday, and we're still a tad under. 

Back to prison rations tomorrow, LOL.

But seriously, as usual, we've had a number of really great conversations this week about why we're doing what we're doing. For instance, today at work, Christian told some co-workers about how educational it was figuring out the cost of each meal, and eye opening it is about how to stick to a strict budget. When one co-worker started grousing about people on food assistance driving Escalades, Christian had a constructive conversation with the person about the reality for the vast majority of people on basic assistance, many of whom are children with absolutely no say in how the adults in their lives spend their money. 

The fact of the matter is, rates of food insecurity are higher in households with children. According to the AntiHunger & Nutrition Coalition, nationally, nearly 16 million children live in households that experience food insecurity. That's 21.6 percent of all children. The Children’s Alliance estimates that up to 400,000 children in Washington live in food insecure households. 

Unfortunately, Washington ranks 15th among the states in hunger, one spot higher than  it did in 2011.