Coming Up

GROWING LIKE GANGBUSTERS: Our fledgling garden has become a daily delight. Every morning we check to see what has grown how much. Today's progress was impressive! Zucchini is popping up all over, and tiny tomato plants are making their presence known. 

We left home about 10 a.m., and when we came home at 1 p.m., we were shocked by how much bigger and more numerous the zucchini starts were as compared to the morning! Amazing!

Naturally, we've joked about the zucchini overtaking our kitchen, and then our house. CJ said he, for one, welcomes our new zucchini overlords. ;)

The tomato plants are downright wispy in comparison. No surprise, I suppose, given they're cherry tomato type plants.

SAVE THE DATE: This Friday, three men will be leaving Earth, and two of them will be living off-planet for an entire year.

         Image Credit:  Roscosmos/GCTC

From left are Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA, with Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos. Kelly and Kornienko will be spending an entire year in space on board the International Space Station. I hope they enjoy each other's company. :)

The launch, from the Balkonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, will take place at 12:42 p.m. Pacific time on Friday, March 27. Coverage on NASA TV begins at 11:30 a.m.

According to a NASA press release, "Kelly and Kornienko will spend a year on the space station to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space. Data from the expedition will be used to determine whether there are ways to further reduce the risks on future long-duration missions to an asteroid and eventually Mars."

One of the reasons Mark Kelly was selected for the mission is that his twin brother, Scott Kelly, is a retired NASA astronaut.  Data and samples will be collected from both Scott an Mark throughout the year. Comparing data from the genetically-identical Kelly brothers could help identify changes caused by long-term spaceflight.

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE:  We have a few photos left over from yesterday's field trip to Pike Place Market. 

Naturally, we had to visit the booth where they famously throw the fish around. There were no flying fish during the two minutes we were there. However, Annabelle's gaze came to rest on a monk fish. She was a little afraid of its less than conventionally attractive appearance, shall we say.

You can see it in the front and center in the bottom of their display, below. If you look, you can also see one of the workers behind a sign in the center of the top row.

Turns out he was headed to the string that's attached to the (fake) monk fish. You should have seen Annabelle JUMP!!!! when he tugged on said string. She actually (mildly) hurt herself she jumped so violently. We all had a good laugh about it, though.

We also had to pay a visit to what has to be one of the most disgusting tourist attractions in the world: The Gum Wall in Post Alley.

Colorful, and it actually even smell good (all spearminty!), but oh, so gross, and growing every day. The photo below is just a fraction of it.