Working It

HOMEFRONT: Apologies for the lack of posts as of late. It seems like our hands are continually covered in mortar, grout, joint compound, or wallpaper glue this week.

We *FINALLY* finished the tile installation in the downstairs shower. Hooray!
Honestly, it really wasn't much of a shower before. It had a drain that leaked, regular old drywall for its walls (who does that?!), and a broken shower head. 

So, we ripped out the drywall, resloped the shower floor so that water would actually get to the drain, surrounded the shower with cementious backer board, and installed a hundreds of subway-shaped tiles floor-to-ceiling.

And because one project begets another, new flooring is going down in the bathroom soon, and its adjacent hallway and bedroom. And before you put new flooring down, well, it makes sense to paint the walls. However, there was a 'small' problem: The hallway walls were covered in dark, dingy textured wallpaper. Worst-case scenario was that we'd paint over it if it was impossible to pull up. However, we found with a couple of test patches that we could pull at least the top, textured layer off without too much trouble, so then we had to remove the backer layer by scoring it, spraying it with some nasty chemical, and then painstakingly scraping it off one square inch at a time.

However, with CJ, Annabelle, sometimes Kennedy and I working together, we knocked the peel job out this week. The painting will be the fun part! (Also, yes, I know we need a new light fixture. The one in the photo is super dated and not in the cool funky-retro way that I like.)

Yesterday, CJ and Annabelle assembled a bath vanity from IKEA. It's a good exercise in following written, sequential directions.

Suffice it to say, we're nowhere near finished with the renovation(s), but we definitely made some serious progress this week. 

FIRE IN THE SKY: Speaking of this week, I've noticed "not normal" looking clouds bumping up against the east side of Mt. Rainier. 

They were stacked clouds, cumulus of some sort, but I didn't know what sort until I happened upon a post by KING 5 news about pyrocumulus clouds and Mt. Rainier. 

So there you have it, our meteorlogical lesson of the week.

BEES, PLEASE: Another story from our newsfeed this week involved burgeoning beekeeping in the heart of urban Detroit, Michigan.

A non-profit, Detroit Hives, is buying vacant land in the still- city, and setting up scores of beehives on them, where minorities are encouraged to learn about beekeeping. Talk about a win-win!


MEANWHILE, ON JUPITER: NASA's -year-old Hubble telescope continues to amaze. At least once a year,  Earth-orbiting Hubble turns its eyes to all our outer solar system planets to check on their weather. This week, new photos of our solar system neighbor Jupiter were released. (The photos were taken on June 27 of this year.)

Did you know that Jupiter's great red spot, an enormous storm, has been shrinking for years now? While it is getting taller and turning more orange, it is shrinking in diameter. Once upon a time the Great Red Spot was believed  to be large enough to cover the width of three Earths, but as of April 2017, the storm spot was just a little wider than one Earth (a diameter of 10,159 miles, according to NASA.

Using the latest Hubble images, NASA compiled an animation of Jupiter's rotation. (In case you were wondering, Jupiter completes one rotation every 9.8 hours.)

A few more fun Jupiter facts from the folks at NASA ...

Starry Eyed

PLAY PARK:  Saturday evening we made our way to Blanche Lavizzo Park in what has become an annual pilgrimage. It used to be to watch Star Trek episodes acted out, but last year they shifted universes to Star Wars. This summer's offering was "The Empire Strikes Back." Basically every scene, every line, oh-so-creatively done!

As always, the low-budget but big-imagination sets were fantastically done. Below is how they recreated the opening scene, with an Imperial Star Destroyer taking the stage.

The Imperial minions were throwing mini starships. CJ caught one. This is what is said (a famous quote from the movie).

 Pretty early into the script, a wampa gives Luke a real hard time. Love how they recreated that!

 And then there is the scene where the Rebel Alliance is fighting the Imperial Walkers.

 Tactically flying around them, they were able to take the legs out from underneath them. 

 The performance was very dynamic. Often cast members were posted up in the midst of the audience. 

The production's "little things" were so much appreciated - like Luke enjoying a bag of Dick's on Degobah.

Yoda was a big fan of the burgers and fries.

There were epic battles.

And Luke was a little worse for the wear, having to get an artificial hand installed. 

There were some heartfelt goodbyes during the show, as well. 

 Poor Han. Hope the carbonite doesn't kill him!

The show runs the first four weekends in August. The reason we went on opening night was it coincided with celebrating Grandpa R's birthday. In addition to serving up dinner for nine in the park (pastrami sandwiches and potato salad) Annabelle and I made some Star Wars cookies for dessert. Most of them went to the cast after the show.

All in all, it was such big fun. Hats off to Hello Earth for providing such fun (and free!) entertainment each summer.

BTW - this R2D2 costume was the inspiration for Annabelle's Halloween costume last year, right down to the roller skates. 

On Display

SPACE ROCKS: Thursday night, CJ's months-in-the-making Museum Apprenticeship Program display finally debuted.

He's involved in a program at The Museum of Flight where he was tasked with coming up with an innovative display for the museum. CJ loves classic rock and space stuff, so a "Space Rocks" display seemed a natural. 

Below is a test run of his display on our dining room table. 

Thursday night, we dropped him and all of his stuff off at the museum. We returned a couple of hours later to see how his fledgling display was going. Below is what it looked like approaching it from the stairs down into the museum's Great Gallery.

I was happy to see he had a crowd when we approached! Turns out other people are interested in rock and roll and space! 

Below is the poster he had behind the juke box.

On the juke box, he had a playlist running of dozens of space-inspired songs. 

In the middle of the booth, he had a laptop playing videos performed by musician astronauts on the ISS. 

Here's a short video of what the booth looked and sounded like. 

All in all, it sounded like his booth was a success. Museum of Flight overseers said it was popular, and he's encouraged to bring it back in the future for others to enjoy.

galaxy cake

CJ's MAP MOMENT

TOMATOES

BLACKBERRIES