A couple of months ago, my upper back broke out in something akin to hives. It itches like crazy, and sometimes I wake up in the night from it. It really seems to be an allergic reaction, but I can not figure out to what I am allergic. So? I just deal with it. In times like that, I am disgusted with the fragility of the human body.

However, a couple of weeks ago I got into a fight with my table saw, and lost. Well, more accurately I lost the top of my left thumb. I fortunately missed the bone, but I was missing a lot of flesh. I have been amazed at how fast it is growing back. Right now, it looks a lot like the inside of a tree. I can see all these rings of regrown skin. Ok, it might sound a little icky, but I think it is fascinating. Initially, if I stretched my thumb, or bumped it on something, the nerves flared and I was in excruciating pain. Now, it is just little more than a scratch; a scratch with tree rings, but still a scratch.

It might be a weird coupling, but I have something else to share... I got a telescope last December from Sun as a gift for celebrating(?) my tenth year with the company. I have tried time and time again to align the spotter's scope to see the moon, and had been completely unsuccessful. Wednesday night was fairly warm, and the moon was approaching full, so I thought I'd try again. I told myself to be patient, and after about an hour, I got it! I let Annie stay up a little later as we spent over a half hour staring at and talking about the moon. It was incredible. The magnification is large enough that we can not see the whole moon in the eyepiece. Looking at the face of the moon was moderately interesting, but looking at the rim was spectacular. It was there that we could see all the detail left behind by eons of meteoric battering. If you have never had the chance, I highly recommend this view of the moon. It brings into stark reality the relevance of the moon in our own survival as a species.



Moonstruck...