This is about all the showers I wish I had more of in my life. As a mother and amateur astronomer with a 3 month old and two year old, my time is limited. This morning I braved a shower while both girls were awake, because I felt icky and stinky and tired. One half dozed safely in the other room, and the two year old was tossed up on my bed with Team UmiZoomi on Nick Jr. Then I stripped off everything as fast as a I could and scrubbed off the cookie dough bits, chocolate drippings, baby drool, and everything else that had attached itself to me in the previous 40 hours or so. Ahhh. So refreshing to be clean, and not find your children in trouble afterwards. Although my two year old was ready to take off again and create a ruckus elsewhere in the house. So I've gotten once successful shower in, without my husband home to corral the little maniacs.
Now, shower #2, the Geminids, peaks late this week. Yes, it peaks. The meteor shower is visible for a while this month, waxing and waning like the lunar phases. The nights the news stations always report about are just the night it peaks. If you miss it by a day, you haven't really missed it. If you want to wait until Friday or Saturday night, when there's no work, and no school, to stay up late with your family to watch, it's okay. You may see a few less, but you will still see them.
It always drives me crazy when everyone sends me fb messages and e-mails about stuff like this. "ONE NIGHT ONLY!!!" Yeah, I'm a space nerd. I expect people to know this by now. And I expect my close friends and family to have listened to me rant enough to not fall for the hoax e-mails that say "Mars will be visible as big as the moon!" I promise not to get started on all the reasons that's impossible, how much more havoc that would cause than my two year old.
Happy stargazing. Go read about the Geminids.
