Sunday, January 13, 2008

We survived the meteor shower (revised - better word choice)

I have not been watching the weather reports over the last few days, but my husband tells me there were predictions for a meteor shower last night and maybe tonite (Saturday - Sunday). Unfortunately it is cloudy tonite so I may not see them if they are happening. Last month there was a meteor shower and I did see that. What you see is a shooting star or two about every minute (a minute is sixty seconds and that is a long time). It is very dark out here so we have beautiful midnite skies on a clear night.

The big concern for my husband was that the meteors would fall to the earth. Just recently a woman who signed up to volunteer for Pine Area Home Services has been coming to our house and walking with John down our driveway in the afternoon. She is a wonderful person, very chatty, and about forty-five. The perfect age and extraction for my husband. Well my husband was worried that the meteors would be problem while they went for a walk. He was afraid he would be hit like in a hale storm or worse. He also was sharing his concern with anybody who came over plus everyone else he could think of, to warn them. He was suggesting to my son's girlfriend that she find shelter in a basement, and bring food and water to survive the event. We discussed the impact it might have to the house, but since we do have a "bomb shelter" in our basement (under the porch; my husband had a small room excavated that has walls of cinder block under the cement porch and we use it for cold storage) John wasn't worried about this family.

I have to give my son's girlfriend a lot of credit. She listened attentively while I put in my two cents of [good-natured] teasing. Most meteors burn up before they reach the Earth's atmosphere. I did tell my husband this, but he disagreed. My husband suffers from dimentia due to various health issues, so I think he has forgotten some of the things he probably learned in Science class. And he continues to be firm on his opinion. My main argument as to the seriousness of the concern was that meteors only fall to the earth in the southwest, Oregon or New Jersey so the probability of one landing here is small. Tonite my husband's elder son, who lives in Phoenix, Az, called to see how we survived the weather.

Note: Someone (see comments) has reminded me that most meteors burn up before they reach the earths' atmosphere. I do know this, so i revised my discussion above. Sometimes John comes up with the darndest ideas. This one I just had to share.

4 comments:

robkroese said...

You realize that most meteors are the size of flecks of dust, and burn up hundreds of miles above the earth's surface?

Unknown said...

That was the first round of discussion I had with my husband about it, that most meteors don't make it through the Earth's atmosphere but my husband wasn't buying it....he used to know this but he's had a few strokes so I think he's forgot. This is just an example of the kinds of discussions we have and some of the interesting ideas he comes up with.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Anne, this is so good - and great that you can see the humor in it!