The other day, I took a taxi ride and the driver, being a lamentably chatty sort, asked me what I do for a living. Upon learning that I am an astronomer, she promptly inquired, in all apparent innocence, if I had been to the moon. I am pretty sure this was a serious question. Several friends have since suggested that I should have answered “not yet” or something similar, but I was unfortunately dumbstruck. I just sat there listening as she held forth on how it is so wonderful that the planets orbit the moon but she could only look at the moon because she had a bad knee. Right.

Gladys found the Virgin Mary in my strawberries.  We would call CNN and Ebay, but we ate them.  Oops.

The most annoying rental car ever, near Taos, NM

Can’t start the engine unless in Park AND your foot’s on the break.  Start the engine without your seatbelt on: “Bing Bong! Bing Bong!”.  Open the door with the headlights on: “Bing Bong! Bing Bong!”.  Stop the engine with the headlights on: “Bing Bong! Bing Bong!”. Open the door with the keys in the ignition: “Bing Bong! Bing Bong!”.  Oh just shut up, please!

My cat, Floozie, likes to chew on my neoprene netbook bag, although she knows very well that she’s not allowed.  This set me wondering if cats chewing neoprene is a common problem – after all, it does have a potentially chewy texture (no, I haven’t tried).  So I Googled “my cat ate my wetsuit” and was bemused to get no hits at all.  How many 5 word sentences have no Google hits?  Anyone?

(Also, not three minutes after writing this post, I Googled “my cat ate my wetsuit” again, and got this URL.  That was quick!)

Montegrande, Elqui Valley, Chile