All posts by Dona

Carl and Me

Memories, People

I’d forgotten about my reverence for Carl Sagan until my daughter played a mash-up video for me. I think I’d seen the video before, but her excitement about Carl Sagan brought back memories of my excitement about the man.

I must have liked his series, Cosmos, or something. I don’t remember why I liked him so much. It might have been because I was teaching science at the time and especially liked astronomy. I don’t even remember what decade it was, although the 1980’s is a safe bet. It could have been the 1990’s but I don’t remember having kids when he was my hero.

Anyway, whenever it was, I thought he was a demi-god and when I heard he was going to be at an event on the Mall, I made sure we went too. The event was commemorating the 1963 march on Washington — one of the half-decade anniversaries — probably the 25th because we would have had both Clare and Andrew by the 30th anniversary.

I had pretty high expectations back then. I assumed that since Carl Sagan was going to be on the Washington Mall, I would see him. He may have talked, I don’t know. Probably. He was famous and all. We’d planned on meeting up with friends but, in the days before cell phones, never connected. There were a heck of a lot of people there.

While listening to one speaker I looked up and realized I was standing next to Betty Thomas. And when I say up I mean UP. She is very tall. (Since Hill Street Blues ended in 1987, I’m more and more sure this event was in the 1980’s). Betty took no notice of me, but I felt like this was really an event since she was just part of the crowd.

Later, Dean and I walked around. I politely took,  and mistakenly looked at, a pamphlet from someone who was part of an organization I’d not heard of: PETA. No more meat for me until 1990 when I became pregnant with Clare.

We continued walking and saw a crowd of people ahead. As we got closer, I saw that the crowd was gathered around a dark haired man. As we got even closer I realized it was Carl Sagan. I stood on the outskirts of the crowd, wanting to tell him of my admiration, but being too afraid. He smiled and walked and talked with the crowd. I looked away and began walking — perhaps trying to find Dean or maybe just following him. I looked down at the ground — it was crowded. I didn’t want to fall. I bumped into someone. Looking up I saw I’d bumped into Carl Sagan. I muttered my apologies and ran away, heart beating faster than it probably should.

So, that’s the story of Carl and me.

Here’s the mash-up video if you have not seen it (I later fell in love with Bill Nye):

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Don’t freak — The Joys of Parenthood

Humor

I love having my daughter home. Really I do. Not that I see her a lot. She sleeps late and goes out with friends until long after I’ve gone to bed. I’m either working or she’s occupied during the few hours we overlap awake and in the house together.

But the times that we do happen to be in the same room at the same time are wonderful and we’ve caught up on each other’s lives nicely.

There are some things I don’t like about her being back though. One is the slight worry I have when she’s out at night. When she’s at school we don’t know what she’s doing, and therefore don’t worry; but when she’s here we feel her absence when she’s out. Also I hear the door open when she gets home at 2 or later.

One night, soon after she came home, she called to say she’d be late getting home. I woke up sometime after 2 and eventually heard her come in. Knowing she was home safely,  I fell asleep again.

I was rudely awakened by Dean, slamming doors and loudly exclaiming how upset he was that Clare had not come home. I got up and helped look for her, telling Dean I’d heard her come home. He was angry with her for blatantly disobeying her 2:00 curfew. We called her cell phone and I called her roommate’s cell phone. I was getting ready to call the mother of one of her friends — someone she’d been out with the night before, but didn’t want to call too early. I figured she’d come home and went out again for a good reason — maybe her roommate or friend needed someone to talk to.

I really was not worried until Dean noticed she had not taken her winter coat, wallet or shoes. He also thought he could hear her cell phone when he called it. I switched from calm to frantic, sure that someone had come in the house at night and taken her away. I walked to Dean who was in the laundry room and decided to call the mother of that friend — too early or not. I looked down as I walked past the catch-all closet in the basement and saw a fragment of my bathrobe — which she’d been wearing lately. I opened the door of the closet and found Clare asleep on the floor of the closet, covered in blankets and a Snugli and wearing my bathrobe.

She opened her eyes, looked at me and said, “I slept in the closet. I left you a note.”

We found the note a little later, words scribbled at the bottom of a pencil drawing in her sketchpad next to the basement couch.

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Clare's napping in the closet for a change. Don't freak.