the Haley's comet: June 2011

the summer of free concerts lived on

4:00 PM

there was the most interesting man in the world

1:00 PM

okayyyy no not this guy.

for those of you that think those dos equis commercials are funny, no. he's lame.

there is a man I see almost every day. I don't know if he's homeless or just a professional panhandler.

to be completely honest, I really don't care.

because he is one of the happiest homeless people/professional panhandlers I've ever met.

there are so many transients around DC that are just so bitter and angry with the world. really, guys? you honestly think that's going to motivate me to give you anything?? fat chance.

with this guy, he just smiles and waves and says "good afternoon miss. have a good day." but it's never been the same phrase twice. if it's a nice day out he'll say, "enjoy the beautiful weather" or if it's raining he'll say, "stay dry today". one day he told me I looked fancy.

if he is just a conman, this guy knows what he's doing. I've given him a couple bucks, just because I genuinely like him. plus he's always wearing green {no joke, it's always a green shirt with this guy}. and that makes me like him more.

but I have to wonder, does this man have a family? where does he sleep or do laundry? on days when it's especially hot outside, does he really truly not have anywhere to home to? is he lonely?

I've never been so curious about any person in my life as I am about this man. if I'm ever feeling especially brave one day, I want to sit down and talk to him and learn about his life. there has to be a reason why this man is so happy every day. he doesn't have a good life, and yet he is so different than everyone else on the streets I've seen here.

... I also wonder if there's some secret to life that he knows and we're just all missing out on. and how his life would be changed by the gospel. maybe it wouldn't change.

I hope he isn't lonely. I hope he has someone to be his friend.

I can't be the first person to wonder about and appreciate this man. he has probably impacted the lives of maybe hundreds of people, and that is a truly amazing thing. this man, at least on the outside, appears to be the ultimate optimist and will probly never know what a remarkable thing he's done.

I love him. he might be my favorite person in all of DC. and if you ever walk down Pennsylvania from Foggy Bottom to Georgetown, I hope maybe you can meet this man too.

there was a 'night at the museum'

1:00 PM

... not just the movie. we lived it. minus the animals coming to life and such.

yesterday I hinted at the smithsonian sleepover.

so Friday night, Janet & I got to help out with this sleepover for kids 8-12 years old and their parents at the Natural History Museum.

so from 8-11pm, the kids got to go around on this museum=wide scavenger hunt where they learned about different things like dinosaurs and mummies and mammals and rainforests and stuff. they also got to do some little interactive craft or game at each exhibit.

Janet & I were put in the Ocean Hall to teach about blubber and bioluminescence. I was at the blubber station with Phoenix the North Atlantic Right Whale.

this is how my shpeel usually went for the kids when they came to my station...

"so. you guys just learned about bioluminescent plankton didn't you? those are some of the tiniest creatures in the whole ocean. this, on the other hand {this is the part where I'd point up at Phoenix}, is one of the biggest animals in the sea. this is Phoenix, she's a North Atlantic Right Whale.

"they are also one of the most endangered animals. there are only about 350 right whales alive right now.

{if there were a lot of boys in the group, I'd go into this next part. it mostly made little girls sad so I didn't bother if it was a lot of girls}

"does anybody know why they were called right whales? {no answer...} it's because when early whale hunters saw a right whale, they would call off and say 'arrrrrrrrh! tharr be the 'right whale'!' because it was the 'right whale' to hunt- right whales like Phoenix are kind of slow, and when they're killed, they float to the top of the water. {sad, right??}

"right whales spend their time swimming and hanging out with other whales, but they spend around 18 hours a day just eating. right whales are about 1900 pounds when their born, and they can grow up to 200 pounds a day. that's like growing almost two of me, every day!!

"because right whales usually swim in super icy cold water, they have this layer of fat {most kids would just interrupt me at this point and yell 'BLUBBER'} called blubber. the layer of blubber is about a foot and a half thick and takes up around 40% of their entire body weight.

"now what we're going to do here is test some how blubber works on some icy cold water..."

then I had the kids stick one hand in a bag {layered with another bag inside so their hands didn't get all goopy} coated with crisco and leave the other hand bare and put them both in a bucket of ice water. they didn't leave the bare hand in the water very long, but with the fat insulation, you really couldn't feel the cold at all. I tried it, and it was kind of amazing. I encouraged parents to try it too, just because it was kinda cool. most were entertained :)

after that, I'd stamp their paper, give them their coloring book worksheet and they'd move on to the dinosaur station in the next hall.

oh, we also got rockin t-shirts.