Today’s post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.
At ease, civillians! But stay vigilant when it comes to bright spots in the sky!
We’ve already discussed the terrible risk posed by Asteroids and Lightning – two glowing airborne things that typically do not have your best interests at heart.
A good rule of thumb for the safety-obsessed (like me!) – intensely bright things overhead are usually a cause for concern.
Any full moon is a great reason to be on guard against strange behavior of every possible type.
The sun is another one that I simply don’t trust. I realize that this glowing orb is responsible for many good things, like warmth and everything we eat, but that doesn’t mean there’s no downside. The sun, to me, is like that generous uncle who is also a bit creepy – always hanging around and often just over your shoulder where you can’t see him, but can sense his presence.
I know I’m not the only one who is worried. Some of the people who write for this blog get what I’m talking about.
And now comes word that we are supposed to look at the northeastern sky just before sunrise this week to witness a conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter! It’s wise to question all these things that others simply accept based on propaganda like the following video.
As your local Worst-Case-Scenarist, I would caution against doing everything described in this unless you’re stationary, seated, and completely locked-down. Why?
Looking up in the sky means you’re not looking at the ground, where so many hazards wait to trip you or run into you head-on. The video shows a woman gazing out her window in the early morning light while holding a steaming hot cup of coffee in her bare hands. I don’t have to tell you, I’m sure, about the dangers inherent in this kind of reckless behavior. Gaping in wonder at the sky could cause a person to miss her own mouth while drinking, and she might pour that scalding beverage on her tender skin.
Plus, standing by a window when it’s semi-dark outside makes you a sitting duck for peeping toms and snipers, not to mention real ducks, migrating waterfowl and other natural creatures like bears who love to eat human food and may have already developed a taste for coffee. No one knows for sure what they’re thinking!
One account attempting to promote this remarkable convergence says some people may mistake it “for a UFO.” Not only is it troubling to think that people in the tender early morning hours will look at the sky and be thrown into a state of panic (especially while driving), but Science Fiction fans know that any naturally-occurring astronomical event that “looks like a UFO” can be used by actual space aliens to mask a real invasion!
Yes, “they” know our calls to 911 will be discounted, which gives their landing forces extra time to gain a foothold (if they even have feet – we don’t know!). And if you think the chances of any of this actually happening are beyond remote and bordering infinitesimal, congratulations! That’s exactly what they want you to think!
My advice on this is the same as I offer for most worrisome things – note the hours when this effect will be a fascination for most people, and stay in bed with the covers drawn until it is over!
You will probably be able to leave the safety of your protective cocoon shortly after sunrise, which is not a great sacrifice for most people. Please, sleep late all week in spite of attempts in various media to convince you to put yourself at risk.
Stay vigilant, but with your eyes closed!
Your safety-obsessed friend,
B.S.O.R.
What constitutes “sleeping late” for you?
Trail Baboon 
Since I don’t go to bed until 3AM, arising any later than 10AM would be sleeping late. I wonder if Dale keeps a similar schedule since most of his entries pop up around the time I go to sleep?
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🙂 Luckily, I think there’s something that happens automatically…
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Yes, usually something happens automatically, but I believe Dale still have to be at work very early… since The Morning Blend comes on at 6 a.m.
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Good morning. I almost never get enough sleep because I wake up too early and can’t get back to sleep. On rare occasions I can manage to sleep until almost 6. Usually I don’t make it much past 5 in the morning and many times I am up before 5.
There was a time when I thought it was okay to get up extra early to get started on things I thought I needed to do. I still have more than enough things on my to do list. However, currently I use the early morning hours to do some reading and to make a comment on this blog. I need to find some way to get more sleep and stop getting up extra early.
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And you are out weeding that luscious garden at 6am, aren’t you?
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
Now and then I sleep to the crack of 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. Usually, though, 6:15 comes around and I am AWAKE! When we were vacationing in Europe my Circadian Rhythms were really messed up and I often slept until 8am. Back to the USA/Midwest and 6:15am made its return.
Re: the Full Moon. Anyone in the mental health field will tell you that there is something about the full moon that seems to increase instability–lots of weird stuff happens during the full moon and we are waiting for that explanation from the nay-sayer scientists.
I would be interested in BSOR’s explanation.
Off to the gym where I will be VERY careful.
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You just reminded me of a guy I used to date who would only show up when there was a full moon…….guess one might call that “wierd”
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I am a sunrise kind of guy. I may wake up before the sun but I will roll back over and loll a while longer before getting up.
We were up north this weekend ( missed the blog) and the sky was clear enough of the time in the evening to appreciate the stuff overhead, it is sooooo lit up in the sky up there.
The planets are one of those things along with all the constellations I would like to know more about. Maybe I’ll have to get up early and study.
I have tried the morning gym routine Jacque is off to and the number of people who are leavening at 630 amazes me. They have finished their routine and are getting on with phase two of their day. The world is an amazing place, of all the options on how to do it there are a whole bunch of folks takes the other ones, and the like it. Who would of thunk it.
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Leavening?
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Levitating?
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tim? Caps and sentences. Is this really tim?
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I’m sure it is, but on a device other than his normal one.
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Sleeping late for me means getting up by 7:00. Most days I am up by 6:15, and on weekends I try to stay in bed but I usually get up to start the water for coffee and let the dog out. Husband gets up, eats, and goes back, to bed until 9 or so. He has only ten days left at his current job before four day weekends are the norm and he only works three days a week on the rez.
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Is he having a retirement party, Renee?
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We are having an office pot luck this Wednesday from 11:30 -1:00. We will have sloppy joes and whatever else people bring. He requested that I make cheesecakes. He didn’t want anything too elaborate, just time with coworkers and anyone else who could make it.
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After I took my required math class in college–the only section I could get into was first hour–I promised myself I was never going to get up early again. I did all right as a librarian and a bookstore worker, since libraries usually don’t open until 10 and I usually got later shifts in retail. Then I got into office work and being AT work the same time I’d normally be getting up. That was bad enough, but then we ended up with one sick cat that needs hypoallergenic food but craves the bad stuff, one cat that’s on a diet, and one cat that’s half vacuum cleaner, and suddenly there had to be supervised feeding time instead of anytime nosh. So, not only do I have to get up at the ungodly hour of 6 A.M., but I have to do it *every day* because the moggies are wailing like banshees for their breakfast. I can usually go back to bed on weekends, and sometimes I even get back to sleep, but it’s just not the same as a proper lie-in.
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I sympathize, CG. The 8:00 college classes were brutal, esp. in dead of winter. I had one that was clear across campus, and one morning when it was 20 below, the campanile chimed 8 bells as I walked past the Student Union – still just halfway there – so I turned in there and played bridge with coffee and others who had no doube done the same thing.
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Summer quarter at SIU they started classes at 7:30 AM. They did this to minimize the class time in the ungodly hot and humid afternoons. In my sophomore year health class was a young woman who always attended class in a trench coat, which puzzled me. One day I asked her why. She responded by showing me that beneath her coast she was still wearing her pajamas. The health class was her only morning class, and after class she’d go back home and back to bed.
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Apparently, cold weather and shorter days have some connection to the suicide rate. I was watching “Alaska State Troopers” last night and they got call after call from suidical people. Curious, I googled this and was amazed to read that Alaska’s #1 in the country for suicides. They have TWICE the suicide rate as the national average (22%; the US average 11% out of 100,000). Alaska also has the darkets, shortest days.
The good news is that Hawaii and Minnesota have the lowest rate of suicide in the country!
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Good story! It didn’t help that I was a commuter student, so I had to be up that much earlier just to get to school, plus deal with morning traffic on the 494 bridge. Fortunately, my advisor/writing professor preferred evening classes, so once I got those pesky requirements out of the way I never had to be on campus before 10 A.M.
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Okay, my reply was meant for PlainJane, not Crystal Bay. Although that is an interesting factoid, CB.
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I had an 8 a.m. philosophy class once that met Tuesdays, Thursdays and SATURDAYS. That was ugly.
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The Tuesday and Thursday class I can accept, but there’s something very wrong with a Saturday morning philosophy class. Birdwatching, yes, but philosophy, no way.
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As Bill Watterson says, “Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.” That’s my philosophy.
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9:00 is sleeping late for me, and it’s rare – usually after a very late night. Usual waking time is 7:30 or 8:00, with some lolling around time. While the “tiny houseguests” were here, I finally adjusted my bedtime earlier, since I was going to be awake by 6:30 regardless…
Dale, thanks for keeping us up on these Astronomical Happenings. Will have to get up for one of these…
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I mean thanks, BSOR.
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I’m an early awakener as opposed to an early riser. I love mornings. 5:30 AM is a pretty normal wake-up time for me, and now that I’m retired, I have the luxury of being able to take an hour-long nap shortly after noon. For me it’s not so much Circadian Rhythms that awaken me as it is a full bladder that demands to be emptied.
Once I’m up, the animals want to be let out and expect to be fed. Then it’s back to bed for reading, checking email, the blog and whatnot until Hans gets up around 7 AM. I usually don’t get dressed until after he leaves for work at around 7:45 AM. I love leisurely mornings with plenty of time to sip tea or coffee (coffee usually only on weekends), read the paper, and do the daily Sudoku and New York Times crossword.
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That’s over in a month when Hans retires…. What wil you do then?
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Nobody cares when I’m awake or asleep, starting with me. Old people don’t sleep very long at a time, or at least I don’t, and since I’m not able to walk or work much any more there isn’t that much difference between me asleep or me awake. I sleep in short bursts and nap often. What really matters is how contented and comfortable I am when awake, and on that score I’m doing well. 🙂
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You ought to tell the neighborhood kids you can play second base… Not the ball player, the base.
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Morning all! I don’t think of myself as having any seasonal disorders, but I do sleep and wake according to the sun. In the summer, it’s harder to get enough sleep – too hard to go to sleep before it’s dark and then once the sun comes up and the birds get going, I’m done. In the winter, I have an alarm clock that has a built-in light that slowly brightens in the 30 minutes before the alarm rings. Otherwise I would sleep until the sun came up, which is too late!
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I’d love to have alarm clock like that, except it wouldn’t do me much good as I’d never set it.
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I am developing an alarm clock as per Jacques suggestion that wakes you with vibrations so you don’t have to wake up the whole world to get the show on the road. Can crank it up to earthquake if you are one of those but zzzzzzzzz in the wrist wi do most fils just fine
I used to do some very regular recreational medicinal attitude assisting concoctions that I was told later robbed me of my rems while sleeping so I would time it to the second and get to class. 6 minutes after my feet hit the floor
Once I am awake my brain is going full throttle so it’s just a matter of finding the floor
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Class started at 7 and the old vw never defrosted before arrival during winter months
Mittens and a windshield scraper were vital
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Was it the sunshine boys where George burns woke up to applause every day?
I spoke to someone the other day who has the happy guy with the hat song wake him up every day, he said he loves starting the day with that intro.
I can see bringing Alan Funt back into the equation again. The beaver is on at 7
They just started over today when he is little
The final episode where he was od and they do the flashback was on Sunday morning. I felt cheated . 240 episodes and Sunday 630 am is required to put a wrap on it but today was little beaver and Larry mondelo
Life is good when little beaver and Larry mondelo are my intro to the day
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I suppose you’re sleeping late any time you wake up when you wakw up, rather than when the clock says it’s time for you to wake up.
Having the kind of life where that’s an option makes one very fortunate indeed.
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I have a cat snooze alarm. After years of getting up at 5:30 AM for work (and then feeding her), she thinks this time has to continue after my semi-retirement. On days I do set the alarm, if I sleep thru it by 5-10 min, she is THERE, scolding, bouncing etc. Her timing is impeccable. Never will I be late for my early AM trainer or other appointments. I must admit that once I am up, I really enjoy the freshness of the day in early morning (6:30 or so) right after the sun rises.
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