Imagine you’re a long, long way from home.

This government job you have takes you on the road pretty much 365 days a year. It seems there’s no plan to bring you back .. ever! That would be a deal-breaker for many.

“You can work me to the edge of exhaustion,” you imagine yourself telling your overlords, “but don’t keep me at the office on Mother’s Day.”

Unfortunately, the Cassini Spacecraft doesn’t have the option of making such a demand because “the office” is a vast airless vacuum all around the giant planet Saturn. And Mother’s Day? Not a big observance for machines that are not born as much as they are imagined, designed and assembled by teams of engineers.

Still, I’d like to think that even a bag of bolts can feel wistful, so it seems fitting that our lonely wanderer Cassini found and beamed back this lovely rose – beautiful to look at but maybe not so wonderful to experience first hand.

This lovely flower swirling around the North Pole of Saturn is 1,200 miles across. Forget for a moment that the deep crimson folds could be traveling at 330 miles per hour. A pretty thing is still a pretty thing, even if touching it would peel the skin off you.

Still, picture the excitement of two space scientists as they spotted this one in the viewfinder! Particularly if it was around Christmas and they were in the habit of conversing only to the tune of “Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming.”

It could happen!

!) Lo, there’s a Rose on Saturn.
At least it looks like one to me!
That clearly is the pattern.
What other flower could it be?
That’s no geranium!
It needs some fertilizer.
For it is … so far from the sun.

2) Let’s not begin debating
whether Saturn has a rose.
You are hallucinating.
This much everybody knows –
A flower can’t survive
in space’s icy regions
where nothing remains alive.

3) What fragrance has this blossom,
So bright and beautiful and fair?
From here it looks so awesome!
Vibrant and fresh, though without air!
It decorates the sky.
The gentle Rose of Saturn
As seen through Cassini’s eye.

When have you seen something that wasn’t really there?

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’m a very well-known actor who, for good reason, is adored. I aways play the hero. My legions of fans worship me for my great good looks, admire me for my superlative storytelling skill and love me for my homespun decency and my everyman personality.

Years ago, a lousy agent I had told me to draw the line at SEEMING approachable. If I let people ACTUALLY get close, she said, they would soon learn that I am a self-absorbed, small-minded husk of a human being who is incapable of empathy and doomed to wander the Earth searching for my own reflection in every fetid pool.

I fired her of course. No one can talk to ME that way!

But now a video has surfaced on the internet that clearly shows me insulting and pushing a very old woman who got in my way at a custard stand. She was dithering over what type of sprinkles to get on the cones she was buying for her grandchildren. The children weren’t even nearby – they were cowering on the other side of the room! I asked her to hurry up and she just stood there, squinting at the choices like she couldn’t see them. I used a louder voice and a more urgent tone and she did nothing – acting like she couldn’t hear, either. So I shoved her out of the way and placed my order. When she complained I said “Do you know who I am? You’re about to find out!”

Boy did she ever! Our video spread like dandelions on steroids and now our names are linked in headlines that are splashed across every handheld device in America. She’s known everywhere as a victim who showed uncommon grace under pressure, and of course I’m already famous for being awesome!

Friends tell me I should apologize to her for being a rude bully but I think she should thank me. I made her a star! The blogs say I’ve been exposed as a socially stunted fraud but I think I was just putting a shine on my “everyman” credentials. Most folks feel impatient when they’re stuck in line behind a slow old person. People will realize this if they examine their feelings honestly. I just let my very ordinary reaction leak out – an unusual (for me) lapse. There’s no way I’m “insensitive.”

And besides, those children didn’t need to have dessert. They’re fat!

With Characteristic Sincerity,
America’s Favorite Famous Actor Boy, Loved Everywhere

I told A.F.F.A.B.L.E. he needs to re-assess his imagined status as America’s Mr. Sweetchunks. The public is fickle and it relishes making a quick turn against anyone with privilege caught taking himself too seriously. A fawning apology, followed by major acts of contrition and a sizable donation to a deserving charity might start to undo the damage, but the road to redemption is long and rocky.

Or, he could just specialize in playing villains from here on out.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

Today’s post comes from idea man and envisioneer Spin Williams.

Here at The Meeting That Never Ends we’re thrilled to pieces over advances that have been made lately on the creation of very Tiny Flying Robots (T.F.R.)!

When I was a kid, I was allergic to bee stings. I used to get totally freaked out when a bee came anywhere near me. I would react by running in circles, waving my arms wildly over my head, and crying for mercy. My brother would weep with laughter as I panicked. My terror was wonderful entertainment for him – as it always is with older brothers and their little siblings.

My mother encouraged me to calm down by trying to picture things from the insect’s point of view.

“Imagine, ” she said, “that people ran away whenever you approached. How would you feel? The bee can’t help being a bee, so why make it worse for him by having such a fit?”

I’ll always love my mom for having such a good heart, but this bit of advice never worked for me. I suffered with a severe case of Grade School Cooties from the time I was 5 until about age 12, so people DID run away when I approached, and I knew it sucked. So I didn’t care about the bee’s feelings. I could keep humans at a distance, but bees were so small and fast my defenses were useless against them. The notion of one getting too close to me was positively mortifying.

To this day, I cannot think about anything but my own sudden death whenever there is a bee around.

But if I had my own swarm of T.F.R., I could deploy them as a cloud to surround my head and keep the REAL bees away.

I know people worry about the possible unprincipled government use of Little Insect-Like Drones to invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens, but I see them as being so much more useful for individuals like me. T.F.R. could be configured as a potential force field, a personal space-maker, and an affordable airborne army.

Or they could become an especially fierce substitute for hair.

I can think of all sorts of reasons why everyone would like to have their own squadron of diminutive flyers. Filling the air with tiny buzzers that are at your command would be extremely empowering. And like our very own Defense Department, I refuse to think about how enemies might eventually use the same technology against me.

But they wouldn’t dare. We’re America!

I love the future – I wish it was here already!

Your pal at T.M.T.N.E.,
Spin Williams

I suspect Spin will soon get his wish – T.F.R. will be available on a widespread basis within five years. How do I know? I little buzzing machine whispered it in my ear!

How would you deploy your Tiny Flying Robots?

Today is the birthday of singer Sharon Jones. She’s 57.

If I was a very good and thoroughly inventive writer, I might be able to create a character as complete as Sharon Jones. Her solo career was going nowhere, so she made money as an armored car guard and a corrections officer on Rikers Island, New York City’s main prison facility.

How can that be anything but stressful work? The only advantage I can imagine to such a job is the opportunity to learn a whole bunch about human nature. That would be an excellent education if what you wanted to become was a tough cookie.

Jones got her big break as a musician at age 40 because she was the only one of three scheduled backup singers to show up for a gig.

We all know remarkable things can happen if you are in the right place at the right time. Some of it is whimsy, but you do have to be willing to get out of bed.

Sharon Jones continues to tour globally with her band The Dap Kings, and she is giving us a day-by-day demonstration of what it means to have an exemplary “second act”. Here she is singing “This Land is Your Land.”

When have you been in the right place at the right time?

Today’s post comes as a text from Bart, the bear who found a smart phone in the woods.

Hey,

Bart here with some advice for you. Show a little respect for someone else’s personal details before you go sharing them around, eh?

I know I’m a bear. So I get it that I don’t get to have privacy. That’s obvious. It’s “does-a-bear-poop-in-the-woods” obvious.

I am a bear, and we do. No big surprise.

So you have to wonder why it winds up being in the news.

I get it that this was in somebody’s back yard and not in the actual WOODS, but c’mon. Outside is outside. So what if you cut the grass and raked the leaves? It still looks like a bathroom to me. And all the other stuff in that article about how timid bears are and how bad it is to feed us and how if you dump a bag of Cheetos in the yard it’ll cut my life expectancy in half?

Again – no big surprise.

If you ate a whole bag of Cheetos off your lawn, it would probably kill you outright.

I’m just amazed at the obvious nonsense you go out of your way to tell each other. This is what comes from all that extra time you’ve got because you don’t have to forage for food in May when things aren’t growing yet and there’s a surprising amount of ground that’s still covered with snow.

So who cares who pooped where? Any conversation that’s not about the weather seems like a waste to me. Especially conversations about waste. Just sayin’.

Your pal,
Bart

It sounds like Bart is getting a little cranky because he’s wide awake and food is scarce. I’m sure he wishes he’d overslept.

How do you excuse yourself from a pointless conversation?

I received the following e-mail yesterday from Wendell Wilkie High School’s perennial sophomore, Bubby Spadmen.

Hey Mr. C.,

They tell me it’s Spring and school will be over soon. I guess that’s right even though all the normal signs are missing, like warm weather and stuff. Anyway, I have to start getting ready for it so I can get a summer job – something that will prepare me for the future that never seems to get here.

That’s why I’m thinking I’d like to be an actuary.

All the lists of “best jobs” say the job of actuary is the bestest of the best. It’s got high pay and low stress, you can work regular hours in a comfortable place where they take good care of you. And there aren’t a lot of people in the field so it’s easy to get hired.

That sounds like the perfect job for me, even though I still don’t get what it is!

And in those “best job” articles when they go on to describe the work a lot of the writers say “no one understands what an actuary does …”, which is kind of odd because writers are supposed to be good at figuring things out. Some of them try to explain it in detail, but that’s when I kind of lose interest. I think it has to do with numbers or something, which is too bad because I was hoping it had to do with acting.

Anyway, if most people don’t know what the job is, I hope I might still be able to get one because I’m really good at pretending that I know what I’m doing. Here’s the secret – you try to look busy and don’t talk, unless it’s about the weather.

Will you give me a glowing reference letter if I need one? It would sure help, and if you could work the words “actuary”, “actually” or “actuality” in there, I think that could be the thing that gets me over the top.

My future is in your hands,
Bubby

I told Bubby I would write a recommendation letter for him, but I wouldn’t pretend that he has any skills he hasn’t got or drop in misleading words. But I also agreed I wouldn’t put the word “clueless” in there either, even though I desperately want to.

Describe a job you had that you didn’t know how to do.