Monday, August 25, 2008
Cloud Bunnies Are My Friends
What is this photo below, you might be wondering, and what does it have to do with Cloud Bunnies?
According to NASA scientists, they: "... estimate this recent electric-blue band of noctilucent clouds was 83 km above Earth's surface, higher than 99.999% of our planet's atmosphere! The sky at that altitude is space-black. It is the realm of meteors, high-energy auroras and decaying satellites. "What are clouds doing up there?" asked the Scientists. Why are they spreading? What is ice doing in a rarefied layer of Earth's upper atmosphere that is one hundred million times dryer than air from the Sahara desert?"
They don't know what they are or why they are.
They are however making tentative assumptions that it has a negative origin, assuming that since there's no record of these clouds before the 19th Century, that, uh- oh, we're somehow causing this and maybe it's a bad thing.
I think it's pretty obvious what they are.
Cloud Bunnies... the atmosphericly reclusive cousins to Dust Bunnies. When a tenant occupies a house, apartment or room long enough, Dust Bunnies move in. So why not Cloud Bunnies? We've been here a day in the Cosmic Calendar, and I think that's about the right amount of time for Cloud Bunnies to be showing up, don't you?
Okay, I'm not at all disparaging the hard-working scientists who are taking care of us and looking out for our best interests. I'm only teasing. But I do think it's a very telling human trait not only to assume bad things but to actually anticipate and look for them. I guess we are pretty fragile creatures when you think about it.
Who knows, I could be really sorry when the noxious poison-filled Cloud Bunnies descend on human kind, rendering it but a memory. But....I'm going to err on the side of optimism, and guess that Cloud Bunnies are not only harmless, but beneficial. I think the odds might actually be in my favor.
But normally... I'd unconsciously start to assume the negative. Change is bad. The unknown is frought with difficulty. Like when I just assumed the negative recently about me not accompanying B on a work-related duty, only to find out that I am going. Or when I assumed there would be some resistance to an idea I wanted to incorporate into my wedding, and the venue said "Sure!" Or when anyone assumes the negative purely banking on the likelihood that they'll eventually be right (like California predicting we're in for "The Big One" ).
There are a dozen or more assumptions I set into motion on a monthly basis in my own life. But they're likely as harmless as the benign Cloud Bunnies floating high above the tranquil stratosphere, affecting human life very distantly. About as distantly as Dust-Bunnies (though my cat Golly would argue for the strict behavioral containment of said Dust Bunnies).
Funny thing about these Cloud Bunnies. You can't see them from just anywhere. Nope. You have to be in the right place at the right time. Kinda like the moods we have that spark positive or negative assumptions. The odds of a positive or negative assumption depend on perspective.
And speaking of odds... what do you think the odds are of me convincing the scientists to rename the noctilucents "Cloud Bunnies?"
Bah. They're no fun.
~Shephard :)
(this post brought to you by the rosey glow through which my impending wedding allows me to see the world)
Labels: Of Mice and Mondays
posted by Shephard @ 