Comments on: You can’t drive around with a tiger in your car

by: Kate

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:04:17 +0000

You two are too funny. Rare birds, doctoral student military buffs! But even the most anti-military-industrial-complex-ers among us thought have to admit, aircraft carriers are pretty cool, huh? My mom’s dad was a career Marine Corps fighter pilot (paternal grandfather was a submarine Captain), and there are some pretty crazy family stories about pilots hotdogging landings onto the ship. As I guess you guys saw, there are these wires meant to “catch” the planes by a hook on the tail (!!) on the way in, which is crazy enough, but there are also multiple, subsequent wires, in case in the descent, something blows off course a little bit. You’re supposed to aim for the first one, so that if you touch down but miss the wire, there’s enough runway for you to get back up in the air, come around, and try again; the subsequent wires are just in case you screw up the approach and touch down farther along the runway. But some lunatics (never my grandfather, I’m sure!!) thought it was a fun game to aim for the last one on purpose (leaving no room to take off again if necessary). If you’ve got a safety net, where’s the fun?? As an esteemed professor of ours once wrote, “No fun and games until someone loses an eye!”

by: lorinda

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:15:35 +0000

No self-respecting knitter would use her (or his) tools of the trade for dastardly deeds. The scissors or needles might get broken, and then those gun-toting Naval officers would have something to worry about.

Glad you got some sea air. Minnie looks great, and I’m glad that you and yours are slowly feeling better.

by: Mother

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 20:55:03 +0000

Neiither can you go swimming in a baseball pool, nor can you change film with a kid on your back, but you can be happy if you’re a mind to. Too bad Roger Miller left us so soon. He was wonderful!

by: Knitting Granny

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:33:34 +0000

Every time I see pics of Minnie-in-progress I feel tremendous pangs of jealousy. She is just too beautiful for words…
Time Out of Mind is a he??? I wasn’t aware of that. Loved your post, as always.
And I think you need to let Shelley adopt a kitten and then all of you tell the kitten all about Zeno… Amid the tears and laughs you will all be comforted.

by: Kristy

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:52:16 +0000

You’re so funny I’m glad the machine-gun-toting guards let you on with your craft scissors. It looks like it was a fascinating tour.

by: KnitterlyJ

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:42:45 +0000

Loved the carrier pictures! I’m a fanatical knitter, and I work for the navy on nuclear submarines, so this sort of stuff fascinates the geek in me too The red sweater is really pretty too, keep up the good work!

by: Juno

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:35:00 +0000

I love that song. It reminds me of my dad.

I’m terrible sorry about Zeno. Terrible sorry.

by: Sarah

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:42:54 +0000

Minnie is looking beautiful. Wish I could have been on the aircraft carrier with you.

by: Helen

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:15:31 +0000

About the vomit, in the DVD extras for that great arthouse movie, Top Gun, they reveal that all the actors were sent up in genuine jets so that they knew what it felt like and so that they could be filmed, but most of them spent so much time throwing up that the film wasn’t used. ‘Not a lot of usable footage there,’ Jerry Bruckheimer reminisced. I’m thinking of using that as the title for my autobiography. But if you’re into aircraft carriers, it’s a fabulous film. You can just Fast Forward through the bits with Tom Cruise. If you view it as an homage to The Right Stuff, you can justify it.

And the only cure for losing a cat is to get another one. Get a kitten.