Friday, November 15, 2013

For the Love of Sci-Fi

Gah.

There's just been too much lately.  Too much fun, too much sad, too much excitement, too much booze, too much commitment, too much anxiety, too much work, too much TV, too much PTA, too much writing...

I can't really distill life events when my mental still is flooded with...  Too much.  So, let me start...

Today, I deposited the checks for my share of my Dad's life insurance payout.  What a mindf*ck.  Yay!  The equivalent of what I net in a half a year!  That's awesome!  And I have this money...  Because my Dad died.

I took out some cash from the deposit.  Not a lot.  Just a little.  And I took my kids and my sister to the Maryland Science Center.

See, my Dad was a child of science fiction.  He was born in its Golden Age.  His shelves were thick with Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Ray Kurtzweil, Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, Orson Scott Card, Michael Crichton, Ursula K. Leguin, and hundreds of other lesser-known authors.  He had two replicas of the Starship Enterprise in his bedroom (which I'm sure my mother loved).

Did I tell you about the time when I was a seven and my Dad invited me to go to the movie theater to see 'Bladerunner'?  (I nearly went.  Mom tempted me to stay home with ice cream and potato chips, a rare treat in our family.)

One time, my husband (who shares my Dad's love of sci-fi), asked my Dad if there was anything that danced on those thousands of pages in his den that he was disappointed hadn't yet come to fruition.  My Dad thought about it for a second, sighed, and said, "I really thought we'd be living on the moon by now."

Sorry.  That got a bit jumbled.

My point is, my father loved all things science.  He was fascinated by how things worked.  So, it seemed like a good use of what I consider to be his money on a pursuit that he would have supported.  The kids loved it.  My sister loved it.  We toured the standing exhibits, then explored the current exhibit about Mummies (which is AWESOME).  That's a separate post, I think, because there's some hilariousness there.

Speaking of separate posts... I have to write about what it's like to gain from my parents' deaths, when all I really want is for them to have had more time. Don't let me forget to do that.