(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Caturday Pootie Diary: In space no one can hear you meow for treats [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2022-07-16
I clicked on the first one and the magnificence of the birth of the universe filled my phone screen. “Oooooooooo!” I said.
Freddie’s ear twitched, but he made a valiant effort to ignore me.
“You gotta look at this, Freddie. It’s so beautiful!”
He heaved a great sigh and opened his eyes. “Let me see,” he said.
I turned my phone toward him. He stretched his neck out and gave it a thorough sniff, then relaxed back. “There’s no fish,” he said.
I turned it back to look at it again. “It’s stars and galaxies,” I explained. “There might be fish somewhere in there. It’s hard to say.”
“Needs birds, too,” he said.
I frowned at the picture. “Some of these images are over thirteen billion years old.”
“If I look out the window I can see birds,” he announced.
Freddie tucked his paws under himself, achieving full loaf status. He was curled on the furry throw pillow I had bought for the couch. It had been inexpensive at Costco and I had immediately thought he’d like to lie on it. I had been right.
I clicked to the next photo and gasped with joy. “Let me see,” he demanded.
I turned the phone to him. “It’s a nebula!” I told him. “That’s where stars are born!”
“The bush next to the back door is where lizards are born,” he informed me, still unimpressed.
“Can I see the first picture again?” he asked.
“You’re getting excited about it now, huh?” I said, finding the picture again and showing him.
“It just reminds me of treats,” he said, looking closely. “All those little swirly things are like treats.”
“Those are galaxies,” I said.
“They look delicious.”
“They look small in the picture, but that’s because they are really far away,” I explained. “You wouldn’t be able to eat them. They are very, very big.”
“A very big treat sounds wonderful,” he breathed.
“Plus these images are not how they are right now. This is light that travelled very, very far, so it’s old. They might even be gone now.”
“Like the treats I’ve already eaten,” he said, sadly.
“So you built a big telescope and sent it into space so you could look at pictures?” he asked.
“Well, I didn’t, but very smart humans did, yes. They can learn a lot from these pictures.”
“Seems like a lot of effort when you have eyes,” he said.
“We can’t see that far,” I tried to explain.
“I can look outside and see so many things. Birds, and lizards, and ants, and crickets, and spiders. And those aren’t gone now. They’re out there!”
“I don’t think you really understand what you’re looking at,” I said.
“Do you?”
I looked down at the picture. “Not exactly. I’m a nerd about a few things, but not space. But this is still amazing!”
"Uh-huh.”
“I’m a human sitting on a planet revolving around a star in one of the tails of a galaxy floating among all these other galaxies and this is the first time I’ve really gotten to see what that means.”
“Space is infinite,” he said, sagely.
I looked up from my phone and at him. “Yeah, maybe.”
“So’s my hunger for treats.”
I laughed.
“Do you want some treats?” I asked, finally. “Will that satisfy your galaxy sized hunger?”
“A whole bunch of galaxies sized!”
“Deep space sized hunger!”
I snagged the treat bag from the table and Freddie stood up. I carefully poured three treats onto my palm and held them out to him. He frowned.
“This doesn’t look like all those galaxies,” he said.
“I don’t want to clean up a nebula sized pool of barf,” I told him. “Eat them or I’ll put them back.
He gobbled them up at the speed of light.
Happy Caturday, Peeps! I know you’ve already seen the pictures, but Freddie and I can’t get enough!
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/16/2110710/-Caturday-Pootie-Diary-In-space-no-one-can-hear-you-meow-for-treats
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
