Be my dolphin 🐬 ambassador; Finance that burrito 🌯; 10 yrs behind on TV 📺

3 Things this week and a poem

The weather can’t decide what to wear again. In south western Ontario we’ve seen it storm into the room in a new outfit as it prepared to go out to Spring. Now that the calendar has made it official, I’m hoping for less snow, more sun.

I wanted to give a big welcome to the new readers and subscribes here. It’s been another week in which many more readers joined. I’m grateful you’re here and hope you find content that sparks hope.

If you’re here because of the poetry contest, that thrills me! You can submit here.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with Things I Wrote Down. Here are three things and a poem.

1. Be my dolphin ambassador 🐬

It was an incredible moment, captured by aerial photographer. The two stranded astronauts returned to earth. As their ship splashed into the ocean, the beautiful sunlit chutes above them stretched out against a blue sky, they were met by a pod of curious dolphins who welcomed them back to the green planet.

If I ever go to space or land back on earth, can I get a dolphin ambassador?

It’s like Michael Bay and Richard Attenborough films had a baby. What a beautiful and promising moment in the space-time continuum, where all that’s possible and all that’s good in humanity and the created world collided.

In a week where there was so much division, this was a visual treat.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two astronauts, were supposed to be on an 8-day mission, but got stranded and ultimately folded into the Space Station crew when NASA deemed the thruster failures and helium leaks in their Starliner propulsion system made it unsafe to return home.

Almost 10 months later, they’re back in earth’s gravity. They returned home as part of SpaceX's Crew-9 mission. We can all be happy that the scientists committed to curiosity and exploration, who push the limits of what is possible, were brought home without incident.

Beyond the dolphins…

Here’s a fun video that also went viral on socials and maybe pushes the space-time continuum of your theology. Butch Wilmore shared passionately about his faith… from space. A neat moment where the Great Commission truly went into all the world (and beyond).

Turns out when you’re stranded in space, you can still ask Jesus to “take the wheel.”

As you may know, I’m writing a new fiction series week-over-week, in real time, at The 49. It’s a thrill. Subscribers get new content in their inbox every week. And there’s an audio version that drops on Tuesdays.

2. Financing my burrito

This is why Dave Ramsey will always have a job. Has anyone checked on the “debt is dumb, cash is king” financial guru who helps people change their spending habits this week?

News dropped that DoorDash has partnered with a buy now, pay later service to let fast food consumers finance their burritos and other small food purchases.

The memes online are hilarious.

I rarely use food delivery services, because I just can’t stomach the extra fees (we also live a bit more remotely, so the service isn’t all that fast and convenient).

But I’d love to have some fun here. Leave a comment about what meal you’d both have delivered AND finance:

(I’ll go first… see below).

Have you entered the Things I Wrote Down poetry contest yet?

3. 10 yrs behind TV

Life is busy. That's why I'm about a decade late to the People vs. OJ Simpson, the American Crime drama starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as the famous former footballer on trial.

Sarah Paulson, as Marcia Clark, and Sterling K. Brown, as Christopher Darden, steal the show. (Brown always steals the show).

Now, Petra and I are deep in Google's 2nd and 3rd level pages learning all about Clark. Beyond the hair, wardrobe, and misogyny, there's one of the biggest book deals of all time that came her way after the trial ($4.2 million advance).

If you’re looking for a series and straggle to consume all the content on streaming platforms, it’s on Disney+. The series is nostalgic, shocking, fascinating, and compelling TV, with great portrayals and bang-on casting (mostly). John Travolta as Robert Shapiro? Not sure.

---

A poem

The thought of space travel reminds me of a poem I wrote that references Mars. This was written, of course, before Matt Damon was stranded on the planet and grew potatoes there. (The Martian film is one of my favourite by Ridley Scott in the last decade, based on one of the best speculative fiction novels of recent years, IMHO).

I hope you enjoy it, and, as you reminisce about where you’ve come from, that you have similar epic metaphors surface.

Together we examine my heart, seven years later

i. 

I swear it was right here
the last time I checked 
cold and sticky as a frog
frantic
except when cupped in your 
hand

uglier, more fascinating
than expected

ii.

you should have known
it would be a costly endeavour
that it would take time to examine
approached it with the energy
of a NASA scientist
dreaming of colonies,
greenhouses that grow tomatoes on 
Mars
never to leave the 
grey-walled cubicle
float weightless in space
never to see or breathe or
walk the planet just
dream it
sense it, feel toward it
through meticulous science
probing from afar
stubborn, damned wonder
tucked in your shirt pocket
beside all the pencils

creating a way to see

iii.

this new vision
means a new
blindness too
you strain to see the planets
and forget the 
shape of mountains
blades of grass
what it is to trudge
through the mud
and scrape off your 
boots

iv.

I heard of a city
miles high
and just as wide

inside
street after street
concrete 
billboards
and endless building projects

the skyline smudged
with smog

v.

come away with me

take my hand
we’ll run

to a place that is quiet
where we can 
remember laughter,
get out of the city

sit as long as it takes
until we see again

wait for the stars

© 2024 Andrew Kooman