Friday back at work began for me as most days do…with a conference call. Mercifully, it was fairly brief and went well and I was able to get into the real business of the day, which was work, errands and SCIENCE!
Part of my to-do list included a run to the store to get some produce and basic supplies. As before, I got layered up like an astronaut in an early Mercury mission and got ready to venture in the great unknown that is the local Whole Foods.
Colorado’s governor just put out an official recommendation that everyone wear masks out in public, so I took my first foray to the store looking something like a Cobra foot soldier.
Erin actually found some surgical masks we had tucked away from a few years ago, so I wore one of those. I admit, I felt like a goober. It is totally the prudent thing to do right now, but it felt weird talking to the guy behind the seafood counter while my glasses were steaming up because of the mask. But I got what we needed and got home, and that’s what’s important.
The kids were a bit more bored than usual in the afternoon, and Amelia had seen one of her old teachers from Henry’s preschool conducting a science experiment on a Facebook Live. She asked me if we could do some science. Like asking me to play superheroes, the answer to that question is almost always, “YES.”
So we pulled out an old science kit with experiments for kids. Amelia and Henry settled on one that involved putting some water with red dye in the little beaker and putting some celery in it, to see how the red water moves up the veins. I won’t lie, I was terrified to let Henry participate in the application of the red food dye, but he did well. Amelia added the catalytic celery, and we waited for results.
Eureka! The experiment was a success. We saw bits of red at the top off the celery stalks a few hours later. Science! It was cool, even if seeing a stalk of celery in a glass of red liquid really made me want a Bloody Mary.
I know we may be living through challenging times, but there are some bright sides. Like before being quarantined for several weeks, who would have thought there were so many great celery-based recreational activities? I may launch a new blog focused on fun things to do with celery and call it, “Stalk this Way.”
