Hunting for Satellites

Last night Laura said she was going out to look for the International Space Station. Then she went out our back door.

I wasn't really sure what an International Space Station was, and usually, when Laura goes out the back door, she doesn't go very far. She just goes to look at the plants in our backyard. They're mostly plants that produce spicy food. And I like food. But princesses aren't supposed to do their own gardening, so usually I just help Laura by sitting in the kitchen and keeping watch.

But last night, Laura walked right past our plants. She opened the gate, and she walked out of the yard and far away! I decided maybe I'd better not let Laura be that far away all by herself, so I went outside to help her.

It was dark outside, and I can't see very well in the dark -- but I can still smell things! Laura has better night vision than me, but I have a more sensitive sniffer. I still wasn't sure what we were looking for, but I figured anything that was so interesting it would entice Laura away from her computer to go and look for it must smell pretty good. So I put my nose to the ground and started sniffing for that space station.

But Laura said, "Come here Princess Kendal. Come and sit by me." Then she just lay down on the grass.

Well, I'm good at lying down too -- buy I like to lie down on my nice comfy bed, not on hard, prickly grass. This seemed like a funny way to go looking for something (whatever it was), but humans do get funny ideas sometimes. Sometimes Laura's funny ideas mean I have to do stuff that's hard, like walk really far, but so far nothing really bad has come of her ideas, so I decided to just go with the flow and lie down beside her.

I had almost found a spot that was semi-comfortable when Laura said, "There it is!" Then she jumped up and started walking across the grass, following this bright light in the sky.

Turns out that's what the International Space Station is. It's just this little light that flies across the sky. You can't smell it, and you certainly can't eat it!

"There's people up there," said Laura. "People from all over the world. There's a Canadian guy up there right now. They fly the whole way around the world in an hour and a half. Isn't that cool?"

I'm not really sure how big the world is. I'm just a puppy dog. I've never been outside of Ontario. But I know it takes more than an hour and a half just to get to my Mum and Dad's house -- and that's driving in a motor car. Motor cars are already pretty fast. So, if those space station people are going further than my Mum and Dad's house in only an hour and a half, they must be going super fast. I think that's more scary than cool. (But humans have these funny ideas, like I said.)

Then Laura started running. Running. After a light in the sky.

"Come on Princess Kendal," she said. She wanted to get someplace where we could see the space station disappear over the eastern horizon.

I tried to run as fast as I could, but my legs are little, and there's lots of tall buildings and trees where we live. We ran all the way around to the front of our house, but the space station still disappeared behind the next row of houses long before it ever got near the horizon. Then Laura and I had to walk all the way around back to our back door, because the front door was locked, and Laura hadn't brought a key.

After that, I got to sleep for almost and hour and a half before I had to follow Laura outside to look for that space station again.

This time, the grass wasn't just hard and prickly, it was cold and wet too! I love Laura, but she's not royalty like me. She has no appreciation for the finer comforts of life. At least she didn't try to make me run after the space station the second time. We just watched it disappear behind the houses to the north of us, then we went back inside...

... and Laura went straight to get my lead.

"Let's go for a walk, Princess Kendal," she said.

Hey. Wait a minute. I'd gone outside with Laura two times already that day. I got off my nice day bed to go walking in the cold wet grass to look for something that turned out not to be food. And now Laura wanted me to go for a walk too? Hmph!

Well, there's a game I play with Laura when she wants me to go for a walk with her and I don't want to go. I run away!

Running away works better in my Mum and Dad's house, because it's bigger, and there's more things to run around there. At my and Laura's house, there's only the coffee table and the dining room table -- and there's no use running into the kitchen or the bathroom at all. There's no escape from those rooms, so Laura always catches me if I go there. In our big party room though, I can evade Laura for longer.

Dining room tables are especially good for running away from people who are taller than you. Laura has great big long legs, which help her to run really fast out in the open, but my short little legs are faster for running underneath tables. So I run around and around the table, and make Laura chase me. Then, when she gets close, I run under the table and get away from her again!

I keep hoping that if I make Laura chase me for long enough, she will get tired and give up.

So far, that hasn't happened.