Good-Bye

It's weird, growing up, how you start losing the people in your life. Sometimes it's death, like lately. In the last few years I've lost my grandma (the only one I ever knew), my cousin and my grandpa. With each I felt like I lost something specific. My grandma loved to travel, and would tell me about going around the world in her 20s. My favorite conversation with her was when I was traveling in Singapore. We were talking and she asked how I liked it. I said it was nice, but very clean. She answered (this 80-something year old woman) that it was indeed clean, and very sterile. She preferred Beijing, where there are tons more people, pollution and, in her opinion, more life. That was my grandma.

Next was my cousin, just recently. I didn't know him well. For most of my life he lived 3,000 miles away. But I saw him in summers and he was young and left two daughters behind. It was one of those deaths that shocks everyone and doesn't have any explanation. Literally. There are no results in on what actually happened. One day he was here, the next he wasn't. It was the first funeral I ever went to. For my grandma we just had a memorial service. When my stepfather died I was in Asia, and it was expected, so I didn't come home. But for my cousin, I went to be with family.

And finally, the latest, my grandpa. For some reason this hit me hardest of all, even though he was 95 and it was expected. Maybe after the year we've had it just didn't seem real. I went for his funeral too. And was a pallbearer, which might be the single best way to say good-bye to someone that I've experienced. You get to take them out of the church, away from the crowd of people, and send them on their way to the cemetary.

Observation

Griffith Observatory opens up again Friday, after 5 years of being closed. Since I won't be there to see it right away I'm enjoying this list - Griffith Observatory by the Numbers:

2 Number of planetariums built in the U.S. before Griffith. (Chicago and Philadelphia came first in the early 1930s.)

Nearly 70 million Estimated number of observatory visitors since its 1935 opening.

7 million Estimated number of visitors who have looked through the 12-inch Zeiss telescope on the roof.

75 Feet in diameter of the planetarium's dome.

1,134 Observatory's height in feet above sea level.

30,000 Cubic yards of dirt dug up to make way for the new bottom level.

3 Number of projectors that have served in the planetarium since opening (one from 1935 to 1964, another from 1964 to 2002, and the current one).

4 Number of directors who have served in the observatory's top job since opening (one from 1935 to 1958, another from 1958 to 1969, another from 1969 to 1974, and the current one).

50 Estimated number of astronomically themed ties owned by director Edwin Krupp.

200 Number of leaks in the building before renovation, as estimated by Krupp.

26 million Number of non-government dollars raised by the Friends of the Observatory toward the $93-million renovation.

8,000 to 10,000 The building's daily visitor capacity, depending on hours.

0 Observatory-adjacent parking spaces during opening months.

For other Observatory info go to the LA Times section here.