Space Center Part II

After viewing all of the planets in the Solar-Go-Round, we gathered ourselves so that we could make our way downstairs for the planetarium show. Tearing Kiernan away from a room full of planets is no mean feat, but we managed somehow to do it. Perhaps it was the promise of a giant movie about the planets that did it.


I cannot even remember the last time I was in a planetarium. I was a little nervous about taking Kiernan to the show. I've heard people say that seven is a good age to start bringing kids to the actual shows in the planetarium. Plus I have a thing about parents who take kids who are too young to the movie theatre. But this was an animated film geared toward kids, and it was only forty minutes or so long.

Just walking into the planetarium was such an interesting experience. It brought back feelings and impressions of planetariums past more than actual memories. The memory going into the auditorium did evoke was of my first time going to see a movie at the old Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Back before Arclight took it over and renovated it and made it into the palace it is today. It's a great theatre now, but it was good back then too, when it showed the odd classic film. The first film I saw there was 2001.

We found our seats and waited for the theatre to fill. Finally the lights went down and a Hal-esque voice (again with the 2001 evocation) started to talk to us about planetarium etiquette. My nervousness returned when the voice instructed us what to do if we experienced motion sickness (close eyes and it should go away). I wasn't worried about myself, of course, so much as I was worried about Kiernan. Being in a movie theatre can be an intense experience, so much more so when it involves something you are passionate about, and motion-sickness, I have found, is not something kids inherently understand. I had an epiphany about this recently. I think it was during the drive to Arizona for Christmas, but it might have been before that. At some point Kiernan said he wasn't feeling well. Something about his stomach or his head hurting. And it occurred to me that he was drawing on his doodle-pro and that maybe he was experiencing a bit of motion-sickness. The epiphany was that if he was experiencing motion-sickness...how would he know that's what it was? The answer is, he wouldn't. He wouldn't be able to make the link that he was feeling queasy because he was trying to draw or read or whatever in the car.

I just find such things interesting.

As it turned out, Kiernan had no problem with motion-sickness during the planetarium show. At least none that he complained about. Overall he did fine with the show, a little animated feature called The Secret of the Cardboard Rocket. Two kids turn the box from the new refrigerator into a rocket and get their mom to let them spend the night in the thing in the yard. They pretend to take off and the rocket takes them on a voyage through the Solar System. The book on astronomy that they bring along serves as their guide for the voyage, in the person of a huge animated vaguely Einsteinian head that pops out of the book. His is the only head we see, as the animators chose not to create the kids or the mother or the father. They are disembodied voices tossing things onto the screen. Kiernan refers to one of the kids as "the whiney one".

After the show we headed back upstairs so Kiernan could get another crack at the Solar-Go-Round and Aunt JoAnne ran out to the car to retrieve the picnic lunch we had brought along with us. We sat down in the cafe and enjoyed turkey sandwiches (with basil and avocado) and then Kiernan and Wendy headed into the nearby Discovery Room, a place that was jam packed with kids, parents, and activities. In short order I was called into the room.

To Be Continued...

[Picture Note: All pictures on this page, including Jupiter, taken by Uncle Mitch.]