While looking for something in my documents folder, I came across this in an old drafts folder. It looks like it was written in winter about five years ago, and I’m not sure if it was ever published, but even if it was, I like it enough to repost it today.

I stayed up until almost one this morning, reading comic books.
I know, it’s like I’m 12 all over again. And it’s awesome.

Around four, Anne woke me up.

“What’s wrong?” I said, while I was still waiting to clear immigration between Dreamland and Reality.

“Nothing. I just couldn’t sleep, so I got up and went outside to watch the meteor shower. It’s really cool, and I knew you’d want to see it.”
I sat up, pushed the covers to one side, and ignored the grumbling protests of our dog, who had just lost his primary source of warmth and cuddling.

“It’s cold out, though, so put something warm on.”

I grabbed a hoodie and put on my totally-not-lame-but-always-make-me-feel-self-conscious-to-wear-them slippers. I walked through the dark house, past the quiet and strangely comforting hum of my aquarium’s filter, and out onto our patio.

I know it’s cliché, but the stars were brilliant jewels against a field of black velvet. Betelgeuse was a brilliant red. The Orion Nebula was bright and fuzzy. Sirius, in Canis Major, was such a bright blueish-white I couldn’t look directly at it. To the North, Ursa Major dominated the sky, and I could even see Mizar without any effort. Back on Earth, a distant train’s whistle sounded from far away, probably from the train yard near Commerce.

“You just missed a fireball,” Anne said, quietly. She pointed to the Eastern sky and added, “and there have been tons of little flashes from over there, too.”

I wrapped my arms around myself to stay warm and let my eyes roam across the sky. I didn’t see any fireballs, but I saw lots of meteors fly across the sky, greenish and yellowish trails flashing then fading behind them.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t entirely awake, or maybe it’s because I’d been reading about mutants and other worlds before I went to sleep, but as I looked up into the sky, toward Castor and Pollux, I really felt, for the first time in my entire 38 years on this planet, the overwhelming vastness of the universe.

Where I have always felt awe, I felt small. Where I have always felt inspiration, I felt vulnerable. “I’m on a planet, spinning on its axis, racing around a star, moving faster than my mind can comprehend, through that,” I thought. “And right now, that planet is flying through an ancient asteroid debris, bits of dust and rock smacking into its atmosphere like bugs against a windshield.” I felt a little freaked out.

I’ve quoted Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot so many times, I don’t need to look it up anymore to get it right, but last night, looking up into the enormity of the universe, it was suddenly more than poetry and a reminder to take better care of each other.

I moved closer to Anne and put my arms around her. She leaned her head back against my chest and we looked up into the sky together, watching faint meteors streak across the sky every few seconds.

“I’m glad you woke me up,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to see the fireballs,” she said.

“Nah, it’s okay. I didn’t need to.”

The train’s whistle sounded again. This time, it didn’t seem so far away.

We stood there and watched the sky for several minutes, until our hands and feet were numb with the cold, and went back inside.
When I got back into bed, I pulled the covers up over my head, and tucked them around myself as tightly as I could. It took a long while for sleep to reclaim me.

I thought it would be cool to show the world how your support of Team Wheaton helps make awesome things happen at the Pasadena Humane Society, and what better way to show you that than by getting a tour from Seamus and Marlowe?

If you’d like to to help us help PHS help animals, and get a really awesome 2015 celebrity pet adoption calendar at the same time, everything you need to know is right here.

This is our dog, Seamus:

Seamus is part of our family because we walked him in the Wiggle Waggle Walk a few years ago. The Wiggle Waggle Walk is an annual fundraiser for the Pasadena Humane Society, and a few years ago after our dog, Ferris, died, Anne and I formed a team to raise money for pets in her honor and memory. Readers of my blog contributed so much, our little team shot to the top of the contributor’s list, and PHS asked us to walk a shelter dog at the event, as a thank you.

Seamus was that dog, and we adopted him about a week after we met him.

Two years ago, Anne and I were at PHS to see how the expansion they were building at the time was going (as donors, we occasionally were invited to see how our money was being spent). While we were there, a staff member brought a beautiful little pit bull puppy who I immediately fell in love with. We adopted her a week later. That little puppy is now fifty-six pounds of snuggle named Marlowe.

Marlowe and Seamus quickly became the best of friends.

Here’s Marlowe, on her first Wiggle Waggle Walk:

Here’s our oldest dog, Riley, who says I’M A DOG!

We had so much fun at the Wiggle Waggle Walk, and PHS has brought so much joy and love into our lives, we’ve made it an annual commitment to give back, by raising as much money as we can to help them help animals.

Last year, Anne put together a wonderful celebrity pet adoption calendar to help raise money for Pasadena Humane Society, and to encourage people to adopt pets instead of buying them from breeders.

Here’s the video I helped her make for it:

Lots of people loved the calendar (if you own one, you get to see us with our dogs all this month!) and we ended up raising a little over $50,000 for Pasadena Humane Society.

This year, she did another calendar, with all new people, like our friends Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Ed Brubaker, James Gunn, Tricia Helfer, and my space mom, Gates McFadden.

Here’s the video I helped her make for the 2015 calendar:

If you’d like to get one of your own, and help us help PHS help animals, go to teamwheaton.org and make a contribution of $40 or more.  We cover all the costs with our foundation, so 100% of your donation goes to PHS. We will ship worldwide, and we can only offer one per household, because quantities are limited.

Thanks for supporting our team, and thanks for helping animals!