We were flying west to San Diego, and as I looked down upon our world from my little window, perched at 37,000 feet, I thought about what a dandy little planet that we had been given. To the north I could see White Sands shimmering through the blue haze. Just a few miles north of there would be an innocuous little 12-foot high stone marker at the Trinity Site. There, the first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945 at 05:29:21 ± 2 seconds (MWT). Robert Oppenheimer, a key figure in the development of the bomb, has been quoted as saying that as he witnessed the explosion, he thought of a quote from the ancient Bhagavad Gita. “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Hmmm.
    “I’m going to see my EX-boyfriend in San Diego” she had announced to no one in particular as she sat down next to me at the beginning of the flight. She had emphasized the “EX” by prolonging those two letters by just a beat or two with a faint, but sweet, Southern drawl. She was pretty, but overdone. Long red fingernails, a perfectly coiffed helmet of hair, fake eyelashes, and lots, I mean lots, of cleavage. You know…friendly.