Do you have to use dragons' eggs to make those pancakes?

Bike ride! I mapped it when I got home, 2.9 miles of mostly flat roads at a leisurely pace, fifteen minutes. That was fun! There’s just something so delicious about the freedom of a bike and feeling the wind rushing, blowing your hair back, knowing you’re going faster than your legs could possibly carry you. Eating up the distance like it’s nothing. My glutes and quads are still going to be feeling it…seriously, what is the deal with those tiny, tiny bike seats? But it’s nothing major. Just good tired muscles. Ah.

My good night reading right now is Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward.

It is a hard science fiction novel, meaning yeah, that science is the hard shit. I don’t understand any of it. My eyes glaze over when I’m reading it, but there’s enough human interaction (meaning it feels like these are real people with real lives and hearts doing this science thinking and talk stuff) mixed in with the science explanations to make it palatable for me and then it gets to the alien bits and whee! Real, true alien bits!

 Picture credit: www.robertforward.com

 

I googled for images of a cheela, hoping some other geek artist fan had rendered the alien awesomeness…and found a bazillion pictures of Indian food. Because cheela means pancake, I believe. In Hindi. I think.

I see what you did there, Dr. Forward.
picture credit: Mharo Rajasthan's Recipes

Though the five different Hindi to English translators I tried before I got frustrated (I do have to leave for work soon) just told me cheela means cheela. And when I tried English to Hindi and put in pancake they gave me something written in Hindi, which surprisingly I can’t read.  So apparently I fail at working internet translator widgets.

If some kindly Hindi speaking person would like to educate me on these things I would be more than happy to learn. I want to be respectful. Also, if you have your own recipe for these delicious looking edible items, please do forward it.

I finally found a drawing of the cheela-as-alien-life-form at Alien Species Wiki. Thank you, fellow geeks!