COFFEE BREAK
8B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
SATuRDAY, MARCH 20, 2021
Roommate with benefits is attracted to man’s friend
DEAR ABBY: I have this
dilemma. I’m a woman in my 40s
with a good job, and I’m told I am
a good catch. About six months
ago, I moved in with
a man I will call
Peter. It started as a
roommate situation,
but then became
friends with bene-
fits. We have both
agreed we are not a couple.
The problem is Peter has a
friend, “Reggie.” I like Reggie,
and he likes me. We have hung
out as a group several times. To
the best of my knowledge, Reggie
has no idea Peter and I are
FWBs.
Reggie recently asked me out
to dinner as a date. I can see
myself having a real relation-
ship with him, but don’t know
how Peter will react. Should I
accept the invitation? I mean, it’s
just one date. Also,
should I mention it
to Peter?
DEAR
— F.W.B. IN THE
ABBY
SOUTH
DEAR F.W.B.:
You and Peter have
agreed that you are NOT a couple.
Accept Reggie’s offer and be
upfront with Peter about it. The
only thing that might change
would be that Peter will have to
find another friend with bene-
fits because the sexual aspect of
your relationship with him may
be over.
DEAR ABBY: I have a
If your intention is that your
children grow up together, this is
something that should have hap-
pened years ago. As it stands, the
10-year age difference will mean
your son will be grown and gone
while your younger child is still
at home.
A doctor with a specialty in
genetics could be helpful as you
gather information. It is important
that you understand what precau-
tions might be wise to take before
making this decision.
DEAR ABBY: I care a lot about
what friends, family — even the
general public — do with their
money. Specifically, I promote
the benefits of owning a home,
but I suspect my efforts to edu-
cate them may need a more loving
22-year-old daughter from my
first marriage and a 9-year-old
son with my husband of 12 years.
My husband is 57, and I just
turned 41. I would like to have
another baby, mainly because I
want my 9-year-old son to have
someone to grow up with. We
have no other family. It’s just him
and girl cousins, ages 9 and 5.
Can you please advise me if my
husband and I are OK or too old
to have one more child?
— CONSIDERING IT IN THE
WEST
DEAR CONSIDERING: I’m
glad you wrote. This is something
that should be discussed further
with your husband to make sure
you are on the same page, and
also with your OB-GYN.
approach. I just don’t want people
I care about to throw their money
away to their landlords. Do I need
to be more loving and supportive
vs. educating?
— COMMUNITY HELPER
DEAR HELPER: People usu-
ally have good reasons for renting
instead of buying. If you keep
repeating your advice and it’s
falling on deaf ears, it’s fair to
conclude your message isn’t being
appreciated. A saying widely
attributed to Albert Einstein is,
“Insanity is continuing to repeat
an action over and over again
but expecting different results.”
You can volunteer to serve as an
adviser, but only if these individ-
uals want to make a change and
ask for your help.
News of the Weird
15th century bowl found at
yard sale sells for $722,000
HARTFORD, Conn. — An
exceptionally rare 15th century
porcelain bowl made in China
that somehow turned up at a Con-
necticut yard sale and sold for just
$35 was auctioned off Wednesday
for nearly $722,000.
The small white bowl adorned
with cobalt blue paintings of
flowers and other designs — one
of only seven such bowls known
to exist in the world — was among
a variety of Chinese works of art
sold by Sotheby’s as part of its
Asia Week events. The names
of the seller and buyer were not
disclosed.
Sotheby’s had estimated the
value of the artifact at $300,000
to $500,000. The auction
Wednesday, March 17, included
15 bids, starting at $200,000 from
someone online and ending at
$580,000 from another person bid-
ding by phone. The official pur-
chase price, which included var-
ious fees, was $721,800.
An antiques enthusiast came
across the Ming Dynasty-era piece
and thought it could be something
special when browsing a yard sale
in the New Haven area last year,
according to Sotheby’s. The buyer
later emailed information and
photos to Sotheby’s asking for an
evaluation.
“Today’s result for this excep-
tionally rare floral bowl, dating to
the 15th century, epitomizes the
incredible, once in a lifetime dis-
covery stories that we dream about
as specialists in the Chinese Art
field,” Angela McAteer, head of
Sotheby’s Chinese Works of Art
Department, said in a statement.
The bowl dates back to the
early 1400s during the reign of the
Yongle Emperor, the third ruler of
the Ming Dynasty, and was made
for the Yongle court. The Yongle
court was known to have ush-
ered in a new style to the porcelain
kilns in the city of Jingdezhen, and
the bowl is a quintessential Yongle
Sotheby’s via AP
This photo from March 2, 2021, shows a small porcelain bowl bought for $35 at a Con-
necticut yard sale that turned out to be a rare, 15th century Chinese artifact worth be-
tween $300,000 and $500,000. The bowl was auctioned off for nearly $722,000 at Sothe-
by’s Auction of Important Chinese Art, in New York, on Wednesday, March 17.
product, according to Sotheby’s.
The bowl was made in the
shape of a lotus bud or chicken
heart. Inside, it is decorated with
a medallion at the bottom and a
quatrefoil motif surrounded by
flowers. The outside includes four
blossoms of lotus, peony, chrysan-
themum and pomegranate flower.
There are also intricate patterns
at the top of both the outside and
inside.
McAteer said only six other
such bowls are known to exist,
and most of them are in museums.
No others are in the United States.
There are two at the National
Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan,
two at museums in London and
one in the National Museum
of Iran in Tehran, according to
Sotheby’s.
How the bowl ended up at a
Connecticut yard sale remains a
mystery. McAteer said it’s possible
it was passed down through gener-
ations of the same family who did
not know how unique it was.
No cigar: Interstellar object is
cookie-shaped planet shard
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —
Our solar system’s first known
weather
| Go to AccuWeather.com
William Hartmann and Michael Belton via AP
This 2018 illustration shows a depiction of the Oumuamua interstellar object as a pan-
cake-shaped disk. A study published in March 2021 says the mystery object is likely a
remnant of a Pluto-like world and shaped like a cookie.
interstellar visitor is neither a
comet nor asteroid as first sus-
pected and looks nothing like a
cigar. A new study says the mys-
tery object is likely a remnant of
a Pluto-like world and shaped like
a cookie.
Arizona State University
astronomers reported this week
that the strange 148-foot object
that appears to be made of frozen
nitrogen, just like the surface of
Pluto and Neptune’s largest moon
Triton.
The study’s authors, Alan
Jackson and Steven Desch, think
an impact knocked a chunk off an
icy nitrogen-covered planet 500
million years ago and sent the
piece tumbling out of its own star
system, toward ours. The reddish
remnant is believed to be a sliver
of its original self, its outer layers
evaporated by cosmic radiation
and, more recently, the sun.
It’s named Oumuamua,
Hawaiian for scout, in honor of
the observatory in Hawaii that
discovered it in 2017.
Visible only as a pinpoint
of light millions of miles away
at its closest approach, it was
determined to have originated
beyond our solar system because
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
Astoria
Longview
39/47
Kennewick
37/47
St. Helens
38/50
40/49
40/53
39/51
37/49
Condon
SUN
MON
TUE
WED
Mostly cloudy
An afternoon
shower
A couple of
showers
Clouds and sun;
chilly
Cloudy
49 29
51 27
56 33
Eugene
0
4
6
37/51
43 31
48 27
53 32
0
4
5
La Grande
33 46 33
Comfort Index™
Enterprise
4
0
1
27 43 31
Comfort Index™
0
50 33
0
4
6
ALMANAC
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High Thursday
Low Thursday
High: 91°
Low: -2°
Wettest: 3.21”
64°
37°
62°
38°
62°
28°
PRECIPITATION (inches)
Thursday
Trace
Month to date
0.13
Normal month to date 0.47
Year to date
1.08
Normal year to date
1.85
0.00
0.06
0.84
5.09
3.61
0.00
0.10
1.30
12.03
6.80
AGRICULTURAL INFO.
HAY INFORMATION SUNDAY
Lowest relative humidity
Afternoon wind
Hours of sunshine
Evapotranspiration
40%
W at 6 to 12 mph
2.1
0.07
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Friday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
12% of capacity
56% of capacity
54% of capacity
68% of capacity
47% of capacity
101% of capacity
STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Thursday)
Grande Ronde at Troy
5590 cfs
Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder 117 cfs
Burnt River near Unity
35 cfs
Umatilla River near Gibbon
748 cfs
Minam River at Minam
363 cfs
Powder River near Richland
281 cfs
Titusville, Fla.
Gould, Colo.
Beaufort, S.C.
OREGON
High: 74°
Low: 20°
Wettest: 0.46”
Ontario
Odell Lake
Florence
WEATHER HISTORY
On March 20, 1948, Juneau, Alaska, re-
ceived almost 33 inches of snow. This was
the heaviest snow ever to fall in Alaska’s
capital.
SUN & MOON
SAT.
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
SUN.
6:55 a.m. 6:53 a.m.
7:05 p.m. 7:06 p.m.
10:33 a.m. 11:16 a.m.
1:41 a.m. 2:41 a.m.
MOON PHASES
First
Mar 21
Full
Mar 28
Last
Apr 4
Beaver Marsh
Powers
37/50
New
Apr 11
38/53
Silver Lake
Jordan Valley
26/44
Paisley
23/51
24/51
Frenchglen
26/47
Medford
22/50
City
Astoria
Bend
Boise
Brookings
Burns
Coos Bay
Corvallis
Council
Elgin
Eugene
Hermiston
Hood River
Imnaha
John Day
Joseph
Kennewick
Klamath Falls
Lakeview
Hi/Lo/W
47/41/r
50/35/pc
53/36/s
50/41/pc
49/30/pc
50/41/c
50/41/r
46/25/pc
45/34/c
51/42/c
55/41/pc
49/40/r
49/35/pc
46/33/pc
41/30/pc
56/42/pc
50/29/s
48/30/s
Hi/Lo/W
49/38/sh
47/27/sn
51/32/pc
51/40/pc
46/26/sn
50/37/pc
52/36/sh
43/21/pc
43/28/sh
53/38/sh
57/33/pc
51/35/pc
45/28/sh
43/31/sh
39/26/sn
60/30/pc
44/24/sn
44/25/sn
29/56
27/53
Lakeview
20/48
McDermitt
23/47
RECREATION FORECAST SUNDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
MON.
Grand View
Arock
25/49
Klamath Falls
Shown is Sunday’s weather. Temperatures are Saturday night’s lows and Sunday’s highs.
SUN.
Diamond
27/45
Fields
39/57
37/50
Boise
32/53
37/59
Brookings
28/52
22/48
Chiloquin
Grants Pass
Juntura
25/49
23/45
20/44
Roseburg
Ontario
31/58
Burns
Brothers
34/48
Coos Bay
Huntington
23/43
28/50
Oakridge
24/46
32/55
Seneca
Bend
Elkton
Council
28/50
30/46
29/48
Florence
THURSDAY EXTREMES
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
25/43
John Day
27/50
Sisters
38/50
Comfort Index takes into account how the weather will feel based on a combination of factors. A rating of 10 feels
very comfortable while a rating of 0 feels very uncomfortable.
28/48
Baker City
Redmond
39/49
Halfway
Granite
37/50
Newport
38/51
45 25
30/51
32/42
36/49
38/47
40 28
2
Corvallis
Enterprise
27/43
33/46
Monument
36/49
Idanha
Salem
TONIGHT
1
Elgin
33/45
La Grande
32/45
Maupin
Comfort Index™
37/52
Pendleton
The Dalles
Portland
Newberg
Lewiston
37/53
Hood River
36/51
TIllamook
28 50 32
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
Walla Walla
36/56
Vancouver
37/48
39/48
Baker City
but virtual this year.
Not all scientists buy the new
explanation. Harvard Universi-
ty’s Avi Loeb disputes the find-
ings and stands by his premise
the object appears to be more
artificial than natural — in other
words, something from an alien
civilization, perhaps a light sail.
His newly published book “Extra-
terrestrial: The First Sign of
Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,”
addresses the subject.
When Oumuamua was at
its closest approach to Earth,
it appeared to have a width six
times larger than its thickness.
Those are the rough proportions
of one wafer of an Oreo cookie,
Desch noted.
By the time the object starts
leaving our solar system around
2040, the width-to-thickness ratio
will have dropped to 10-to-1,
according to Desch.
“So maybe Oumuamua was
consistent with a cookie when we
saw it, but will soon be literally
as flat as a pancake,” Desch said
in an email.
That’s the way the
cosmic cookie — this one
anyway — crumbles.
— Associated Press
its speed and path suggested it
wasn’t orbiting the sun or any-
thing else.
The only other object con-
firmed to have strayed from
another star system into our own
is the comet 21/Borisov, discov-
ered in 2019.
But what is Oumuamua? It
didn’t fit into known categories
— it looked like an asteroid but
sped along like a comet. Unlike
a comet, though, it didn’t have a
visible tail. Speculation flipped
back and forth between comet
and asteroid — and it was even
suggested it could be an alien
artifact.
Using its shininess, size and
shape — and that it was propelled
by escaping substances that didn’t
produce a visible tail — Jackson
and Desch devised computer
models that helped them deter-
mine Oumuamua was most likely
a chunk of nitrogen ice being
gradually eroded, the way a bar
of soap thins with use.
Their two papers were pub-
lished Tuesday, March 16, by the
American Geophysical Union
and also presented at the Lunar
and Planetary Sciences Confer-
ence, typically held in Houston
City
Lewiston
Longview
Meacham
Medford
Newport
Olympia
Ontario
Pasco
Pendleton
Portland
Powers
Redmond
Roseburg
Salem
Spokane
The Dalles
Ukiah
Walla Walla
SUN.
MON.
Hi/Lo/W
53/39/c
47/37/r
45/32/sh
57/40/pc
47/40/r
46/34/r
58/37/pc
57/41/pc
51/40/c
51/42/r
50/41/c
50/33/pc
53/42/c
49/40/r
46/35/c
53/40/c
44/32/c
52/40/c
Hi/Lo/W
52/34/sh
51/33/sh
42/30/sh
57/38/pc
48/37/sh
52/31/sh
57/32/pc
60/30/pc
51/34/sh
53/39/sh
52/41/pc
49/28/sn
55/38/pc
52/37/sh
48/28/pc
55/36/pc
41/26/sn
52/35/sh
Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain,
sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice
ANTHONY LAKES
PHILLIPS LAKE
A little p.m. snow
Clouds and sun
25
17
46
30
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
A little p.m. snow
Mostly cloudy
33
27
49
30
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
Partly sunny
Afternoon fl urries
30
18
41
30
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
Sun and clouds
Mostly cloudy
41
30
51
38
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
Partly sunny
A p.m. shower
50
32
46
33