"The directness and impulsiveness of fire means that in difficult situations people with the Moon in Aries soon become irritated, speak sharply and lose their temper quite easily. And when everything is going swimmingly, they are quickly carried away by fresh currents. Those with Moon in Aries are happiest in a free, independent and changeable position, whether in business life or in social situations. The person with Moon in Aries prefers activities which are subject to as few restrictions as possible and can look to the future full of enthusiasm. We say "look to" the future advisedly, since actually planning for the future is not in their nature."
--Widget of Widget's Astrology World
Ain't it the truth?
I was browsing around this evening looking for ideas on what to call my new garden journal. I am so bad at titling things. Well, not bad, but not quick or easily inspired. I actually still like both Aries Moon and Archipelago as titles quite a lot, and I'm very pleased with my domain name. But it took me ages to come up with them, and I want to put the garden journal up now. So I have. But it hasn't got a decent index page, or a title. And thus I was bumming around the Internet looking at various likely names.
I use www.google.com exclusively for my search engine. It's really great, it always finds just what I want or an excellent approximation. Lycos and Excite suck, in contrast, and don't even talk to me about the vast wasteland that is Yahoo. This concludes my unsolicited opinion on search engines. So there I was, dinking around, trying to think of cool names, and while I was doing that I typed in Aries Moon to see if my diary site came up first. It did. Then, of course, there were the usual assortment of astrology sites trailing behind. I couldn't resist looking at Widget's bizarre little collection of ooky wisdom. His English is dodgy, but I liked the quote above because it's profoundly true of me.
Then, of course, I went looking to see who had my exact sun and moon sign (Jennifer Lopez, and I'm sure you've noted our twin-like resemblence), and my birthday (Ben Affleck, Napoleon, Julia Child, cartoonist Dan Steffan -- okay, he wasn't listed, I just happen to know that). After which, I wandered the byways of astrology sites until I remembered I was supposed to be thinking of a good garden journal name, at which point I promptly decided to write an entry here instead.
Why, no, I haven't packed one thing this weekend. Flit, flit, flit.
I have gotten a couple of things accomplished. It hasn't all been pre-Oscar parties and lolling about eating bonbons. The house inspection took place, and everything looks fine. I spent several hours with Denise, as promised, and talked about gardens, as promised. I went out Saturday evening to have Italian sodas at Cafe Barrone with Michael as usual. We talked about the comics we read now, and what we've collected. I came home and dragged out my two boxes of comics from the 80's and got Michael to tell me how much they were worth. The four Dark Knight books, the Watchmen, the Moonshadow series, and the Love & Rockets stuff has all gone up in value fairly impressively. Yay! Too bad no one cares about the American Flagg series, the first 45 Nexus comics, or the Alan Moore Swamp Things. And boy, do I have a weird collection of one or two issues of small, independent comics. I never did like superhero stuff, so I haven't collected anything classic.
Today I heroically repotted seven plants and gave myself sore muscles in the process. What a weenie. If merely squatting and bending for two hours makes me sore, imagine how buff I'll be after digging out a pond, building a berm, and amending all the soil in my new garden. I'm happy to have gotten it done, however. I believe, I really believe, I have enough pots in the right size for what's left to be transplanted before moving. I hope the astilbe don't go into shock. But if they do, what the heck: they're pink. I'm only moving them because I hate to waste perfectly good plants.
I'm still down on Italy. At least I finally got half of my trips booked so some of the heat is off. If you're thinking of going, don't. Rent a room at Venice in Las Vegas, instead. It'll be just as hot, and just as crowded, but everyone will speak English and your room rate will be half the cost. And you can always walk over to Bellagio, and pretend you're still in Italy. Hey, it could work. It's better than queuing for four hours to get into the Uffizi Gallery or the Vatican.
Speaking of travel alternatives, I had a real winner on Friday. A woman identified herself as a former flight attendant and asked for fares to Fairbanks, Alaska. She had two stipulations: she wouldn't fly on an MD-80, and she wouldn't fly on Alaska Airlines.
"Okay, you can fly on Delta from San Francisco to Salt Lake City to Anchorage to Fairbanks, but I'm afraid the last leg of the journey is on an MD-80. Or you can fly Alaska on 737s with only one stop on the way there," I said helpfully.
"No," she said. I closed my eyes, stifled a sigh, and started over.
"There are only four flights a day to Fairbanks, ma'am. I understand your reluctance in the wake of the Alaska Airlines accident with the MD-80, but you have to compromise. You don't have a choice. It's Delta and an MD-80, or Alaska and a 737, and you can't be sure they won't substitute an MD-80. I can't guarantee the equipment flown."
She went into a tizzy. I felt bad for her, but it's not like Fairbanks is a metropolis that people are dying to get to. It's a dinky city in northern Alaska, and Alaska Airlines pretty much owns that territory in terms of flights. Their fleet workhorse is the MD-80. It's not possible to avoid both. This former flight attendent of all people should have understood that. But no, I repeated myself in increasingly unsympathetic tones for the next 20 minutes.
Finally, I was quite blunt. "Ma'am, I've run out of ways of explaining what your choices are. Why don't you think about it and call me back?" You aren't buying a ticket, get off my line.
"Oh, but there must be some other way!" she repeated for the umpteenth time.
"There sure is. You can take a couple Valium," I said, desperate to get her to hang up. "Drug yourself into a stupor, you won't even notice if it crashes." I couldn't believe I'd said that. I'm not sure she was listening. She dithered until I practically hung up on her. Jeez louise. Some travel agent, advocating drug use for air travel. But golly, she's going to be a nervous wreck no matter what option she takes. I pity the personnel on her flight. Better she should be sedated. It's awful to be afraid to fly. I've had problems with it in the past, myself. But I have gotten over it because I love the freedom flying provides. It's so marvelous to be able to wing over the world in a relatively short amount of time for a relatively reasonable price. I revel in that ability.
'Cause you know us Moon in Aries folks gotta be free.
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