Heavenly Haps

Over the last two nights, the sky has been home to a full lunar eclipse, a satellite shooting, and a meteorite--well, millions of those, I guess, but this one happened to fall down in Oregon. Witness to only the first of these celestial happenings, I'll focus on that one.

I was working late, having gotten started late as usual, I was parked here in front of my computer, and having surfed the web for most of the day, I knew it was coming, but I also knew that it'd been snowing most of the day in Baltimore, so I assumed the skies were cloudy. But when I got a text message from the glorious K Love, one of my absolute besties (and ex girlfriend of Mr. Man--yes it is an incestuous elite circle in which we circulate) I looked out the window to the west, and it looked clear, so I ran downstairs to the easterly windows, and there it was, the full Virgo moon, momentarily masquerading as a crescent. Mr. Man and I stood there a few minutes, then decided we'd get a better view from outside, so we gathered up the Devil Dog (I've renamed the pets--ever since the Devil Cat got brave, they are really a pain) and headed to the churchyard across the street.

And we were glad that we did. It was colder than a witch's tit out there, but the moon, the eclipse of which was fully apparent through the screened window, was bigger and clearer out there, and looked like it was covered in a blood-stained piece of lace. (an omen of things to come? I'm not a white-lace-panty kind of girl, but it is getting close to that time...)

Not only that, but the churchyard is a big one, on the corner of the block, and a diagonal path cuts across it that is often used by locals. One of our neighbors happened to take this path as we were standing there, and we alerted him to the eclipse. We'd never talked to this guy (whose name I didn't get--I was picking up dog poop when he divulged it to Mr. Man, who promptly forgot it) but before long, he and Mr. Man were discussing international politics (mostly immigration policy--we live in a predominantly Latino neighborhood, and our neighbor rightly feels that the US doesn't want him here anymore). Dressed only in a hoodie and jeans, he was incredibly chatty and content to stand out there in the cold with us for about 15 min.

When the conversation came round to our location--the churchyard--and our neighbor asked us if we believed in God, I had to fib a little and tell him yes, suspecting that it would lead to a longer, more complicated and potentially heated conversation. We gathered up the Devil Dog and headed in, glad to have finally met one of our neighbors (though for the moment, even more glad to have skirted the God talk).

People in Baltimore sure are religious. "Pastor Eddie" (I'm still trying to figure out how he got my name and address) wants me to attend his service--he sent me a postcard with the Lord's prayer on the front of it last week. I'll be damned.

In other celestial news, my new haircut is out of this world! The stylist and I settled on "fashion mullet" to describe it. I'll be debuting my new 'do in NYC next week. Until then, keep an eye on the sky.