michaelmas

st. michael's harvest song
in autumn saint michael with sword and with shield

passes over meadow and orchard and field.

he's on the path to battle 'gainst darkness and strife --

he is the heavenly warrior protector of life . . 

anonymous

----

it poured today and there was a lot of flooding in different neighborhoods. korrina made it to grand central, but turned around at the 6th train platform as it was packed with people. red hook, carroll gardens and probably other areas too, were inundated with the water coming up to the middle of cars and several train lines were shut down.

zuzu has lately taken to running around like a nut and scampering up the window to perch on the ledge. does she think she's st. michael, ready to battle the evil forces? 

it's too cloudy and rainy tonight for us to see the harvest perigee moon.

lunch and tea with friends and the full moon

my herbs aren't really flourishing as their containers are a bit small . . pretty plant pots are nice to look at but don't always make the best homes. the mint on the right is probably doing the best. the rosemary in the middle seems to have stabilized and the thyme on the left is slowly dying; sadly. the two aloe plants on the left are fine . . and the larger one has another baby, i think. it must be a great, great, great, great grandchild from the one i bought many years ago in florida when visiting greg's family with the girls when they were little. i remember clearly that it was at a local health food store whose plants were arranged artistically around it's outside patio.

chanda stopped by after a counter culture workshop. her work uses counter culture coffee and they allow baristas from local cafes to learn more techniques at their training centers. i actually didn't ask her what she worked on today . . i guess we were busy talking of other things. (what techniques could there be? different lattes and cappuccinos?)

we each made our own sandwiches.

i met sacha and reina in the late afternoon at maman cafe . . but after they closed we shifted to the amorino gelato cafe where we sat and finished our coffee drinks (i had an iced peach mango green tea!).

the talk centered around college tours (oberlin a week ago and boston in two weeks for reina's son) and travels (sacha was just in switzerland) and higher realms - our human potential for spiritual knowledge.

reina walked with me cross town to the taco place where i picked up dinner for greg and i this evening . . unfortunately, their guacamole tonight was very poor. they usually water it down but tonight it was more watered down than usual and it looked like they had used a bad avocado. we're not feeling so inclined to patronize them any time soon again.

here's a photo of tonight's full moon (acutally i think it might not be completely full until 1:36 am tomorrow). i just read that it was a perigee moon (when it's path is closest to earth) on august 10th . . so yesterday's photo was the supermoon. earthsky writes that this bright moon falls in the middle of the perseid meteor shower . . so it'll be difficult to see those beautiful shooting stars. i saw a shooting star during the perseid shower in 2016 when out on the cape. it was very exciting and i wrote about it here.

(earthsky gives some tips here on how to still view the perseids with a full moon.)

december perigee moon

the moon shown big and full as a supermoon, on my way to the advent spiral this evening. of course it was competing with the myriad of other lights that make up my neighborhood. can you even find it in the pic above?!

strawberry perigee moon, take ii

 the farmers' almanac writes that the june full moon was known as the strawberry moon for the algonquin tribes of the northeast. in europe it was known as the rose moon.

perigee moon

 the perigee moon viewed over 14th street on the high line . . 

super perigee moon

my friend texted me that the moon would be rising extra large tonight. we missed it's rising, but were still astounded at how large it looked at 8:15 pm in the southeastern sky.

it's called a perigee moon, and i like this photo of it taken over boston. (here's another nice photo of it over the lincoln memorial). it's supposed to happen to a smaller degree again on may 6th, 2012. that's nana's birthday, so maybe i'll remember!

you can hear the peepers in this little film. they must have just recently come out. (i'm writing this on thursday, 24th of march after snow and sleet. i wonder how they are faring? maybe they just burrow down in the earth again?)