Contrary to the laziness and sloth this aspect is sometimes said to bring I am, for the first time in the history of this blog, beginning to write a new post immediately after publishing one. That I'm going to be out of the country for three weeks, starting in - choke - four days, has had what you might call a revitalizing effect on me. The dishwasher is sloshing away and I've windexed the glass coffee table, which is what passes for daily housekeeping around here, and even more significantly, Star Child is still asleep at 3:08, meaning I can sit here babbling away through the keyboard being lazy and slothful.
Perhaps I'll go out later and buy myself some baubles and bangles or something beautiful from Eileen Fisher, highly unlikely as the only clothing store within walking distance is T J Maxx.
[29 HOURS LATER] This whole post fizzled out anyway as Star Child woke up, Ahma came home and they went off to the pediatrician for a check up and I got a ride to Harvard Square with them and went to Citibank and picked up the pounds and euros I ordered on Saturday. Then I walked down to Whole Foods to get chicken and milk and didn't hear the ten phone calls Ahma made to me but met her and Star Child as I left the market. (Sorry -this post is definitely along the lines of people on cell phones calling from the bus and saying they're just passing the launderette.)
Only possible manifestation of Venus square the Ascendant, which perfected at 6:01 am this morning, was me waking up at 5:00 am (happens when you're asleep by 9:00 pm) and writing several cards and notes to women I've been meaning to send cards and notes to for months and months.
Apologies to anyone who read this far. Definitely the most boring post ever made on here. Except I just reread it and thought that maybe me picking up my moolah for overseas trip qualifies as Venus showing up somewhere.
23 March, 2011
22 March, 2011
Another Ten Days Vanish
It must be karma, or at least old age: I remember as a child hearing adults talk about how the days and weeks flew by and Christmas came around more quickly every year and they just didn't know what was happening and thinking to myself Oh, you stupid old people, what are you talking about, it takes forever for Christmas to come, and now every time I manage to shake myself out of my torpor and click on the New Post button at least a week has gone by since I last clicked and I have no idea what I did in it.
One good reason for not remembering, of course, is that there's not much to remember. I don't do much other than take care of Star Child during the day, going to sing-a-longs at various and assorted library branches whenever weather permits and to the playground, same condition, even less frequently, as all the playgrounds are, er, outside, and falling into bed at nine at night, with a high spot being walking down to Whole Foods and having lunch in what one of the employees called the dining room when I asked him where the forks were.
So last Saturday, 3/19, when Mars opposed Jupiter and I remembered I'd be leaving for Spain in a week, it suddenly seemed like a good idea to go through the three drawers under my bed and start to figure out what clothes I'd be taking, and when I went to open the one I don't open much and saw the accumulated cat hair under there, it led to getting out the broom and the dustpan and brush and vacuum cleaner and suddenly Ahma was outside in the hallway taking up the mats that the stroller and all our outside shoes have dripped on for the winter and hanging them out on the front porch and I went and got the hardwood floor cleaner and before we knew it we were in full spring cleaning frenzy with Star Child running around wanting to push the magic button on the vacuum that retracts the cord and Sweet Pea, who's been showing definite signs of bravery in the past few weeks, regressing completely and retreating deep into the recesses of what is now known as his closet.
So there you have it, really. Domestic life chugging along quite nicely, Star Child behaving as though she's lived here all her life and becoming more fluent by the hour, and then Mars opposes Jupiter and we have a bit of a spring clean. I need to remember that "May you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse.
One good reason for not remembering, of course, is that there's not much to remember. I don't do much other than take care of Star Child during the day, going to sing-a-longs at various and assorted library branches whenever weather permits and to the playground, same condition, even less frequently, as all the playgrounds are, er, outside, and falling into bed at nine at night, with a high spot being walking down to Whole Foods and having lunch in what one of the employees called the dining room when I asked him where the forks were.
So last Saturday, 3/19, when Mars opposed Jupiter and I remembered I'd be leaving for Spain in a week, it suddenly seemed like a good idea to go through the three drawers under my bed and start to figure out what clothes I'd be taking, and when I went to open the one I don't open much and saw the accumulated cat hair under there, it led to getting out the broom and the dustpan and brush and vacuum cleaner and suddenly Ahma was outside in the hallway taking up the mats that the stroller and all our outside shoes have dripped on for the winter and hanging them out on the front porch and I went and got the hardwood floor cleaner and before we knew it we were in full spring cleaning frenzy with Star Child running around wanting to push the magic button on the vacuum that retracts the cord and Sweet Pea, who's been showing definite signs of bravery in the past few weeks, regressing completely and retreating deep into the recesses of what is now known as his closet.
So there you have it, really. Domestic life chugging along quite nicely, Star Child behaving as though she's lived here all her life and becoming more fluent by the hour, and then Mars opposes Jupiter and we have a bit of a spring clean. I need to remember that "May you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse.
11 March, 2011
Mars Return 2011
The only physical energy I expended over this was walking down Ninth Avenue with a friend for 15 blocks looking for a place with a booth where we could sit, have lunch and catch the other up with our respective lives over the past couple of years. Booths in restaurants and bars, we discovered, have largely disappeared, replaced by long rows of high tables at Italian espresso-bar stool height, not exactly conducive, at least to old 'uns like us, to tete-a-tetes (use your imagination for the accent marks).
We finally ended up, like the tourists we now are, in a place on Restaurant Row called Bourbon Street ,where we were among the earliest of lunch customers, it being only 11:30. We were able to pile into a semi-circular booth big enough for six, spread out our coats and Daffy's shopping bags and immediately feel at home.
Suitably, for a Mars return in Neptune-ruled Pisces, we were able to get pleasantly woozy washing down our red beans and rice and three-cheese grits with four or five two-for-one beers (it was Fat Tuesday) and at the same time, as we nobly chose to drink Restoration Ale, we could congratulate ourselves on aiding the rebuilding effort in New Orleans. Sorry God.
We finally ended up, like the tourists we now are, in a place on Restaurant Row called Bourbon Street ,where we were among the earliest of lunch customers, it being only 11:30. We were able to pile into a semi-circular booth big enough for six, spread out our coats and Daffy's shopping bags and immediately feel at home.
Suitably, for a Mars return in Neptune-ruled Pisces, we were able to get pleasantly woozy washing down our red beans and rice and three-cheese grits with four or five two-for-one beers (it was Fat Tuesday) and at the same time, as we nobly chose to drink Restoration Ale, we could congratulate ourselves on aiding the rebuilding effort in New Orleans. Sorry God.
10 March, 2011
Venus trine Uranus
According to weather reports it's going to rain hard all day, so I'm quite happy to go to the post office in only a bit of drizzle and mail off Just For You to an English actress MBS has introduced me to via email. Mission for the day accomplished, I decide to go to Goodwill on my way home and see if I can find a pair of casual pants, as after looking for a favorite pair since I got back to New York, I've realized I must have left them in Silver for the winter. This leaves me with a pair of black Levis that I can just about squeeze myself into if I hold my stomach in as far as I can and never sit down while I'm wearing them and three pairs of black stretch cotton pull on straight-let pants that I've been wearing for at least 10 years and that are literally beginning to shred.
I never get to the thrift shop though as I run into F, the man who runs the Drama Workshop at the Isaacs Centre where I used to go when I had transiting south node conjunct Pluto a couple of years ago. He seems genuinely happy to see me as I am to see him, and we do a quick catch up in the middle of the sidewalk while I tell him I'm living most of the time up in Cambridge being a nanny and he invites me to a reading at his theatre on 81st Street that night. I ask him if I've ever shown him a Just For You script, he says no, I say I'll take one along when I go to the reading, which I do that evening.
By then it's pouring with rain and getting windy, and I'm very grateful the theatre's only seven blocks away. The reading is of two one-acts, one I've never seen that I guess the premise of long before I'm sure the playwright would have liked me to, and the other a rewrite of something I saw there last year which has been rewritten and toned down a bit, which, IMHO, it desperately needed. F is glad to see me, takes the script, which has about as much chance of being of interest to him as it has to the Royal Court but never mind, and introduces me to a couple of playwrights in the audience - one the author of the play I'd seen before and the other the author of I'm not quite sure what.
He tells them I'm about to go off to London where a play of mine is being produced. "Oh, in Hampstead?" one of them says. "No, other side of the river," I say, without elaborating further, and the lights go down, the reading starts, the reading ends, F says thank you to us all for coming and invites us all to stay for wine and cheese and Miss Twelfth House, who's been sitting in the back row, sneaks out the front door into the rain and wind and scurries home, wishing Sweet Pea were there to greet her.
I never get to the thrift shop though as I run into F, the man who runs the Drama Workshop at the Isaacs Centre where I used to go when I had transiting south node conjunct Pluto a couple of years ago. He seems genuinely happy to see me as I am to see him, and we do a quick catch up in the middle of the sidewalk while I tell him I'm living most of the time up in Cambridge being a nanny and he invites me to a reading at his theatre on 81st Street that night. I ask him if I've ever shown him a Just For You script, he says no, I say I'll take one along when I go to the reading, which I do that evening.
By then it's pouring with rain and getting windy, and I'm very grateful the theatre's only seven blocks away. The reading is of two one-acts, one I've never seen that I guess the premise of long before I'm sure the playwright would have liked me to, and the other a rewrite of something I saw there last year which has been rewritten and toned down a bit, which, IMHO, it desperately needed. F is glad to see me, takes the script, which has about as much chance of being of interest to him as it has to the Royal Court but never mind, and introduces me to a couple of playwrights in the audience - one the author of the play I'd seen before and the other the author of I'm not quite sure what.
He tells them I'm about to go off to London where a play of mine is being produced. "Oh, in Hampstead?" one of them says. "No, other side of the river," I say, without elaborating further, and the lights go down, the reading starts, the reading ends, F says thank you to us all for coming and invites us all to stay for wine and cheese and Miss Twelfth House, who's been sitting in the back row, sneaks out the front door into the rain and wind and scurries home, wishing Sweet Pea were there to greet her.
08 March, 2011
Mars Square Uranus
So I spent yesterday, the day before this, with the bedroom ceiling on the bedroom floor and Mercury sextile the Midheaven and the Ascendant, working away on another copyediting/writing job from the client brought to me by the January solar eclipse smack on my South Node (15 minutes of arc off, to be precise, but close enough for me). Naturally, as my South Node's in Saturn-ruled Capricorn, the client is male, and also, naturally, a business man writing a book (natal node is in ninth house of publishing), of course, about business. And since Saturn is currently in Libra, there's been a lot of dancing around to keep him happy, as he changes his mind a lot, emails files containing new material just when I think I've finished and wants the new material inserted into the old without understanding that usually involves a lot of changes elsewhere etc. etc. etc.
Supposedly I had finished the job early last week and sent him off an invoice, but the night before I was due to come down to New York I got one of those emails with a file attached and a rather plaintive call for help. He was adding yet more new information to what was already written, had tried to do it himself, realized it wasn't, er, working very well and asked me to give it the once over and see what I could do.
As I was coming down to New York and was not going to be in Nanny Land, I said I'd work on it on Sunday, which I did, and on Monday too, Mars square Uranus day, up until five pm. By the time I sent the completed rewritten and reorganized file back to him my head was coming off, and when I got an email back asking for some material I'd omitted (deliberately) to be reinserted, I shot off a "Will do, but not tonight" response. Now, of course, I wish I'd checked to see exactly when Mars squared Uranus, but I didn't, so exactly as it DID, I changed my mind, opened the file, stuck the two barely edited paragraphs he'd written into a reasonably okay place in the document and sent the 'revised' file back, feeling only a little bit rebellious. I didn't hear back from him and didn't email to see if he'd received the file till the day after, and got back a "I did, thanks" response.
Now I'm wishing I'd taken the time to fact check and properly edit both paragraphs, feeling guilty about not doing a thorough job and wondering if he can tell how poorly his paragraphs read, not that that's something I can exactly ask him. And just for the record, Mars square Uranus is a natal aspect, and this was one day off my Mars return. Oh well.
Supposedly I had finished the job early last week and sent him off an invoice, but the night before I was due to come down to New York I got one of those emails with a file attached and a rather plaintive call for help. He was adding yet more new information to what was already written, had tried to do it himself, realized it wasn't, er, working very well and asked me to give it the once over and see what I could do.
As I was coming down to New York and was not going to be in Nanny Land, I said I'd work on it on Sunday, which I did, and on Monday too, Mars square Uranus day, up until five pm. By the time I sent the completed rewritten and reorganized file back to him my head was coming off, and when I got an email back asking for some material I'd omitted (deliberately) to be reinserted, I shot off a "Will do, but not tonight" response. Now, of course, I wish I'd checked to see exactly when Mars squared Uranus, but I didn't, so exactly as it DID, I changed my mind, opened the file, stuck the two barely edited paragraphs he'd written into a reasonably okay place in the document and sent the 'revised' file back, feeling only a little bit rebellious. I didn't hear back from him and didn't email to see if he'd received the file till the day after, and got back a "I did, thanks" response.
Now I'm wishing I'd taken the time to fact check and properly edit both paragraphs, feeling guilty about not doing a thorough job and wondering if he can tell how poorly his paragraphs read, not that that's something I can exactly ask him. And just for the record, Mars square Uranus is a natal aspect, and this was one day off my Mars return. Oh well.
07 March, 2011
Venus trine Neptune
Not a good day for getting things done, huh? More of a day for lounging around daydreaming and listening to music? A little escape from reality?
Hmmmmm. Is that why I ran around like a loony on Saturday doing a clean up after the rest of the household in Cambridge took off for the airport and a week in the Bahamas, got myself to South Station and on the Bolt Bus, then walked in my apartment, took one look at the bedroom ceiling artfully scattered around the bedroom floor and on the bed and decided the only thing to do was make a decaf cafe au lait, dust off the computer and sit down and check email?
I did decide later I ought to make an attempt to clear it up a bit, and (after photographing it for my landlord) attempted to sweep the rubble into piles and put it into plastic bags, but I soon gave up on that. I ended up sweeping a pathway through the chunks of plaster so I could get into the living room and dusting off the few surfaces I decided I needed, then shaking the plaster dust out of the sheets and settling down for a nice quiet read before bedtime, thinking of how exciting it's going to be when Uranus goes into Aries.
Hmmmmm. Is that why I ran around like a loony on Saturday doing a clean up after the rest of the household in Cambridge took off for the airport and a week in the Bahamas, got myself to South Station and on the Bolt Bus, then walked in my apartment, took one look at the bedroom ceiling artfully scattered around the bedroom floor and on the bed and decided the only thing to do was make a decaf cafe au lait, dust off the computer and sit down and check email?
I did decide later I ought to make an attempt to clear it up a bit, and (after photographing it for my landlord) attempted to sweep the rubble into piles and put it into plastic bags, but I soon gave up on that. I ended up sweeping a pathway through the chunks of plaster so I could get into the living room and dusting off the few surfaces I decided I needed, then shaking the plaster dust out of the sheets and settling down for a nice quiet read before bedtime, thinking of how exciting it's going to be when Uranus goes into Aries.
02 March, 2011
Oh Ye of Little Faith
I'd really given up on anything manifesting around this one, Jupiter trine Pluto. Positive changes in my personal and social world? Rearrange my reading glasses on the shelves in my hallway and go to a different singalong? Exert power? Say No to Star Child when she's sitting in her chair at the coffee table eating and says Sit here, pointing to the carpet next to her? Energies flowing in the direction I want, enabling me to take control in some way? That one did happen, in a stretch, as I finally managed to make contact with the woman I ordered two hula hoops from a month ago and she was good enough to bring them both by the house in the evening. It was much more of a manifestation of Sun conjunct Mars, as the perfection of that aspect had me standing in the office space attempting to keep a hula hoop going around my waist for more than two revolutions.
But Jupiter trine Pluto? Star Child and I made hats out of Whole Foods shopping bags in the morning (P Moon just changed signs to Leo) and then went to meet Ahma for lunch for the first time - was that the change in my social world? And Ahma paid, as she invited us, but I wouldn't call that any great change in my personal wealth.
That old Universe came through though, as it always does. We were home from lunch, SC was asleep, I was seizing the moment to check email and there it was - 9-11 Book Finally Ready!, exclamation point and all, as the subject line. A friend had told me about the project eight or nine years ago when not a day passed without some aspect of the 9/11 aftermath being mentioned on the news. Dallas knew I'd written a piece about my recollection of the day and suggested I submit it as a contribution to the book, which I did. As mentioned, that was eight or nine years ago, and yesterday, within 15 minutes of the perfection of Jupiter (publishing) trine natal Pluto (death), there was the email announcing the book was finally ready and available for sale. I shall doubt no more.
But Jupiter trine Pluto? Star Child and I made hats out of Whole Foods shopping bags in the morning (P Moon just changed signs to Leo) and then went to meet Ahma for lunch for the first time - was that the change in my social world? And Ahma paid, as she invited us, but I wouldn't call that any great change in my personal wealth.
That old Universe came through though, as it always does. We were home from lunch, SC was asleep, I was seizing the moment to check email and there it was - 9-11 Book Finally Ready!, exclamation point and all, as the subject line. A friend had told me about the project eight or nine years ago when not a day passed without some aspect of the 9/11 aftermath being mentioned on the news. Dallas knew I'd written a piece about my recollection of the day and suggested I submit it as a contribution to the book, which I did. As mentioned, that was eight or nine years ago, and yesterday, within 15 minutes of the perfection of Jupiter (publishing) trine natal Pluto (death), there was the email announcing the book was finally ready and available for sale. I shall doubt no more.
01 March, 2011
You Could Conquer the World with This...
... if you weren't me. Well, maybe not, but with Venus trining Chiron, Sun squaring Uranus and Mars trining Saturn all within an hour of each other late last night, I'd expected a day a little more out of the ordinary than yesterday was.
Once again it was freezing up here (Cambridge). It was pouring with rain and had snowed all day Sunday, so rather than try to make it the mile and a half to the main library for singalong I decided to pretend Star Child was three and a half and turn up for story time at the local branch. I was going on the assumption the children are expected to be quiet when the stories are read, and as Star Child has only just begun to join in at singalong I dared to assume she wouldn't pipe up at story time.
There were no other kids there when we arrived (twenty minutes early, not that I'm eager to get out of the house or anything) but thank God for the play room, and I sat and read to Star Child for a while, then watched her push pandas around in the school bus for five minutes. Still no other kids, and eventually Story Lady approached and asked if we'd like to have a story read just to ourselves (Sun square Uranus?). Of course we did like, and sat and listened through I Know a Hippo, Star Child getting the answers right when asked what two of the other animals were - pig and giraffe. Pretty good, considering the only creatures she's seen in the flesh other than cats and dogs are whatever's in a cage at PetSmart when we go, and most of them are small rodents hiding away in whatever plastic representation of nature they've been given.
Home for lunch at 11:15, I called the AARP Hartford while SC was asleep and reported that once again I couldn't access their website to pay my car insurance and got that sorted out, once again, and apart from watching Mr. Rogers' and Teletubbies' video on YouTube, that was about it for events of the day. Was sorting out the insurance Mars trine Saturn?
As for Venus trine Chiron, me and Ahma have been doing really well for three weeks now and sat together eating baked sweet potatoes and spare ribs while watching Jeopardy! and House. She then disappeared to the bedroom to get SC asleep and I went downstairs and read another two pages of The Facts before falling asleep long before the three aspects perfected. Now that's Everyday Astrology.
Once again it was freezing up here (Cambridge). It was pouring with rain and had snowed all day Sunday, so rather than try to make it the mile and a half to the main library for singalong I decided to pretend Star Child was three and a half and turn up for story time at the local branch. I was going on the assumption the children are expected to be quiet when the stories are read, and as Star Child has only just begun to join in at singalong I dared to assume she wouldn't pipe up at story time.
There were no other kids there when we arrived (twenty minutes early, not that I'm eager to get out of the house or anything) but thank God for the play room, and I sat and read to Star Child for a while, then watched her push pandas around in the school bus for five minutes. Still no other kids, and eventually Story Lady approached and asked if we'd like to have a story read just to ourselves (Sun square Uranus?). Of course we did like, and sat and listened through I Know a Hippo, Star Child getting the answers right when asked what two of the other animals were - pig and giraffe. Pretty good, considering the only creatures she's seen in the flesh other than cats and dogs are whatever's in a cage at PetSmart when we go, and most of them are small rodents hiding away in whatever plastic representation of nature they've been given.
Home for lunch at 11:15, I called the AARP Hartford while SC was asleep and reported that once again I couldn't access their website to pay my car insurance and got that sorted out, once again, and apart from watching Mr. Rogers' and Teletubbies' video on YouTube, that was about it for events of the day. Was sorting out the insurance Mars trine Saturn?
As for Venus trine Chiron, me and Ahma have been doing really well for three weeks now and sat together eating baked sweet potatoes and spare ribs while watching Jeopardy! and House. She then disappeared to the bedroom to get SC asleep and I went downstairs and read another two pages of The Facts before falling asleep long before the three aspects perfected. Now that's Everyday Astrology.
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