Tag Archives: September

Just Jazzy 304

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 91

Happiness is waking up to rain and wet snow in September because you know it's just a little preview and it won't last. Review the happiness blather if it lasts.

Happiness is waking up to rain and wet snow in September because you know it’s just a little preview of what’s to come and it won’t last. Rethink the happiness blather if it lasts.

Harvest Moon

English: harvest moon

English: harvest moon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tonight’s the night.  The moon I see isn’t orange or pink, but it’s full and bright and lighting up this cool September night.  It has other names – maybe you know it better as Full Corn Moon, Elk Moon, Wine Moon (that would be my choice) or Singing Moon.

No matter what you call it, when there’s a Harvest Moon it’s a good idea to stay calm, breathe deeply, let your negativity go and focus on sending positive energy out into the universe.

You should also send blessings, healing and peaceful energy, forgiveness and loving kindness.  The alternative, if the moon catches you in a bad mood,  is to suffer from temporary insomnia and insanity.  Whatever emotions you’re feeling are multiplied a gazillion times by a full moon.  So sprinkle your world with moon glitter and make with the good vibes.  Yes, the part about moon glitter I made up, but the rest of it could all be true.

Until tonight I didn’t realize the moon had so many aliases.

  • January – Wold Moon, Old Moon
  • February – Snow Moon, Hunger Moon
  • March – Worm, Crow, Sap, or Lenten Moon
  • April – Seed, Pink, Sprouting Grass, Egg, or Fish Moon.  Go April.
  • May – Milk Moon, Flower Moon, Corn Planting Moon
  • June – Mead, Strawberry, Rose or Thunder Moon.
  • July – Hay Moon, Buck Moon, or another Thunder Moon
  • August – Corn Moon, Sturgeon Moon, Red Moon, Green Corn Moon, Grain Moon.  Whew.
  • September – Harvest Moon,  Full Corn Moon
  • October – Hunter’s Moon, Blood/Sanguine Moon
  • November – Beaver Moon, Frosty Moon
  • December – Oak Moon, Cold Moon, Long Nights Moon

Memorize this list and impress your friends.

To get yourself into the proper Harvest Moon mood, sing along with Neil.  And check out the dude with the broom in the parking lot.  I told you the moon makes you do weird stuff.

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleeping
We could dream this night away.

But there’s a full moon rising
Let’s go dancing in the light
We know where the music’s playing
Let’s go out and feel the night.

Because I’m still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I’m still in love with you
On this harvest moon.

When we were strangers
I watched you from afar
When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart.

But now it’s getting late
And the moon is climbing high
I want to celebrate
See it shining in your eye.

Because I’m still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I’m still in love with you
On this harvest moon.

A Different Kind of Island Holiday

Time flies when you least want it to.  Our company left this morning to drive back east after a week of roughing it with us on the island – or in the wilderness, as Jazzy might describe it.  We’ve had trips up and down and across the river, beautiful campfires, incredible fish fries, and a cabin clean up to purge a lot of accumulated stuff.sangria

Along with the usual beer and rum that accompanies the scintillating conversation (that could be a slight exaggeration) this week we also consumed copious amounts of sangria.  It is probably a good thing that I didn’t pay better attention to the ingredients and thus won’t feel overly confident to mix up a batch on my own.  There was a lot of fruit thrown in there, so I’m going to say it was good for us.  Even if you’re not a wine drinker it’s hard to pass up one of these.

The back lawn

The back lawn

Looking east from the deck, early morning

Looking east from the deck, early morning

West side

West side

View from the deck
View from the deck

Yes, we are incredibly spoiled.  The weather has been unseasonably warm for September with a few days hot enough for swimming.  Supposed to cool down now and rain, but those days are easy, lazy ones too, snugged up in the cabin with a fire in the wood stove.

Hope everybody is having a relaxing Sunday.  I have four more days of island survival to endure.  Poor me.

September Sunset

Due to diabolical schedule changes at work, I have been slogging away in that hell hole for the past four days in a row.  Normally three days one after the other is enough to kill me, so last night I was exhausted enough to pass out by eight p.m.  Yes, I know that’s pathetic.  I made up for it by getting out of bed at six this morning.

Although I haven’t done anything more strenuous yet than catch up on some reading and word game playing that I was too beat to even think about last night.  I wonder what people with interesting lives are up to?

These pictures are of a fifteen minute sunset from the other night.  I can’t be more specific than that because I really don’t remember what day it was.  Even as I was clicking away the lights were fading.  Makes me wonder what other wonders I’ve missed by working in a box with no windows and sleeping the rest of my life away.

As quickly as it happened, it was gone and there was nothing left but indigo.  Ever heard of sky-blue-pink?  I think that was it.

Q is for Quintessential

I never use this word in polite conversation.  My attempts at sounding sophisticated come out sounding prissy instead.  Plus I would probably stumble over its proper pronunciation and make a quintessential fool of myself.

quin·tes·sen·tial

adjective

1.  of the pure and essential essence of something: the quintessential Jewish delicatessen.

2.  of or pertaining to the most perfect embodiment of something: the quintessential performance of the Brandenburg Concertos.

The purest, most characteristic, perfect example of a particular type.

Yesterday I fell asleep in the afternoon heat.  I used to watch my grandmother do the same thing.  She’d sit down to read and her eyes would close and her head would nod and the book would fall from her fingers onto her lap.  Once I gently touched her shoulder and startled her awake and she told me she wasn’t really napping, she was just resting her eyes.

So!  Yesterday I was resting my eyes in the warm sunshine.  When I opened them the sky was overcast and a cool breeze was chilling me to the bone.  It’s how the seasons change.  One day it’s summer and the next day it’s just not.  I know the autumnal equinox does not officially begin until the 22nd of September, but here in my little spot on the northern hemisphere it is already fall.  These chilled old bones do not lie.

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, 19th-20th century poet.

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, 19th-20th century poet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I found the quintessential bit of poetry to describe exactly how yesterday felt to me.

It is the summer’s great last heat,
It is the fall’s first chill: They meet.
–Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

 

 

 

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt is probably the quintessential name for a poet.  If I ever expect to make it as a poet I can see I will have to seriously lengthen my name.

. English: Sunset at the autumnal equinox

We had the quintessential autumn sunset the other night as I was leaving work, but I didn’t get a picture of it.  Look at this photo and imagine a half deserted parking lot in the foreground, a few power poles here and there and a Wendy’s sign twinkling in the distance.  And take out the waves.  There.  Quintessentially perfect.

Hmm.  Did I just say perfectly perfect?  I’m never using this prissy word again.