Rare New Year's Eve 'blue moon' to ring in 2010

LOS ANGELES – Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.

"If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.

The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.

However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month — a blue moon — occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"`Blue moon' is just a name in the same sense as a `hunter's moon' or a `harvest moon,'" Laughlin said in an e-mail.

The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moon, not the usual three.

Though sky and telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.

In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."

Wonder Land

New York is the place to be at Christmas. The store window displays are noting to sniff at even thought your nose can get quite cold pressing up against them.

Don’t forget to whip off the smug!

When returning home to NYC in December I always make it a point to stroll in down Fifth Avenue to admirer the design work of the masters that dress the store displays

What a fantasy world they create for the shoppers. They make it hard to keep ones hands in ones pockets and not rush into the store and drop all ones savings.

Macy’s , Lord & Taylor’s and Bloomingdale’s all do a great job at merchandising but

BEGDORF GOODMAN takes the trophy for best of show every year.

Take a look for yourself.

Legend in your own time

My heart is healing slowly after such a blow. Thanks you to all the friends that love me. I get calls every day from them telling me what a special person I am. They say that people flock to me and that I am one of the most talented people they know with so much to give. I know I have more friends then most people have and I am grateful for that. Living in Gainesville you can meet all kinds of people from all over the world. They come and go so quickly. Here for one reason or another and then off again on another adventure. I have met so many wonderful friends along the way and have been invited to join them on their next voyage. I have traveled the world keeping up with most of them. We all need friends to help us grow. I thank the universe for all of them. I equally thank it for this last relationship that allowed me to give my love.

For all the pain it has brought with it these past few weeks, the sweetness of giving my love to him was worth every moment.

Some times along the way we meet someone that we feel more then a friend to and our hearts opens to sings a song of love. These kind of people are far and few between. We call them lovers. What a wonderful time we can have when we can let down our guard and accompany the song. I love giving my heart but it’s not always safe. Not feeing safe slows me down but I will never stop looking for someone that will except what I have to give.

Not that I am a follower of the Bible but, It quotes Jesus as saying, “It is more blessed to give then to receive.’ That’s how I feel about giving love. One can only feel love by giving it. Not by receiving it.

There is a song by Carley Simon, Legend in your own time. The lyric that stick in my head are at the end of the song, “ But a legends only a lonely boy When he goes home alone. This one statement sums up my life. People think I am so wonderful and have so much going for me but at the end of the day when you open and give what you have and the one you direct your love to puts up a wall of blinders, the lonely becomes your legend after all.

In Small Packages.

I am sorry to all my readers that no post has been made for a while.

It seems for now that my life has taken a turn for the worse.

I know it is not easy to show up 100%. To feel safe to open ones heart in hopes that it will not be walked on. I know in my heart that this time I have done my best to do so. I know that to say the words I love you is to be vulnerable. I ask you, who could live without these words? To hear then or to say them is all we can ask for in a world so hard to understand.

A Course in Miracles says that God is an all encompassing unconditional love. It goes on to suggest that when we can see through another’s unconsciousness and allow then their issues and still be able to love them, we become as God intended us to be.

Then why is this so hard for people to get? Love does not come easy. When it comes hold on tight. Don’t run from it. Most times it’s best to run towards your fears. It may not show it’s warm shinny face again for a long time. Most people are afraid of love. This we know. They either can’t muster up the faith to feel it freely or they run when they come face to face with it. Why is it so scary to feel? When it is so Godlike to love in the first place.

A Course also says that our greatest fear is not how weak we think we are but how powerful we are. The course is talking about love being our power and the fear of it our weakness.

Loves executioner has walked into my life unannounced with no warning last Sunday. Yes, on a holly day. It has left me very sad and confused. I will never know what fault I hold that deserved such a blow, but I must go on.

My dreams shattered.

Loves executioner wiped me out for a week but now I must pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. I know it wont be easy. I know it takes time to heal such a blow to ones heart. To much time for my liking.

Most times it’s best to run towards your fears.

This weekend my good friends came over to help me out of my pain. Thank God for them. We went to the Micanopy Fall Festival which is nothing shy of a giant flea market.

Full of crafts and food. I love the sweet potato pies

There I saw some of the sweetest faces God could have ever created. It warms my heart to be reminded that love is everywhere. All you have to do is open your eyes.

Look at these faces. How could one not feel the love?

See how they look back at us. All they ask is to be loved and they will give you back all they possess. Devotion. No matter what negative traits you may be healing at the time they are there for you. We could all take a lesson from our canine friends and become lovers in that vain. Don’t run from love. It’s way to hard to find. To many people carry so much shame and pain they can’t feel safe to open and love. My heart aches for them. Follow the lead of these little puppies. They know better then we do. Dog is God spelt backwards.

A coincidence? I don’t think so.

PS These are the faces of my reminders. I thank them every day. They know when I hurt and are there for me always. They are certainly getting me through it this time

PPS. He may not know it, He may not care but I know that I gave him all I had. If only the blind could see!

Like clock work with no Orange.

Fall is the time of year when the trees and plants go dormant for the long winter. They start there hibernation process first by changing the color of their leaves then dropping them for us to rake up and use as milch. I love this time of year and look forward to the changes of the weather.

To Quote the character Marcellus from Shakespeare

“ Something is rotten in the state of Denmark "

or in the state of Florida one could add.

Yesterday as I was looking over my poor Kumquat Trees. They are as bare as a bone this year because of a late freeze last Spring. As I was watering them I noticed the Pear tree and the Mayer Lemon tree are in bloom. Whats up with that? I ask and get no answer.

While the North is getting ready for a cold spell with some states already having snow.

I sit here in Florida awaiting some relief from the humidity. Yes, it’s true that we did have some decent weather this weekend but thats gone and forgotten.

@$#%#^%%&(*)_*)(^*&$ !!!

It’s hot again!

After a long summer of sweltering hot weather I long for the brisk days dressed up in soft long sleeve teas, snugged under sweaters, long big boy pants hiding socks and real shoes. In northern Florida one can expect to have a weather change on or around the 15 of October. Come spring time the Azalea start blooming around the 15 of March. I know this because I usually miss them for the New York Hair show that falls at the same time every year. It’s almost like clock work. This years its a bit like clock work with no orange.

Somewhere a long the way Florida has lost it’s sense of seasons. When I first came to Gainesville you could set your watch by the rain that fell every day at 3:00 PM. It would rain on one side of the street and not the other. Now it will rain for days.

Although Kumquats are very good to eat off the tree or preserved in a syrup. I like the ornamental affect they give in late Fall. I have strategically placed mine close to the French doors that line my house awaiting the beautiful orange color they present at the holidays.

Thanksgiving is just not the same without them. This year I will have to long for the bounty of their crop and just enjoy their shiny green leaves.

Something is amiss. I have blooms on my Pear and Lemon trees and little or no fruit on my key Lime and Kumquat trees. I ask again, what’s up with that and again no answer.

Could there be something to the theory of the Ozone layer?

I wonder.

Teakwood Ave

The Nest

Take a stroll down Teakwood Ave in Cincinnati and you may fall in love as I did. The man in my life just bought the sweetest Arts and Craft home on this enchanted block just a few months ago.

On my stay with him in September I thought I would take a walk to past the afternoon awaiting his arrival home from work.

The block as we call them in NYC is lined with an array of the most charming English Tudors I have seen in a while. Gainesville has the Duck Pond with it’s collection of quant old world style homes but the DP has nothing on Teakwook Ave.

One after another, one more charming then the next.

In my fantasy would I am living in and decoration every one of them. Toile and Rose Chintz embellish every room. Tea cups on painted tables and cake stands filled with finger sandwich just in case a friend drops by. Maybe the Countess Ya Ya or the Mad Hatter. I can dream.

I stroll down as slow as I can snapping photos as I pick out paint colors for the trim and doors of every one. In my minds eye I can see the replanting of the gardens with Rose Trellises, Lilacs, Lilly of the Valley and Peonies.

Many years back while thumbing through South England I met some very gracious people who invited me to stay in a Thatched Roof Cottage in the New Forest for the week end. You do those kinds of things when you are young.

The second I walked into the cottage I immediately experienced a soft comforting feeling fill my soul.

I was home!

The sweet smell of the cozy rooms.

The two foot wide window ledges where you can curl up with a steeping spot of hot tea and watch the early morning mist go by.

The nooks and crannies where you can almost hid from yourself. What a thought.

I could live in a house like this one below, I think to myself as I continue on my mission to find just the right one for me. Dolce and Rex would like that yard. I guess I will have to put up a fence around one or two of them.

Dolce’s favorite pass time is to chase frolicking squirrel as they gather the nuts for winter suppers that fall from the old oak trees. Yes I could live in any one of them. I can see us now sitting around a Rookwood http://www.rookwood.com/ tiled fire place eating porridge in a china bowl with a silver spoon on a cold winter morning.

my God! This one is the creme de la creme. 4000,00 square feet of a Normandy Tudor mix. The stone work is just the bomb.

0uy! Did I just say the bomb?

I know the people that live there love it for the last time I walked by work man were buzzing around bring it back to it’s original splendor. When it's done I think they should give it to me. Couldn't you just see me lounging in the sunroom reading in the window seat?

Home Sweet Home