mermaids to australia

this month is zooming by.  Right now it is a FULL JULY MOON (thunder moon! or buck moon! or some other nature name that also sounds like a special edition Axe body spray for camping.)  It's right out my window so I went outside to look at it with the binoculars and it's so bright and beautiful - less like singing cheese and more like science when it's right in my eyeballs. RECOMMENDED if you have a view of the moon (full or not) and binoculars. and eyeballs.

Now that you know what's up with the moon out my window, here's the latest on work and mermaids

WORK: good! I've had 2 full weeks of my schedule now plus a partial week and I finally feel like I'm getting the hang of it. I'm faster than I was, which feels better because I was sloooooow before. Being familiar with the branch and the staff has been a huge boon, but it also led me to think I should know what I was doing immediately. This is ridiculous and I would never hold another human to it, but I did it to myself anyway. So frustrating until I caught on.  (no surprise to anyone but me: I did not, and in many cases still do not know what I am doing! But I'm finding out, which has been rewarding.)

MERMAIDS: I sent 3 mermaids sailing across the sea (in an airplane) to Australia today. I am a very neglectful etsy shopkeeper, so it's always a surprise to me when I get an order from Idaho, let alone an order from Australia. My shop has been like a long, slow internet course in keeping an etsy shop. (Lesson 1: have mermaids available at all times because they are popular.)  Every order brings new knowledge and I can tweak things in a better direction - this time I realized that my international shipping prices were not updated on every item, so my Australian friend got a good deal on shipping which I certainly do not begrudge her.

Now it's late and I have to go to bed before my eyeballs turn into miniature cheese thunder moons.

pink, pink, pink, pink moon

Portland is in a (lovely) no-rain zone right now, which means the full moon is blasting through my windows. It's beautiful.  Space.com says this moon (called the Pink Moon) gets its name because "the grass pink or wild phlox is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring."  All of which are  natural seasonal events, but when I hear the word Pink near the word Moon, I think of Nick Drake's lovely song.

sensible Eunice pipes up

this isn't the edition that I read, but I like this cover!

Since it was a full moon tonight (not that I can tell here in cloudy Portland, but I trust it's full above the clouds), here's a moon quote from Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet (which was so good in the way her books are good):  

On the way home, even Eunice is silenced by the sight that greets just as we turn into Hawthorn Close, for suddenly, without any preamble, the moon rises from behind the roof of Audrey's house. 

Not any old moon, not the usual moon, but an enormous white disc like a big Pan Drop, a cartoon moon almost, its lunar geography - seas and mountains- a luminescent grey, its chaste rays illuminating the streets of trees with a much kinder light than the streetlamps. We’re stopped in our tracks, half enchanted, half horrified by this magic moonrise.

What’s happened to the moon? Has its orbit moved closer to the earth overnight? I can feel the moon’s gravity pulling the tide of my blood. This must be a miracle of some kind, surely - a change in the very laws of physics? I’m relieved that someone else is sharing the lunacy with me - I can feel Audrey clinging onto my arm so hard that she’s pinching my skin through the fabric of my coat.

A moment longer and we will be running for the woods, bows and arrows in our hands, hounds at our heels, converts to Diana, but then the sensible Eunice pipes up, ‘We’re only experiencing the moon illusion - it’s an illustration of the way the brain is capable of misinterpreting the phenomenal world.’

‘What?’

'The moon illusion,' she repeats patiently. 'It's because you've got all these points of reference - ' she waves her arms around like a mad scientist, 'aerials, chimney pots, rooftops, trees - they give us the wrong ideas of size and proportion. Look,' she says and turns round and suddenly bends over like a rag doll, 'look at it between your legs.'
'See!' Eunice says triumphantly when we finally obey her ridiculous command. 'It doesn't look big any more, does it?'
No, we agree sadly, it doesn't.  

from p. 49

pink moon

TONIGHT'S MOON STORY: Earlier this evening - right around sunset - I had to run to store for nacho supplies. On my way back to the car with jalepenos in hand, I looked east past the parking lot, the gas station, the drug store, the intersection, and saw a giant pink moon very low on the horizon. It looked like an enormous candy and I wished I could fly so I could rise up above the gas station and zoom over the parking lot to see it against Mt. Hood.  After I got home and the sky was darker, the moon turned from pink to a very warm orangey-tan (sort of like the color of a brown egg) and was rising so fast it felt like I could see it move. Now (post Downton Abbey/ Dowager Countess quip-a-thon), I know it must be gleaming white somewhere above my head but I can't see it due to fog. THE END.