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Posts Tagged ‘full moon’

A Perfect Jersey Shore Evening OR The Magic of the Moon

Posted in BY THE WAY, Ha-P 2 B in OG, tagged , , , , on July 31, 2010| 1 Comment »

No, no it has nothing to do with Snookie and the rest of the Guido Gang….I’m talking about…………

First of all it was a glorious day and I was still alone at the cottage with the cats (my choice) and so I did some running around.  I even drove to Shrewsbury because I was sucked in by a persistent ad that has been running on the radio on The Breeze from Shrewsbury Bicycles.  I want a pink beach cruiser or mint green or yellow or well, you get the picture.  Too far to go to find out all of their bikes started around $325.00!! Oh well….

I picked Peter up at the train station around 4pm and he was glad to be back; see his wife and his cats (hopefully in that order) and finally be able to sit on his porch and enjoy a martini, something he has been unable to do because of the dreadful heat wave which made going outside a chore and not a pleasure.

That’s how the evening started and around 6:30pm we took the Metro (so cute and so much fun) and drove to Bradley Beach to Vic’s – NOW that’s a Jersey Shore kind of place and we love it.  Pasta the old-fashioned way with gravy you know.  A bowl of shells and meatballs and a Perroni, sitting on the restaurant’s patio and I was in heaven.  The breeze was delightful, the food was exceptionally good that night-we even shared an antipasta salad.

My plan was to come home and leave the car and talk Peter into walking over to Day’s because I had been abstaining from ice cream all week and wanted a treat tonight.  Here’s what I forgot; It was Founder’s Day in the Grove and hundreds of people went to the Great Auditorium at 7:30pm to hear a concert and they got out somewhere around 9:00pm and MOST of them headed directly to Day’s for ice cream- this is how we live it up here in Ocean Grove.  In all the years I have been coming to Ocean Grove this was one of the longest if not the longest line I have ever seen.  It literally was back to the corner of Pilgrim Pathway and Pitman Avenue.  Even a junkie like me was deterred.  Plan B: I suggest we go over to Nagles where hopefully the line won’t be so long.  So much for Plan B.  Trying to keep up good spirits and chatter so my companion who never wanted to walk anywhere at this hour, would not say “Enough is enough”.  So I suggest we walk to the boardwalk and wait for the moon to rise – an experience my Brooklyn-born, City bred husband has not yet seen in his life.  The breeze was delightful, so soft and cool but not cold and this is the kind of summer day and night we have been hoping for all through July.  Hot day, not humid, cool evening-God is good (after all we ARE in Ocean Grove)!

We sat down on a bench facing the ocean and watched the waves gently lap at the shore-no crashing waves tonight.  You could smell the ocean which by the way does NOT smell like any candle claiming it’s name and scent as Ocean. The stars were out, however we couldn’t really see the hundreds that were dim spots overhead because of the lights on the boardwalk.   Still, seeing as many as we did is a treat for us city folk who have to view the night sky through thousands of ground lights.  We thought we saw Mars, that is until Mars started to move North.  Oh well, astronomers we’re not.  I knew the moon was supposed to rise at about 10:07pm and like a child wanting to know “Are we there yet?” I kept asking Peter the time.  Finally the clock moves to 10:05. 10:06, 10:07-nothing.  10:08, 10:09, 10:10 and “Look, there it is”! The slightly larger than half moon popped up above the horizon as big orange beach ball, albeit a misshapen one.  Beautiful bright orange, a fiery imitation of sister sun.  And it kept rising, faster than I thought it would.  Lucky for us we happened to be near one of those put the quarter in telescopes on the boardwalk.  In went the quarter and I got to see the bumpy topography of Mr. Moon.   Lots of people were walking along the boardwalk this spectacular evening and many remarked on the orange orb floating in the night sky.

Time check – we still have time to get ice cream and surely the line can’t be as long as it was at Nagles, which was the closest ice cream venue.  I would have preferred Day’s BUT I didn’t want to push my luck.  The line wasn’t too bad and it was almost 10:30 – I can’t imagine how many scoops of ice cream were sold in Ocean Grove last night!!!  By the time I got my cone (coffee mud pie) and we were walking home, our moon had risen high enough through the atmosphere to become a creamy white.  It followed us home, the end of a perfect evening.  The photo below is not what we saw last night since the moon is waning and is at about 68%, but isn’t this a better photo anyway?

full moon, orange moon

Full Moon Rising

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“It’s Only A Paper Moon” or is it?

Posted in BY THE WAY, Friends, Ha-P 2 B in OG, tagged , , , , , , on April 29, 2010| 1 Comment »

rising moon, red moon, orange moon, planters moon, flower moon, peony moon,

The Moon Masquerades as a Sunset

Ding! I heard my cell phone alert that a text had arrived – I looked at the clock and said to myself, “who is texting me at this hour?” It was Susan, inviting me to meet up at the Fishing Pier in Ocean Grove with a few other “moonies” to see the day old full moon rising.  In all my years of moon watching and moon loving, I don’t ever remember watching the moon rise from the horizon of the Atlantic ocean.  It was a sight to behold. I arrived just in time to see a small slice of orange peeking above the distant black horizon.  Slowly, oh so very slowly, the orange slice grew larger until you could see the top quarter of the orange globe.  Well first of all, I never expected it to be orange!  The only other orange/red moon I ever saw was in South Africa was glorious and high up in the night sky.  So here we are; an assortment of Ocean Grove residents gathered on the boardwalk oohing and ahhing over this ball of fire, this moon which was the color of a sunset was emerging before our eyes.  The well prepared people had cameras, tripods and lens – I FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA!!! I must remember to have camera and Flip with me at all times.  I know I’ve said that before, I’m a slow learner.  I tried to take some feeble shots with my cell phone see below:

moon over the water, full moon, planter's moon, peony moon, flower moon, orange moon

and by this point the moon had clearly rose and as it inched up in the sky, its brilliant hue began to fade and eventually was all white.  So I borrowed the shot of the rising orange moon because I wanted  you to get an idea of the magnificence of this natural phenomena.

This moon known to the early American colonists as the Planter’s Moon is aptly named since most New Englanders and Middle Atlantic residents know it’s not a good idea to plant anything much before the end of this month because Mother Nature every now and then throws us a couple of freezing days and we are once again wondering if Spring will ever really be here.

In Chinese astrology, this moon is known as the Peony Moon and from that I gather they are living in a more temperate zone because my peonies just have buds now and probably won’t bloom until mid May or later.

I’m partial to the lore of Native Americans and in their culture this moon was known as the Flower Moon. Could this be because they lived where the Dogwood trees bloomed, the Sweet Cherry trees bloomed and if you look in my lawn you can see that April is the month the dandelions begin to bloom too.  I know that Daffodils, Tulips, Iris and a few other perennials bloom so sweetly, reminding us that summer is just around the corner BUT do I think the Indians were planting bulbs from Holland the previous Fall? NO I don’t!ll

We were a fairly well-behaved group, moon admirers and thank goodnes, no Lunatics were in evidence. You really have to look over your shoulder to make sure there aren’t any lunatics near by.

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