Category Archives: humor

Get It?

I woke up and turned on the radio. The BBC was interviewing some foreign English speakers and I couldn’t understand a word. I changed the station and found a preachy Sunday sermon that put me back to sleep. I’m suddenly getting all kinds of calls from survey-takers and recorded marketers. I recently wrote some checks that bounced.

Of course, these kinds of things could happen any time. But why all of them at once? And why now? This month, Mercury squares Neptune, turns retrograde, then squares Neptune again. This is an astrological influence well beyond your typical Mercury retrograde mishaps and misunderstandings. And it’ll repeat itself all over again when Mercury turns direct in June and squares Neptune once again.

But now that we’re aware of it, we can try really hard to be sure we understand exactly what’s going on. Mercury is in Gemini, so logic should prevail. Neptune is in Pisces, so our intuition can be strong, too. It’s the point where they intersect that creates blind spots.

Repeat back what someone told you, just in case. Double check the e-mail recipients before clicking “send.” Print out the directions – don’t assume you’ll remember them. And write down your dreams – they’ll make more sense later on!

The Retrograde Diaries

I was reminded this morning that the effect of Mercury retrograde begins before the exact retrograde phase you see in your ephemeris. It starts when Mercury slows down before moving backward. Mercury retrograde can make us change our minds, change our plans and may create miscommunications or failed functioning. Get ready for the next three weeks!

We woke up to heavy snow – 6 to 8” projected – which they had predicted the day before to begin in the afternoon and total only 2-3”. Yes, the highly respected and well-paid weather forecasters had been incorrect once again. I realized that my appointment would cancel due to weather. I looked at my phone and he had already called — I had just not heard the ring. At that moment he called again. I also had to reschedule my mother’s doctor’s appointment for the next day, the one she had postponed from the previous month.

My husband, who had a severe toothache the morning before (a recurrence of a long-ago issue), had felt much better and hoped to avoid a visit to the dentist. But early this morning it began again. When he called the dentist’s office, they, too, had had a cancellation and told him he could come right in. (Sometimes Mercury retrograde does work in our favor!)

I went to the store. At checkout, there was a delay. The lady ahead of me needed to wait for the manager to complete her transaction. The only cashier had to sign onto another register to help me. This machine, she advised, would not take credit cards. But she also had trouble signing on. She then found that the scanner would not work. By this time the manager was through (and the other customer needed to return later to pick-up her order). We went back to the first register and things proceeded smoothly from there. Mechanical mishegoss is a hallmark of Mercury retrograde, as are incomplete transactions.

I returned home and soon found the elevator repairman at my door. It became obvious that he had only a remedial command of English. However he communicated the following: “Your husband… eight… oil…” Yes! I understood. He’d come back. A few weeks before there had been an oil delivery – eight jugs were left with my husband since the super had gone home (how could I forget them in my hallway?). I sent the repairman to the super and he understood. Sometimes we come back to a previous project after Mercury turns retro, and we may have to work harder at communicating.

This encounter also reflects Venus retrograde (just turning direct yesterday, but still felt since it, too, is moving more slowly than usual as it changes direction). While I don’t have much of a relationship with the elevator repairman, he appears once a month to check things out. I’d considered him rude in the past, but now I had gotten to know him better and realized that he just did not understand the language. Both my mind and my feelings had changed. Watch for these types of things this week as Venus begins to pick up speed and Mercury continues slowing down – a bit of a double whammy.

Santa is a Capricorn

For years it’s been suggested that Santa Claus is Sagittarius.  His plump physique, his worldwide travels, his beloved reindeer and his generosity have led many to this erroneous conclusion.

However, Father Christmas is always depicted with a staff – just like old man Saturn.  Santa’s old.  How old, you ask?  As Kris Kringle in the classic movie tale, Miracle on 34th Street, he says he’s “as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth.”  He’s OLD!  Take that white hair and that long beard, for instance – we’re talking ancient.  Santa was already old when we were all kids, even for the most senior of us.  And he’s still got his teeth, God love him.  Who but a Capricorn would still have all his teeth at that age?Capricorn

Remember that Santa visits us right at the beginning of Capricorn.  Kids write to him, they visit him, they sit on his KNEE.  He plans ahead all year for the big night.  Santa organizes an incredible enterprise – hundreds, maybe thousands of elves work under his supervision.  Any other CEO would let the peons do all the work – not Santa!  It’s the shortest day of the year and he’s out there making personal deliveries all night long.  Carrying that heavy sack when he could easily get someone else to do it for him.  The dedication!  The commitment!  The consummate control of the reindeer sleigh and priceless cargo!  Still wearing that same classic suit after all these years.

And let’s not forget that Santa is not all sweetness and light, as some advocates for a Sagittarian Santa would have you believe.  He can be harsh.  Some kids do get coal, you know.

Astro Twins

Astro-twins are two people who share the same birthday – day and year – not necessarily the same time of birth.  All the planets in the two horoscopes will be conjunct.  If we look back to our youthful days we’re more likely to find people we know with the same birth date.

I went out with my sister’s astro-twin for a while.  I guess he felt very comfortable to me – although not the other way around as he soon broke it off.  One of my best friends had a crush on my astro-twin.  He seemed like a nice guy, but neither of us ever got to know him very well.  I can only imagine that what she liked in me she saw in him, too.

I had the same singing teacher as another of my astro-twins.  She was a dancer and earned money horseback riding and I had also done both.  I later learned that she left town owing the teacher a bit of money, but I always paid on time.  Go figure.

A young Al H. Morrison married his astro-twin – they were born about 12 hours apart.  (This was before he became interested in astrology, and if anything, he was then a skeptic.)  He later complained that after a year it was “like masturbating.”  From which I take it that he needed stimulation from someone less like himself.  This may have been especially true since he had a Libra Moon.  It’s hard to balance one scale with another one.  The relationship didn’t last. 

Evangeline Adams’ astro-twin (2/8/1868) was Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild, a British zoologist.  Evangeline, too, always loved animals, but was never able to attain the noble title to which her Leo Moon naturally aspired.

I’ve generally liked other Capricorn people, while I’ve noticed that when Aries are together they tend to fight.  It seems to me that Scorpios and Leos marry each other the most often of the signs.  The Leos have a mutual admiration society and the Scorpios must enjoy the emotional resonance.

Mercury Retrograde — Oops!

Mercury turned retrograde on October 21, 2013 and will continue through November 10, making for a time when mistakes are revealed and there’s a need to review, revise and re-do.  Little errors in thinking and communication challenge us in a bigger way.  I’d already attempted to clean up my computer registry and ended up having to re-load MS Office.  Why?  What possessed me?  You know the answer. 

Yesterday, due to subway signal problems at Church Avenue and traffic with the bus, a trip downtown that usually takes less than 40 minutes took me over twice as long.  And the poor folks at Obamacare realized, too late, that their system could take another six weeks to cure.  (Their problems started with Healthcare.gov going live on October 1, when Mercury had already slowed and was moving only about a degree a day.  I guess it’s obvious that no one in the administration cares about astrology.)

People who have Mercury retrograde in their own birth charts seem to do better during these periods, which usually occur about three times a year.  I knew a cable engineer with Mercury retrograde who knew exactly what to do when more subscribers had issues at this time.  He was in his element.  Jeffrey Zients, the management consultant called in to fix the Healthcare.gov problems, was born on November 12 or 15, 1966 according to public records.  Thank goodness he has Mercury retrograde!  He has the mental perspective to be able to turn things around.

I once had a holistic dentist who specialized in removing old Mercury fillings.  He had Mercury retrograde in his birth chart and put it to good use – with an almost literal expression of this placement!