shooting the moon

Thank you. Thank you very much. I was overwhelmed by all your birthday wishes. I played hooky from work, renewed my driver's license, went to the mall where I bought seven (seven!) pairs of shoes and lots of sparkly earrings, walked around the reservoir and, yes, ate much cake. For those of you (and you know who you are) who made slighting remarks about my cake,* let me remind you that jealousy, no matter how well-justified, is not a pretty sight. And not only did I have the pinkest and most fabulous cake ever, but it was topped with (Julia, you might want to avert your eyes) Barbie Glitter Candles!!!!!

Last night was a full moon, a harvest moon, as Monica pointed out. It rose, huge and bright over the silhouettes of the trees. I'd always thought that moonlight was just a poetic conceit; that the moon couldn't actually cast any perceptible light. But when I stood in front of the window, my shadow extended across the floor, seeming even less substantial than shadows usually are. I went outside and looked at the sky, spared from having to come up with an original thought because I remembered the first line of a poem: The moon holds nothing in her arms. Of course, the image would have fit a crescent moon better. The full moon doesn't even have arms.

I took lots of pictures: of the streetlights, the house lights, the windows. In a few, you can make out recognizable outlines, but mostly the pictures are incomprehensible shapes against impenetrable darkness. My favorites are the two below. They have no details and no depth and the effects are produced solely by a unsteady hand. But I like them because they show the moon shuddering, then tumbling from the sky.

*edited to add: Don't worry. I'm just kidding. I really wouldn't care even if you had said that the cake was of a hideousness to rival Medusa's. Though without the turning-to-stone part.