Full Moon for Matthew

Full moon tonight, and I made 2 attempts to shoot it. First, after grilling myself a most excellent Angus chuckburger at The Lovely’s (these frozen burgers we’ve found are just awesome; I’d link to them if I could!), I headed to the park to see if I could find a good place to shoot from. And I did, sorta, but I had the work camera ’stead o’ my own camera, which has a better zoom, so I wasn’t expecting much.

And, not surprisingly, I delivered: Nothing!

Yet, I enjoyed viewing the moon as it rose over the trees. And while I was there, a train rumbled past — the same freight line, perhaps, that travels through the park when I am trying to play tennis, usually at least once per match, making it impossible to tell, from sound alone, whether your opponent has just hit a topspin forehand deep to your own or a drop shot that will barely clear the net, challenging you to sprint to the ball, stop, adjust your feet accordingly and then manage to hit a shot of your own, before the ball bounces a second time, over the net and between the white lines. I even broke out the big tripod, only to discover that I have managed to lose the little thingie that screws onto the bottom of the camera and attaches to the tripod (I believe it might be called a panhead, but I am too lazy to look it up) ... the little thingie which, for all intents and purposes, renders your tripod completely useless if you don’t have it.

: (

I felt mosquitoes nipping at my legs, and I reminded myself that there have now been nearly 30 confirmed cases of West Nile Virus in my state; 2 weeks ago, there were 4. Should I be worried? (Because I really didn’t feel particularly worried.)

Anyhoo, I returned home to watch an amazing comeback by the St. Louis Cardinals. Down 4-0 in the bottom of the 9th, they got a double from Mabry, a single from Taguchi, a 3-run homer by Molina, a single from Rodriguez, a sacrifice from Eckstein, a single from Nuñez, a popout from Pujols and a 2-run double by Edmonds to win the game, 5-4. (Of course, all the true Cardinal fans I know had given up on the Redbirds. Go figure!)

Then I hopped online and read a wonderfully honest piece of writing by Matthew, and it made me want to take another shot at the moon, this time with my Kodak. (Actually, I took about 50 to get approximately 2 in focus; gotta LOVE digital technology, instant gratification and no wasted film!)

: )

More mosquitoes bit me as I took pictures. Dogs barked. Before leaving for work, the neighbor behind me shut out the light over his garage — the light that shines through my bedroom window and used to annoy me because I wanted complete darkness when I slept, until about 3 weeks ago, when I decided that the light through the blind had a certain kind of sexiness, of all things, and had started to get used to going to sleep with light falling across my bed. Trucks barreled down newly repaired Main Street, which now has these patched parts that, when big trucks and certain cars hit them, sound like minor explosions.

I looked at the moon through my binoculars, too, and decided that, someday, I might ask for a telescope for Christmas (like I did when I was in 5th grade and Miss Kull showed me Jupiter) or maybe just a kazillion megapixel SLR camera (preferably a Nikon) with a National Geographic-style telephoto lens.

: )