How the Moon Amazes Me

I think Catherine and I have had about two dozen conversations about the moon. She would claim it was five dozen.

They all go something like this:

Peter: Hey, look, the moon is really bright tonight, and it was really dark last week.

Catherine: Yes, that’s the way the moon is.

Peter: That’s amazing.

Catherine: Yes, it is.

Despite working every day on a project for which the moon is, perhaps more than for any other project save the moon landing, front and centre, I’m surprisingly amazed (read “dense”) when it comes to the moon.

For some reason, I managed to skip any sort of formal training in the ways of the moon. I vaguely remember some discussion of the tides in Grade 11 Geography. But none of my classrooms had those neato mobiles that cleverly illustrate the moon revolving around the earth revolving around the sun.

So I have decided that this is the year I will come to understand the moon.

First project towards this goal was the creation of the Moon Phase RSS Feed, which, because it gives me a daily whack on the side of the head about the moon, has proved invaluable (if you can’t RSS, you can look here for similar effect).

Next, I’m going to have to get all these nested revolvings understood.

Of course that leaves the wonder of the sun still hanging: Oliver and I sat on the big orange chair in the living room this morning and the sun was aligned so that it was shining right through the piano window at us. It was surprisingly warm. Yet it’s winter. Go figure.