The blood-red moon May yet lead to June

Yesterday felt like May already, balmy yet breezy, with a light haze and mucho pollen contributing to the haze also in my head. I couldn't look at the yard without doing something about the overwintered mess, so I grabbed a giant pair of loppers --- overkill for what I lopped, mostly deadhead hydrangea, rosebush ends with last year's bloom remains, dead overgrown oregano and some Blue Lake bean tendrils stubbornly wound around the cable to the TV dish on the roof. I definitely had to use some finesse with those giant rusty loppers to avoid a service interruption, but the job got done. Last night was a "blood moon," a phenomenon combining an eclipse with a lining up of the planet and moon that results in a blood-red orb. This not-once-in-a-blue-moon but an even rarer event was advertised to begin shortly before 11 p.m. Clouds were coming in, but I was impelled to put on my fleece robe, a giant shawl and a hat before venturing out into the darkness. A front was coming in, and clouds rolled across the sky as I sat in a folding chair, shivering, while listening to Jobim on my MP3 player. Perhaps I thought Brazil might warm things up? The MP3 player charger ran out of juice before the skies cleared and a shadow crawled across the face of the moon. Without a tripod, my zoom contributed to the general shakiness and lack of resolution of the images I was able to capture. It was indeed a deeply orange and brooding mystery, actually culminating a bit after midnight. A couple of the photos convey the scene at seven-eighths completion, but the final eclipse was too dark to show in the last images. By that time, I was thoroughly chilled and ready for bed. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of a mysterious sky, a glimmer of an eye in the backyard and Jobim's saudade cast its magic. In a month, I will be 65, but I never felt it less than last night shivering under that portent-ridden sky. Ukraine, the Kansas City shootings, the one-year anniversary of the Boston bombings --- blood red seems about right, but optimism is stubborn. All is wrong but right in the world, after all. Yesterday, I had an email from a long-lost New York friend, someone I sang with several years and shared the details of failed affairs with. She is living in the Catskills, also retired, and still sings a little. I don't know if she will respond again to the emailed outpouring sent in reply. As usual, I reveal far too much, thus pushing people away. Something was in the air besides pollen yesterday, and I knew it from the moment I awoke. Breakfast was biscuits and gravy, guilt-free version. I located a half-roll of frozen turkey breakfast sausage, and while it thawed in the microwave, mixed up drop biscuits with one-third whole wheat flour, two-thirds unbleached, baking soda, salt and baking powder with about 1-1/2 T. of butter/olive oil spread worked in, plus a half-cup of sourdough starter, and the last of the buttermilk plus some thinned yogurt that was runny anyway. While they baked in the toasted oven, I lightly browned the sausage (just until the red is gone --- any more and it toughens). Dried onion and garlic, some dried sage, black pepper, a pinch of smoked salt and onion powder went into the skillet with 2 percent milk, a couple of glugs of evaporated milk, and a slurry of cornstarch. The gravy was done about the same time as the drop biscuits, and the rest of the dough was turned into (very rough) cinnamon rolls with coconut sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Mom was quite happy for a break in the cereal, buckwheat sourdough pancake or Eggbeater omelette routine. So was I. After a night of blood-red moon and red eyes in the backyard, I warmed a remaining biscuit with leftover gravy in the microwave, sprinkled with a little more evap. The sky is gray, and rain is in the forecast, but there are still reasons to be optimistic, in spite of CNN (which Mom seems to be watching perpetually these days, while muttering that Putin is Hitler).