Fishing Guide to the Stars
For the week starting: 1.14.2010
“Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.”
Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice [I.ii.8]
(Problems with registration, superfluity, &c.? Please e-mail immediately.)
Jupiter enters Pisces this week. Mars is retrograde. Mercury is almost not retrograde.
(Problems with registration &c.? Please e-mail.)
Capricorn: Scene from mall life? Sure, best way to give an example of what this week will hold in the land of Capricorn. I was in the mall, obviously, and I was — as is my style — patiently observing some humanity. Heavy-set woman, girl to me, walked by. She had on leggings of some sort that were too tight and too revealing — not in a flattering way — and her legs were then stuffed into a pair of knee high cowboy boot looking footwear. Boots.
- Snakeskin boots.
Snakeskin boots that were knee high, and those boots? Four-inch heels. I live in a world where four-inch heels on snakeskin boots is okay. That bothered me more than any of the associated visuals. However, after I thought about it, I mean, it’s the middle of January, it was characteristically cold, and the outfit? It sort of fit. In a strange way, it fit right in.
I’m guessing, just a hunch, but I’m guessing that the odd attire vote goes to Capricorn. Weird, strange, unhinged and a little unbalanced? Sure. I’ve told you that it’s the case and since the situation is dictated by the stars? I’d go ahead and suggest that this is the time to embrace that “inner weirdness,” and go ahead, wear it like it’s high fashion. You can pull it off, easily.
All about attitude.
Aquarius: “So I got to meet the new daughter-in-law this last Christmas,” a fishing buddy was explaining.
How’d that go? “Well,” my buddy drawled, “she’s a keeper, for sure. She shot the turkey herself — took it with a bow. Cleaned and cooked the bird.” Shot it, cleaned it, cooked it. Me? I was fine with all that until it came to bow part.
Bow hunters can be a breed apart — any Aquarius is a breed apart — but this is a special kind of person who hunts with bow and arrow. Then, to have the Xmas meal hunted, that’s some real free range turkey, killed in a primitive fashion, cleaned and prepared for the dinner table? If I were married to that woman, I might be a little afraid. However, that’s just my sentiment, and I’m far from the mainstream.
My fishing buddy? He was impressed. That daughter-in-law succeeded in winning over a very reluctant family.
It’s all about what you are willing to do to impress your friends (and maybe new family).
Pisces: There’s a suburb of Austin, called Pflugerville. No one’s really heard of the place except locals. Not so much a suburb as a really large neighborhood that’s since been encompassed by the greater Austin metropolitan area.
North of Austin, there’s the little town of Round Rock. Or, it used to be a little town. World famous, at least in some circles, as the headquarters for Dell Computer. So the bumper sticker I saw? Perfect for Pisces, too. It was a Pflugerville ad campaign, but I’m sure, as a Pisces, you could adopt this, too, in some capacity. The sticker read, “Stuck between a weird place and a rock.” Kind of fits for my poor Pisces, now doesn’t it?
Jupiter just makes it all that much more, well, for lack of a better word, interesting.
Aries: “Weather forecasters, you know, they are just like horoscopes, only with numbers.” Part of a pilot’s wisdom. However, I’d just reiterate, that weather forecasting and my horoscopes have a similar vein. Both can describe current events, and both attempt to predict what way the future is going to be. Sun is in Capricorn, rest of this week. Moon goes from dark to first quarter, and that little planet, Jupiter? He moves into Pisces. Mercury and Mars are still retrograde. That all spells a certain kind of trouble.
- “Don’t touch it.”
Some of this is trouble that you’re not brewing, and as an Aries, can you leave it alone? That’s the secret. Weatherman says, “Take a rain coat.” Me? I’d say, “Don’t touch it.” There’s a situation, trouble brewing in some one else’s place. It’s up to my fine little Aries friend to leave that trouble alone. Don’t touch it. If you do meddle, and if you do get hurt? Can’t say I didn’t try to warn you not to touch.
Taurus: Not that far from where I live, there’s one of those convenience-store gas-stations. Fuel, coffee, cigarettes, me? I buy the odd lottery ticket there. In a large ice cooler, middle of the store, there’s a number of single cans of inexpensive malted beverage. Caters to a certain element, usually, the domestically challenged. A lot of homeless guys buy their beer there.
Or more often, the bums will buy two cans and get a scoop of ice in a bag, which works into a makeshift cooler. Can’t consume beer on the premises, so the cans have to leave intact. Then it’s back out to the spot under the highway, be my guess. I was in that store — it’s an Exxon branded place — and the counter clerk was chasing a homeless guy out. Knew the guy by name, “You know, Billy, we can’t serve you here no more, you know you’ve been barred from here, you got to leave now.” The character in question, he seemed good-natured about it. Might be significantly damaged. Might be impaired more than one way. Might be a Taurus.
It’s less about one person’s misfortune, and more about going back to the place you’ve been thrown out of, trying one more time to see if you can get beer there. From the sounds of it, though, you were asked to leave, right? Then leave. There’s another store right on down the road. You go in there, they don’t know you yet….
Gemini: Carl Hiaasen is a satirical novelist and cynical journalist living and working in South Florida. Newspaper guy, really, and his works of fiction are really just true stories that are less fact-checked than some of the newspaper articles. But not by much. One novel is called Double Whammy, a tale of sex, murder and intrigue on the professional bass tournament trail. I just liked the name, and, supposedly, it’s also the name of a bass lure.
I don’t think I’ve ever used a double whammy, but I did have one lure, kept working, no matter what. When I was looking at Mars and its placement versus Gemini, then looking at Mercury being retrograde, too? I kept thinking about that book, murder, intrigue, and a small sampling of “eco-messaging” as well. More important, though, I thought about the double threat of Mars and Mercury, and how, as a poor Gemini, you just feel like you can’t catch a break.
Exacerbated by the jostling from Jupiter, moving from Air (Aquarius) to Mutable (Pisces). It’s not really a double whammy, it’s a triple threat.
How to deal with it? In satirical fashion. With sharp, pointed, barbed humor. Only way I knew to effectively deal with the double whammy and triple threat. Fight back with poison words. Satire isn’t strong enough.
Sarcasm suits you well.
Cancer: Weather around here is a little weird. We’ll get days when the high temperature is balmy and spring-like. The next day, an arctic cold front blows through and the skies are overcast and cloudy, with suggestions of sleet and snow. The frozen precipitation creates driving problems. Shoot, even regular rain creates problems. Even the hint of moisture in the air creates driving problems, but that’s not the point.
This is about one of those cold, wintery days when I decide — it’s an executive decision here — to stay inside and work. Work on horoscopes, up and coming, work on web page attributes, discuss heavy issues with clients, all the while, I’ll stay in warm, flannel pajama bottoms and a soft, heavy shirt. Some times, I’ll splurge and add a pair of socks, but after shuffling around here for a while in socks, that footwear begins to look awfully bad. I should dust more often, I guess.
I’m not saying that you should spend the next fortnight in bed clothes, all house-bound. Nor can I safely suggest you take a “mental health” day, either. Although, that idea does have merit. What I am suggesting, though, is that your Cancer self, like me, you spend a little less time worried about what the public might see, and you spend a little more time working on those loose ends you’ve been meaning to clean up. I know I left a few stray web page fragments, like dangling modifiers, and I know I can address those issues. Make the most of the cold winter days. Looks like I’ll be fishing again by next weekend.
Leo: Mole (pronounced Mole – Ay) is a traditional Latin dish, although, calling it “Latin” is probably wrong as the dish itself predates the discovery (and subsequent subjugation) of Latin America by the pale northern Europeans. It’s a Meso-American dish, or has roots in the rich native culture. It’s also, looks like, can taste like, a chocolate sauce. Which is what it is, in part.
- Good mole is amazing.
It’s rich, hot and peppery, yet smooth and chocolate-like. I usually find it, or some local variation, over chicken, as the two can compliment each other. But the trick is to find the really good mole. That’s a chore. I’ve tried it in a number of places, and I’ve yet to hit the best. I suspect it’s an ongoing task, a goal that I might not realize in this lifetime. Doesn’t mean I won’t try. Doesn’t mean that I won’t solicit suggestions when I’m in places that might offer just such fare. I’m guessing, not having any historical or sociological data to work with, but I’m guessing the original dish came from South or Central America and it has to do with the Cacao beans, and from that, I leave the rest up to speculation.
However, as palliative remedy for the Mars situation, now unfolding in Leo? Just as a suggestion, there’s a dish, a condiment, an herbal cure, or just something special, that is worth looking for. Not a big quest, just a small quest. Like good mole. Such a search has numerous benefits for Leo — gets your mind off the problems you can’t solve and gets you headed towards a cure. Won’t fix it all, but looking for something like good mole? It will help.
Virgo: I alway appreciate the fine, Virgo mind. As Jupiter moves into Pisces, opposite from your fine, Virgo mind, this means things are going to change. “Change ‘good,’ Mr. Smart-Guy, or change ‘bad,’ you dill weed?” Always trust my Virgo friends for the finest in elocution. I’d tend to see this as “change” for the sake of change, and maybe, it depends, but I figure you can spin this either way. That’s the problem, more than anything else, and in typical Virgo brain, that’s going to take this and turn Jupiter’s brief sojourn in Pisces into a climatic event.
To be sure, this means there will be peaks and valleys, but nothing you can’t surmount. As Jupiter lines up and opposes your Virgo planets, you’re going to find Jupiter brings the best of both worlds. The trick with working with this kind of energy is slowing it down enough to emphasize the good.
I don’t fish much in the winter, not any more. Too cold. Ice fishing jokes aside, just not my idea of fun. However, one time, I was fishing on a lake in early January, and it was cold, and I kept catching fish by bouncing a jig-head off the rocky bottom. Fish were down deep. I had to fish slow. While I’m used to a fast retrieve, for that winter fishing, cold fish, cold fishing, I had to slow it all down. Worked well.
- Slow down, Virgo.
Bounce that fishing lure, I’d suggest a 3/8 ounce jig-head with a crawdad colored curly tail, but bounce it slowly across the bottom.
Or just slow it down, one way or another.
Libra: I’ve got a regular doctor and he ordered a battery of tests. More complete screening and physical, near as I could tell, which isn’t much. I stopped by the lab to have them draw blood, this was a few weeks ago now. I had to fast before hand, for, like, 12 hours, so I wasn’t in the cheeriest of moods; however, the nurse who was about to draw my blood? I’ve found some kind of humor generally works.
She gave me a cup to pee in, and instructed me how to give a stool sample. “Blood, and this other stuff? Were we ever married?” She smirked.
Start them off with a laugh, and just from my experience, the blood people are sick and tired of the vampire jokes. Here’s a person, wielding a needle, could a be a thin one or it could be thick one, and she can be gentle or rough. Depends. I’m just trying to remind you, when faced with this kind of a situation, or any kind of a similar situation, try the gentle jokes first.
Scorpio: Buddy of mine worked tech support for a small start-up company. In other words, it was him and no one else in there, troubleshooting what mistakes the consumers were making. “No, man,” he explained, “the worst are the folks who won’t do what you say, they’ll say, ‘No, I don’t want to try that, let me see if this fixes it first,’ and I finally told them, it’s in my log files, just call back when you’re ready to follow my instructions.”
- Scorpio: this is a good line for you.
You have a choice, right now, with Mars backwards, putatively one of your ruling planets, you’re going to receive a set of instructions. Follow them? Or try to strike out on your own? Which way is madness and which way will get the job, the task at hand, done?
I’ll give you a hint, you can be either person, here, the one making the call or the guy getting the tech support call, but if you’re not willing to follow instructions? Don’t blame me if it ends badly.
Sagittarius: I was on my way some place, probably the coast to go fish. The back road goes through Gonzales, TX. I’m not absolutely sure that’s where this happened, but there’s a good chance I have some facts in order. The clerk in the store, I stopped for gas, or coffee, or something, the clerk had a large ornate number on the underside of his arm, a tattoo. The numbers were 5-1-2.
“You from Austin?” I asked. Which got into a conversation about Austin and weirdness, and the holidays and so forth. He still couldn’t figure out how I knew he was from Austin. 512 is the Austin area code. That’s how I knew. An obvious clue, tattooed — literally — on his arm. Plain as day. Where anyone could see it.
Some days, the symbolism is buried, arcane and difficult to make out. Other days, like that clerk in Gonzales, plain as could be. Wasn’t hidden and couldn’t be more obvious. As a Sagittarius, what’s it going to be? Can you — can we — just read the obvious signs and draw conclusions? Is there any need to make this more complicated than it already is?
Important safety information: if you notice agitation, hostility or changes in behavior not consistent with your sign, seek help. See the fine print for details.
