Horoscopes for the week of 6.3.2010

“Deep malice makes too deep incision.”
Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Richard the Second [I.i.158]

This week: Mars enters Virgo, Jupiter enters Aries (and Jupiter conjuncts Uranus — again).

Gemini: Fancy dinner in a fancy place. Advertised as being “Latin Fusion cuisine.” Which I’m unsure of, because, if I understand words and definitions, that’s exactly what TexMex is, “Latin Fusion Cuisine,” not some kind of high-dollar, fancy-pants place with cool art on the wall, and the superior waiters who sneer at people dressed in shorts and sandals. And a nice Hawaiian shirt.

I look like a tourist. Know how that feels? Look who I’m talking to, Gemini! Of course you know how I feel. So the meal was okay, not quite enough zip, that mystery ingredient (cayenne) to most of the dishes, but the salad dressing, it was a “Mango Ranch Dressing.” That was good.

Sort of a mango-horseradish-jalapeño-honey/mustard (buttermilk ranch) dressing. Appropriate peppery zing. Excellent and smooth. Really made the salad, and for that matter, made most of the meal one-hundred percent acceptable. Something with some zing, a little bite, a rush of blood to the brain (and other parts), the flush that comes with a proper pepper commitment.

I’ve never seen Mango Ranch Dressing in the store. Never even heard of it. That makes it a first. And to call that zippy little dressing “Ranch”? Means the place was a truly fusion cuisine. As advertised. Sometimes, this is for Gemini, sometimes? Things are what they appear to be. Doesn’t happen often, might take some trial and error, but yeah, sometimes? Just like advertised.

Cancer: She was a gentle and sweet lass. Or so she appeared. She was serving us dinner at a nice place, the other evening. As she reached across to serve my date, I noticed Greek lettering on her wrist. Greek poetry, my first guess.

Not sorority or fraternity kind of Greek. I tried to catch the lettering and then her eye. Finally, a little exasperated, I just asked. (She wasn’t a Cancer, but let’s for the sake of argument, pretend she was.)

“It’s Revelations 22,” she said. There was a verse attached to that, so I don’t know exactly what she was referring to. Although, Revelations, Chapter 22 is pretty short in and of itself. I’m sure that the verse means something to her. Most of the more strict Christian seem to frown upon tattoo as artwork. Or adorning women, but don’t get me sidetracked. This isn’t about content of the tattoo, nor is about the state of churches. This is about how you advertise. Like lettering from 2,000 years ago, a little verse of poetry. Beginning and end.

Leo: Angela Carter, a feminist SF author, is noted for saying, “Sex and socks are not compatible.”

I disagree. But only to a point. Get to a certain point in life, and a woman in bed with cold feet is less desirable than a cutie with warm little socks on her feet. There’s the added goal of aerobic and acrobatic activity in bed trying to dislodge said socks.

Virgo: There’s a sample, an audio clip, sampled, in a song from a long time ago. I figure that this song predates some of my clients by as much as a decade. Doesn’t make it any less of a song, though.

The clip itself, the sample, and that was a time before samples were called samples, that auditory notation? It’s supposed to be a chainsaw, being ripped alive. Started. The blast of a two-stroke motor and the rattling chain going around, at the same time, the visual impact of a masked man pulling on the chain saw’s ripcord to start the motor. Good image for Virgo.

It’s — Mars is — like pulling on the rip cord of a small motor. I personally like the image of a chain saw. Fun to play with. The image. I really don’t want to tinker with a real chain saw. Not my thing. I’m much too delicate for that.

Mars is frying along in Virgo. Been, like years getting here. Rip cord. Pull on it. Time to get started. More action, less talk. The noise of that motor should drown out any dissenting voices.

Libra: The President with a PhD? Woodrow Wilson. Started the League of Nation, the precursor to the United Nations, but despite his book smarts, PhD, and being president? Senate didn’t ratify the League of Nations thing. The rest, is, as they say, history. Which doesn’t make him less bright and doesn’t mean any less of the man. Person, I suppose, would be the correct way to call it now. Any less of the person.

Thinking. Woodrow Wilson was a Capricorn. If he were around now, his Sun would be lining up with Pluto, and that’s part of what this is all about. Book smarts is one thing. Streets smarts, street cred, whatever one would choose to address the energy as? That’s where the rubber meets the road, to mangle yet another metaphor.

Political power and plain, old-fashioned rhetoric? That’s what it takes to win. These are not insurmountable odds for the Libra — but, and it’s a big one, there’s a certain amount of posturing, playing one foe against another, and just plain old talking the issue out, over and over, in order to win. You can. Win. Win big. Huge, even, but you’re going to have to finesse a situation — no amount of book learning can beat a street fighter.

Scorpio: I was playing tourist and I was in an outdoor market place with friends from out-of-town. Visitors. It’s like being a fishing guide only for tourists. There was a high-end chocolate shop at this one place, and we stopped; went in.

All that chocolate goodness doesn’t attract me. However, a single item in a pan, cooling behind the counter did pique my curiosity. It was a single jalapeño, large, plump, ripe, juicy, dipped in chocolate. Hot, spicy, sweet. Perfect. The place is known for dipping just about anything in chocolate. Personally, I’d like to see a thin and warmer Serrano pepper dipped in chocolate. That’s an item I might actually sample.

I marveled at the other pepper, the ingenuity of the idea, and the fact that the pan was almost all sold out. The idea worked. Granted, this is a purely regional dish. Fresh peppers, probably grown in someone’s backyard. The chocolate, I don’t recall, fancy place, I’m sure there’s provenance and lineage. As long we’ve got Gemini cooking, and the recent planet changes? Take two things and combine them, I’ve already tossed out two good ideas. See what hot stuff you can come up with, Scorpio.

Sagittarius: Bougainvilleas blooms almost year-round here. The climbing ornamental plant produces an insignificant flower with persistent petals. Usual color I get to see here? Sort of a “burnt cherry,” too dusky to be rose, but too bright to be brown or magenta. The term “burnt cherry” I swiped from a color that the boot-maker used to describe a similar leather color. That’s the usual color.

In one corner of a garden plot, a few blocks from home, there’s an unusual arrangement. There are two Bougainvilleas next to each other — one is that “burnt cherry” color and the other is a bright, almost iridescent purple. Like a royal purple, only lighter, more translucent. Two bushes, very distinct and separate colors. Blooming away in the heat of the summer’s day. Just going and going, like there was no tomorrow.

It’s a good — possibly brilliant — juxtaposition, the two colors of petals next to each other. Make a good point and counterpoint, color-wise. I’d love to get a backlit shot of those two plants, their leaves and petals, anyway, just to illustrate the color. But on a southwest facing corner, the chance of that happening is pretty slim.

I wouldn’t want to go rooting around in a neighbor’s garden. I did try and catch the image on digital film, and it never conveyed the right message. The brilliant, similar and yet different hues, next to each other. Can’t catch some duality. It’s Gemini time. Appreciate the differences, and catching it all? Probably not going to happen.

Capricorn: I boarded the plane, took a window seat, a guy followed me on board and took the aisle seat. Not an issue. Sort hop to Dallas or El Paso, or wherever I was headed.

Flight attendant took my temporary traveling companion’s drink order. “2 Rums, one coke.” He handed over the drink tickets for two drinks. “Short flight,” he said to me. Not being so much of a drinking man these days, the offer of cocktails, I just passed. I listened while he explained what he was doing , and why he needed two short cocktails on a flight that lasted less than an hour. Made sense to him, at the time.

Made sense to me, and if I were in his boots, I’d suggested much the same course of action. But I’m not. However, for a Capricorn — this doesn’t mean two shots of liquor — I m suggesting you double up on the elixir, the medicine, the coffee, the rum, whatever the problem and solution is.

If it were me? I’d have a double espresso on ice. You? Maybe a double on the rocks — something — whatever works. Double up the efforts, see twice as many rewards, too.

Aquarius: I was trailing along behind a — looked like — a dad and his young son. I halfway listening because, in this situation, their conversation promised to be enlightening.

The dad was patiently explaining something. “Ducks float because they’re made of wood.” That’s something I never knew. I always thought that ducks floated because they presented a neutral buoyancy factor to the surface of the water, although, I have seen ducks dive. The duck meat I’ve tasted, it’s always been superbly rich, with what seems like a lot of fat tissue.

Here I thought the buoyancy was physics. I never knew that duck were just made of wood. Never hurts to listen to our elders, the more wise people in our lives. We can learn much at the feet of elders. Like why ducks float? Again, I thought it was physics and biology, but I guess not.

Listen up and learn.

Pisces: I bought a bottle of water at a local coffee shop. Not a chain store, not a chain brand. Reason I was willing to pay almost two dollars for a single bottle of water? I wanted marketing information. Who bottled the water, what company printed the store’s name, address, and logo on the bottle, and more important, where did they find half-liter (500 ml) — square — bottles? Not just good marketing but excellent marketing.

Probably just local tap water, although, the label did say it was “purified & oxygenated.” Means bubbles and some kind of a filter. Might still be tap water, for all I know. Doesn’t matter. I was willing because, in part, I was thirsty, and more important, I figured an investment of less than two dollars might yield good advice.

I’d like to market my own brand of water. Tap water, bottled at the source, with a label. Those square bottles? Even better marketing, and then there’s the added advantage of the square bottles are much easier to handle. Easier to ship. A smaller case contained more bottle, as they were five across and I didn’t count how many deep. But more than a usual case would probably contain. More space by almost a third. Save on shipping and handling.

My two-dollar bottle of water garnered me no information. Store’s name, address, and the little “no calories, not a significant source of minerals” label. Can’t say I shouldn’t have tried, either. I gave it a shot. I was reasonable in my assumption that my two-dollar gamble would pay big. Such gambles, with a huge potential payoff? In Pisces? Go for it. Might fail like I did, but it wasn’t that much of a waste. Didn’t taste like tap water.

Aries: The average time it takes to turn the basic potato into a bag of potato chips? One hour. From tuber to packaged, salty, flavorful goodness? Doesn’t take long at all. Big machines skin, then slice, then fry, salt and package potato chips. About an hour. From a beautiful tuber, a root fruit, to crispy goodness, less than an hour. The miracles of the modern age, never cease to amaze me.

How they do it? Ever think about that? No, you can look this stuff up. About an hour. All it takes. Consider, too, that Aries is like that potato. Scrubbed, sliced, diced, flash fried, frozen, nitrogen packaged?

Doesn’t take that long for a such a humongous change. Doesn’t take that long for potato chips, anyway. Are you the machine of change, maybe a cook or technician running the equipment? Or are you the tuber? Caution: some settling may occur, contents sold by weight, not volume.

Taurus: I was rooting around town with one of my buddies. Name’s not important, but many refer to him as “Bubba.” Not that it matters, he steadfastly refuses to answer to that name. We wandered into a certain chain of coffee shops. I ordered a double on the rocks, and he ordered the most girly drink he could think of, a “Blueberry Mocha Peppermint Frappuccino with whip and sprinkles.”

I was almost offended to be drinking coffee in that place with a guy who was ordering a drink like that. The counter help sort of know me, and they would guess that I was male. My buddy? “That’s a girly drink, bubba.” He went on, at length, to confirm that he drank straight whiskey, like a man, beer, like a man, and everything else, like a man. So he was indulging his feminine side by ordering a girly coffee drink. I think he was just being obnoxious in his own, weird way.

Therein is the clue. Whether your manly, or girly, or somewhere in between, like me, posturing is important. And doing one thing, one action, just something — it could appear to be as silly as a girly coffee drink? Just one. Order up that particularly gruesome-sounding coffee drink. Or eat beef. One step on the wild side. One step away from whatever everyone else assumes is right with you. Just one, but one step like that can make it a very successful week.