Return’d so soon!
rather approach’d too late:
The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit,
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell;
My mistress made it one upon my cheek:
She is so hot because the meat is cold;
The meat is cold because you come not home;
You come not home because you have no stomach;
You have no stomach having broke your fast;
But we that know what ’tis to fast and pray
Are penitent for your default to-day.

Dromio of Ephesus in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors [I.ii]

Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 6.5.2015

Gemini:

Happy birthday to that one, special Gemini. All of you. You know who you are. Birthdays, Mercuries Retrogrades, multiple item, all at once, am I right? What do we have in the Gemini land to explore? That nagging sense of dread? That’s just Saturn, obliquely making a weird noise across the sky, barely in Sagittarius — opposite from Gemini — hence the trouble. Or nagging feeling, or the extra edge that can’t be truly attributed to Mercury Retrograde in Gemini, which, by the way, is how this plays. Gemini gets an extra does of Mars and martian-inspired energy, thank the odd gods for that one. That Mars-infused energy is part of the problem and part of the solution, too. As long as the mercurial planet is in its retrograde pattern? Takes three tries to get the first item across the line. Three times as much effort is required, from the sign of the Twins and one point, I run out of math metaphors. Takes three tries, be aware of that. Doesn’t mean it’s not good, and as Gemini, you can spin three times to our every one, anyway. Have a good one, three times over?

Cancer:

There’s a heart-warming photo of me, helping with a buddy’s daughter, as she’s got a fishing pole in her wee hand, and a big grin as I help her fish from the pier. Touching, cute, big smile on the little girl’s face, all good stuff. Her grin tells the whole story. She was about two or three at the time, and as such, she had a kid’s typical attention span, because, shortly after the picture was taken? She handed me the pole, and she went off to explore the playground. Or dig in the sand, anything but patiently wait for fish.

Cute kid. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, children under the age of 21 or so, they have a shorter attention span. I was just amused that she hung out with me as long as she did, and the picture was really cute, me, her, the little fishing pole. It was that attention span that made me think of Cancer, a heart-warming scene, then, in flash, off to chase crabs on the beach, or feed seagulls, or any other thing that might be more interesting than standing there, gripping a child’s fishing pole. Think it was a “Barbie” pole, but I’m not sure. That frantic, addled, lack of attention span? That’s what the Moon Child is like this next few days. Owe it to the planetary influence in Aries, owe it to Mercury and Mars, or call it whatever. Let’s chase crabs, no, let’s feed the seagulls, no let’s fish….

The (mighty) Leo:

Since that last girlfriend, she had a big impact on my life, I’ve developed the “I Hate You” hamburger. After so many years single, I got used to food in one of two ways, either served in a restaurant — or eating establishment — or served straight from the container. Out the ice box, out of the can, in the package itself. Peel and eat. Straight from the frying pan. Why mess up an additional plate, bowl, whatever? All I need is a spoon or fork, dig the food out of it’s container, like, think: beef stew from the can.

So the “I hate you” hamburger was caused by this one, old girlfriend. “Plate, put it on plate. Makes it easier to eat, you know, while you type your horoscopes.” As it turns out, there is an advantage to eating the food off of a plate, as in, easier to work, gives it a handle, so to speak. The term, “I hate you” hamburger derives from a feeling of being too domesticated by that one, old girlfriend. Doesn’t stop me from using the plate, though, just a reminder.

Old girlfriends, dated and antiquated terms, and plates. This week is a matter of taste, and I started with the “I hate you” plate because I see that’s what’s going on with Venus, creeping into Leo while Mercury, and you know the rest. Sure, it’s an affront to my manhood to eat the food off of a plate, but there’s not better way to do this.

Virgo:

For the last several decades, I’ve used a whistling tea kettle to warm water, generally, boiling water for coffee. Hot water, just off a boil, over coarse grounds, can make the best coffee. However, this isn’t about coffee, or tea, this is about that whistling tea kettle, the tea pot, the thing I put water in and then place on the stove. In its latest version, this one has a loud whistle — almost too loud. It gets annoying. Still, first thing in the morning, I greet that sound with joy in my heart because hot coffee is shortly forthwith.

Later in the day, though, that same tea kettle whistling, signaling that water is now boiling? For whatever reason? It can annoy the bejeebers out of me. It was about to boil and I thought about Virgo, the noise, it’s in the kitchen which a few steps away, and as such, the whistle went off for a few seconds. I was talking to the kettle, “I now, I know, I’ll be right there. Cool it, I’m on my way.” Talking to an inanimate object in an empty homestead, not that unusual, not given my line of work. It’s that annoyance factor. The hot water signals a caffeine-infused beverage will soon be in my hand, and I have to recall that fact. As a Virgo, recall, too, that when the tea kettle is whistling? You’ll soon have a hot beverage, hopefully, caffeine-infused to help. “All right! Awwright! I’ll be right there, just shut up!”

Libra:

Due to frustration, I compiled a thin book about Mercury in its retrograde pattern. The ills, the spills, the solutions. What to do and what not to do, basically. Book’s available as a free download, save you from buying it. One of the inherent problems is communications get fouled up, in short order. That’s part of what is happening, even now to Libra. Communication breakdown. Then, too, there’s serious message that a certain Libra is trying to impart, and that message is not being heard. Simply put, you’re serious and no one seems to take this serious. Seriously.

One girl (Libra) I dated, when she was really mad, she got very, very quiet. That was when it was time to be scared. Be very afraid. Might try that, instead of raising your Libra voice, getting quiet and quieter. Instead of making a dramatic point, get dramatic by being silent. There’s a kind of serious message you are trying to get across, and the simplest way to accomplish this, is to do so in a quiet and reserved manner. Realize, too, that there is a mercurial communicator at work, and that makes this twice as hard, for the this next week. Walk softly. Carry a big stick. Quiet it down.

Scorpio:

When I partner with a person or entity, I tend to require two, maybe three, versions of the contract. I like the “plain English” version, dumbed-down so I can grasp the pertinent details, then the exact legal copy, and finally, if I have my way, I prefer the “handshake,” a simple, verbal agreement. “I will do ‘this,’ and I will receive ‘that’ in compensation.”

Simple, handshake, deal is done. One piece of software I used, I really liked the two versions of the Terms of Service, End User Agreement, the Fineprint, as it were. “For the Lawyers, and now, for the non-lawyers, what it really means.” I understand those terms. Thread through the legal print, and there’s still those terms, just more convoluted. Usually written in a way we can’t understand. What lawyers are for, no?

I want Scorpio to operate on a simple handshake agreement for now. As you’re shaking hands, “Until we change this, it’s good.” The change can occur in another week or two, or might be good for all eternity. Who knows? These are the details of the Scorpio agreement right now. It might change. It might not. What important, though, is that you notify the handshake person that the agreement has changed before implementing the changes.

Sagittarius:

Fire alarm went off in the office building I was in, and we all shuffled outside. Warm spring day, I had my phone out and I was probably answering your email, not a problem. I knew that this was a false alarm, but the fire department had to show up and turn off the alarm, and I’ll guess the landlord will have to pay a fine for a faulty fire alarm. I looked up after hitting the ‘send’ button. “We need a designated person to panic,” I suggested to one, usually volatile young woman.

“Hey, usually I’m the designated ‘freak out’ person!” Her words, not mine. I shrugged it off. It was inconvenient, at worst, and not my problem. I just wanted a little bit of entertainment to go with the parade, as that crowd was too tame. Was this a serious delay in my day? No. Was it amusing? Only in an oblique, Mercury is retrograde, way.

As a Sagittarius? We need a designated “freak out” person. Let someone else, preferably a willing participant, get all whacked out over the events that have so clearly spun out of our control. Not our job to freak out. That belongs to more mutable or volatile, or fiery signs.

Capricorn:

Plot to overthrow the world.

That simple. Still lingering on my website, someplace there’s the term, FGS World HQ. Fishing Guide to the Stars World Headquarters. The original, stated goal was “Total World Domination,” and I’ve long sense forgotten about that, but it was part of the original plan.

As the Capricorn, given where things are at this moment? Think about taking over the world. As an addendum to that, remember all the super-criminals in movies, on TV? Remember how those criminal masterminds always meet an untimely end while telling the hero the whole story behind the plan?

Here’s the deal: kill the hero, first. Then you an write your “criminal mastermind memories: total world domination, or how a simple Capricorn learned to take over the world.” Kill the hero, first. Don’t let that guy dash your plans to pieces. You can do long, discursive meandering thoughts about whatever, after you’ve finished off the hero. Before any of this can happen, though, as a Capricorn, you need to plot to overthrow the world. Think: if I were in charge, things would be different. Exactly what would be different? Let’s make some Capricorn plans to take over.

Aquarius:

One of the best places to fish, one of the richest, most enjoyable spots? Along the Texas coast, south of here. The bays and by-waters, the little eddies, behind the barrier island, between the shore and the beach, some of the most fertile, bio-diverse landscape, waterscape, really, one of the best places to fish. The water is usually no more than a foot or two deep, from a few inches to a few feet, and there’s the Texas trilogy, Flounder, (Red) Drum, and (Speckled) Trout, all right there. The water and the bays are teeming with a variety of life forms, from cattle and wild pig to almost every conceivable wet land fowl. Some dry land fellers, too. At first glance, this place isn’t too pretty, but it grows on a person’s soul. From the coast of Mexico, this land stretches to the bayous of Louisiana. Verdant, fertile, rich.

I got a favorite, expensive lure hung up in the weeds, and I stepped out of the boat, the fetch it, water’s not deep, less than a foot. The problem? It’s a sediment, a mud, an almost liquid layer of soil that’s not quite solid. I sunk in two feet. The rich sediment, when my foot came up with mud, smelled like rotting plants, part of the sulphuric, miasma of what’s just beneath the surface. Bio-diversity, my ass. Gorgeous, inter-coastal, inshore waterways, and fine, if one doesn’t have to step into it. I did, to retrieve that lure. With the planets where they are, can you just enjoy the scene, maybe catch a few fish, and not step off the boat into the muck? Depends on how much you want that lure back, now doesn’t it?

Pisces:

“I know it sounds bad, but I real love living in my trailer — it’s soooooo cute!” I overheard the conversation, as I was stopped for a break along the Texas highway in a sort of small town. The young lady speaking was a wearing a pink-camouflage “Bass Pro Shop” hat and attire, that, I guess, sort of matched. Never sure about pink camouflage gear and attire. Kind of stands out, but then, in the trailer parks of life, I guess there’s room for every trend. Besides, at a certain age, and in my own mind, having done this myself, the idea of a small trailer space with only enough room for essentials? That works. Minimum, not maximum.

“So, this week, I should move into a trailer?”

No, but consider that you don’t need to care what other people think about your current arrangement. If it works for you, then it works fine. A cute trailer is better than an ugly apartment. A place with enough space for you is fine, and if suits your Pisces temperament? Then don’t worry that no one else likes it; they don’t have to live there.

Aries:

I like Austin’s Amy’s Ice Cream. Have for years. Drifted away from it when I drifted further south, but every once in a while, there’s an Amy’s in San Antonio, and I’ll stop by. Cute, young lady working the counter, Aries, if you have to know, I asked, she offered a taste of whatever I wanted. One of the chalkboard flavors was rather Hill Country (Central Texas) in essence, Jalapeño and Peaches.

The peaches — there are number of orchards just minutes west of here. The jalapeño flavor goes with pepper bellies. I tried a sample. One of the things that makes Amy’s so much fun is the “crush-ins,” cookie crumbles, M&M’s, various other candies and such, that are beaten into a scoop of ice cream. I asked what went with the jalapeño and peaches, and her reply? “Nothing, I’ve been eating it just like that, for, like as long as we got it in. It’s the best.” I had a small dish of it. Amazing stuff, slightly local in essence, and textured just right with no crush-ins. No ice cream was beaten to make this horoscope. Here’s the deal: all those planets? Be willing to experiment. Peaches and Jalapeño, who knew?

Taurus:

Shift. “Oh, I get it, this one of those jokes, of yours, right? Like, ‘Shift happens,’ huh?” No, that’s not what this was about. This about shifting a few degrees, a few moments, a few inches in some situation, or in my favorite example, about three meters. Not quite four yards, just a little distance. We were anchored, although that’s not the real image, as the boat was almost aground and motionless, with the rope coiled up around the anchor’s chain, and we weren’t catching anything. Plenty of activity on the water, and birds were feedings as well as the fish, spooling up and schooling. All we had to do, after 45 minutes of teasing, was shift.

Shifted the boat over a few yards, not far, just a little distance from the old location to the new location. I just poled it over, never dropped the motor back in the water. Fish started to happen. It was simple: shift location. Not far, not drastic, just a little, like drifting, only I helped by poling, but it wasn’t far. Three meters. For some reason, the fish liked the new location, much, much better. Pictures of my success are up on some website. Beat the Mercury Retrograde “no fish” blues. Shift. Maybe not far, just a little.