First Citizen: We have ever your good word.
Coriolanus: He that give good words to thee will flatter
Beneeth abhorring.

Shakespeare’s Coriolanus Act 1, scene 1

Pre-election jitters, and Samhain? Happy Halloween, and upcoming events in San Antonio and Austin.

Horoscopes starting 10.27.2016

Scorpio:

Poor Coriolanus, he never gets it. There are times when flattery does help. Happy Scorpio Birthday! So let’s look at the astrological weather. There’s a weather app on my tablet, and it beeped to tell me that there was a hundred percent chance of rain at my location. This, according to the app, the tablet, the phone. It didn’t rain. Wasn’t even a chance. I mean, it was cloudy and dark, forbidding like, but, yeah, no, no rain.

The technology was way off. The weather app was totally wrong. Weather, like Shakespeare’s Coriolanus? Like Scorpio? With Mercury lining up with the Scorpio Sun, even now, there’s a hint that you’re too fast to jump to an — apparently — hasty conclusion. Makes sense at the time. Clue: didn’t end well for Coriolanus and didn’t end well for my weather app. Want to make this three for three, Scorpio? I know you’re right, but might want to reserve letting us know, until all the facts are present. It’s your birthday time, enjoy it, and let others do for you. Happy Halloween, too!

Sagittarius:

“Prep time? 15 minutes. Cook time? Under two minutes.” Some of the cooking/food/taste-maker sites I followed, with recipes and commentary? I didn’t realize it at first, but there’s always a little, two-part time-frame included. “Prep time,” and “cook time,” then, it depends on the author, but sometimes, they include total time, and others allow that the reader to add the to together. Finally, there is a third version.

There’s prep time, cooling/freezing/marinating time, and cook time time. I made some catfish bait, packaged up, like that. It was formerly live bait, big coastal shrimp, packed in coarse “ice cream” salt, then let to linger in the back of the freezer for close to a year, maybe more. In the back of the freezer, the shrimp parts get smelly, and the salt dries, preserves, turns the shrimp bits into salty, shrimp-jerky for certain fish. Originally, it was a catfish bait recipe, but that miasmic mass saw double duty as bait for some Black Drum, too (pictures are on a website, someplace). As a Sagittarius, the Sagittarius portion of an astrology chart? It needs that third amount of time, “marinate.” Prep time. Cook Time. In between prep and use? Marinate, sit, steep, chill, meditate, anyone of a number of useful terms, but that’s the idea, between “Prep” and “cook,” there’s another element required.

Capricorn:

Seriously? I have to explain? Mars is cooking along at a late degree of Capricorn, while Venus, in Sagittarius, makes pass at Saturn. So, seriously, you need more explanation than that? This is a symbolic highly charged time for Capricorn. The holiday tension is running high, and that’s part of the problem. Seriously, I have to explain?

Don’t.

Not now.

Don’t.

Seriously, I have to explain?

Aquarius:

Last time I moved, I bought some “Coral Cactus” as a house plant. It was, allegedly, “ultra-low care.” While I don’t travel as much as I have in the past, I do get around, and any house plant, under my care?

I’m rather Darwinian about success. If it lives, it lives, and gets food and water, occasionally, and if it dies? Into the compost. That one surprised me, lasted near a year, but after one long weekend away? I came come, and it was very dead. Leaning over, dehydrated, dead. Not really too sad, it was inexpensive, and it was gamble, at best, whether it would survive me. I’m not known for a green thumb. Not my thing. A few weeks later, I turned up the little plastic tag that tucked into the plant, at the beginning, “Ultra-Low Care.” What it said. So, as it turns out, it wasn’t ultra-low care, but I didn’t feel cheated. A person has to understand what the limits are.

As an Aquarius, what are your limits? I think that little plant, it lived for most near a year here, I think it lived on borrowed time, under my care, and it should be happy. I was. What are the Aquarius limits that one must respect?

Pisces:

A while back, I got propositioned by a young lady I was doing a reading for. It wasn’t a very veiled request, kind of open, and kind of inappropriate — as I’m not that kind of a guy. Not now. Early in my career? Unencumbered by rules and regulations, not fettered by belief systems? There would’ve been a very different outcome to the request.

The miles have taken their toll on me. Extracted a penance for previous decisions. What I was thinking, and what made me think of that one young lady, and her question, with an arch of the eyebrow and her tongue stuck at the corner of her mouth, what made me think about Pisces was what was appropriate. And what’s not the best question to ask, not at this time.

“There are no dumb questions,” is a frequent admonishment. However, if you’ll pause before you ask, there might be a way to save some Pisces face. My answer, if I recall, was that if I were much younger, the answer would’ve been yes, but these days? I’m not the best answer for that Pisces question. Pause, Pisces, pause. Build in a pause, first. I mean, I was flattered, but seriously, looking at us together? “Dad or date?”

One Pisces snickers, “More like grand–dad or date.”

I’d say, “Ouch,” but it’s true.

Aries:

Client sent me a text message, let me know that the client was still considering options on a question I’d posed. I was paid, in a consultation, to ask the questions and illuminate possibilities. Which I did, if I recall, and frankly? I don’t. Pretty sure I had some suggested courses of action, especially, this is an Aries example, the operative word, the key phrase? “Action.” Action to take, directions, goal to strive towards? All of that. The problem with the client texting me? I’m not involved in the outcome. I get zero benefit, either way.

“It’s not my ass on the line.”

Exactly my point. Act. Do. Take steps forward. Don’t do anything, your Aries choice. I’m not invested in the outcome. I don’t get paid more if you win; I don’t get paid more if you lose; I don’t get paid more if you do nothing. While I care about the outcome, I’m not emotionally invested in the Aries actions.

“It’s not my ass on the line.”

This week, it can be your butt that is either in asking or basking in the warm accolades from a job well-done. In order to get to the “Job well-done” part? Take some Aries action. No need to let me know that you’re still thinking about it, or you’re going to, or whatever, just take some Aries action. I’m not invested in the outcome, either way. But Aries is.

Taurus:

I pulled out an indelible ink marker, like a Sharpie? I pulled one out because it was a bright red, and I’d been saving it for a special occasion, and I thought this week marked the special occasion. Wide, broad tip, looks like a calligraphy, but not really. Saving it for a special occasion, and at this point, I don’t know how long I’ve been carrying that marker around with me, maybe a few years? I popped the top off, and started to write on a formerly blank CD. The ink was almost dry. I’d been saving it for so long, the air-tight cap, apparently not quite air-tight, eventually leaked and dried out the ink. I got one use out of that marker, and then, I bounced it into the trash.

The biggest problem facing Taurus? “Saving it for a rainy day,” is the old expression. It’s about putting aside some consumable resource and waiting for a better time, a dire emergency, some external event that might — or might not — ever happen. That indelible ink marker was just a reminder, as I’ve faithfully toted it around with me for years, planning on using it, just never have the correct opportunity. So, instead of doing like me, when this happened earlier today, it was a reminder, for Taurus, no more putting it off for a rainy day. No more waiting for the perfect time, it’s good, now. Go.

Gemini:

“The Institute of Outstanding Women International, the respected IOWI, wants to recognize you for your contributions to the being an Outstanding Woman.” Piece of junk mail that the filter didn’t catch. I was briefly annoyed, then amused. They think I’m an outstanding women of distinction who is above her peers in every way, and for a low price, I can get my name in their books, which, for a low price, will send me three free copies. I didn’t get how I had to pay for free copies, but whoever was writing the sales didn’t do a very good job.

Gemini: Read the copy. All of it. No reason to be upset. You too, could be included.

Cancer:

I’m ever so grateful for being at the starting point for the great movie theater chain, the Alamo Drafthouse. I was there when it was a single room upstairs, over an alternately metal/salsa club, tucked half a block from the burgeoning warehouse district in Austin.

The chain expanded, exploded, imploded, and re-birthed itself, and it is what it is, today. It’s a perfect place to hide out in plain sight. Watch a movie, get a meal, the entertainment starts easily half an hour or more before the movie starts, and the food, and adult beverages, if that’s an option, it all plays well. The movie trailers, clips and almost random programming, dredged up from B-Movies, ancient trailers, and golden age TV, it all adds to the experience.

Movies that are, at best, only so-so, movies, like, that aren’t that good? At the Alamo Drafthouse, even bad movies are fun and enjoyable. This week holds at least one viewing of a bad movie. Panned by critics and viewers alike, there’s one star your Cancer self wants to see, and the movie? You’re going to go, might as well see it at the Alamo — or similar venue, at least, the experience will be good.

The Leo:

As I loaded my bag for work, I recalled a singular experience. It was three days in Paris, France. Summer trip, mostly an overnight visit to the iconic romance capital of the world. At the time, I was traveling very, very light. Laptop and English three-prong plug was all I had with me. The French use a different kind of plug for electricity. I ran that laptop for three days, running the battery down, using the last of the battery power up on the trip back from Paris. It was matter of being prepared , or not being prepared, and the example I was aiming for, for The Leo? Being prepared to be unplugged. In a voluntary state, that is. Unplugged, but by choice. Sort of by circumstances, as I didn’t, at the time, know that the French used different plugs than the English — or Dutch, Germans and, of course, Americans.

It’s that singular memory, cropping up, inserting itself in the The Leo consciousness, sort of a reminder of what was then, and how to use that information, in the “now.” Think about “unplugging” to plug in more.

Virgo:

Best excuse I’ve seen in awhile? “I was in a cast.” Not a lame, “My foot is in a cast” type of excuse, but more along the lines of I was throwing a baited hook into the water. Lure, really, and it was a late season topwater along the edge of some reeds on against a channel bar, just off the Texas Gulf Coast. Late in the season, but fish respond to what they respond to, and it’s not a big deal. I’m always willing to try. As a Virgo, are you busy this week? End of the year, and Deer Season (in Texas) starts soon. As a fisherman, I like deer season because I can enjoy much less activity on the water, as most of my buddies are out hunting “Bambi’s daddy.” Less pressure. So, as an excuse?

“I was in cast.”

You see how this works, right?

Libra:

I made it through the 1980’s without eyeliner. Perhaps because I was really too young, or I was less likely to be associated with hair-metal and glam-rock, or maybe, I was too country for eye-liner. Still, that’s my proud fact, I made it through the 80’s with no eye-liner. I remember the ghost of a night, and one girlfriend getting out some make-up, threatening me, but I can’t say what happened next.

Working in and around Austin as long as I have, it was bound to happen. I got cornered by a big Scorpio, no, not big as in large, I mean big as in a bunch of planets in Scorpio, in her chart, and that’s how I wound up with glitter on my eyes, like eye liner. The problem being, that glitter crap? It gets everywhere. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, it doesn’t just wash off.

Glitter, little specks of blue and green glitter, everywhere. If you’re not careful, you’re going to get caught and stuck, coerced by a Scorpio, or some other sign, and you’re stuck with glitter as eye-liner.

I still can’t believe it. All the way through the 80’s and even part of the early 90’s — no make-up. Austin, one afternoon, last week, week before? Glitter. That stuff gets everywhere. Watch out for the glitter, it’s insidious.