“This is hard and undeserv’d measure, my lord.”
Parolles in Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well (II.iii.191)
Horoscopes for 10-1-2024
- Eclipse 10/2 9° Libra
Libra
In some matters, I am exact as can be. But making my own coffee, usually in the mornings? I have a certain lack of precision that has served me well. The true coffee geeks insist on measuring the coffee — fresh ground coffee — exactly. So many grams or ounces of the material fresh from a burr grinder, so that the grains of coffee are the all the same size and texture, which has to be correct for the extraction method. I stagger into a kitchenette, as I’ve done for years, hit the grinder’s switch, and set a pot of water to boil. However much I grind up? That goes in a filter. Used to use a French Press, but the brown paper filters are cleaner, compost just as well. One tea kettle has markings on the side to measure water, but the pot I use to heat water in the cooler months, no such guide. I guess. Educated guess, but just a guess, from the way the kettle feels in my hand. More than a quart, less than two, but about one and a half. Perfect for my current arrangements. With eclipse action, birthdays, and other influence, but hang it on the Sun and the Moon? A good guess, an approximation, a gesture where that “feels about right,” is as good as it gets. Go with that.
Scorpio
I’ve got coffee mugs that are anywhere from quart, maybe quart and a half in size, down to the merest thimble size of an espresso cup. Too small to even be a demitasse, barely a single sip of morning elixir available. What I’ve found? I like the little two-ounce “mugs” although, with a saucer, I tend to think of them as true coffee cups. I can drink several of those, and if I’m reheating the coffee in a microwave? The littlest cups only take about half a minute.
Three or four servings from the tiny cups feels like a lot of coffee, but in reality, it’s only, what, maybe six ounces total, out of four of the diminutive cups? Adding a saucer makes it feel a little more elegant and does catch the stray fluid that misses its mark, either my mouth or the cup itself. If I measure by the four cups of coffee I’ve slammed down? I’ve had a quite a bit. If I measure by the actual ounces? Well within the medical limits and current suggestions for what’s safe. The question, then, for good Scorpio, is about what you use to measure. “Feels about right.”
Sagittarius
What is the right amount of time between mistakes? One smart-ass will answer immediately with “How bad of a mistake?” There’s always the question of whether or not we’ll get caught, and that weighs into the decision process. What I was really thinking about, for this week’s Sagittarius, is a simple measurement of time between errors, tends to be about 18 months, like, I ordered a book online. Title that was evocative, one I was sure I wanted to read, only to discover, I’ve bought, and returned, that book several times. Looks good. It’s a timeless classic, but one that I never make much headway with.
Capricorn
I hope I haven’t used this before. In my own life, as a genuine Sagittarius, and growing up as I did? I would frequently get the “This is a little late for your birthday, but it’s for Xmas, too” kind of gifts. An early holiday reminder popped through, with the upsetting and generally weird eclipse crap floating freely, “don’t combine my Xmas and B-Day gifts, signed, Sagittarius.” There is one late January Capricorn, it’s not OK to combine his gifts, but for the rest of you? Drop the hints, make it be known, maybe let them know what your waist and shoe is, but let them all know it’s alright to combine Xmas and B-Day, as one good one is better than three crappy ones. Me? I used to be a Medium, but now I’m an Extra-Large.
Too early?
Message remains the same. In other Capricorn terms, “The song remains the same…”
Aquarius
T. S. Eliot wrote about “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” (Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock). I’ve seen the quote used and reused, yet I recall that moment I first stumbled across it, in my educational process, thinking I had made a rare find. Coffee shops, businesses, and educators everywhere use that pull-quote. For a confessed Anglophile that he was, Eliot’s choice of a coffee spoon instead of a more ubiquitous teaspoon might not make sense. I think there’s a research project there, and one that I’m not willing to pursue. Part of this is about stepping gently forward, and part of this is about using the smallest measure possible to assess the situations. Is that the way to go? As an Aquarius, is using a tiny spoon to measure out how much water is in the gallon-sized jug the best route? Using a teacup to ladle out the tub? Or measuring a life in coffee spoons?
Pisces
A “skoosh,” a “dab,” or “just a sprinkle?” All valid terms and all used when I cook. The problem with my “cooking” is that it is just that, cooking, not baking. Browning a meat, or caramelizing onions, sure, that’s a scientific process, but my approach is less than scientific, and more by feel, hence the liberal use of inexact measurement terms. “Over heat,” or “warm” again, not particularly useful. I dated a baker-woman, and her version of “One cup of flour?” It was one measuring cup, heaped to over-full, then leveled off with a baking straight-edge. I do not understand this. Such exactness. “Oh, I did change the recipe, I added a second teaspoon of vanilla extract, and I used the good Mexican Vanilla.” That was only after successfully completing the entire recipe, in mind-numbing exactitude, two or three time for taste-testing. I don’t get it. There’s one Pisces Baker who does get it, but the rest of us? “Some,” or “a handful,” and similar measurements are fine.
Close counts, this isn’t rocket surgery — “It’s not brain-science, you know?”
Aries
One of the personalities I worked alongside claimed to be 100% right with psychic powers. I hope you just guffawed at that. “Why didn’t that person just pick a lottery win, and retire?” The answer was something like, “That’s not how these powers work!” Then, another part of the question, how does one measure “psychic powers?” I don’t have an answer, and except for one particular Aries, I won’t have an answer. There is no way to measure that, and for me, I’m dubious of any claim for anything at 100%!
The planets, the stars tend to incline, and lead us in a direction, but there’s ways free will and choice, the human intersection of this endeavor, and that changes what happens. Besides, how does one assess “psychic powers?” I don’t even know how that works. Bend the cutlery? Parlor magic? I’d ask for written predictions, but it’s easy to get in there and change what was written to make it all look good. So the question, open-ended question, how do we measure something that doesn’t want to be measured?
Taurus
I used to commute from Austin to San Antonio, then reversed the situations. I estimated the trip at just under a 100 miles one way, and I guessed at 2 hours time. I would, and still do, allow for a little extra time when I have family or business engagements in Austin, because there’s always traffic. The notions expressed point to the way some of us express distance in terms of time. “Austin is usually an hour away, but with traffic, it can take up to three….” With road construction, and oddly enough, some completed roadways, there are possible variations within the expressed theme of time instead of distance, and I found a shorter route that was longer, and easier to get to, when coming back from some places like a certain tattoo parlor. Still took near two hours, but the actual traffic was much reduced. It’s about measuring distance and the colloquial habit of answering in terms of time. “Dallas is about three hours from here,” or “Houston is usually under two hours,” and then, “why do you ask?” For Taurus, sanity and stability is about ten days away, but it depends on traffic. Might take a little longer. Point of reference, most of Houston is about an hour away from Houston.
Gemini
But, “How much does it cost?” I’ve been cruising around a few places, shopping for a particular item, about this big, gesturing with my hands, but not this big, spreading my palms further apart, and you get the idea? No? Never mind, Gemini, never mind. I’m shopping and there’s a difference between shopping and buying. However, with the online convenience of everything? I found what looked like it would be perfect. I checked the pictures, the item’s description, the measurements, everything. Then I found several from different sellers with vastly shifting price points. I bought the cheapest one. It was made from a tacky, plastic-like material, and while the size was OK, the way it attached? Didn’t work at all. Gave it to a buddy, and he uses it every day. What I learned? Right size, wrong material, bad accessories. Shopping or buying, Gemini?
Cancer
One fishing buddy had a perfect way to work with this kind of energy. He used a large, classroom-sized, “dry-erase” whiteboard, and filled it up with the ideas, steps, actions, actionable item lists, the routes, timing, long-term destinations, and how to achieve the results he wanted. All on a whiteboard. Periodically, he would take a high-res digital camera image of his board. During an influence like this one, the eclipse cycle? He would take a picture, then erase the whole mess. He gradually reassembled the completed board’s original state by consulting that last image, so he knew what he was doing. In effect? He recreated the entire process, in a single sweep, so he had a better handle on what he was doing, the project-management required to reach his results. Wiped it all out, but he had a back-up, and in recreating the entire image, a second time? He had better ideas, and further refinements. These little digital cameras are useful like that, bet a phone has camera good enough to grab that shot to measure your Moon Child, Cancer success.
The Leo
The landlord, “Mr. Libra Landlord” in Austin claimed my place was “near 400 square feet” in size, “all livable space.” I laughed, and his tax documents suggested that size. The trailer itself was roughly 10 x 20, that’s 200. I guess the patio, and the sidewalk in front, and the parking space were all included at that price and estimation. That’s all long gone, and there’s a high-rise now in that location. But that idea of measurements and how those real estate holdings were measured, and assessed by various bodies? I suppose, if there was trailer on a trailer, or the actual parking space itself, which was quite valuable, all of that did add up, but unless there was double-decker I didn’t know about, maybe a treehouse? I always found that valuation of the property laughable. How do you measure, dear Leo, how do you measure and estimate?
Virgo
Buddy posted along a funny image of a carpenter’s measuring tool, and something about the axiom, “Measure once, cuss twice.” I giggled, and went on my way. A good Virgo will always measure twice, maybe three or four times before cutting. Other signs lack that Virgo precision. There is, however a reminder buried in that humorous message, “Measure once, cuss twice.” It’s an amusing reminder to double-check all the details, and this is a reminder that the days ahead are fraught with spurious details that need to be checked, maybe checked twice, or even three times. Never can be too sure. But like my buddy’s message, “Measure once, cuss twice,” and I can guess that you see how this works. Double-check what you just double-checked, to make sure.
“Belt and suspenders?”
Sure, “Same difference, man.”
- Aperture: ƒ/1.8
- Camera: iPad Pro (11-inch) (3rd generation)
- Flash fired: no
- Focal length: 3mm
- ISO: 50
- Shutter speed: 1/60s
