How many moons ago was that?

Any time, day or night, we can turn our heads skyward and be amazed. Infinity is up there, and we are lucky enough to be able to take a look, any time we please.

During the day, the planets and the stars are hidden by mass amounts of light. Hidden by the brightness — what a thing. But at night, there is just enough reflection against that dark sky to make them twinkle, twinkle. How I wonder where they are.

Those big brained astrophysicists keep changing the number of planets in our solar system. I’d like to say there’s an even nine, like I had seen so many times before, in those spinning styrofoam balls that we painted, and strung on bent up hangers. But alas. It is an official eight. Pluto used to be a dwarf planet, but now it has been demoted to an icy body. Much like myself.

Planets. Moons. There are two planets in our solar system that do not have moons at all. They are Mercury and Venus. But the others make up for it. Jupiter has 79 moons. Saturn has 62. And the others are various in the ranks. But here is the thing. There are 193 moons in total, and they all have names. Erinome, Albiorix, Kari, and Loge. But not ours. Nope.

Our Moon is officially called Moon. That’s it. The Greeks and Romans sometimes called it Luna, or Selene. But scientifically it is named plain old Moon.

I guess it is a good thing. There are a gazillion songs with “Moon” in the title. Think of the troubles if all those had to go by a different name. “There’s a Bad Moon Rising” wouldn’t sound nearly as cool as “There’s a Bad Bebhionn Rising.”

Pretty soon, it may be possible for us common folk to go up and visit the Moon. I won’t be one. If I go to space, I’m going to be a bonafide astronaut with the NASA patch on my arm. None of this spending a big stack of dollars to board a rocket driven by some start-up-spaceship-just-add-water scheme. So, it seems, I’ll just have to stand here on earth, and believe that it really might be cheese.

And that’s okay. I like the days of the cows jumping over. The fork and knife making their way off somewhere, while the dish ran away with the spoon. That cat. That fiddle. While the little dog laughed.

I got a little dog. And tonight we might go outside and have a good old howl at that Moon.

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“We all shine on…like the moon and the stars and the sun…we all shine on…come on and on and on…”
― John Lennon

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“The moon is friend for the lonesome to talk to.”
― Carl Sandburg

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“But even when the moon looks like it’s waning…it’s actually never changing shape. Don’t ever forget that.”
― Ai Yazawa

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