May’s flowers blooming from April’s showers have been a little hard to find this year. Maybe that’s because we haven’t had any showers. South Carolina just endured its fourth driest April in well over a century. We’re finally getting some moisture but it’s going to take a whole lot more to move us from “severe” to “moderate” on the drought scale. On the other hand May’s full moon was right on time… and it’s going to be right on time again.
A bookend is “one or two things occurring or located at either end of something else”. It’s not the sexiest of words but it’s entirely fitting for today’s topic. A full moon rose on May 1st and it’ll rise again on May 31st, like a pair of shiny silver dollar bookends. I think it’s mesmerizing to look at the full moon on a pitch-black night. And two full moons? Well that’s just double the pleasure.
May’s first full moon came with the label Flower Moon, to acknowledge “landscapes erupting into bloom”. No sir, not even close. If you ask me this year’s May 1 moon should’ve been named Weed Moon because weeds were about the only thing erupting around here. No matter what grows or doesn’t grow the rest of the month, May’s other full moon will be Blue Moon because that’s what we call the second one in a calendar month. You only get a Blue Moon ever two or three years.
I get a Blue Moon every two or three weeks, but now I’m talking about beer instead of Earth’s solo satellite. I’m not a big beer drinker but a Blue Moon adorned with its signature orange slice sure hits the spot after hot and sweaty yardwork. Molson-Coors has been brewing Blue Moon since 1995 and they’ve put several taste spins on it, like Honey Moon, Harvest Moon, and Full Moon. This time of year you can purchase a six of Rising Moon, which amps up the citrus flavors in anticipation of summer, but I’m still inclined to go with the original Blue.
Speaking of full moons, we should be happy ours is a perfect sphere (save for a few craters). The technology of the James Webb Space Telescope is teaching us a lot more about the other planets in our solar system. Neptune, the most distant of the eight (with apologies to little Pluto, kicked out of the club in 2006) has sixteen moons, but most of them look like orbiting shards instead of spheres. Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, made like a bowling ball back when it entered the planet’s gravitational pull, busting up a beautiful array of perfectly round orbs. Imagine if our moon looked like a shard instead of a ball. We wouldn’t be talking about full moons at all, let alone blue ones.
The upcoming Blue Moon gets its name from an utter lack of imagination. I was hoping the word would refer to the moon itself, perhaps the result of some lunar bioluminescent algae like you see with an ocean red tide. Or maybe the blue would represent the tears of Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon, crying over some mythological misfortune. Instead, a “blue moon” is actually caused by Earth, in the rare occurrence where our forest fires or volcanoes generate atmospheric emissions which really do shade the moon blue. I’ve never seen this phenomenon before but even if I did, it probably wouldn’t come with a full moon. C’mon, we need a better name for “second full moon in a calendar month”. I propose “Déjà vu Moon”.
Speaking of déjà vu, you might have read about full moons in this blog before, in my post Sphere Elegance. It’s a little nostalgic to read something you wrote ten years ago. The focus back then was more on the science and less on the entertainment value (I’ve learned to flip-flop the two over the years since), but at least I was consistent with the definitions and my affection for the like-named beer. Hey, maybe I should address this topic every ten years. Then I could say I was writing about it, you know… once in a blue moon.
Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
Life In A Word 
I think we should divide the year into 13 months and see if we can give each full moon its own month.
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It would slow down our birthdays, too!
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Great idea – who needs blue moons, right? Seems to me there’s another calendar out there in history that mimicked what you suggest. We could add the change in the bill looking to eliminate Daylight Savings Time!
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Up into the 20s there was a car manufactured in St. Louis called the Moon. I always wanted one (a blue one, of course) so I could tell people about something I did once in a blue Moon. I know, that joke would get old mighty fast. So maybe I’ll just join you in your cold Blue Moon in a bottle.
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There was a time I wanted a green AMC Pacer so I could fill the glove compartment with packs of Pacers, which were mint-flavored Starburst-like candies that weren’t around very long. The mind of a child, right? 🙂
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Hmm, I didn’t know about two moons this month Dave, so that is interesting to know about. Unlike some lunar events where the weather spoils the viewing, we might even be able to see this moon because we have beautiful weather for about 10 days in a row which must be our reward for a rainy and stormy Spring … if you’re looking for the rain, we had your rain apparently. We were in moderate drought the past two years, but now we’re in good shape. But we had such a cold Spring, that people were advised not to plant before Memorial Day as we had frost warnings up ’til about 10 days ago.
We have some local craft breweries around here and up north with beer with fun names. I have never heard of Blue Moon beer, but, for me “Blue Moon” by The Marcels is the name of an old song from the 50s or 60s. Back in the day some high school friends had a “greaser band” that was modeled after the band Sha Na Na (who appeared in the movie “Grease”). The band played 50s songs and my friends and I used to dress up in 50s attire and go to places where they played, usually at high school gigs.
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Yes, Blue Moon beer might be a more regional product (Colorado) than I think. As for THE Blue Moon, we’ll miss the view based on the local forecast over the next several days. Overcast and rainy (which no one is complaining about because we desperately need the moisture). At least we saw the Flower Moon earlier in the month!
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Someone must have done a rain dance for you to get multiple rainy days in a row – that was us a few weeks ago.
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Thanks for the full moon alert, I didn’t realize there were two this month. I’ll be on the lookout for the next one.
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I get a pretty good view of the moon out my kitchen window, always enjoy seeing the full moon. I think we got a months worth of rain Memorial Weekend. So depressing!
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A photo of the full moon in among the NYC skyscrapers would be so cool. Know of a decent photographer who could capture the image? 😉
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It’s a lovely (almost) full moon out there tonight……and I’m watching the Montreal Canadiens lose against the Carolina Hurricanes 5-0, in the 3rd period so it’s looking pretty hopeless….but I wish just once in a blue moon that a Canadian team would win!
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I’m old enough to remember the “heyday” of the Canadiens. Guy Lafleur comes to mind. Back then I was growing up in Los Angeles, so the sport of hockey was something of a mystery. Now L.A. has the Kings, who it’s safe to say have been better than the Canadiens for many years now. The world is upside down 🙂
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South Carolina way outplayed them…..there’s no doubt about that….but Montreal apparently is a fairly young (age wise) team. But they did good to get that far.
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PS. I think in the hey day of Montreal there were fewer teams. Now every city has both a hockey and baseball team, so competition is fierce. There is just more talent out there. I checked the baseball standings, most teams on average have won as many as they have lost, except for the Dodgers. The Blue Jay blew a 5-1 lead against Baltimore today in the bottom of the 9th. It was unbelievable….definitely they are struggling with their pitching….there are still many off on the injury list so I doubt they will get far this year.
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I only wish they were the “South” Carolina Panthers. They actually play in Charlotte, North Carolina!
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I did notice the parity with MLB teams this year, at least according to the W-L records. Teams like the Dodgers seem to get on a roll in July/August (and after trades), so it’ll probably be a few months before we get a sense of who the real contenders are.
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PS. We have had a cold rainy spring, so lots of blooms, but are having a nice sunny stretch of dry weather – it feels like summer now, but with no humidity.
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No humidity? I’d be happy to loan you some!
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So THAT’S where the phrase Blue Moon came from! Thanks for the education, Dave. When it comes to full moons, I look forward to the one in autumn, the large and golden Harvest Moon. Mesmerizing!
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