Last weekend, we combined a full moon, along with the day and evening entering into it, with a harvest moon and the day-into-night when the applicable seasons change.
If you go out on the town, the Hudson downtown, you go less than a block before you see it’s different, and skewed in a crazed direction, even more on Friday, the night before the full moon, when the seconds ticked into Saturday. Bar workers will tell you a full moon has a significant effect on human behavior, especially when combined with other adjoining factors.
So, less than a block heading south, there were a group of young men gathered beneath a building with a sizeable outcropping — it was needed — trying without any applicable gear to scale the outside wall and reach the second floor and get onto the roof. And then get down. Two made it, then had a harder time getting back to the sidewalk, the latter more than the former. I joked with them, and they then were on their way to the busier part of the city, where they would moreso than impressing me, maybe find women who would find their endeavors charming, in a macho versus feminine way.
To wit, even if somewhat flipped: Two blocks later, upon reaching my destination, I soon encountered a young woman seemingly with a Brazilian accent, who told me — when I quipped about the soccer game on sports bar TV — that she had an interesting, I thought, pair of occupations. The game that was on was kinda lame, as in typical futbal that is not Super Bowl caliber, she said, and her team plays better. She is its goal keeper, and I think that’s the right term. And she also was flexable, as a standup comedian. The obvious joke was that she could play her game during the day, then write a comedy routine, if she has game, to use before a different audience at night. (Insert joke about Brandy Chastaine taking a shirtless slide long before it was popular.)
She must have thought I have game, with my own comedic gag, as she literally gave me her birdie. A small ceramic one, and I could keep it from this goal keeper. There is another obvious joke here: If you take someone’s birdie, do you in a figurative way, dare I say it, take their viginity? Sounds much the same, I thought, but did not go there, take the bait and say it, in a figurative way mind you. But I must instead say, I was a bit relieved, at age 65, when she said goodbye and headed for the door.
But if a young goal keeper gives you her birdie, even if they fly away, does it mean that you as an older man have (finally) arrived? This story has another end, like the soccer field netting on each side of a field. She gave another birdie to the bartender, a woman. So hmm, dismissive of me? Or … The soccer player had told me on first glance that I should give that comely bartender all my money as a tip, say about $500, so then her birdie … Is such a bird worth $500?
On to Dick’s Bar, where bartender Sarah informed me, with a fist bump, about the harvest moon situation. I also was later informed that the full moon would only be present later, on the 24-period we were entering into. But the either solstice or equinox, I forget which, it sticks.
I told the Norm-like friend at the bar, and a man behind it, beating my chest like Robin-red-breast and bragging just a bit, about my birdie experience. Neither was all that impressed. Being at a tavern for that long, you have seen it all. So Bye, Bye Birdie. The latter was also asked about the status of football, NFL or Brazilian. He it seemed, was much more knowledgable than I.
This was the weekend of the biggest arts and music festival of the year, and the Sunday to end it was met with a pleasant but overcast day. At noon, the traffic on the end by the entry seemed a little slim, and it was worse on the sidewalks running up to the downtown.
Later, as told at Dick’s on a Monday morning gathering of business people, they had flown to Dallas for a game wearing Packer jerseys, on a plane, there were cheers. Got to a Cowboy-themed gift shop and bar, and all were cheering for The Pack. Then gradually, as the game changed, the tide turned, and the cheers were more Dallas-style.Then someone shouted loudly, and was joined by others: “The Packers suck. Fire LaFleur.” And so it went. Not as consistent as encountering not a goalie, but a Cowboys cheerleader. (I’ve run into three former ones while downtown in Hudson. So the area is ripe for that.)
Went there to Dick’s to say hello to bartender Victoria, of The Cities, who she said became sidetracked while looking out of place, imagine that, with a story about the tender at Sidetrack in Roberts, of all places. But there was here, a small but noticeable handwritten sign that said about the oldest brew in the home state of Wisconsin, Yuengling, in this the oldest bar therein, and maybe beyond, tan and black beer, offered for $2. While supplies last. Probably not long.
For most of the weekend, I was unusually tired and doggy and mostly just settled in at my apartment. Between googled information and my own thinking, it seems this became my version of nesting, or one earlier might have said roosting. Our ancestors were in a mode where unless they were out hunting and gathering, they stayed in whatever enclave they had to be away from predators, and it seems this has stuck. Stay put. After sundown, that was the game. Women with a baby at their breast, so to speak, also would thus hunker down, unless they were doing brief stints of picking berries while carrying a child. Men might be an exception, as their was an advantage to roaming, as they might encounter news herds to prey upon. But even that travel might likely be done at night.
So stay in the cave. Don’t go out chasing birdies.