Can You Really Balance An Egg On The Equinox?

Can you really balance an egg on its end on the vernal equinox?

I have heard this all my life but I have never tried it. Since I am now in possession of more eggs than anyone needs, I decided to try it today as the equinox approached at 1:32 p.m. and here is what I discovered: Yes. You can.

It's easy-peasy.

But only on dirt.

I took an egg all over the yard and had fun setting it on its end and watching it balance. It took no patience or manipulation. I would just set it down and boom! it balanced.
But when I tried it on a piece of wood or Mr. Moon tried it on the big metal heat pump thing or when I tried it on the wood of his work bench or the rubber of the mat there (even though it is ridged), no way.

But every place I tried it in the dirt, it balanced easily.
I did it on soft dirt which some may say had something to do with the ease of the balance. Perhaps the dirt supported the egg.



And then I took it out to a slanted place in front of the garage where the dirt is hard-packed clay. So hard that it's like brick. And it sat up and begged for attention.

This makes no sense to me at all because dammit, that clay surface was slanted and the surface was far less grippy than that ridged rubber mat.

Finally, just for fun, I set it in the garden between two heads of lettuce.

And yes, the dirt there is soft but I brushed it flat and sort of patted it down with my hand. I left it there and a few hours later it had fallen over.
"The wind," said Mr. Moon.

It is not a windy day.

And then I took it around and tried to balance it in the dirt again. The exact time of the equinox had passed. I could still do it, but I swear to you on the Bible of the Church of the Batshit Crazy (whatever book I am reading at the moment which I adore) it was not as easy.

And tomorrow I'll take the same egg out and see if anything has changed.

The internet assures me that the egg's ability to balance on its end on the equinox is a myth which began, quite possibly with the Chinese.

And Easter, of course, is the Christian take-over of the Pagan celebration of spring which had everything to do with fertility and lust and the joy of the coming-together of the sexes to create new life. I really wish I could have been present at Stonehenge during a Pagan equinox celebration. Or hell, Chichen Itza for that matter. But what represents all of this better than the egg? And what does the Easter Bunny bring? And why did that egg which one of my chickens laid this morning balance like a little trouper in the dirt all over my yard today? And will it do the same tomorrow? And if so, does that make the miracle any less miraculous?

Stay tuned. We shall see what is what tomorrow. I promise you I will report faithfully and truthfully. Because that is what you expect here at Blessourhearts. And that is what you shall receive.

Meanwhile, if you have not celebrated Spring with a fertility ritual, I beg you to do it now. It's not too late.

I have done my part and I hope you will do yours.

As Always...Ms. Moon

Springtime Perversion

Ah. Cozumel. Cozumel. The island of my heart. The place where the air is the softest I've ever felt, where the water is the clearest and bluest and greenest and teal-est and purplest I've ever seen. Where the people's smiles are the sweetest and where I've been quite possibly happiest in my entire life. Where I was with my husband who loved me only for me and my very own charms, and not for ironing his shirts or shoveling shit on the garden or cooking his venison or raising his children.

Just. For. Me.

And why am I talking about Cozumel on the first day of spring, the Vernal Equinox, a day when it is bright blue and clear and the fat buds of the flowers are bursting as we speak?

Oh, because I am perverse I guess and also because in some strange confluence of events, my beloved Garrison Keillor is docking in Cozumel this morning with a cruise ship full of people who also love him and who, in fact, love him enough to pay the big bucks to cruise the Mexican Caribbean with him and his cast of characters, his musicians, his actors, his sound effects guy. Garrison Keillor is in Cozumel as we speak!

Perhaps on a ship like this one:

I took that picture seven years ago when Mr. Moon and I were on the island, staying at a place downtown right across from the damn cruise ship pier (or one of them) and the boats were so big that they blocked our view of the sunset. That's big, people. That's really big.
But still, it was a wonderful trip.

Sigh.

And despite the fact that I adore Garrison Keillor, I wouldn't really want to be on a cruise ship. I am not a cruiser. Did it once. It was not me. So not me. And I'm pretty sure that if by some strange reason I found myself on a cruise ship and it docked in Cozumel, I would get off that boat and I would not get back on. I would just go down the street until I found a cheap place to stay and I would give them my credit card and I would go to my room and I would take off my bra and my shoes and I would lie on the bed and be happy, just smelling the air and knowing I was home. Or, some parallel universe of a home and I wouldn't get off that bed until the cruise ship steamed off without me.

Even if Garrison Keillor was on the ship. Even if.

But all of that is fantasy and I am in Lloyd where I walk around with my camera and take pictures like this:

of my blooming Buckeye and my peeling, beautiful old house and this:


the opening oak-leaf hydrangea and I will work in the garden today and that will all be fine but there's part of me which is here:

Doing this:

And there are no weeds to pull, no meals to cook, no floors to sweep, no worries or schedules or even Garrison Keillors. And I do not wear denim overalls.

So there you go. I am being perverse today and it is spring and I am in Lloyd and Garrison is in Cozumel and Mr. Moon has been turkey hunting and is now helping a friend build a rabbit trap and I haven't even seen him yet today except in my dreams after he left the bed to go to the woods and at six o'clock tonight I will turn on the radio and listen to Prairie Home Companion which was taped on board that cruise ship which brought Mr. Keillor to the island I love and which I know, because I read a Cozumel message board, that a technician named Thomas uploaded from an internet cafe near the cruise ship dock to Minnesota for my listening pleasure and I'll probably be on my ass in the garden, weeding, weeding and I'll listen through my head phones and the world will be even stranger than it is already, Garrison there on my island, me here in my garden, my heart who-knows-where and none of it mattering at all when you take into account the vastness of the universe, the vastness of the neurons in my head, a universe unto themselves, really.

And I'll be confused and I'll feel the earth spinning and I may grow dizzy with it all.

Happy Spring, y'all. Wherever you are in this world, I wish you happy spring.