Shadow Dancing with the Full Cold Moon

I looked out the nighttime window, only to discover that (as the man said), the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. And so I ran out to see it and photograph it. I have had this new super-zoom camera for a couple of months now, and any of you who have one know how awesome it can be for moon shots. So on this night, I put the camera through its moon paces.

The clouds were coming and going, and the moon kept disappearing and reappearing. I sat in a chair in front of one of the cars in the driveway, put my camera bag on the little table in front of me, and heard a distinctive Meow. A small figure emerged from the darkness and tried to jump into my lap. So it was that I was joined by LGK, also known as Stryker, the neighbor kitty, for my moon views.

Earlier in the day, there was a separate adventure, a boating adventure, actually. The gameland is not ours again until Sunday, when the main deer hunting season ends. So we haven't been in the Barrens since it started. (I'm practically in withdrawal over it, if you must know.) My husband wanted to jog, and so we went to Buffalo Run Park instead of the Barrens.

T. Tiger made an odd request. He wanted to take his little red boat along, and his pal Lil RBG, and go on a boating adventure. So I acquiesced. Into my bag they all went, and when we were down by the stream at the park, I got everybody out and we settled in for our boat ride.

There once was a Tiger that put to sea,
His first mate's name was RBG!!!

Oh, wait. That's an old story. Here is today's story! We tried putting the boat in at several places, but the current was strong and there were rapids. I didn't want to lose any creatures or hats. (T. Tiger passed his hat along to Lil RBG and we thought she looked so cute in it.) So we sat on the little wooden bridge a while trying to decide what to do.

Then Lil RBG sat on a rock by the creek, pretending to be a siren, luring sailors to their deaths (OH, THE HORRORS!!!), but T. Tiger wasn't having any of that death stuff, oh no! Nobody got lured anywhere. Nobody capsized or drowned or got washed away.

In the end, I determined that the water was too high and too wide and too fast for the boat to actually go INTO the creek, even for the tiniest ride. Everybody got some fresh air and nobody went into the drink, though Lil RBG did take a tumble from her rock (siren calling being harder work than it apparently sounds like). But we didn't even lose the hat. So we consider it a successful boating adventure!

I have two photos for this day, so let's have two songs. First, for our moon show, here is Andy Gibb, with Shadow Dancing. And second, for our boating party who never actually got to, you know, go INTO the water, here's Lilith Fair (Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan, and Jewel), with Water Is Wide.

P.S. About the December full moon names . . . . I came across an article that talks about this. The names for December's moon are:
Mohawk - Cold Moon
Mohican - Long Night Moon
Cree - Drift Clearing Moon, Frost Exploding Trees Moon (say WHAT?), and Hoar Frost Moon
Haida and Cherokee - Snow Moon