On the last day of January, tomorrow, there will be an unusual lunar event: a super blood moon. It will coincide with a King Tide and a low front moving in from the Pacific. The moon will be full and closer to the earth making it appear 14% larger in the sky, hence the moniker "Super". It is also the second full moon this month, making it "Blue". There will also be a full lunar eclipse in the northern hemisphere on Wednesday night. All of this gravitational pulling and pushing will make for extreme high and low tides referred to as King Tides. Right now the wind is hurling raindrops at the windows. It is just above zero and the driving rain is creating puddles pooling in every dip on the landscape.

My mom's best friend died this week. If I were a poet I would try to express the sadness and pain that her loss has created, I would try to evoke in my readers all the feelings and memories associated with a woman from my childhood who I regarded as an extended parent. I would try to express the pain that my mom is feeling, as if a limb were torn from her. I would try to describe the way her laughter would escape in a wide open mouth in surprise and how she would close her lips tight, trying to suppress the outburst of joy, with a musical giggle, from getting away from her.

It is apt that the tides are extreme this week. It is right that the waves and tides should rise and roil. Nothing should be calm; Jan is gone. She will be sorely missed.

I'll be back next Tuesday, hope to see you then.