MERCURY RETROGRADE, THE HAUNTED HAIR TRIMMER, ALASKAN SPRING, AND INSANE PARTY ROLLS

Life Can Be So Wonderfully Weird

Hiya Friends!

Have you had any major miscommunications in the past couple of weeks? What about technical snafus? Maybe things feel a little wonky in general? Well, good news! It’s not you, it’s Mercury Retrograde . . . again.

I know this might sound like woo-woo mumbo jumbo to some, but my weekend had Mercury Retrograde written all over it. On Saturday, I traveled forty minutes across town to take a weaving class with my friend, Tracy. The organizers of the event had sent me the following confirmation email with the subject line: Your Workshop Information! See below and please note the word LOCATION in all caps.

I assumed, as one might, that I needed to be at the designated address above to take the class.

When I picked up Tracy, she mentioned that she’d noticed a different address listed on the organizer’s website. After a bit of back and forth, we reasoned that the confirmation email trumped a website listing because nobody ever remembers to update the website. Right?

Well, as you may have gathered, we went to the wrong place. At address #1—the organizer’s storefront—I showed my confirmation email to a young blond with a sympathetic smile who was busy straightening up a shelf. “I see how you might be confused,” she said, peering at my screen, “but that’s a boiler plate address that we include in all our emails. The class address is on the website.”

I bristled at the implication that I was an easily confused dunderhead when, in fact, the wrong address had been included in an email titled “Your Workshop Information!” This was clearly a Mercury Retrograde mishap, but there was no time to argue my case because we were officially late to class. Tracy and I hotfooted it out the door, both stressed that all the good weaving paraphernalia would be snapped up and we’d be left with the dregs.

At the second address, a hipster hotel in West LA, the front desk attendant—a young guy with a ponytail—tapped away at his keyboard, desperately searching for this elusive weaving class. “All the people who would have this info are in a meeting together,” he said flustered, as if he might have to go interrupt a UN Summit to find someone to point us in the right direction.

While he clicked around on his monitor and consoled us with boxes of water, I rang the clerk back at location #1 to find out where pray tell this class might actually be taking place. “All I know is, it’s at The Swim Club,” she said, “does that help?” to which ponytail guy responded, “Oh! The Swim Club!” He sent us up a flight of stairs and finally (!), we found the weavers situated on an open air balcony with a full bar and two vacant seats right next to the instructor’s demo station. (Insert: Angels singing.)

The clerk from location #1 had called ahead to let the class know that we were en route and they had very graciously waited for us to begin. And yes, we were the only ones who showed up at the wrong location which means I was indeed the sole confused dunderhead. (I still blame Mercury Retrograde.) The rest of the class was great fun. More about that later.

WHAT THE HECK IS MERCURY RETROGRADE?

Photo of Mercury from Farmer’s Almanac

I’ll be honest, I’d never really done much digging into the why, what, or how of Mercury Retrograde (M.R.) in the past. As a child of the 1970s, raised on a steady of diet of Linda Goodman’s Love Signs, Starscroll horoscopes, and kefer, I just blindly accepted that Mercury Retrograde’s arrival signaled chaos. But for you, dear readers, I did some Googling and now I have a few facts to share.

Three or four times a year, the planet Mercury looks as though it’s traveling backwards across the sky or in a retrograde motion. In reality, this is only an optic illusion, caused by the speed of Mercury zipping past earth. This current stretch of M.R. started on April 21st and ends on May 14th, so there’s a couple more weeks of annoying 💩 to deal with before the celestial debris settles. Here’s how astrologyzone.com explains the phenomena:

Because Mercury is the planet situated closest to the Sun, its orbit is much shorter than Earth’s. About three or four times a year, Mercury speeds past Earth, and that is when we experience a Mercury retrograde period. If you were in a car and another car passed you, you could tell it was going faster than you. But if it slowed down and you then passed it, it would appear that that car was actually going backward. Then when the other car speeds up and passes you again, it kicks up all of the dust in the road. As Mercury speeds by, it is like a train flying past, creating a powerful, turbulent gust of “wind” in its wake. The turbulence and disruption Mercury creates when it retrogrades can affect what we feel on Earth in our everyday lives.

Mercury rules all types of communication, including listening, speaking, learning, reading, editing, researching, negotiating, selling, and buying. Mercury also rules all formal contracts and agreements, as well as important documents such as book manuscripts or term papers, agreements, deeds, contracts, leases, wills, and so forth. Included under this planet’s domain are all types of code, including computer codes, as well as transportation, shipping, and travel. When this planet retrogrades, these areas tend to get scrambled or spin out of control.

If you listen to the astrology experts, they’ll tell you to avoid signing contracts, starting new projects, or making big purchases during periods of Mercury Retrograde. How we’re supposed to pull that off is beyond me. Does one just call in to work and say, “Hello, Boss Person! I need to take the next three weeks off because it’s Mercury Retrograde and I can’t start any new projects or sign any important papers. See you in mid-May!” I’m sure management would be very understanding. HA.

Since I’ve been attuned to M.R. for over forty years, I prefer to go about my life as usual and blame the planetary shift for anything that goes awry. Give it a try. It’s very liberating.

THE HAUNTED HAIR TRIMMER

The Haunted Hair Trimmer

On the rare occasion that weird stuff happens and it’s not Mercury Retrograde, I blame ghosts. Jared and I reside in a duplex built in the 1920s. We live in one apartment and rent the unit next door to a lovely guy named, Rich. Rich is a therapist and an actor. One day, Rich asked if I thought our apartments might be haunted. “Highly likely,” I said. (In a future post, I will share my ghost encounters 👻.)

Rich had noticed some strange activity in his place, like books mysteriously falling off the shelf, but what really freaked him out was when his electric hair trimmer started turning itself on and off. Even the manufacturer was nonplussed, telling Rich they’d never seen anything like it before.

Around the same time, the oven in our place kept switching itself on and off. I joked about the oven ghost to Jared, but of course, malfunctioning ovens are no laughing matter and we replaced it. Rich, on the other hand, tried to tame his haunted trimmer by unplugging it at night and wrapping the cord around it. Those efforts failed and the hair trimmer eventually switched itself on for good. Days went by and the charge never ran out.

Naturally, Rich was spooked and ordered a replacement, but he hasn’t parted with the haunted trimmer because now he feels a sentimental attachment to the potential spirit trying to communicate with him through a barber’s tool. He wondered if the ghost might be my dearly departed neighbor and friend, Tina Gainsboro who lived on our street for fifty years and died at age 99 in 2020. I suppose anything is possible, but Tina didn’t care for “modern” gadgets. She did love to cook though so she may have been behind the haunted oven situation. Who knows?

FROZEN SPRING IN ALASKA
Meanwhile, Mercury Retrograde is still doing its thing over here. I have no hot water today because our water heater is on the fritz. On Saturday, Rich’s water heater pilot blew out and needed to be reset. It’s fine. I really have nothing to complain about. It’s not like I’m living in a polar vortex and need to keep warm like fellow Substacker, Jenn Hilleary. Her newsletter, Indoorsy, is so much fun to read and chock full of interesting tips and fascinating insights about life in Alaska. I got a real kick out of her latest post about dealing with Springless Spring in Alaska.

Check it out here:

Spring is That You? : Part 2

“IT LOOKS INSANE”
I’m sure you’re all DYING to see the fruits of my labor from the weaving class. Let me preface the reveal by explaining that my party roll, which I will one day hang on my wall with pride, is still a work-in-progress. I obviously need more practice. Suffice it to say, I won’t be opening a shop on ETSY anytime soon. Tracy’s party roll looks way cuter, but she’s a professional graphic designer and has an eye for these things.

When I brought my work-in-progress party roll home, Jared laughed and said, “Did you pick out the colors?” I explained that I used the weaving scraps provided, but I did choose the color combo. He said, mid-guffaw, “It looks insane.” Clearly, Jared doesn’t understand PARTY rolls. Truth be told, I laughed too. I mean, it does kind of a look like a Muppet. Still, I had a lot of fun and weaving proved to be a very meditative type practice. Highly recommend.

From left to right: Our instructor, the kind and patient, Meg Spitzer demonstrating how to remove our party rolls from the loom. Tracy's pro party roll in center stage. And my insane party roll on the end.

Okay, that’s a wrap for this week. Thanks as always for liking, commenting, and sharing my posts. You’re all superstars and your support makes me all verklempt. Here’s hoping Mercury Retrograde leaves you alone and your next two weeks are snafu free. ❤️