Richard's Poor Almanac by Richard Thompson for December 03, 2020

The colors! The colors!

I’m working on a novelization of ‘Gilligan’s Island,’ but with a twist. Think “Dr. Moreau” meets “Lord of the Flies” with a dash of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

I LOVE the “Insipid” meteor shower!

The planets are protecting Pluto.

The gibbous moon is approaching, followed by the parties and the bilious moon.

And if I don’t get what I want for Christmas, there will be a sullen moon and a boorish moon.

Who needs Nostradamus. Richard Thompson had it all worked out.

If you’re interested in something real, look up in the south after it gets dark. You’ll see a pair of “stars.” The bright one, to the lower right, is Jupiter, and the dim one, on the upper left, is Saturn. They will keep getting closer together until Dec 21, when they’ll appear closer than they have been since when Galileo was alive! Fun to show to the kids. If you manage to hold a good pair of binoculars steadily enough (prop it against a pole or something), you can just make out Saturn’s rings, and maybe a couple of Jupiter’s moons. Easy to see with even a small telescope.

Definitely second-rate constellations. Maybe they’re just visiting, say, from the Southern Hemisphere, where they don’t even have a North Star, for gosh sakes!