“You may as well talk about the cycles of the sky!” That is how our assigned Attorney greeted the weekend. We had been talking about the waxing gibbous Moon that under clearing skies the bathed Refuge Farm in silver-colored light sharp enough to cast shadows. She stood up, almost flounced in emotion and went to the uni-access rest facilities to take a break from the possibe slide to insurrection around the Fire Ring.

It wasn’t, of course. We were just shooting the s___, a word we are not supposed to use in The Daily. It was common for all of us. Military influenced for most, but similar to Melissa in the business world and Buck in the Faculty Lounge. For those of us that flew, the waxing cycle of our Lunar companion was a way of cheating the peril of a bouncing black deck in a black A___ night. With the light of the sun long gone below the horizon.

Splash laughed as the legal watchdog passed out of earshot. “So, the Russians are said to have used one of their hypersonic missiles in Ukraine yesterday. What the h___ does that mean? Strength or weakness? What does that suggest about Red China’s intentions in the Western Pacific?”

DeMille tried a scientific approach to that. “The use of a weapon probably in short supply indicates trouble in logistics, manufacturing and sustainment. The Chinese- don’t call them ‘Red,’ please, that is only confusing these days with the Blue and the Red all inverted these days. It is a signal in both directions.”

“But still bright at night. Is that a factor in the targeting? Does the system require some optical capability is required for final solution?”

“No word on that from the Old Salts. It does suggest that Russia wasn’t ready for what they got. At this point, neither does it suggest weakness beyond using a strength that may be in short supply, and increase the possibility that something else may pop up in the struggle.”

“And the laptop stuff. What on earth does that mean?”

“You mean what was false was true and what was true suddenly isn’t?”

“Don’t even start that. We have been told that a bunch of stuff that would have resulted in a media pandemonium when it was first revealed is now just a sort of minor correction?”

“You sound like Bill Barr. We thought he was a pretty good Attorney General for a minute, then an unreliable apparatchik, and now a wise old leader.”

“His interviews this week actually sum it up pretty well. He thinks that former President’s inclination to fight on everything was unwise. He talked about getting a cheap shot in an intramural football game in which he played. He told the President he served that he could have just dropped his helmet and gone after the guy who slugged him. Instead, he kept his helmet on, played the game to a victorious conclusion and then decked the guy.”

“Why would he be wearing a helmet in an intramural level game?”

“He didn’t actually say that. But there was a greater truth in my reinterpretation of what he actually did say.”

“Isn’t that like the American Bread Lines Tucker was talking about last night?”

“Laptops and bread. They are just props in two parallel but opposing narratives. It is sort of fund to follow, but I confess I wish it wasn’t happening here. I thought we were beyond that.”

“They came to Tucker’s house when he was on the air and scared the s___ out of his wife and kids. That is when they decided to let him be a little angry on his show.”

“Is that true?” There was general laughter to that. The conversation went on, and there was speculation that the laptop was part of a continuing narrative involved in the honorable retirement of a Chief Executive due to health, rather than some tawdry examination of all those strange pictures. The off-script moment on the podium in which inadvertantly disclosure of pictures could involve some illicit exchange of something else?”

“I thought that was as strange as the time he talked about threatening to withhold taxpayer aid unless a prosecutor looking at something in what is now a war zone was dismissed.”

“Just relax. This is all supposed to be normal now. Things are returning to regular order, uncertainty is transitory, and we all ought to ride bicycles to use all those useless lanes they put on the roads.”

The uni-facility door slammed and we knew the attorney was coming back to join us. DeMille did that little hand-wavy thing he does to remind us to speak more cautiously. We did. We talked about the light of the moon, and the way a waxing moon grows.

Splash knows how much a little light from any source can be a good thing on a dark night while moving at a few hundred miles and hour. “The Waxing Gibbous phase is when the moon goes from half-full to complete, like it was last night.”

“Waxing means it is getting fuller, while gibbous is the technical term for the oval-to-round presentation,”said Loma, as another aviator who was grateful for any assistance to the individual moving the controls on the jet in which he was riding.”

“Does that mean it is doing the opposite of Gibbousing now. Waning? We can’t even see it.”

“It is the nature of objective observation. We have had better night flying conditions for a week or so, and now it will be darker through the course of the rest of the month. Waning.”

“Good to see it is something we can count on. Unless there are clouds or something.” Our Attorney smiled. She had succeeded in getting us to talk about the weather, and that meant she could make a good report. That made us all happy. It is a Saturday after all, and that meant there was a whole weekend to talk privately about all that other stuff.

Loma wasn’t ready to let the controversy go, to no one’s surprise. He smiled, and said: “As the illuminated part of the Waxing Gibbous Moon grows to 98-99%, it can be challenging to differentiate it from a Full Moon.”

Splash laughed. “Bright tonight. And nobody has to actually wax anything. There is hope.”

(As opposed to waxing lunar objects, the more talented ones here paint rocks.)

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