Thoughts on the way back home

1. Car.

My car has become increasingly cantankerous lately. It refuses to let me put the key in the ignition. This used to be a once-in-a-blue moon thing, but now it does this every other time I get into it.

The way to solve it, of course, is to turn the steering wheel just right, until it "unlocks." Figuring out how far to turn the wheel and which way, however, can be tricky. Especially if I turn it so far that not only is the key locked out of the ignition, the whole wheel gets locked down so I can no longer turn it at all - which means that when I do finally get the key into the ignition, it still won't crank until I turn the wheel some more. All of this occurs without power to the steering column, so sometimes after wrestling with it for 20 minutes I end up really tired as well as cranky.

2. Food.

Middle of the drive train of thought went something like:
a) What should I eat for dinner tonight?
b) Maybe I could bake a potato.
c) I wonder if my potted chives are recovered enough for another harvest yet.
d) Things that go on baked potatoes - sour cream and chives, cheddar cheese and bacon...
e) Hmm. Bacon. BacOs chips. I used to eat those things straight out of the plastic jar. Sooo unhealthy. Straight partially dehydrogenated veggie oil.
f) I remember when partial dehydrogenation was considered okay. Butter used to be bad. Now it's good.
g) Hmmm. food fads.
h) Clothes fashion trends.
i) Back in the 80's there was a fad about shoulder pads in all the tops - shirts, sweaters, jackets. You couldn't buy a top without having shoulder pads in them. We used to cut them out as soon as we got the clothes home. Later on the fashion dictators up top noticed that nobody liked them, and so then they all came with velcro. Then, a while after that, the whole thing thankfully disappeared.
j) Pants lengths. Bellbottoms back in the 70s, and now we're back to pants all the way down to the floor again.
k) "I could've been a Toreador!" "Not in those shoes, dear." (Jhael, in a WoD game on RPoL, 12 Jun 2007).
l) Good lord, how did I start thinking about all this? *rewind rewind rewind*

3. Moon.

(Actually, I was thinking about this one last night rather than tonight, but it's one of those recurring thoughts that probably won't go away until I do something about it.)

Last night's moon was a waxing crescent, hanging low in the western sky at midnight. It was lovely, sort of a creamy color with faded reds where clouds covered it.

I run a game where the moon comes up a lot. That is, its location in the sky at what time during what phases. I've yet to actually work it all out in my head, and really need to make myself a chart. Basically, though, I've simplified it down to:
a) full moon is directly overhead at midnight.
b) new moon is directly overhead at noon.
c) half moons should therefore be directly overhead at dawn or dusk (or 6pm). Which is at dawn and which is at dusk though?
d) And where does this put the crescents?