Full Moon Sign

Can someone explain horoscopes to me?  The word itself comes from the ancient Albanian:  "hor" - horse, "osco" - dung, and "pes" - dispenser, as in the modern candy toy, Pez.  So from the root of the word, we know that  "horoscopes" are "dispensers of horse dung."

Take the winners of that last lottery (and wouldn't you like to?)  How do we account for the fact that they all had people who had the same birthdays as they do, and those people didn't win doodly-squat?

Now here is something I found online for my sign, which happens to be Cancer, the Crab. (This is supposed to me that I am crusty on the outside while being adorably squishy underneath that hard shell.)

Here is how things are purported to be shaping up for me this month: 

Cancer Monthly Horoscope: April 2012

The news is not very good: Venus, the planet of love, will disappear in the shadow for approximately four months. It could be the sign of a sentimental disappointment, of some loss, loneliness or frustration. Or of some emotional addiction.

Maybe it's about the need to put love aside in order to dedicate yourself to family or to humor your parents, or to sacrifice a relationship from some imposed reasons.

There is also a possibility that this aspect signals the appearance of a secret relationship, a forbidden love or desired isolation, away from everybody's indiscreet eyes.

Regardless of the situation, your relational life will somehow remain burdensome or deprived of free choice. 

Gee whiz, I really had not noticed that Venus had gone behind a shadow, blighting my love life.  I just checked with Peggy on that, and she said, "So far, so good," so this can't apply to me.   I don't know about the part about humoring my parents, either.  My Dad used to laugh at a lot of my gags, but the sense of humor that he took with him to his grave was far more sophisticated than mine.  Where I have Jerry Lewis, Bill Murray and Howard Stern, Dad liked Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde and - for reasons I never fully understood - Morey Amsterdam and Sid Caesar.  I do humor my mother at every possible turn; just ask her.

And for the love of Pete, I have no interest in a secret relationship, a forbidden love or desired isolation.  I don't keep secrets from Peggy, she never forbids me anything, and I don't wanna be isolated. 

And another thing about horoscopes is that the same fatuous predictions are supposed to apply to every person who shares a birthday.  Well, hello there, Michael Phelps, Fantasia, Stanley Clarke, Mike Tyson and Vincent D'Onofrio: all of whom first saw the first light of day on the last day of June in various years.  I also share a height (6'5") and a high school (Towson) with Phelps, and, like him, I have been in a pool.  But that hardly means that my life will be like his or Fantasia's or certainly Mike Tyson's.


But our horoscopes say otherwise!  Whom to believe?