A question from Louie: “While I’ve heard the expression “once in a Blue Moon”, but I didn’t know there really was such a thing. What is it, and how often does it occur?”

Obviously, having heard the expression, you know that “once in a Blue Moon” refers to a long time between events occurring. After much research (and confirmed by my wife), the International Society of Weights, Measures and Standards has established that “once in a Blue Moon” refers to the mean time between occurrences of the average husband successfully placing his dirty socks in the clothes hamper.

Now not all accept this definition (many wives say the Blue Moon happens a lot more often), and so we must default to the older, better known definition. Astronomically, a Blue Moon has become to be known as the second full moon to occur in any one calendar month (although that definition was changed because of a magazine writer’s error.) Since the moon takes just slightly less than a whole month to go through its phases, full moons almost always occur in successive months, as opposed to twice in the same month. It’s such a rare occurrence, it only happens once in a bl….. well, you get the picture.