Columnist Susan Snyer: December sees good moon rising

Susan Snyer

Friday, Dec. 7, 2001 | 9:22 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

If you're one of those bah humbugs who hates all the holiday hooey maybe you'd like it better if it happened in June.

After all, for many of us December means that it's dark when we go to work, and it's dark when we go home. How many times have you left your sunglasses on your desk when you go home? How many times have you cared?

Maybe you should take up astronomy. With the shortest day of the year -- Dec. 21 -- flanked by the longest nights of the year, December is to an astronomer what a month of Sundays is to a preacher. Or a television football fan.

The Las Vegas Astronomical Society newsletter says there are a host of viewing events this month with "the occultation of Saturn being especially notable." That has something to do with Saturn actually being obscured, rather than visible. So you might have to hang out with someone who knows where it's supposed to be, so you can see where it isn't.

The Geminids meteor shower is Thursday, and viewers may see up to 100 meteors and hour, the society says. There's a new moon on Dec. 14 and full moon on Dec. 30. For more information, check out the society's web page, ccsn.nevada.edu/LVAS/ LVASMain.html.

And cheer up, for pete's sake.

An 11-year-old Henderson girl may have a future as an advice columnist.

Alyssa Fowler, who attends White Middle School, wrote some advice about how to deal with a sticky friend issue, and it was printed in December's Highlights for Children, a national magazine.

Fowler's advice was among several tidbits of wisdom printed in response to a Highlight's reader's request on how to handle a friend who goes out and buys the same thing every time the reader buys something for herself.

"The same thing happened to me," Fowler wrote. "I got very frustrated. Then I went to a very close family member for help -- my grandmother. She just said, 'Congratulations.' I was confused. I asked her why she said that, and she told me that my friends looked as me as inspiration, and that I was a trendsetter. You have to admit it does feel good for people to look at you as inspiration and as a role model."

Bet it does, and Fowler sounds like she'd be a good one. Bully for her.

Jeepers, you're still down in the dumps? You need a lights.

Hop in the car, grab a cup of that $6 triple-shot-skinny-mocha-choca-lada-yaya and cruise the holiday displays.

At Palm Mortuary.

Even Ned Phillips, vice president of community relations, laughed a little when asked, "It's a little different, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," Phillips said. "I kind of look at it as the circle of life. We've had many favorable comments from people whose loved ones are buried in our cemeteries."

The light-covered, wrought-iron animal families are lit from dusk (which comes too early) until midnight at two Palm locations: 7600 S. Eastern Ave., just south of Warm Springs Road in Green Valley, and 6701 N. Jones Blvd., north of Centennial Parkway in the north end of the valley.

Admission is free, unless, of course, you plan to stay. There's another whole set of rules for that arrangement.

And cheer up, already.