2013-01-02 – The first day of trading in 2014 saw stocks fall 135 points. The apocalypse is upon us. After all, stocks haven’t fallen on the first day of trading since . . . since . . . since 2008, which is, like, almost forever ago.

Get real people! Haven’t you ever noticed the erratic pattern of the stock market? Up one day, down another day. Jittery. Excessively erratic. Reactive to news that has nothing to do with the underlying value of a stock. Miley Cyrus twerking? Sell! Sell! Sell! The hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run? Buy! Buy! Buy! It only stands to reason.

If there is anything to this omen, then the Northeast and Midwest should expect blizzard conditions for the rest of 2014.

I don’t think I could take that. I shoveled our walks (with a hand shovel) twice yesterday. Our walks are a big job, since we live on the corner. And I often do the neighbors’ walks while I’m out there. So I did it twice and our neighbor did it twice in return. Four more times today. If this is what we have to look forward to in 2014, then I’m signing up to go straight to 2015.

Another omen for the year is the fact that the year began with a new moon. As a consequence there will be 13 new moons in 2014, more than your average 12. This prediction is a fact. This evening the sky cleared and I actually saw the setting sliver of newish moon—well enough to verify that yesterday must have been the new moon.

In Googling this to make sure of my visual estimate, I discovered that there will be five SuperMoons this year. I never heard of SuperMoons until a couple years ago, which makes me think that this is just another example of hyping something that is fairly common and not particularly spectacular (my hunch is supported by the fact that the phenomenon is apparently spelled as one word with an internal capital letter—and please don’t tell me if I am wrong).

I had thought that SuperMoons were full moons that occur when the Moon makes its closest approach to the Earth (perigee), but apparently SuperMoons include new moons that occur at perigee. Wikipedia says these occur about once every 14 months. The approximately-a-year cycles makes sense if SuperMoons only included full moons, but doesn’t make sense if it also includes new moons.

SuperMoons are such spectacular events that neither you nor I would be able to tell one is occurring by simply observing the moon. We need to be told by the media.

Accordingly, I propose a new celestial phenomenon called a SuperDuperMoon, which is any phase of the moon other than full or new that occurs at the moon’s perigee or apogee or any place in between.

Then we would know whether the rise or fall of stocks are a valid indicator of the year to come.

Or whether to trust a weather forecast.