It's a Marvelous night for a Moon Dance

It's a full moon tonight. We pull up to the parallel park job like we're merging on a highway, but the moon captures the show with its large beautiful self rising about the silhouette of a leafless tree up the way. "Wow." I think of my friend in Oregon and wonder if she will share in the gorgeousness a few hours later.
Orion and I scamper up the steps, and I find, though it's only six pm, I'm ready for bed. Pj's on, dog bone for Orion, I watch a tv show cast a lamination into my dark room. Orion moves about the room, couch to bed, bed to couch, chewing his bone, my toes, his antler, his reindeer. I wonder to myself how he has such persistent energy even after our hour walk. Ah to be him. Sleep eight hours a day. Food gifted in the form of toys. Snuggles. Hugs. Told I love you daily. The boy has it made. The girl does too, I think as he lands across my legs all 58 pounds of him.
"Orion it's 8 PM. We could go to sleep." I roll horizontally beside him, throwing an arm over him. "Or, we could go check out that moon." I start singing, "It's a wonderful night for a moon dance..." as if for once, I might actually know the words. I sound Frank Sinatra like. I'm conjuring the spirit, and so I fling my legs over the edge of the bed and will myself up.
Tangled in my toes are leashes I've woven together to extend into the worlds longest Orion leash. "Perfect!" I say, scooping them up to hook them on my boy.
Leash around waist, red light lit around his collar, we are out the door for our moon dance.
I'm spinning circles, arms spread out wide. Pirouettes in the gravel. "Well it's a marvelous night for a moon dance..." Orion is content chasing the constantly moving extendo-leash. Tired, I plunk down in the single chair positioned in the yard. The back gives a little where it's broken and I think of what I would look like, pink plaid legs tossed in the air, likely into dog poo in the pitch black night singing to the full moon. Life is good.
Orion climbs in my lap and I delight for the brief moment he allows the ability to give him hugs and snuggle him closer. "There's your star set Orion," I say, and I tell him again how I choose his name. "It is the only star set I can find no matter where I am, and I moved a lot Orion, so it was a grounding experience to see them always up in the night sky. I figured that would be a great name for my first dog." He listens intently.
"I use to have a friend too who loved to sit out under the full moon. We'd go camping," I say. "Ironic, your stars and that memory side by side." And I pause thinking of the friend long past and how like most things one can apply whatever energy they want to memories, and I smile at that friend and of that time in my life.
Orion climbs off.
"Well, should we just go for a walk?"
Leashes collected, we loop through the front and pop out on the main street. Strutting across the street, I like the image of our shadows stretching out in front of us.
"Oh if I could capture this as a photograph I would dear friend," but instead etch it into the mind, tug his head away from the discarded McDonalds bag and round the corner of the block. We cruise down the street, jerking right to scare a bunny. I note to myself that perhaps my intention for a litter-box trained bunny may indeed be ill conceived with this boy, and bump into our friend Herb, out walking his small dog as well. Herb wishes us a good year, misses a few lines from me with his hard hearing, comments on Orion's "christmas light" and then continues on his way. I enjoy Herb. I enjoy knowing there's a 70 year old guy who gets up and walks his 15 pound dog each and every day and smiles in greeting whenever he sees me. We pass by a house and I think about how I want to own a house. And as we walk along the sidewalk, see the lights flashing in the homes, I am happy. I have my dog. I have my neighborhood. And with the moon shinning, the hour nine o'clock, I figure I can sneak in for bed with a guilt free conscious.