One of the things I like most about summer is the muggy, quiet nights when it's late and even in the city the crickets are chirping. There's something strangely calming about the hazy, orange moon crescent, and how it hangs low and waxing, rising later and later (or staying lower and lower at a given time each night, sidereal and precession effects being what they are), getting more and more unfamiliar, because, really, who's up at 3am on a summer night when the moon is low?, reminding you always of how things wind down.