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I began rather early taking Jill along with me when I was Christmas shopping, knowing she would make sure I didn't lose my money, my pocketbook, my packages - or my head. We started this little holiday tradition when Cappy was only eight years old. It was humiliating. But it never failed to work.
Before I started taking her along, there was never a Christmas I didn't leave my shopping money - or half a dozen gifts - on a counter somewhere on the first floor of Macy's or Gimbel's only realizing it when I was on a crowded elevator, on the way to the twelfth floor. After a while, I decided I was really overworking St. Anthony (finder of lost articles) and drafted my tiny Goat into duty as chaperone. I pass this along to Aries parents of Capricorn youngsters everywhere, as sort of a Noel gift…. for all seasons.
Bobbs Pinkerton, the warm and wise Capricorn editor of my first book, Sun Signs, once swore to me that she wasn't a typical Goat because she adores (she claimed) bright colours. "Mad about them," I believe was the way she put it. (Astrologically very doubtful, although she does have a Sagittarius Moon, and quite probably wants to be mad about them.) So we made a bet - naturally, a small one, since Capricorns don't wager with much largesse - and went through her closets.
We found nothing but black (with a few stingy white trims), navy blue, dark green, and browns. Finally, she triumphantly pulled out of the very back of the closet a wild, canary yellow jumpsuit, carefully wrapped in tissue and strongly smelling of moth balls. I gave her my most direct Mars look, and she owned up, blushing, "Well, I only wear it at home, but it was such a bargain." Being a typically honest Goat, she knew the fourteen cents she bet me was rightfully mine, and promptly paid it.
Capricorns have this truly marvelous ability to face the facts dispassionately, curb their faults and make the very best of their virtues. It wouldn't hurt most Rams to imitate them. Speaking of jumpsuits and such, Cappy Bobbs claims she has an eighty-year-old Capricorn neighbour who wears mini skirts with demure high-necked, long-sleeved blouses. "Well," she says, "I figured it this way. The Legs are the last to go."
So it's a mistake to think of all Goats as Grandma Moses, or Whistler's Mother. The male Capricorns are not always as prim and proper as you might think either. Not being burdened with excess baggage of Aries idealism, they can shock a Ram with all sorts of unexpected propositions and behaviour - in private.
However, in the final analysis, the Capricorn mind runs in rather conservative grooves, at least publicly. Aries is frequently accusing Capricorn of a lack of sympathy; yet the Goat is not without tender concern and compassion for those he (or she) thinks are genuinely worth it. Cooperation can mean undreamed-of success between the Ram and the Goat, when they mutually aim their horns against prejudice and falsehood, instead of toward each other.
Picture the shy and sturdy and sure-footed mountain goat, stepping carefully from crag to crag, with confidence and determination… managing to find sufficient nourishment in patches of spare grass, even swallowing cardboard and munching on tin cans when it's necessary. Nothing is permitted to delay his slow yet steady progress to the beckoning pinnacle of truth, wisdom and justice.
Now picture the rocky mountain ram, who requires a diet of richer grass. Unlike the goat, the ram finds it impossible to calmly digest the rusty nails of criticism and the broken glass of disappointment… and often misjudges the distance, in leaping between the crags, causing him to fall, and smash his horns. Because the dreamer's vision distracts him on Nature's rocky path, the bighorn ram takes some unscheduled detours along the way.
That's the basic difference between Capricorn and Aries men, women
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