there is no spoon
... err bullet
on topic, dont forget the suns gravitational forces on the moon, whenever there is a solar eclipse the moon is closer to the sun than the earth, hence the sun is pulling the moon towards it.
as far as the tide thing goes, the "bulge" i the earth actually makes the equator "longer" than if yoiu were to make a line through both the north and south poles.
take a ball, and squash it a bit, that's what the earth actually is doing (except it is a bit eliptical extending towards the moon.