Thursday, 15 March 2007

When I say Ides, you say...

Beware, probably. How many of you have had at least a fleeting thought that today is somehow ill-omened or at least unlucky?

Ok, now how many of you are under delusions of Caesarhood?

Shall I tell you what the Ides really are?






You better have said yes, because I'm going to do it anyway.

Originally, when the Romans were using lunar months, the Ides were the days when the Full Moon fell. That's it. No bad luck, no nothing else. The Kalends were the first day(s) of the month and marked New Moon, the Nones marked First Quarter Moon, and the Ides marked Full Moon.

Things changed rather a lot when the Romans later decided to fix their (at that point) effed-up calendar and make it more reflective of the solar year, but if you want the details on that kind of thing you're better off going someplace like here instead of expecting me to type it all out using my somewhat selective memory of my university Classics courses. In fact, follow that link anyway. It's got loads of interesting information about all kinds of calendars.

I like calendars, you know.

Incidentally, if you can remember the word Kalends you stand a better chance at getting the a's and the e's in the right order when you spell calendar. Just saying. And if anyone's looking for a handy Latin proverb (and I know you are) why not try Ad Kalendas Graecas? It means At the Greek Kalends, and is pretty much the Roman equivalent of when pigs fly. The Greek calendar didn't have kalends, you see.

Which means they didn't call their calendar a calendar either, but if you start thinking about things like that your brain may start to smoke if you're not careful.

This is your brain. This is your brain on non-calendar calendars. Any questions?

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Here's your warning that I may have something to be cranky about soon. Wheat's in the mood to move furniture, apparently.

Actually, rather than coming across as a total snot I'll say that I can understand why he wants to do it, but if he starts moving things around you have to know that I'll end up moving things around too and the end result is that I won't be getting my filing cabinet back (or at least back where it belongs). That's a tragedy, you see. The filing cabinet (beside, not inside) is how I hide from the rest of the people who work here, and if I lose my place to hide then people will know I'm here and that leads to people expecting me to TALK to them.

I mean, really.

If I wanted to speak to people I'd go home.






And talk to the voices.
The voices are very lonely at the moment, after all, being left home by themselves all day.
Wheat, I'm not sure I can deal with not having my filing cabinet...

2 comments:

smudgers said...

Oh please let her keep her filing cabinet. You know she'll win this one eventually anyhow. Think of the consequences, Wheat.

Anonymous said...

This is not connected to anything.
But I have a little red screech owl nesting in my redheaded woodpecker house. (jumps up and down like a crazy person) And... she is nosey and pops out to look at anyone who comes in the yard. And tonight I saw her chasing big moths around the yard.
Yippeeee........ Well, I am glad she is not in the yard where I feed all the goldfinches and warblers.

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