Friday's the day

End of October but it sure looked like Christmas

I'm sure that most of you have heard that the Mayan Long Count calendar says that this Friday is the last day of the calendar, or "The End of the World." (The link takes you to a Huffington Post article about why we seem to be so interested end-of-world scenarios. It's a practice almost as old as humanity.) It also happens to be the 2012 Winter Solstice, which will occur at 3:12am here on the Pacific coast. I'll be asleep when it occurs, but I will be rejoicing that the days will stop getting shorter and will imperceptibly gain a little light every day. Tomorrow will be 12 seconds shorter than today.

I find it fascinating that as the earth moves around the sun in its annual path, the days closest to the winter solstice get shorter and shorter until here in the Seattle area our days are so short that the sun comes up around 8:00am and goes down a little after 4:00pm. But in the summer, the sun comes up a little after 5:00am and goes down after 9:00pm. I sometimes think what it must be like up there near the Arctic Circle where the sun doesn't come up at all in the winter and doesn't go down in the summer! Want to know what happens in your area? I found this time and date calculator on line, which can be modified for the month and location. It's pretty cool.

Just in case the Mayans are right and the world ends on Friday, I'm hoping it won't be until after my massage. And it's a good thing I took the above picture already, since it sure looks a lot like Christmas. I woke to snowflakes falling this morning, but mostly it's been rain. I think I'll be writing a new post on Thursday, but you never know.
:-)