Ember Days

Yesterday, I sent this e-mail to our Director of Grounds:

"I had mentioned to you that I put messages in every payroll I run. No exceptions (unless by some freak chance Joe runs it, as may happen in October.

This week your check reads "Autumnal Equinox - 9.23.07 05:51".

Last week your checks read "Ember Days - 9/19, 9/21, 9/22"

Ember Days: The [Old Farmer's] Almanac traditionally marks the four periods formerly observed by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches for prayer, fasting and the ordination of clergy. These Ember Days are the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays that follow in succession after (1) the First Sundayin Lent; (2) Whitsunday-Pentecost; (3) the Feast of the Holy Cross and (4) the Feast of St. Lucia, December 13. The word ember is perhaps a corruption of the Latin quator tempora, "four times".

Folklore has it that the weather on each of the three days foretells the weather for the next three months; that is, for September's Ember Days, Wednesday forecasts the weather for October, Friday for November, and Saturday for December.

Based on that, I have the Ember Days noted in my binder and yesterday was beautiful. If the folklore has even the smallest truth to it, we will find out - October is just around the corner. And looking at this week's forecast, I would say that November and December will be warm and you'll finish the sprinkler head project without incident!

How'd ya like that?

Happy travels!"

There are times when having a head full of useless knowledge has its benefits. This would be one of those times. I have no idea how much of this folklore is truly on the nose - as a general rule, few of them are. But then you have phrases that I grew up on such as:

Red skies at dawning, sailor take warning
Red skies at night, sailor's delight

There is more truth to that than one would know. I guess we will put this to the test of time...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interesting Aftermath a From Season Five of "MasterChef"

Image
Do I agree with this? You will have to read it first and decide for yourself. I had long since made up my mind before finding this article. MasterChef Season 5 Fixed: Courtney Lapresi Won Finale After Getting Preferential Treatment – Former Stripper Favoritism BY  STORMY ELIZABETH  ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 "They say if you can’t take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen, but what if you like it hot? If you’ve been watching  MasterChef this season 5 , you may have noticed that one contestant in particular seems to  be “winning” challenges  when her dishes don’t seem to be quite up to it.  Courtney Lapresi  has been billed as an “aerial dancer” on the show. So what exactly is that, you ask? It’s a fancy word for stripper. You may term what she does as burlesque, but nekked is nekked and she takes off her  clothes  when she dances, so you have to call them as you see them. Plus is it really...
Read more

The Longairc-Green Family

This is a family that was on Nanny 911 , the precursor to Supernanny , which airs on Wednesday nights. While Supernanny is a better production and leaves out some of the dopey American-isms of stupidity (such as the opening scene with a much older nanny head whose television showing the family and their issues turns around into a painting on the wall), this show has its value. These families are clueless or don't bother to try and definitely need help. This family is an exception in that the mother couldn't care less what the monsters do and will do anything to mollify them. The father is more consistent and definitely takes a much more disciplinary stance, but the mother undermines it at every step of the way. The two boys are so unbelievably rude, I'd've killed them where they stood. The little girl only wanted a moment of attention and was not doing anything negative, and the mother was awful to her. The nanny, Nanny Stella, spent the first day observing. When she s...
Read more

Shocking!

Image
I always open my day at work by starting up my various programs that I'll bounce back and forth between throughout the insanity that is my normal workday. And they are always in the same order: Internet Outlook Microsoft Excel Microsoft Word The timekeeping program, GenPro, is always running. This is not me being unbelievably anal or just a little OCD, this is logic. I know excatly where everything is. It's just good organisational skills. When I open Outlook it is almost entirely for the e-mail. Yes, I do know how to use all of Outlook (well, 80% of it, any way, but since I use my belovèd Franklin Covey Time Management system (the physical book, not the electronic solution), I only use Outlook for e-mail. What is so shocking, you may ask? Be patient, I'm getting to that. I open the Internet and the default page is Wikipedia, in English. I happen to love that site and skim over whatever interesting things it may have, such as: Today's Featured Article The word thou was...
Read more