Clear

There is something strikingly clear about a sunny winter day.

Summer days have a haze. a sheen about them. I'm not sure if it is the humidity or the waves of heat rising up from the blistering ground, but there is something there. It makes the edges blur, if that makes any sense.

In winter, that haze is gone. Not just each tree stands out against the blue, but each branch, and if you are close enough, each leaf seems cut by a diamond edged blade. Everything is sharp, fully in focus.

Everything is more strikingly beautiful or ugly in that clarity.

It is one of the few things i love about winter, that definition and exactness. If i could get it without the cold, i would. Beats the summer haze all hollow.


Today is:

Acadian Remembrance Day

Acatl Day -- Ancient Aztec Calendar (Honoring of the sceptre of authority, a day for justice)

Festival of Tellus -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Ice Cream and Violins Day (Another of those silly made up holidays that no one can trace, but would be fun to celebrate. Get yourself a bowl of buttered pecan or rum raisin -- if you are going to celebrate, do it in style -- and put in a Mozart or Bach CD, and enjoy!)

Kasuga Wakamiya on-Matsuri -- Nara Prefecture, Japan (through the 18th)

Little Yule a/k/a Luciadagen (Festival of Lights in many parts of Scandinavia, honoring St. Lucia.)

Most Boring Celebrities of the Year Awards -- Boring Institute

National Cocoa Day

Republic Day -- Malta

Runic Half-month Jara commences (fruition)

St. Jose's Day (patron of harvests, ships; against fire, fever, storms)

Saint Lucy's Day (patron of writers, lights, people with eye trouble, glass workers, lamplighters; against dysentery, throat disease, blindness, hemorrhage)


Birthdays Today:

Taylor Swift, 1989
Amy Lee, 1981
Tom DeLonge, 1975
Christie Clark, 1973
Jamie Foxx, 1967
Ted Nugent, 1948
John Davidson, 1941
Aga Khan IV, 1936
Christopher Plummer, 1927
Dick Van Dyke, 1925
Archie Moore, 1913
Kenneth Patchen, 1911


Today in History:

The Council of Trent opens, 1545
Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England to circumnavigate the globe, 1577
Emperor Ferdinand II delegates the first Anti-Reformation decree, 1621
The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes 3 militias which are today seen as the founding of the United States National Guard, 1636
Dutch navigator Abel Tasman becomes the first European to land in New Zealand, 1642
Dartmouth College in New Hampshire is chartered, 1769
Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" is published, sells 6,000 copies, 1843
Italo Marcioni patents an ice cream cone, 1903
The Relay 1 communication satellite is launched, 1962
Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk" of Apollo 17, 1972
The European Union announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members from May 1, 2004, 2002
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured, 2003
The Baiji, or Chinese River Dolphin, is announced as extinct, 2006