Six--I think this is St. Nicholas Day.

But it's the day before the Day of Infamy.

Back to six. You've got to shift to the second hand to count this high on your fingers.`

Unless, of course, you have six fingers.

Were there people with six fingers at one time? If not, from whence came the concept of a dozen?

Half a dozen is all around us--a six-pack of beer, cola, whatever.

And then sixth sense, which is not a concrete concept at all.

British coinage used to be based on the duodecimal system--with sixpence being half a shilling.

Let's not forget the six-shooter.

And six segments of sixty degrees makes a 360 degree circle.

What else does my dictionary have under six? Ahh--the Six Nations, which are the Five Nations plus the Tuscaroras. This was a later confederation of the Iroquoian peoples.

Six also morphs into sex, such as when a mother has a litter of six children in one pregnancy. And sexennial happenings occur once every six years.

Dictionary now closed. Let's see if I can get my mind back to ordinary stuff.

I spent a significant part of today looking through catalogs of archival goodies. Mona took bazillions of pictures, and I asked Susan (archivist) how to save them. She said I might start learning about what was in archival catalogs.

Other than finding several possibilities for the pictures, I learned a bit about the different types of deterioration that stuff undergoes. I copied the relevant article, and need to read it several more times in hopes that the chemistry courses I had in 1954-55 will come back to me just a tiny bit.

I didn't get a chance to talk to her in the afternoon because she had a meeting to go to. Tomorrow I'll catch up with her.

Tonight is expected to be another chilly one. That means I'll probably have at least one cat on me during the night.