Is it really the 24th already?

When I was in Walmart at 8 AM this morning it didn't look chaotic. In fact, they had enough register clerks for twice the number of people.

Along the first aisle they had a big display of "omigod what shall I get her" gifts--the baskets of smelly stuff for bathing and whatever. I gulped at some of the prices.

I used to buy bubble bath and that sort of thing until I stopped taking baths in late 2003.

No, I am not totally rank--I got used to using the shower seat after hip #1 and haven't really felt like going through the contortions (and a certain amount of uncertainty) needed for climbing out of the tub.


Back to the number theme for this year--24 hours in a day, at least by the way we have defined time. Once again--why 24? Why not 20--or even 10--hours, and each hour made up of about 100 minutes. Of course, one would have to redefine the extent of a minute.

According to old faithful dictionary, a minute was the term used by Ptolemy for the sixtieth (why sixtieth?) part of a unit in his system of fractions of the circle, radius, and day--and later the hour.

A minute has now come to mean the sixtieth part of any of certain units.

My geek research at the moment revolves around the development of gender. And for a break it involves reading about archival theory and practice.

So is there anybody out there who can come up with the origin of marking things off by twelves?

Tens is logical--fingers or toes. But what about 12?

Getting back to the more concrete--this afternoon my neighbors came over with a goody plate and the news that he had re-done the electrical stuff that got pulled loose when one of his trees fell on the lines to outbuildings. They are really great neighbors, and he keeps offering (with his wife chiming in) to help with little stuff needing fixing. He and my late husband would have gotten along great! He has great carpentry skills--when his builder had one too many delays with his house, he finished it up himself. He repaired the damage from the tree that fell on the roof, found a group to re-do the shingles, another group for tile, etc. But he did all the work on an elaborate front staircase, the porches, and a lot more inside stuff.

So, tomorrow I'm going to YD's in the morning and the next day OD is having a shindig for a large number of people.

(I'd talk about what goodies I'm getting them except they both read this.)

Happy holidays to all.