I'm being a calendar geek. I spent an absurd amount of time tonight putting the HTAZP calendar into a document set up with tables for each Greek month but with a Sunday-Saturday week, because I need at least that familiar framework to hang it all on. This is why the Hellenic Month Established per Athens site, while incredibly helpful, has never entirely worked for me, though I refer to it fairly often and have had it open in a tab all night while working on this project. My brain can't cope with 10-day "weeks," though, even if they're likely more traditional. That and HTAZP uses a slightly different naming system for the months based on the concept that Hellenic city-states would arrange and name their calendar based on their biggest holidays.

The biggest headache-inducer is actually when the day starts (sundown). This is hardly unique, but it's also not the way I've always thought about days and what falls where. So, for example, does it make more sense to map the next Deipnon (sundown Sept 15 through sundown Sept 16) onto Saturday or Sunday? I defaulted to placing the days based on which part we see daylight for. Considering most festivals are daytime deals, not a big issue. But Deipnon and Noumenia are very much nighttime observances, given that they are all about the dark/new moon. So despite the fact I have the next Deipnon planted on a Sunday, I'd really be observing it the night before, and then doing Noumenia that night.

Ah well. If that gives me too much of a headache, I can redo it next year, I guess.

Meanwhile, the next step is going to be to map the Chinese calendar onto it to incorporate Kwan Yin's festivals. Thankfully both are lunisolar and so the months, at least, should map fine. I hope. Famous last words, probably. Not to mention differing ideas of when intercalary months come into play. Project for another day, though. I'm wiped.

So at least one of the topics sahiya gave me got me thinking even after posting my babble. Always a dangerous thing.

Ever since we moved to Connecticut, we've cut way, way back on decorating for any holidays. There's a disgusting mask on the front door that Patsfan put up one Halloween that never came down, and for a few years we had a potted tree that came in the house (or eventually just the front porch) for December, but that's about it.

A lot of that is a combination of space and work, too little and too much respectively. With regard to holidays like Christmas and Easter, there's also Patsfan's cynicism about them and my total shift to not particularly wanting to celebrate them as they're no longer "mine."

But right now, I'm thinking ... why don't I have at least a couple of dolphiny-things to hang up for tomorrow? Granted, there are a couple of dolphin decorations around the place anyway, but it'd be kind of nice to have something that comes out just for Delphinia, for one example.

Maybe I'll collect some of the random dolphins from around the place onto Apollo's shrine for now, and think about what I'd like to create for next year. Maybe a garland of some kind. White with blue dolphins. Could theoretically be made to look like dolphins in surf, if I could work out how, and figure out what sort of material. *ponders*

It's funny, really, the way I make more of Delphinia (celebrating Apollo of the Dolphins) than I do of Thargelia (Apollo's birthday), which by all sanity should be the bigger holiday. Part of that may be the dolphin aspect, and the other part might be that Thargelia is also Artemis' birthday, and I feel no connection whatsoever to Her. In fact, on the odd occasion that I've approached Her, the response has been something along the lines of, "Oh, you. You hang out with my brother, right?" So, um, the lack of much connection (or interest in any connection) seems entirely mutual, at least through my admittedly totally subjective filter.

So, yeah. Thinking about doing more with actually decorating my home for at least the more important (to me anyway) holidays.

Finished Cryoburn the other night. Even knowing a particular character development was destined to be coming up, even seeing all the foreshadowing for exactly what it was, that was quite the gut-punch. No wonder I put off reading it. ( Cut for a spoiler that really isn't a spoiler, since Bujold had said all along that the next book would contain this particular element. )

Also, an epilogue composed of self-contained, exactly 100 word drabbles? With a definition for the unfamiliar of what a drabble is? Stroke of genius. Admittedly, if someone did that in fandom, as we're so accustomed to drabbles and drabble-series, it might not have gone over quite as well. But it was such a surprise and the format worked so well for what she was doing that I just loved it.

In other news, orientation at work proceeds apace. I definitely prefer working the floor to supervising, despite the fact I'm basically just pushing pills. I apparently have two more weeks of orientation scheduled, plus the iv certification class that hasn't been scheduled yet. But I'm definitely feeling more confident about it all.

The 3rd annual wintercompanion Summer/Holiday fest has started with a lovely bit of Jack/Nine hurt/comfort. I'm looking forward to seeing them all. Very cool approach they took with the prompts, too, using the "psychic password" format we encountered in "The Doctor's Wife" of a color, a number, an emotion, and an aroma. Very effective and evocative, and the prompts are open for people to write/draw/create other things throughout the month, which should lead to seeing some intriguing variety on how people run with them.

I think I'm about over my "What the hell was I thinking?" attack re: my femslash11 assignment and have moved into research mode, which is a very good thing.

And now, time to run around and do stuff to get ready for this weekend's Anadikia retreat. Coming up with appropriate offerings has been rather challenging. (I got it into my head that I needed special liquor offerings for each of the Temple patrons. Ginger liqueur for Zeus and Oracle of the Sun Shiraz for Apollon were easy enough to find. I'd wanted retsina for Pan, but nobody around here even knows what it is, much less carries it, including the place Tim found it a year or so ago. So I went with Bully Hill wine that has a goat for a logo. *facepalm*)

Have a great weekend all! Don't break the intarwebz while I'm gone!

First up: happy Beltaine and/or Thargelia to those celebrating one, the other, or both this weekend, and happy May to everyone else!

Of course, there are some folks who have May birthdays, too. *checks LJ, IJ, and DW*

Happy May birthday to harmony_bites, stellamoon, ever_obsessed, dreamy_dragon73, melusin_79, gm_weasley, brock_tn, lux_astraea, hobgoblinn, jo19844_twfic, mistythorin, septentrion1970, ramie_k, minuet99, _odella_, skitty_cat, and lechatnomade. Hope you all have wonderful birthdays and happy, healthy years to come!

Yesterday's festival was great. Though as often seems to be the case, more after the ritual proper was done than during the ritual itself.

I didn't get my act together to make the lentil soup this year, but priest-dude's panspermia (get your minds out of the gutter) was probably more traditional, really, as it was a sort of veg stew with barley. Also delicious.

Made eiresiones, not using the sticks we'd wrapped at Delphinia after all, and exchanged them. Haven't decided where to hang mine yet. There's not really anyplace to hang stuff on our new kitchen door, and this is much bigger than last year's and likely to cause a fire hazard if I leave it on the altar.

Had the beginnings of a Reiki III class after. Dude, I haven't taught anyone level III since 2002. 2002!! Revising the curriculum as I go, because yeah, definitely need to tinker a bit. But it was good. Feels weird leaving so much of it self-directed, but that's the only way it can really work, I think, given the distances and schedules involved. In the process, I learned that there is a nickname for the "happy baby" yoga posture that, really, as a slasher, it should've taken me less time than it did to work out. (Hint: the first six letters are the same. *rolls eyes*) The day may have been an Apollonian festival, but stick two children of Pan in the same room, and the minds, they shall descend to the gutter with rapidity. This also led to a rather more serious discussion about the concepts of ritual impurity around sex in Hellenismos. I think the conclusion I've come to is that, yeah, if you've just had mind-blowing sex too close to ritual, and it's not a ritual to do with sex, maybe you won't be in quite the right headspace or at least might have trouble focusing, but I don't think it's a "purity" issue that isn't covered by washing up with khernips, which we do anyway.

*looks @ previous paragraph*

*shakes head*

Yeah. Dangerous, letting children of Pan hang out for any length of time together. Did some talking about the next festival, which will be Panaia. Which I may possibly have convinced priest-dude requires a rather more interesting cake than he had in mind.

Back to Apollon, I also got nudged to do something with the choreo-bunny-that-wouldn't-stay-dead that would seriously push my boundaries. Need to figure out whether it would even actually be appropriate. By human standards, I mean. Obviously Someone thinks it would be. But if I do, this would be the first time I'd actually done anything with a fandance choreo other than drive myself (and anyone who's stuck listening to me) bonkers with it. And not in a fannish context either. Enough said on that. Need to ponder it a lot and probably ask priest-dude, J, and maybe a couple of other friends if it would be a good idea or a really, really bad one.

Am frighteningly behind on my care plan that's due from last week to be turned in tomorrow. And had less luck than I'd hoped for finding an appropriate journal article. May just go for anything to do with breastfeeding if I can't find what I'd planned. But I do have the rest of the day. More or less. Minus an APRN appointment and some hopefully quality time with Patsfan before he has to go in for a work meeting.

No grade for last week's lecture exam. Got a 95 on Pharmacology. Given it was open book and damn near every question was easily found addressed verbatim, I'm actually slightly annoyed with myself for getting two wrong. They were, at least, two that were not spelled out and required damn-near coin-flip judgment calls. I will, however, be happy with a 75 for the lecture exam, though given that we received an email saying the delay in grades is due to "ongoing item analysis," it seems we all bombed. Unsurprising, actually, considering that exam was a nightmare of the "why are these topics they told us not to bother with on here?" variety.