12-12-12--must mean something

It dawned cold with anemic snow showers here in Worcester, but the real miracle of the day was the impact of the hard frost on the spiderwebs.

They look like someone manufactured them for Halloween, but no--that's Jack Frost's doing.

Winter has officially arrived here, the calendar be damned!  It's cold.  Not as cold as Duluth, not as snowy either, but it's that particular English cold that cuts right through to your bones.  Fortunately, there was no wind or rain to accompany it--that would be truly miserable.  Today was just a "cold winter's day".

The first decade (and change) of this century/millenium has brought us numerous number wonders, but today is probably the last of them for me and others of my generation.  We had 01/01/01, 02/02/02....11/11/11 and now today, 12/12/12.  That's got to be auspicious for some culture, right?

One of the posts (linked to the word 'auspicious' in the previous sentence) which shows up on my Facebook wall reviewed the good, the bad and the terrifying with respect to this day.   Some consider the date lucky, some consider it the beginning of the end of the world--ala the Mayan calendar (although others say the actual day of earth's demise will be on the 21st of December).  NASA and the White House have apparently taken measures to reassure U.S. citizens that the end is not nigh and the world is safe--at least from cosmological catastrophe.  According to the particular post previously referenced, "Apart from there being 12 hours of day and night, and 12 months in the year in the Roman calendar, there are12 signs of the Zodiac, 12 Apostles, 12 days of Christmas, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 old testament prophets."  It's curious that there was no mention of 12's proximity to 13.


As for me, it's just a fun date.  Apparently, a few other people agree with me:

There's nothing quite so festive as a brass band to serenade holiday shoppers.

But tennis?  Those are some hardy atheletes (look for the red splotch on the right hand side of the picture--you can see his opponent directly opposite).


So lucky/auspicious, or unlucky and dread-producing--it's the fifth night of Hanukkah and I lit my candles to spite the darkness.