July 13, 2007

• Opening Nights

  Having a Heart

  
  

  Katrina’s father was working at his job as a mechanic in their garage, without air conditioning and nothing but fans, when the heart attack happened. They apparently have places to put air conditioning but have not, claiming that they intend to open a new garage soon anyway at the dealership and thus it would be a waste. From what Kat’s step-mother Jannel tells me, it gets up to one hundred degrees F in there. He had shooting pains in his arms and the heart attack hit him quickly. Apparently he tried to convince his collegues to let him stay, shake it off, and keep working- however, they drove him to the hospital despite his protestations. This was his second heart attack- the first one, years ago now, was his first and they put a ‘stint’ in. This time they moved him from the memorial hospital he was in, to a cardiac care unit in Raleigh. He is still in the critical care ward, but his condition was stable and yesterday when we arrived in the afternoon he was apparently looking a lot better than the night before. He was quite happy to eat what looked like a very hearty meal considering he just had a heart attack the day before. We were also told that he did not really need to be in the CCU anymore, but they’d rather not move him until they have to. He had a second stint put in him, after a cardiac cath.

  
  

  There is a chance, as well, that he will be released today- my money is on Saturn’s Day.

  
  

  Speaking of Saturday- more on that later.

  
  

   

  
  

  
  

  Opening Night

  
  

  It was a slightly painful moment this morning when I opened my email and got a letter of encouragement sent to the cast of The Secret Garden- encouraging us and congratulating us on opening night tonight, and for all our ‘hard work’. Apparently, whilest the director updated their email list, this particular person had not gotten theirs updated yet. Of course I’ve done the same to myself by not taking the time to remove all the marked performance and practice nights off of my Outlook calendar for my computer and my PocketPC.

  
  

   

  
  

  
  

  Friday’s Child

  
  

  Have you ever thought much about the days of the week, or why exactly they are called that? As a child I have before, but when I did again just earlier I realised I have a wonderful resource I did not have as a child- wikipedia and the internet. I can instantly type in anything and find the origins and background of it. I have decided to start a series of xanga posts dedicated to briefly telling you about the days of the week. Just a little misc trivia that I bet you not many people actually take the time to find out about.

  
  

  First of all, I know I have sometimes wondered why it is that two days of the week seem to be named after planets (Saturday for Saturn, Sunday for Sun) but the others do not. Well, first of all the planets are named for pegan gods. Secondly, the days of the week share the same ‘gods’. Apparently in other romance languages (Italian, Spanish, etc) most of the days of the week have the same kinds of names as planets (Tuesday, for example, would be “Mar’s Day”- but the Nordic god of war is not Mars, it is Tyr… thus, Tyr’s day, which when pronounced in old English sounds more like “Tuesday”).

  
  

  Let’s learn about Friday, which is the same situation- if we knew it by the name the French and Spanish knew it by, we’d call it Venus’ day. However, because our language is based on the British who have Nordic roots along with the Germanic, we have named Friday after Frigg, the Germanic goddess of beauty- also closely related to the Norse goddess of beauty and fertility Frejya. Obviously, Venus is simply a different goddess with the same ‘definition’ and attributes.

  
  

  In my country, the United States, we are a “Sunday first” country which makes Sunday the first day of the week- so Friday is the sixth day of the week (more work-based countries make Monday the first day). It is interesting, because while the US officially starts the week on Sunday, most workplaces are trying to affect the mindset that the week begins on Monday- which tends to settle with us since that is often how the work and school week frames things.

  
  

  From wikipedia on the root of the name-

  
  

  The name Friday comes from the Old English frigedæg, meaning the day of Frige the Anglo-Saxon form of Frigg, the Germanic goddess of beauty. In most Germanic languages it is named after Freyja—such as Freitag in Modern German, vrijdag in Dutch, fredag in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish—but Freyja and Frigg are frequently identified with each other. The word for Friday in most Romance languages is derived from the name of Venus such as vendredi in French, venerdì in Italian, viernes in Spanish, and vineri in Romanian. In Hindi, Friday is Shukravar, named for Shukra, the Sanskrit name of the planet Venus. Russian uses an ordinal number for this day of the week– piatnítsa, meaning “fifth.” Similarly, the Portuguese is sexta-feira.

  
  

  In most countries with a five-day work week, Friday is the last workday before the weekend and is, therefore, viewed as a cause for celebration or relief. In some offices, employees are allowed to wear less formal attire on Fridays, known as Casual Friday or Dress-Down Friday.

  
  

   

  
  

  For more on Friday, take a look at www.wikipedia.org and look up Friday.

  
  

  No need to look up other days- you’ll get them as they come right here in a neater form.

  
  

   

  
  

  -Patrick

  • 11:26 am
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