My day started well enough:

I suspect that it’s not going to end as well. I’m flying back to Ottawa via Chicago and already my first flight has been delayed by the better part of two hours due to the weather in Chicago. Fortunately, I have a long time between flights, so I should be able to make my connection. Some of my fellow travellers are not as lucky.

I heard there might be some snow in store for Ottawa, so I thought I’d share a short video of how I spent my Sunday afternoon.

I took advantage of the clear skies in Palm Beach to take some pictures of the moon earlier this evening.

The moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular. If it was then it would always be the same distance from the Earth and there wouldn’t be times when the low and high tides are lower and higher than usual.

This evening the moon is both a full moon and it’s within one hour of perigee, or the closest point in its orbit, which makes it a supermoon. According to NASA, it’s going to appear to be about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than when it’s at apogee (the farthest point in its orbit).

Very high tides accompany supermoons and this evening some nearby fishermen commented that the tides were higher than usual.

So, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

To celebrate the occasion, I headed out to the driving range with my parents and then to Caffé Milano in Palm Beachfor an amazing dinner. I had an entré of baked calamari followed by lamb ravioli with artichoke and thyme. Dessert consisted of a chocolate with fine layers of pastry that was exquisite. Topped off with a nice grappa on the house.We had a bottle of 2000 Le Macchiolle Paleo Rosso from their special wine list with the meal. (Now, they only have 2 bottles of it left.) A very nice cabernet franc  that went well with the meal.

I like traveling and flying doesn’t bother me. However, there is one aspect of flying that I don’t like: early morning flights.

Apart from the fact that no one I know would describe me as a morning person (and many would probably laugh out loud at the suggestion), early morning flights always mean that I sleep poorly the night before because I’m always afraid I’ll sleep in and miss my flight.

This morning saw me have to catch a flight at 5:50am – a time that normally does not exist in my world. Since I ended up finishing my packing late yesterday evening I decided to stay up rather than go to bed for a couple of hours. A flight that early means that I had to head out the door by 4:30am, which realistically meant I would have had to get up at about 3:45am.

I’m in Montreal waiting for the second of three flights today (the’s nothing like traveling on points to cause creative routings) and it’s grey and wet. At least it’s not snowing and they don’t appear to be deicing the planes.

Next stop: Newark, an airport of which I do not have fond memories.

Gaius Julius Caesar learned a valuable lesson on the 15h of March in 44BC: Never tease a haruspex.

Titus Vestricius Spurinna, an Etruscan haruspex (a soothsayer or astrologer), warned Caesar a week or two before his death that some danger would befall him no later than the Ides of March. The 15th of March arrived, so Caesar couldn’t leave well enough along and resist teased Spurinna saying “The Ides of March are come”, to which Spurinna replied “Yes, they are come, but they are not past.”

Unfortunately for Julius Caesar, Spruinna’s prediction came true later in the day when he was assassinated by a group of senators shortly before he was due to appear at a session of the Senate. Among the group of assassins was his friend Brutus Albinus. Shakespeare’s version of the assassination has him utter the phrase “Et tu, Brute?”, though other possibly more reliable reports have him saying either “καὶ σύ, τέκνον?” (Greek for “You too, child?”) or nothing at all.

Happy birthday to one of my very good friends, who celebrates her birthday on the anniversary of the death of Julius Caesar. 🙂