Another Happy Halloween

Mole Day

My friend Joann reminded me that today is Mole Day - a chemist's 'thing' evidently, having to do with something about magic numbers and 'avocados' and today's date.* This is good to know, since I missed the "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" holiday-of-sorts in September.

All I ever knew about Mole Day was that the chemistry teacher baked pies that day. The mysteries of science run deep. Wouldn't guacamole have been more appropriate?

Since the number involved is 6.02 x 1023 (Blogger's text capacity not allowing me to deal properly with "ten to the 23rd") it should be noted that Mole Day officially started at 6:02 on the morning of October (10) 23rd.

So - Happy Day!



*If I've got this right (and honestly, I might not) Avogadro's number, 6.02 x 1023, provides the bridge between counting atoms, which we can't do, and measuring weight, which we CAN do, by being the 'constant' in the calculation. The mole is the measure of quantity of a "chemical entity", (i.e. atom, molecule, formula unit, electron or photon.) One mole of anything is just Avogadro's number of that something.

Congratulations

Congratulations and best wishes to the bride and groom - Emily and Kyle were married!

Nice Cats

My neighbor had a great story to tell the other day about her very young granddaughter, who loves kitties. They went to visit a friend who had a cat, which the child was pretty excited about seeing. So it went down pretty hard when they found out that the kitty in question wasn't a 'friendly' kitty and was best left alone by small children. "Not a nice kitty," said the friend.

So the visit went on without the cat, or so they thought, until some time later when the child, who had been playing on her own, returned and interrupted the conversation to announce that "That kitty nice! That kitty very friendly!"

Moment of pause here to reflect, said my neighbor, on whether they'd been too long enjoying their wine and conversation...

"Where did you see the kitty?" they asked.

"Under the bed."

Almost afraid to ask, they wanted to know what the kitty did...

"That kitty so nice. When I saw it under the bed it said "HHHHHHHHHi."

South Dakota

Last weekend we took off for South Dakota - a quick trip of 2 days driving to get there and 2 days driving to get home with just 2 days there to visit with family. Do you think we are taking our aversion to flying too far?

(I don't. There is no easy way to get to South Dakota from anywhere and Seattle is no exception. It is, however, a straight shot east on I-90 through some incredibly beautiful country - so that's what we do.)

We were going to South Dakota in order to celebrate the 80th birthdays this year of Mark's "ancient ones" - so dubbed when he realized a few years ago that WE are now the "old ones" so his parents must be the "ancient ones." (Sorry Jack and Lil!)

And in spite of the short trip, we had a very full and wonderful time visiting with the rest of Mark's family, playing cards, taking pictures and even doing some sightseeing. It was a wonderful trip.

We don't often get a chance to do the sightseeing so this was a real treat for me. We drove through the Black Hills on the Needles Highway through some beautiful rock formations. Literally through the rocks in some cases... On the other side we even caught sight of the Crazy Horse monument, under construction since the late 40s and now with a finished (and amazing) face. Some pictures - of course: