I Missed the End of the World AND the Winter Solstice

Geez, there's just no telling what may happen once I start cleaning the house and getting ready to entertain.  I totally missed the end of the world, for instance.  I waited for it to come all day while at the office but nope, totally missed it.  It must have happened either when I was sleeping or later on last night when I was laying the dining table for lunch today, putzing around with tablecloths and placemats and trying different centerpiece arrangements.  Hmmm.....  Ancient Mayan joke:  What comes after a Baktun?  Answer:  Another Baktun, bwwwaaahhhaaaaaa!  Well, okay, it sounds funnier in my head when I tell it to myself :)

Evidently the modern-day Mayans believe that the end of a baktun is just the start of a new era, rather like 1999 rolling around to 2000.  Oh wait - weren't there millions of people thinking the world was going to end THEN, too?  Planes were going to fall from the sky, computers were going to explode, we were all going to starve because everything would stop working, etc. etc.  Geez. 

I also totally missed the Solstice.  Forgot all about it, in fact.  I knew it was coming, because I had commented about it to someone at the office on Thursday that the days that would finally start to get a little longer each day.  The worst is over now, except for below zero temperatures that usually happen around here in January and February and, of course, snow storms.  Don't know how I'm going to cope with those since I am under orders to not ever do any snow shoveling ever again.  So today I shoveled, but only a little, because there was only a little snow in my driveway.  And it's frozen hard.  The first great blizzard of 2012 in Wisconsin missed Milwaukee but left a lot of rain, sleet, slush and about an inch of wet heavy snow on top of all that froze overnight and Friday morning when I walked down the driveway headed toward the bus to go to the office, it was crunch crunch crunch.  I probably should have gotten up at 4 a.m. and shoveled out.  Nah. 

So this morning the sun was warm even though the temperature was cold.  I pulled out my trusty old shovel and headed outdoors, soon working up a sweat.  It was mostly useless exercise, I hardly was able to scrape up any of the frozen snow.  Oh well.  I put down some salt and hope it will be sunny tomorrow and it will melt away.

Lunch today, however, was a great success.  I love entertaining.  I should do it more often.  I enjoy cooking and cleaning to get the house ready for guests doesn't feel quite so boring and burdensome as necessary dusting and vacuuming once a week.  Must do that tomorrow.  During the Packers game.  If they are doing badly and I don't want to hear the announcers (the t.v. announcers suck anyway), I just turn on the vacuum and go to it!  If I get curious, I can always take a peek at the t.v. out of the corner of my eye. 

Anyway, some 5,000 people showed up for the Solstice at Stonehenge, which according to this BBC article, is about five times as many as the usual crowd.  Were they expecting maybe the earth to move beneath their feet and swallow them all up or something?  Take a look at this motley group:

I wouldn't these guys as extras for a zombie movie, geez!  Does the dude with the cheap imitation pirate hat really think that back scratcher is going to - well -- what, exactly?  LOL!  Maybe he was hoping to use it to pick up women's skirts surreptitiously, only no chicks showed up wearing skirts.  I mean - skirts at Stonehenge in winter?  Ha!  I'm thinking the stones were all rather relieved once this group dispersed, yeah, the nutters are gone for another year...

It's The End of the World As We...Oops, No It's Not!

LOL!  'Sis got a kick out of this and sent me a link.  Here are some stories about the December 21, 2012 Mayan "prophecy" of THE END...of the 13th Baktun.  Duh!  Just remember that the world actually ended on May 21, 2011.  So we're all floating around in Heaven right now and this is all in  your imagination, darlings.

From BBC News (video report):
'End of era' inscriptions discovered in Guatemala
29 June 2012 Last updated at 12:10 ET

Archaeologists in Guatemala have announced the discovery of a 1,300-year-old text that makes reference to the last date of the Mayan calendar.

According to the Mayan calendar, 21 December 2012 will mark the end of a five-millennium cycle. Some believe it prophesies the end of the world. But experts say it just signifies the end of an era.
Margarita Rodriguez reports.

And from a press release at Eureka Alert
Public release date: 28-Jun-2012
Tulane University:

Maya archaeologists unearth new 2012 monument

Archaeologists working at the site of La Corona in Guatemala have discovered a 1,300-year-old-year Maya text that provides only the second known reference to the so-called "end date" of the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012. The discovery, one of the most significant hieroglyphic finds in decades, was announced today at the National Palace in Guatemala.

"This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy," says Marcello A. Canuto, director of Tulane's Middle American Research Institute and co-director of the excavations at La Corona.

Since 2008, Canuto and Tomás Barrientos of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala have directed excavations at La Corona, a site previously ravaged by looters.

"Last year, we realized that looters of a particular building had discarded some carved stones because they were too eroded to sell on the antiquities black market," said Barrientos, "so we knew they found something important, but we also thought they might have missed something."

What Canuto and Barrientos found was the longest text ever discovered in Guatemala. Carved on staircase steps, it records 200 years of La Corona history, states David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at The University of Texas at Austin, who was part of a 1997 expedition that first explored the site.

While deciphering these new finds in May, Stuart recognized the 2012 reference on a stairway block bearing 56 delicately carved hieroglyphs. It commemorated a royal visit to La Corona in AD 696 by the most powerful Maya ruler of that time, Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ahk' of Calakmul, only a few months after his defeat by long-standing rival Tikal in AD 695. Thought by scholars to have been killed in this battle, this ruler was visiting allies and allaying their fears after his defeat.

"This was a time of great political turmoil in the Maya region and this king felt compelled to allude to a larger cycle of time that happens to end in 2012," says Stuart.

So, rather than prophesy, the 2012 reference places this king's troubled reign and accomplishments into a larger cosmological framework.

"In times of crisis, the ancient Maya used their calendar to promote continuity and stability rather than predict apocalypse," says Canuto.

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As Mr. Don would say, it was the media propaganda of the times.  The only reason we know about it at all is because the Mayans carved in stone, like the ancient Egyptians. 

Of course, this report wouldn't be complete without a video on the - are you ready for this - THE RETURN OF (cue spooky music) SYAITAN!  It's only Part 1 of 4, so if you're interested you'll have to check out the rest for yourselves at You Tube.  For my part, I thought it was great entertainment!  Unfortunately, "The Light Ray" chose to appear over a pyramid at Chicken Itza rather than at La Corona (isn't that the name of a Mexican beer...).



There is also a video on a December 21, 2012 message supposedly embedded in the Quran.  What?  Nothing in the Bible?  Tsk tsk.