Once in a Blue Moon

It takes about 27 days for the Moon to circle around the Earth, but due to Earth's own circular movement around the Sun it takes few more days for the Moon to complete the full circle - so the Moon will be in the exact same location (with respect to Earth) in about 29 days.

Thus, the Moon cycle (or month) is little smaller than our normal calendar month. So normally we would see full Moon once in a month - totalling 12 full moons in a year, but due to this mis-match between Lunar and Solar cycles, after about every two/three years there would be 13 full Moons in a year. So one calendar month will end up having two full moons. The second of the two full Moons that occurs in the same calendar month is called Blue Moon.

Due to the rarity of such events - the common phrase came into existence: once in a blue moon.
(The word Moon comes from a Latin word mensis which means something like "measure".)

By the way, it always fascinates me when I think about the relative sizes of Sun and Moon and their distances from Earth - and still they look exactly of same size from Earth (which also makes full solar eclipeses possible). How big of a coincident is that, huh?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. A real page-turner, nail-biting read. J K Rowling's ability to keep you wondering about what's gonna happen next, while constantly entertain you with such magical events and drama is really amazing. There's a lot of underlying family and friendship drama here on almost every page. But overall, the theme of this last installment is - death. It's a "dark" novel - which is quite apparent once you read the first page of this book - a couple of small poems about death. First chapter starts with blood in Harry's hand.

By the way, when Harry and Hermione are in the forest, a deer comes to their tent to distract and allures Harry to follow her, away from the tent. This reminded me of an event in Ramayana when Ravana come as a disguised deer to the hut where Ram, Laxman and Sita are living. Is it possible that Rowling might have taken some inspiration from Ramayana?

Anyways, it breaks my heart when I finished reading this novel - knowing that Harry Potter is not going to come back - there won't no waiting for the next book in Harry Potter series. It's like a part of your childhood, gone forever. You loved it while it was there, and you are going to pine for it for the rest of your life. But alas, it will never come back.

Harry Potter, I am going to miss you!