I was just mentioning to someone last week that we were approaching the Ides of March. They didn't know what that meant, which kind of surprised me. Who hasn't heard, "Beware the Ides of March."? So, in case there are others out there who aren't down with the Ides, I repost this from my Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day e-mail:

You can probably credit Shakespeare ("Beware the ides of March") for the survival of this word from Old English (and originally from Latin). All months in the Roman calendar had ides, or middle days, but only the March ones have a grip on the popular imagination. Ones? Why the plural if it's only one day? The word (idus in Latin) is of obscure origin but it can also refer to the middle section of the month, thus giving it good plural credentials.

Here, locally, who has to beware the Ides of March? Given that Lili is running an ivy assault program this Saturday at Dumas Bay Park (contact her to sign up), I'd say it's that invasive English ivy that'd better watch out!