The Rondeliers Dance Club; A Visit With Jack Frost

Solstices & Equinoxes?

Autumn arrives in Los Angeles on September 22nd 2016 at 7:21 AM PDT.... Are you ready?

On the vernal equinox, day and night are each approximately 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox). The Sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west. See our First Day of Spring page!

On the summer solstice, we enjoy the most daylight of the calendar year. The Sun reaches its most northern point in the sky at local noon. After this date, the days start getting "shorter," i.e., the length of daylight starts to decrease. See our First Day of Summer page!

On the autumnal equinox, day and night are each about 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days after the autumnal equinox). The Sun crosses the celestial equator going southward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west. See our First Day of Fall page!

The winter solstice is the "shortest day" of the year, meaning the least amount of sunlight; the Sun reaches its most southern point in the sky at local noon. After this date, the days start getting "longer," i.e., the amount of daylight begins to increase

Did You Know? - Romaine or cos lettuce is a variety of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. var. longifolia) that grows in a tall head of sturdy leaves with firm ribs down their centers. Unlike most lettuces, it is tolerant of heat.

In English, the most common name in North America is "romaine", while elsewhere it is known as "cos lettuce".Many dictionaries trace the word cos to the name of the Greek island of Cos, from which the lettuce was presumably introduced. Other authorities trace cos to the Arabic word for lettuce, khus خس [xus].

It apparently reached the West via Rome, as in Italian it is called lattuga romana and in French laitue romaine, both meaning 'Roman lettuce', hence the name 'romaine', the common term in North American English

Romaine lettuce may be used in the Passover Seder as a type of bitter herb, to symbolise the bitterness inflicted by the Egyptians while the Israelites were slaves in Egypt.