"Maybe it's a holiday tomorrow"

Yesterday at dinner, the woman who cooks for me (Margaret) informed me that "maybe it's a holiday tomorrow."  This statement struck me for two reasons. First, what holiday occurs on a Tuesday in September? Second, what's with the "maybe?"  How do we find out if it is, or isn't, a holiday? "People will be looking at the moon tonight." Turns out it was announced at morning chapel, that yes today is a holiday and most people just went home.  I would think I'd like to know about the holiday before I showed up at work.  As it turns out, Eid, the day that the Ramadan fast is broken either occurs on September 30 or October 1 in different parts of the world depending on the sighting of the moon.  As it was a holiday I finished work in the hospital by noon and went for a hike up to the waterfall.  My plans on previous days had been thwarted by rain; because when it rains here, it pours.  The afternoon was sunny but I set out with an umbrella, just in case.  As I climbed the hill behind the hospital and neared the trail to the waterfall I could hear some thunder in the distance and hesitated whether I should go on or not. I figured I would go "just a little way further."  I worked my way up along a cliff and started to climb another hill. At this point I was close enough that I decided to keep going rather than turn back and give up the progress I had made.  As I finally made it to the top of the hill the rain was clearly approaching faster, and being that the hill I climbed was slippery when dry and likely treacherous when wet, and that I would be exposed to any stray lightning bolt I had to reverse course and get down the hill as fast as I could.  As it turns out the rain we got was only a sprinkle and I could have made it the rest of the way to the waterfall. I guess that will have to wait for another day.  Tomorrow we will discuss a journal article comparing fixed dose subcutaneous unfractionated heparin to low molecular weight heparin.  I offered this up as a possible article because it would potentially solve the problem of how to anticoagulate when you can't check ptt (our lab can only do INR) and you don't have enoxaparin (we don't).  Although just venous thromboembolism was studied I think given our limitations you could apply this strategy for acute coronary syndrome as well (a bit harder to diagnose/rule out since we don't have troponin!).