Feast Day of St. Expeditus, April 19th

Feast Day of St. Expeditus

St. Expeditus (while no longer recognized by the Catholic Church) is the patron saint against procrastination, for urgent causes, prompt solutions, merchants, navigators, computer programmers, and e-commerce. According to legend, St. Expeditus was a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity. On the day when Expeditus made the decision to become a Christian, the Devil took the form of a crow and told St. Expeditus his conversion could wait until the next day. Expeditus stomped on the bird, and shouted "I'll be a Christian today!"

It is possible that Expeditus did not exist. Some historians speculate that the idea of the saint may have stemmed from a misunderstanding that occurred when Parisian nuns received a crate of relics from Rome labeled for "expedited" delivery and mistakenly thought the label referred to the name of a saint.

I feel as if I should have some sort of bond with St. Expeditus because I am a procrastinator, and perhaps when I pray under my breath for things to work out, maybe he is listening and watching over me. If I were Catholic, that is.

I am a very bad procrastinator. I haven't blogged about National Drop Everything And Read Day (April 12th), National Library Worker's Day (April 17th), or National Library Week (April 15th-21st). I meant to blog about D.E.A.R., and then I really meant to blog about D.E.A.R. after reading Neel's post about Library Week (by the way, if you don't already read Neel, you really ought to. He will give you the best information about how to attend movies before they are released on his advance movie screening guide.)

Well, I guess I still haven't really blogged about D.E.A.R. or Library Week, so I guess that St. Expeditus isn't helping me today.

Cheese Ball Day, April 17th

Cheese Ball Day

That is, we are supposed to eat them, not be them.

Reading Harry Potter books always makes me hungry. In book IV, which I am reading because it is the assigned book for April as part of Edgy's Book Club, J.K Rowling has twice mentioned beef casserole. Now I want stroganoff, or tater tot casserole anything pumpkin, and maybe some butterbeer.

April 13, 1844

On this date in 1844, the New York Sun printed a story of the first transatlantic flight, which took only three days in Mr. Monck Mason's flying machine. But, how can that be? The Wright brothers didn't fly the first successful airplane until 1903... which was 59 years previous to 1844, right?

Yes right. The story "The Atlantic Crossed in Three Days in Mr.Monck Mason's Flying Machine!" was written by Edgar Allan Poe, and became known as "The Balloon Hoax."

Gotta love Edgar!

paraskavedekatriaphobia

Cerealia

Cerealia

Somewhere about this time in April is the festival of Cerealia. Cerealia is a 5-8 day celebration of the Roman goddess Ceres. Ceres is the goddess of growing plants,(there is a statue of Ceres on the dome of the Vermont State House building, to remind us of the importance of agriculture to Vermont's economy and history), grains (hence the word cereal) and motherly love (her Greek name is Demeter, and her daughter is Kore a.k.a Persephone).

To celebrate Cerealia traditionally, you should make a spelt cake, and offer it to Ceres, but that recipe doesn't sound very yummy, and she might not like it. You could fancy-up a spelt cake with apples or chocolate, to eat all by yourself, which could be fun. Or you could be like me and just eat cereal. You know how they say you shouldn't grocery shop when you are hungry? Yeah, well, I just bought five huge boxes of cereal, for the one of me. Apparently, I like the idea of cereal when I am hungry.

I guess I had better go buy some milk too.

Poetry & the Creative Mind Day, April 11th; National Poetry Month

Poetry & the Creative Mind Day

If you like poetry, you should celebrate Poetry & the Creative Mind Day. If you want to celebrate poems longer than one day, you should know that April is National Poetry Month. If you are having a hard time forcing yourself to be creative, Poets.org gives us some ideas with their 30 Ways to Celebrate page. My favorite ideas are "Take a Poem Out to Lunch", "Get out the Sidewalk Chalk and Commit a Poem to Pavement", and "Put Some Poetry in an Unexpected Place".

Today at lunch I tried to recite a poem, any poem, and my brain just froze. Out of all the poems from all the poets that I had been required to memorize for a grade, or even those that have just became part of my subconscious from reading over and over again over the years... it's like they weren't there. I couldn't remember any of my Frost, or Parker, or Dickinson, or Lewis, or Yeats; the only poem that I remembered enough to recite was Shel Silverstein's "I Cannot Go To School Today", which probably means that I shouldn't be at work today. You know, because I have the measles and the mumps, a gash and rash and purple bumps...

Tell the Truth Day, April 4th

Tell the Truth Day

It's Tell the Truth Day. Or is it?

National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, April 2nd

National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day

I don't like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I do like peanut butter and jelly cookies. I don't think that I am feeling much like making them, but, I am sure that there are lots of other ways to celebrate peanut butter and jelly.

April Fools Day, April 1st

April Fools Day

My dad's birthday is April Fools Day. (My mom's birthday is Washington's Birthday, and one of my brother's birthday is Columbus Day, and another brother's birthday is intermittently on Mother's Day, which is probably why I am so interested in holidays, but I digress.) I love April Fools Day, and most of all I love April Fools jokes from the media.

One year when I was in Oregon to celebrate my Dad's birthday and, I think, Easter, there was a radio broadcast stating that Oregon had passed a new law that required all pets, including cats and ferrets, to wear car harnesses. According to the broadcast, any violation would receive a citation and a fine. The broadcast went on for quite a long time, and the funniest part of the prank was the amazing number of callers who called in completely outraged by the "new law." But, to be fair, I believed it, and argued with my Dad about the merits of the new law for at least five minutes.

The British really know how to celebrate April Fools. The Guardian (a newspaper) published on April 1, 1977 a seven page article about the republic of San Serriffe, located in the Indian Ocean and consisting of two semi-colon-shaped islands named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. This became a running joke at the Guardian, who has published follow up articles on April Fools Day in 1978, 1980, and 1999.

Another British AF's joke, which I'm sure that you have read about, was the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest. If you haven't seen it already, you should watch it on BBC's On This Day.

If you want to read about the top 100 April Fools Day hoaxes from around the world, you should read about them here. They really are quite funny.

For April Fools 2007, we have several hoaxes floating about the internet.

1. From Google, the best April Fools Day search engine, we can get Free Wireless Internet, and don't forget the page that tells you how to install.

2. And again from Google, Gmail Paper, and

3. we can read about No Privacy Anymore, or

4. where to go to get a Tattoo for Your Toddler

Happy April Fools Day!