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!

Hares & Rabbits

For good luck in the upcoming month you should say, "hares, hares, hares" when you go to bed on the last day of the month (any month not just March), and then say "rabbits, rabbits, rabits" as soon as you get up the next morning.

I'm not sure why. Someone just told me.

Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day, March 27th

Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day

Last year Edgy wasn't happy because I did not include a list of quirky country music titles with my post that noted the existence of Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day. I am not a lover of country music, in fact, my vision of hell is me sitting at a desk with a broken chair in an unconditioned office in Arizona, in July, and having to correct circular reference errors on a neverending pile of useless spreadsheets, while listening to country music. But, since we are quickly approaching (in 41 days) the Day of Edgy, I thought it would be appropriate to concede to his year-old request. So, everyone should go thank Edgy for this cannon of quirky canticles.

I decided to split these titles up into three quirky categories in order to maximize their impact, otherwise, the funniness gets lost, at least for me.

Livestock

"Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer"
"You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd"
"May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose"

Good Love

"It Was An Absolutely Finger Lickin', Grits And Chicken Country Music Love Song"
"She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy"
"Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off"
"Get Your Biscuits out o' the Oven and Your Buns into Bed"

Love Gone Wrong

"Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth 'Cause I'm Kissing You Goodbye"
"I Gave Her The Ring, and She Gave Me the Finger"
"I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home"
"Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass"
"You're the Hangnail in My Life"
"It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long"
& "I Can See Your Aura and It’s Ugly"

Make Your Own Holiday Day, March 26th

Make Your Own Holiday Day

Have you ever wondered how you could make your own very special holiday? Well, today is Make Your Own Holiday Day . This day only comes once a year, so you should take advantage of this. Really, you can get a lot of mileage out of a day like today. It means that whatever you want everyone around you to celebrate, anything at all, you can do it today, simply by saying, "It's Let's Eat Frog Legs for Breakfast Day!"

If you want to celebrate a Tapas Day, a Trixie Belden Mystery Day, or a Everyone-Wears-Flip-flops-and-Likes-It-Even-if-It's-Snowing-Day, you can!

The possibilities are endless... just don't tell your friends that they can make their own holiday, or you might be eating frog legs for dinner!

Nice Fragrance Day, March 23rd

Nice Fragrance Day

So, this morning when I packed for my work-related trip to Springdale, Utah, I was not very awake, and it is obvious by what I am finding in my suitcase, and more importantly, what I am not finding in my suitcase.

For example, I did not pack any of these pretty essential items:

Toothbrush,
Toothpaste,
Deodorant,
Underwear, yes, no underwear,
Socks, or
Any type of outerwear like a coat or sweatshirt.

But, I did pack:

Four Books, (for a four day work trip)
Two different kinds of bath salts,
Two kinds of shampoo,
Two kinds of bath soap,
My expensive but favorite scented lotion that I never travel with because I don't want to loose it,
Two DVDs, (This is the weirdest addition. I have never traveled with DVDs.)and
Six pair of pants- for a four day trip

Yeah, I'm an awesome packer.

But, at least I will be as bathed as thoroughly as is humanly possible, and will smell good because all my scents match.

International Goof-off Day, March 22nd

International Goof-off Day

Woot woo! Can we say a pool, and a book, and very white legs... hmmm, maybe not.

How about facial and then a hike to the Emerald Pools, or maybe I should do the hike first and then the facial so I don't clog all the pores that I just unclogged with the sweat that will likely be pouring off of the tip of my nose.

Oh well, even if it's even if all I do to treat myself to four of my five hours of Garrison Keillor while driving down to the southern most parts of Yoootah, I think that today will be quite nice.

Proposal Day, March 20th

Proposal Day

Ummm...

Never mind.

You know, if you can't say anything nice and all.

Ode to a cell phone, with many apologies to William Carlos Williams

So much depends
upon

a gray cell
phone

missing without charged
battery

hidden from sight.
Dead.

I'm so lame...

I lost my cell phone again.

3.14 or Pi Day! , March 14th

Pi Day!

Oh my gosh! I almost forgot about Pi Day! Thank goodness that Soccer Dad reminded me or we might have gone all day without recognizing the wonderfulness that is Pi! If you want to go all out, hold your celebration at 1:59 pm, which will mean that you are recognizing the six-digit approximation of Pi: 3.14159.

If you want to send an ecard to someone to share the joy of Pi day, you can check out this site, and this site, and this site.

If you are looking for a book to read about dragons and Pi, I would recommend, Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi: A Math Adventure .

Wikihow has quite a detailed page about how to celebrate Pi Day, including a link for How to Write an Ode About Math.

If those things don't help you in your search for how to celebrate Pi Day, this site has a lot of links to Pi things. And if you check out this site, and take a survey, you could win a free Pi t-shirt.

And you could always check out last year's Pi Day post. Last year was probably a better post. It has Pi in binary and some other fun links about Pi.

Or just read some Pi poetry, that should make your day great!

Irish American Day, March 14th

Irish American Day

If you have even a little bit of Irish in you, you have a lot in common with 34.5 million Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But, if you aren't Irish, don't feel left out, it's only three days until St. Patrick's Day, the day that everyone is Irish.

To learn more about why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day, check out the History Channel's The History of St. Patrick's Day. If after reading/watching all that Irishness, you become despondent and worried that the American version is so commercialized and a far cry from it's religious and historical beginnings in Ireland that we as a nation are all doomed to live soulless existences, then try some Irish soul food... aka potatoes. Check out these authentic Irish recipes, and stay at home and cook and invite all your friends over for an Irish feast. Your soul will be filled to the brim with friendship.

But, you really will miss a little bit of the fun if you aren't a little commercial. After all, we Americans were the ones who put the pinch in the traditions, so, put on a "Kiss Me I'm Irish" or "Erin Go Bragh" button, and go have some fun! (Please wear one for me, I seem to have lost my special blinking one, as well as my Erin Go Bragh wall hangings.) Sad!

If cooking Irish food doesn't sound too appealing, try a parade. There will be plenty around. Even Salt Lake City has one, and on the right day too! It was a fun parade last year, it was cold, and a little odd with all the Scottish bagpipe bands participating, but lots of fun. I highly recommend it.

What ever you do, remember today is the prep day for the real thing, so you can have a half a week of Irish fun!

Happy, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Jewelry Lovers Day, March 13th

Jewelry Lovers Day

Since aquamarine is the birthstone for March, and because aquamarine is supposed to increase intelligence (always a good thing) and cure laziness (I have had a hard time buckling down and working these past couple of weeks), and also because it is Scorpio's (my sign's) birthstone, I have been wearing my aquamarine ring a lot lately.

Today, while I was up doing a site visit for work, my ring fell off. I got down on the floor and looked. So did everyone else. We couldn't find it anywhere. When after a half an hour of three people looking and no ring, I gave up. I was sad, but not devastated, because while I like my ring, but I know that it is not an expensive ring because the stone is light in color and cloudy and I remember that much from when I was a geology major... for two and a half semesters, a million years ago.

But, it was just weird. No ring anywhere. When I got back into the agency minivan, (it is probably not only worth mentioning that I was driving the agency minivan, but I am going to mention it because I was driving a vehicle that I was not comfortable driving, and am proud of myself for navigating near BYU traffic during lunchtime in a vehicle that I hate driving) to drive back to work, I had a weird thought. Check your clothes, the thought said. I checked my pockets, no ring. So, I started driving down the very steep hill. The nagging thought would not leave. So, I pulled over on the side of the very narrow road and patted myself down. I found the ring tucked into the cuff of my jeans. How it didn't fall out while I was down on my knees for twenty minutes looking for the ring, or when I walked up two flights of stairs on my way to the parking lot, I will never know, but I am glad to have my ring back, because I do like my jewelry.

Anyway, if you like jewelry, but you haven't ever really loved your birthstone, check out this site. There are lots of different stones you can choose for your favorite, based on birth month, zodiac sign, birth day of the week, Tribe of Israel, guardian angel or even apostle.

So, if any of you readers are thinking of buying me jewelry, I am opal for October, aquamarine for Scorpio, and carnelian for Friday. But, probably, garnets and pearls are my favorites.