Dance Like a Chicken Day

Today is Dance Like a Chicken Day. Come on, you know you want to do. Let's all Chicken Dance!

I have to admit this is one dance that my husband refuses to ever do. Which makes the following memory on of my favorites.

Before my husband and I were even a couple. In fact, before we even considered the possibility of being a couple, he took me to visit his parents,who live outside of New Orleans. Now, I am not sure how we came to the discussion to take this trip together.  Maybe the fact I was bored and had never been coupled with our being best friends contributed largely.

While we were on this trip, his mother showed me all the family photo albums. Shortly, she pointed to a picture of my husband as a teenager dancing the Chicken Dance. I had never seen the chicken dance. In fact, I had never heard of it. She asked him to show me. He refused at first. But, slowly, she cajoled him into it.

This is the one and only time that I have ever seen him do this dance. He hates it. But, for me, he swallowed his pride, flapped his arms, and wiggled his butt. If that isn't true friendship, what is?

I love to give him Chicken Dance items and playfully ask him to demonstrate again. But, nothing beats the fact that the one time he danced this as an adult was just for me.

Get Caught Reading Month

Wow, I just learned that May is Get Caught Reading Month. It may now become my favorite month of the year. It was established in 1999 to remind everyone (no matter their age) how fun it is to read. I just can't imagine having to be reminded that reading is fun. 

In honor of this month, I have decided to try to get caught reading in as many locations as possible.  Periodically during the month, I may blog or tweet about somewhere I got caught reading.

But, we are five days into May already. So where can I remember being caught reading this month.

• The Depot, a local restaurant where the waitstaff is very tolerant of my nose being stuck in a book.
• The end of my driveway while waiting for a ride.
• Walking the five blocks to the laundrymat. Yes, I remember to stop reading and pay attention when crossing streets.
• At the Red Cross office (during a conference call).
• Does the Library count?

I can't wait to add more as the month progresses.

Happy Reading, everyone!

Free Comic Book Day

Tomorrow, Saturday, May 5th is Free Comic Book Day. It is a day when participating comic book stores give free comics to people who come into their stores.

You will need to check with your local comic book shops to see if they are participating and, if so, what their rules are.

Sounds like a neat way to encourage new comic book fans. Believe it or not this graphic pieces of work have an amazing history. The first known prototype of a comic book was The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, published in 1842. The first known full-color comic book was The Blackberries, published in 1901. Did you know that the superhero archetype did not show up until the 1930s?

Here is a quick trivia question. As what was Marvel Comics originally known?

Great American Grump Out Day

Today is Grump Out day. When I saw this, I just had to go look it up. Evidently, for this 24 hour period, sourpusses are suppose to refrain from being grumps. Looking at my plans for today, maybe I should postpone it. 

Then again, maybe it will be nice. 24 hours with no frowning, no complaining, no hitting, no...could we get lucky enough...killing.  Could everyone really pitch in and try to make the world a nicer place for just one day? What a wonderful idea.

But, what do they really hope to show with this idea?  One site discusses the connections between negative attitudes, stress, and your health. Could this be accomplished with just one day? Another reason given was to give people permission to lighten up and be friendly, supportive, loving for one day. It is a shame if we really need special permission to act this way. My favorite reason is to have fun. Fun is such an underrated idea for adults.

So, for one day, let's smile and take the world in stride. For me, it is going to be hard. I got volun-told for an activity that I don't really want to do today. But, if I put on a happy face, I can help the others, a group of new volunteers from another organization, have a rewarding experience. So, maybe, for me it is the perfect day for the Great American Grump Out.

Mother Goose Day

Old Mother Goose,

When she wanted to wander,

Would ride through the air

On a very fine gander.

Jack's mother came in,

And caught the goose soon,

And mounting its back,

Flew up to the moon.

Today is Mother Goose Day, a holiday created in 1987 (according to the Mother Goose Society). This is the day to appreciate nursery rhymes and stories.


Who is this Mother Goose? It appears to be a term coined around the 1650's to represent poems like Jack Spat and stories like Mother Hubbard. The term does not represent any one author.


John Newberry promoted Mother Goose as a writer of children's rhymes when he adopted her name for a collection of traditional rhymes around 1765. However, the Mother Goose stories and rhymes are from a variety of sources and passed down in folklore fashion.

What is your favorite of these rhymes?

Tell A Story Day

Today, April 27th, is Tell a Story Day here in the United States. In England and Scotland this holiday is celebrated on October 27th. Today celebrates all forms of story-telling - fiction and non-fiction. Maybe you have a great tall-tale or a folk-tale to tell. It would be a terrific day to share stories from your family's past. Those stories are important to share before family histories are forgotten.

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Do I Get To Go Home?

When I was a child, my family drove from Cherry Hill, NJ to Nova Scotia, Canada. What a terrific education experience for any child. It was supposed to be a grand adventure. My adventure was slightly more terrifying than the rest of the family's.

See, when we drove across the border into Canada, I was a sleep. My older brother seized the opportunity to torment his little sister. When I woke, he told me that the border guard had not counted me and that meant I was not going to get to return to the United States. At 7, I believed him. I also knew that my father was going to be furious with me. What a mess. Thankfully, my brother told me not to mention it to Dad until he was positive he could not think of a way to sneak me back across the border. For the next two weeks, I fretted about being stuck in Canada for the rest of my life.

Obviously, the little twerp lied to me and I got to come home.

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Ok, it was not much of a story. But, in honor of Tell a Story Day, I am sharing this small piece of my childhood. Someday, I might tell you about the Hook Monster. Yes, that is another invention of my brother.

Ides of March

Today is the Ides of March. Many of us know this phrase from Act 1 Scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.  Here the playwright retells a tale from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. Plutarch wrote about Julius Caesar visiting soothsayer who the emperor that great peril would come to him no later than the Ides of March.

But, what is the Ides of March? Is March the only month that has it? I use it because Ides is singular.

Ides rhymes with hides and in the ancient Roman calendar was the day of the full moon. It fell on the 15th of the month in March, May, July, and October. In all other months, the Ides falls on the 13th.

Ancient Romans did not believe that the Ides of March was a particularly inopportune day. In fact, they normally honored celebrated the deity of the month with military parades. March’s deity would have been Mars. However, Shakespeare gave us the well known phrase “Beware the Ides of March”.

Today provides a great excuse to read or reread Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. If you do, be on the lookout for my favorite passage from the play. Spoken by Mark Anthony in Act 3, scene 2, it begins “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.”.

Here’s hoping you have a terrific Ides of March.

National Pi Day

Today is 3.14 or National Pi Day. Living in a math and science centric household, obviously, I had to post about this exceptional number.

Ten Pi Facts

1. π represents the relationship between a circle’s diameter and its circumference.
2. The formula to calculate the area of a circle uses pi. A=πr²
3. Pi is an irrational number because its value can not be expressed exactly as a fraction having integers in both its numerator and denominator.
4. Its decimal representation never ends. It also never repeats. At least that is the evidence to date and it has been calculated to more than a trillion places.
5. Pi is also know as Archimedes’ Constant. Archimedes of Syracuse provided an approximation of the number during the 3 century BC.
6. A rarer name is Ludolphine Number. This name is for Ludolphine van Ceulen. He computed a 35-digit approximation around t1600 AD.
7. When π is used as a symbol for the mathematical constant, it is not capitalized at the beginning of a sentence.
8. The capitalized form of pi has a completely different mathematical meaning…the product of a sequence.
9. The earliest known textual evidence of an approximation of pi date from around 1900 BC. Found on both the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus and Babylonian tablets, these approximations are within 1% of the true value.
10. One needs 39 digits of π to make a circle the size of the observable universe accurate to the size of a hydrogen atom.

And let’s not forget the joke: “Pie’s aren’t square, they’re round!”

Interesting side note: On today in 1879, Albert Einstein was born in Württemberg, Germany. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921

Share a Smile Day

Today is Share-A-Smile Day. What a nice way to start March!
In honor of this great idea, here is a list of ten things that make me smile.

1. Walking in soft rain on a warm day.
2. Kisses from the magnificent Bug-A-Boo, my service dog.
3. Reading a good book in front of a fire on a cold gloomy day.
4. Picnic dinners with my husband.
5. The staff at 18 East, a terrific local pub.
6. Writing for the joy of telling a story.
7. Helping someone else.
8. Reading a child’s first story.
9. Peanut butter and chocolate chips on bananas
10. Seeing friends unexpectantly.

What makes you smile?