Thursday, July 05, 2018

There’s more to July than the Fourth…

Holiday-wise, yesterday was the big July kahuna. Which led me to wonder what we might be celebrating today. So I checked around to see what wacky old holidays are on the docket for July 5th.

You’ll be delighted to know that it’s National Bikini Day. Which led me to wonder when my last bikini-wearing day was. Was it Good Harbor Beach, with the blue-white-black geometric print? Something other? I know that by my early twenties I figured out that I had a pretty good little body and switched to two-piece bathing suits from the full body armor suits my mother favored. That was then, this is now. Even if I still had that pretty good little body, which I most decidedly do not, I don’t think that, at this age, I’d own a bikini. But since I probably put on a bathing suit once or twice a year, it really matters not. For those who’ve got it, however, I say flaunt it. Happy Bikini Day.

I find it peculiar that National Apple Turnover Day is also celebrated on July 5th, apple turnover being something I associate with autumn, not summer. Peach, blueberry, cherry turnover? They’d all be more apt than apple. Maybe it’s just me. After all, my annual apple turnover is purchased in late September/early October at the Brookfield “Happy Apple” Orchard. Come to think of it, they may call it an apple dumpling. But same-same: pie crust with apple pie filling in it. As I write this post, it’s in the upper 90’s. So I’m much looking forward to that apple turnover/dumpling, and to crunching into the first Mac of the season. (Macintosh: the King of Apples.) Happy National Apple Turnover Day.

It’s been a long while since I’ve had a graham cracker, but I’ll still raise a cup of milk to toast this cookie-ish cracker (cracker-ish cookie?), now that I know that it’s National Graham Cracker day. Graham CrackerGrowing up, there was always a red Nabisco box of graham crackers in the cupboard. They were fine plain, but my preferred way to eat a graham cracker was slathered with peanut butter and/or raspberry jam. Or consume them in the quick dessert my mother used to whip up when she didn’t have time to bake: Take a brownie pan. Layer of graham cracker/layer of chocolate pudding; layer of graham cracker/layer of chocolate pudding. And so on. Refrigerate. Like revenge, best served cold. Happy Graham Cracker Day.

For all those who worked yesterday, even when they weren’t obliged to, today’s the day to celebrate National Workaholics Day. Or it would be if workaholics actually took any time off. There were plenty of chunks during my career when I will admit that I was a periodic, quasi-workaholic. These were during my stints in really small, really dysfunctional companies, where I generally chose to convince myself that only I could save this really small, really dysfunctional company. (BTW, the large and mid-sized companies I worked for were equally dysfunctional. I just never felt it was on me to save them. Not that it would have worked out anyway. It sure didn’t for the small fry.) Anyway, I did go through periods when I worked every day for a stretch, sharing Saturday and Sunday hours with a handful of fellow quasi-workaholics. In the pre-cellphone days, I remember calling in from a payphone in the international terminal at Logan to check on something or other. And once laptops were invented, well, you didn’t even have to venture into work on Saturday or Sunday to get things done. But I didn’t do it all that often, and the older I got, the less often I did it. Still, I do know the feeling. Do I miss those days? Hell, no! Happy National Workaholics Day even though, if you’re reading this, you’re probably not a workaholic. Just saying.

In case there’s a day you want to check out, head on over to checkiday.com.

If I’d been on the ball, I would have realized that July 3rd was National Disobedience Day and National Fried Clam Day. (Oddly, the picture illustrating Fried Clam Day is of steamers. At least it wasn’t the dreaded clam strip. Seriously, what’s the point of eating a clam without the belly?)

Months have designations, too. And July is the seldom-observed Cell Phone Courtesy Month. Plus, quite wonderfully, National Ice Cream Month, which I will be observing quite regularly throughout the month.

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