August 1, 2013

Today we celebrate:

National Raspberry Cream Pie Day – Yesterday's raspberry theme continues with this cool and refreshing dessert.

Girlfriend's Day – Today is a day to celebrate girlfriends. It doesn't matter if you're talking about a special female love interest or a bunch of gal pals. Show them today how much you care about them.

Lughnasa - Celebrated by the Irish and Scottish, this is a day that began as a harvest festival and continues today with festivals, bonfires and dancing. It is also a popular day to begin handfastings which are trial marriages. After a year and a day the couple has the option of ending the relationship or formalizing it into a lasting marriage.

National Minority Donor Awareness Day – Begun in 1996 with the goal of raising awareness among ethnic groups on all the issues related to organ, tissue and blood donations among minorities. The hope was to promote healthy living among minorities and to ultimately increase the number of minority donors. More than half of the people on the transplantation waiting list are minorities so it is very important for minorities to be involved in donations because they have a much better chance of being a good match for another member of their minority.

Respect For Parents Day – This is a day to be aware of how respectful you are to your parents. Sometimes when we get aggravated at people we need a little reminder about how important it is to be kind, respectful and most important of all, patient with all of our elders but particularly with our parents. 

Rounds Resounding Day – Do you remember singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat in a round when you were younger? I think most of us did that at some point with that song or with another one. For the non-musically inclined among us, a round is when a group of people sing a song together but each person starts the song at a different time (or if you have a large group, divide into small groups and each group would start at a different time). So the first person would sing “Row, row, row your boat” and as that person starts the next line with “gently”, the second person would start singing “Row, row, row your boat” and the rest would follow in that staggered pattern. If done well, it sounds good so practice with your family today.

Yorkshire Day – This is a day to celebrate the English county of Yorkshire. On this day in 1834, slaves in the British Empire were freed and also on this day in 1759 the Battle of Minden was fought and won by the British during the Seven Years' War.

Spider-Man Day – Spider-Man first appeared in comics in 1963 and has continued with varying degrees of popularity until this year. I couldn't find a reason why this day was chosen to celebrate him but since it was dig out some old comics or buy some new ones and read all about his adventures.

World Wide Web Day – I'm not sure why today was chosen to celebrate the World Wide Web. As far as I can tell, it should be on August 6^th since that is the day in 1991 that the WWW was open to the public. But in any case, get on the web today and look to see how far we have come in just 22 years.

World Scout Scarf Day – This is a Boy Scout celebration. Celebrations today call for all scouts, whether they are active or former, to wear their scout scarfs in public today. The scarf is a symbol of the scout promise and for the scout mission to leave the world a little bit better than they found it. Sounds like a great mission to me.

To celebrate today, dig out your scout scarf, if you have one, and wear it today. If you don't have one, keep your eye out for scouts who are wearing their scarves today and ask them about their scouting experiences. Then invite them and your parents and your girlfriend(s) and anyone you can find that is from Yorkshire County and invite them to your house for a Lughnasa celebration. Get on the web and find out what kind of food is usually served at one of these celebrations and supplement it with raspberry cream pie. Make sure you organize everyone so you can sing some rounds and pass out Spider-Man comic books. Finally, go around your neighborhood seeking out minorities so you can talk to them about the importance of donations to their minority groups.