National Old Rock Day

National Bobblehead Day

National Tempura Day

Okay, seems we have a couple quirky ones here. Let’s investigate and see what is going on with rocks and a bouncing head.

National Bobblehead Day

For over 100 years, bobbleheads have been entertaining and fascinating people and collectors. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Bobbleheads commemorate iconic teams, movies, and cartoon characters. Individually, they represent some of our most exciting athletes or thrilling television and movie characters.

Early bobbleheads, known as bobbers or nodders, developed from Germany. They took root in the United States pop culture in the 1950s and 60s. Bobbleheads resurged in the late 1990s when professional sports teams began using them as promotional items. Today, as both toys and collectibles, bobbleheads continue to amuse and captivate people.

This is a first for me as I never knew about this, but The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum submitted National Bobblehead Day in December 2014. On November 18, 2014, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum was announced. The museum opened in 2016 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and houses the world’s largest collection of bobbleheads. The building houses a tribute to the best of bobbleheads with a hall of fame and many exhibits related to the history and making of bobbleheads.

The Registrar at National Day Calendar proclaimed the day to be observed on January 7th annually in accordance with the policies set forth to designate a National Day.

This could be a fun thing to see in your travels.

While in Milwaukee, check out the brewery, too.

National Tempura Day

National Tempura Day encourages us to celebrate with a dish made with a tempura batter. This Japanese fare is made up of either seafood or vegetables dipped in batter and deep-fried.

Portuguese Jesuit missionaries introduced the recipe for tempura to Japan during the sixteenth century (around 1549). Many believe Portuguese Jesuit Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, loved tempura. Since the Genroku era (September 1688 – March 1704), tempura was traditionally a very popular food eaten at street vendors called “yatai” or food trailer.

Today, chefs all over the world include tempura dishes on their menus. They use a wide variety of different batters and ingredients, including nontraditional broccoli, zucchini, and asparagus. Chefs also dip dry fruits in a tempura batter, too. Some American restaurants serve chicken and cheeses, particularly mozzarella, in a tempura-style.

For sushi lovers, a more recent variation of tempura sushi provides a new way of enjoying the delicacy. Shushi chefs tempura fry entire pieces of delicate sushi and serve it on a beautiful platter.

National Old Rock Day

For all you rock fanatics, this isn’t to be confused with International Rock Day, which is July 13th, so don’t get upset with me, you’ll have your turn when it comes time.

This unofficial holiday encourages people to acknowledge, celebrate, and learn more about old rocks and fossils.

We all know a rock is a rock. It’s a solid mass made of minerals or mineral-like substances. Used for a variety of purposes throughout the history as tools, musical instruments, weapons and for mining - rocks form the outermost layer of Earth.

While natural processes—volcanic eruptions and erosion continually help create rocks on Earth, old rocks are especially important to those who study the Earth and its history.

Old rocks hold many answers to the mysteries of Earth's formation. They can tell scientists about natural events that played a role in the formation of the rocks and the effects that event had on other life forms in the area.

Old rocks can also sometimes hold fossils—the preserved remains of animals, plants, and other organisms. These fossils can help scientists find out the kind of flora and fauna that existed in the past and what may have caused them to evolve or go extinct.

Geologists date old rocks using a technique called radiometric dating or radioactive dating. The process involves looking at the decay of radioactive elements available in rocks. The oldest rock of terrestrial origin to be dated using this method is a zircon found in the Jack Hills of Australia. Scientists estimate that the rock could be as old as 4.4 billion years.

Next time you pick up a rock, ask yourself, “I wonder how old this is?” Or—look at it and toss it back on the ground. Your choice.

More strange holidays are coming!

Let’s see ma’am now where should I start--

my sister is the sunshine of the family.

We orbit around her like drunk bees waiting for a drop of pollen or a joke, saying nothing.

I sit still and silent with clenched teeth until I’ve got bloody red gums from smiling in too many planned photographs,

I change the color of my hair like it’s in the witness protection program.

And I guess I’m all used to this sort of thing by now so I’ll tell you how

every night when my family goes to sleep I’m still up with a book on account of

I don’t wanna leave but I’m wanting to get out.

I stick my fingers in the edges and slam it shut till all we see is--

I’m sorry younger me, but what the hell is freedom? Is it something you buy in a tricolored popsicle at the fair

    or has consumerism not grabbed you by the cup size yet and asked your name and number?

    How young are we talking here?

    Yes ma’am I think I stopped growing around twelve or thirteen and my mind feels like it’s stuck there

    but the point is I’m done, done,

    now all I gotta do is wait slowly for my body to deteriorate

and fall to the ground up and down quick like a climax chart.

Yes ma’am I believe in a God not on my accord though cause I been raised in a church

and sure I seen them comedians that come in and make gentle jokes about being a Home Schooled Kid Like Me

but that ain’t exactly what I’m going for here see I think just by nature I may be a bit edgier.

Am I outrunning stereotypes yet?

(That was a joke ma’am you can laugh.)

Now how long exactly have I wanted black hair? Has it been long because nah it can’t’ve been

    do you have that in your notes, ma’am? Do you have in your notes how I can’t seem to do nothing permanent

    or that my favorite color’s red but I wear more blue? Do you have in your notes how I hold books like security blankets,

    how my mom and dad are real successful and my brother he’s good at math and I’m just not no matter how hard I work? 

    You been writing down that I’m sad? Or why? What you put down there in your notes, is it my favorite art or poems

    is it terror dreams is it the recurring one about baby Rosemary crashing out of my arms like a fish flopping for life on the art class floor

    cause my arms ain’t strong enough to hold up an act anymore?

Things are crashing, ma’am, they crashing real hard.

Planets are coming out of alignment but Pluto here’s just a stubborn one, huh?

And she don’t want to revolve around the sun no more, huh?

And it’s been about an hour so I should probably take a sucker and get the hell out so you can see the next messed up kid, huh?

But when my family’s all sleep y’all think about me still up reading.

I’ll stick my fingers in the edges of the pages and slam em real tight.

Now all you can see is the red.

I don’t do whiskey or sleeping aids. But I have written a metric ton of stuff I regret. This stuff hardly ever sees past the confines of my pages app, but it’s embarrassing nonetheless to think that if I died some rando scrolling my stuff might run across it by accident and go “yep, it’s always the quiet ones”. I have ranted endlessly, my lousy and dated opinions on full display. Resting cringe face is an understatement of what this drivel inspires. Since I’m a hoarder of words I never delete anything major so it’s just...there. Time begets more documents, thus putting more space between me and my illustrious hot takes. But it doesn’t negate their presence. I have published some very regrettable things, but I was perfectly sober in doing so, which...debatably makes it worse. These things can all be summed up in a singular word: Wattpad.

Ah Wattpad, repository of everything distasteful, smutty and degenerate. I’m being hyperbolic of course—not everything, just...most. I joined a few years back, and what is it about being surrounded by degenerate things that pulls you down to the same level of degeneracy? Most of the content I fabricated during that time was, honestly, quite horrid. The ‘horrid’ mostly centered around exploitation-tier violence and general vulgarity. Whatever phase I was in compelled me to be eDgY, and most know that’s never a good thing. My edge wanted to go out with a bang, and go out with a bang it did. Were I to read back over the docs, I’d probably suffer a visceral reaction, somewhere between cringe-stung anaphylaxis and outright denial that I was ever that stupid.

A few things (read: a lot of things) I’ve published on here have been regrettable. Thus my purge a few months ago. Maybe I should make the purge an annual thing. I can see fans of the movie doing a double-take at that last line if removed from context but whatevs. I’ve still never seen the movie.

“Maybe I should make the purge an annual thing.” -CatLady1, 2021.

My conclusion is this.

(Writing to Prose itself now) The slave challenge you took down was really interesting. I know I give you flak over challenges (read: Epstein, Hitler), but I do so in jest and I’m all (most) for venturing beyond my comfort zone. Your challenges help me do that quite often. I actually was in the process of editing my entry for submission when you changed the prompt, so just know the challenge itself wasn’t completely ignored. :)

#hyperbolic, #satire, #opinion

and now I’m just writing to fill the word quota I wonder what I can write yep I already know all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy