While doing research yesterday, I discovered a web site that tells us that every day is some kind of holiday. I found this very interesting and, of course, hysterical. Granted, it doesn’t have to be too crazy for me to find it funny, but I think I may have hurt something laughing at these Bizarre American Holidays.
First of all, April is, among other things, National Anxiety Month, National Humor Month and Uh-Huh Month. My three favorite afflictions. You take my anxiety and add a handful of my humor and it is bound to end in a Uh-huh moment.
Today, April 18, is also (drum roll please) International Jugglers Day. This is a perfect holiday for me. My Grandpa Joe taught me to juggle at an early age. He owned a neighborhood grocery store. Between customers he would pull three apples, onions or potatoes from their bins and, using one hand, would toss one into the air and just before it landed in his hand, he threw the next one into the air. He could keep the objects going all the while I’d be tugging had his shirt begging for my turn.
Finally he’d give me my turn. For the next hour, I would practice tossing apples, onions or potatoes up, try to catch them and then chase them across the floor. Over and over I would repeat the process with results that would make most people run screaming into the road that passed in front of the store. But not me. I now know that I was driven by my OCD. Of course, in those days, she nuts or she shouldn’t have eaten all that paste was the label I wore. Today, they would have a fancy name for my actions, and I would probably be on medication.
By the way, I mastered the art of juggling. I did it perfectly about five times, and then I put the apples away and never tried it again. I’m only partially OCD. Once I master something, I move on. If I remember right, I learned to put a 50-gallon drum on its side and walk for hours on top of it, rolling it what must have been ten miles a day. Now that I think about it, it was as if I was in training for the circus. Instead, I’m a wife, mother of five, grandmother of nine, and a fulltime writer. What with the juggling and balancing I do in my everyday life, I guess that was what I trained for.
