District of Columbus
Oct. 13th, 2008 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"Riches don't make a man rich, they only make him busier."
- Christopher Columbus
Today is Columbus Day, when we celebrate the birthday of the guy who sailed the ocean blue and settled Columbus, Ohio in 1992, apparently in search of "spices." (It was just about impossible back then to find a decent salsa.) Or maybe it's the day of his death, or the day of the settling, or maybe it's just one of those holidays invented by Hallmark to encourage the purchase of greeting cards.
[FRONT OF CARD] Let loose and have a "spicy" Columbus Day...
[INSIDE OF CARD] ... the "natives" are getting restless! You should take their land.
When I was in high school, my high school sweetheart somehow convinced me that there was an October holiday called "Sweetest Day." I've never seen any such thing on a calendar, a flower shop, a Hallmark store, anything. The name doesn't even appear to make any grammatical sense. But somehow I was convinced to buy her candy.
Columbus Day seems similarly bogus, not only because we are celebrating the life and accomplishments of -- by all accounts -- a narcissistic, arrogant, foolhardy, oppressive rogue who didn't even have the good sense to just stay in the Bahamas, but also because no one can decide whether it's a holiday or not.
Here are the rules: if you get the day off, it's a holiday. If you have to work, it's just another manic Monday. But today people are picking-and-choosing. The federal government has the day off, so there's no U.S. Mail or congressional fistfights. But the stock market is open and I'm stuck at work.
Theoretically this would be a good day for a commuter, since the trains are running on their normal weekday schedule, except that my train busted on the tracks this morning and apparently all of the maintenance people were sleeping in. By this evening the trains had either lapsed into a weekend schedule, or the operators had knocked off early.
Sure, I could have taken a vacation day and stayed home with J., eating pancakes and watching uninterrupted American League Championship Series coverage, but I have to be at my desk to assuage the nerves of frazzled business reporters and businesspersons. And besides, I'll be leaving on Thursday for a brief sojourn back to my home-sweet-hometown.
Why couldn't Columbus have died on a Friday?
- Christopher Columbus
Today is Columbus Day, when we celebrate the birthday of the guy who sailed the ocean blue and settled Columbus, Ohio in 1992, apparently in search of "spices." (It was just about impossible back then to find a decent salsa.) Or maybe it's the day of his death, or the day of the settling, or maybe it's just one of those holidays invented by Hallmark to encourage the purchase of greeting cards.
[FRONT OF CARD] Let loose and have a "spicy" Columbus Day...
[INSIDE OF CARD] ... the "natives" are getting restless! You should take their land.
When I was in high school, my high school sweetheart somehow convinced me that there was an October holiday called "Sweetest Day." I've never seen any such thing on a calendar, a flower shop, a Hallmark store, anything. The name doesn't even appear to make any grammatical sense. But somehow I was convinced to buy her candy.
Columbus Day seems similarly bogus, not only because we are celebrating the life and accomplishments of -- by all accounts -- a narcissistic, arrogant, foolhardy, oppressive rogue who didn't even have the good sense to just stay in the Bahamas, but also because no one can decide whether it's a holiday or not.
Here are the rules: if you get the day off, it's a holiday. If you have to work, it's just another manic Monday. But today people are picking-and-choosing. The federal government has the day off, so there's no U.S. Mail or congressional fistfights. But the stock market is open and I'm stuck at work.
Theoretically this would be a good day for a commuter, since the trains are running on their normal weekday schedule, except that my train busted on the tracks this morning and apparently all of the maintenance people were sleeping in. By this evening the trains had either lapsed into a weekend schedule, or the operators had knocked off early.
Sure, I could have taken a vacation day and stayed home with J., eating pancakes and watching uninterrupted American League Championship Series coverage, but I have to be at my desk to assuage the nerves of frazzled business reporters and businesspersons. And besides, I'll be leaving on Thursday for a brief sojourn back to my home-sweet-hometown.
Why couldn't Columbus have died on a Friday?
Actually
Date: 2008-10-14 11:25 am (UTC)I'm delighted the stock market was open, though.
Happy Sweetest Day!
-Village Twins
Re: Actually
Date: 2008-10-14 01:35 pm (UTC)Sweetest Day revisited
Date: 2008-10-15 02:52 am (UTC)Re: Sweetest Day revisited
Date: 2008-10-15 05:24 pm (UTC)Re: Sweetest Day revisited
Date: 2008-10-15 07:41 pm (UTC)