“Native American Day, observed annually on the second Monday in October, celebrates the cultures and contributions of the many Native American tribes. While it is not celebrated in all 50 states, it is recognized in both California and South Dakota and gaining popularity in the rest of the nation.
While it is not celebrated in all 50 states, it is recognized in both California and South Dakota and gaining popularity in the rest of the nation. In other parts of the country, Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrations occur on this day. Events such as traditional dances, art displays and ceremonies have begun to replace Columbus Day practices.
The observance focuses on celebrating the culture, heritage, and history of tribes across the nation. Each diverse nation carries its own traditions, rituals, and beliefs. The day celebrates their knowledge, contributions and enriching heritage. It’s also a reminder of their enduring legacy of strength, energy, and fortitude. “
1 – Lay Your Sleeping Head: A Henry Rios Novel (Henry Rios Mysteries Book 1) – Michael Nava
A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer, Henry Rios. Rios, beset my personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than that his lover’s death was murder. One reviewer said Lay Your Sleeping Head “retains all the complexity and elegance of the original novel but deepens the themes of personal alienation and erotic obsession that both honored the traditions of the American crime novel and turned them on their head.”
2 – Ordinary Girls: A Memoir – Jaquira Díaz
While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn’t find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.
3 – Tears of the Trufflepig – Fernando Arturo Flores
A parallel universe. South Texas. A third border wall might be erected between the United States and Mexico, narcotics are legal and there’s a new contraband on the market: filtered animals―species of animals brought back from extinction to amuse the very wealthy.
Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet and avoid the dangerous syndicates who make their money through trafficking. But his simple life gets complicated after a swashbuckling journalist invites him to an underground dinner at which filtered animals are served. Bellacosa soon finds himself in the middle of an increasingly perilous and surreal journey, in the course of which he encounters legends of the long-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe and their object of worship: the mysterious Trufflepig, said to possess strange powers.
4 – Be Recorder – Poems – Carmen Giménez Smith
Be Recorder offers readers a blazing way forward into an as yet unmade world. The many times and tongues in these poems investigate the precariousness of personhood in lines that excoriate and sanctify. Carmen Giménez Smith turns the increasingly pressing urge to cry out into a dream of rebellion—against compromise, against inertia, against self-delusion, and against the ways the media dream up our complacency in an America that depends on it. This reckoning with self and nation demonstrates that who and where we are is as conditional as the fact of our compliance: “Miss America from sea to shining sea / the huddled masses have a question / there is one of you and all of us.” Be Recorder is unrepentant and unstoppable, and affirms Giménez Smith as one of the most vital and vivacious poets of our time.
“Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States.[1][2][3] It is the Monday of the long weekend known as Labor Day Weekend.
Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labor movements grew, trade unionists proposed that a day be set aside to celebrate labor. “Labor Day” was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, which organized the first parade in New York City. In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty states in the United States officially celebrated Labor Day.”
“On July 25th, we celebrate the ultimate pairing of wine and cheese. National Wine and Cheese Day provides an opportunity to sample some of our favorites. The pairing of wines and cheese has been a regionalized tradition. Across wine-producing cultures, many pair their regional wines with local cheeses.”
Pixabay
Wine and cheease are two of my favorite foods and this day is a no brainer for me. LOL. I. MUST. CELEBRATE… We spend a lot of time celebrating new options for both of these but we usually end up around a Gewürztraminer wine and Parmigiano-Reggiano Italian cheese. Will you be celebrating today?
“Independence Day, also called Fourth of July or July 4th, in the United States, the annual celebration of nationhood. … It commemorates the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. Independence Day is celebrated on Sunday, July 4, 2021 in the United States.“
Pixbaay
Thank you to all of those who make the freedom possible. Your sacrifices will always be appreciated. How will you celebrate this year?
“The day’s name is a combination of “June” and “nineteenth” in honor of the date of Granger’s announcement and first appeared around 1903. It is also known as African American Freedom Day or Emancipation Day. … Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 45 states.”
In observance, there are many ways we can celebrate:
I can’t believe we are a quarter of the way through 2021, but, here we are. As an adult that never grew up, I always take part in the egg dying options. I am also peep’s fiend with all that wonderful marshmallow goodness.
pixabay.com
I do enjoy the way we celebrate Easter in the US but my search through worldwide celebrations was craziness. My favorite was the Easter Crimes week in Norway. They spend that time reading and watching stories about crimes. I may not live there but I can certainly participate in solidarity! Lol, I love the idea of group reading as a holiday.
However you celebrate Eater, I wish you the all the best! After the last year, we deserve it.
Somehow, we made it this far, after the chaos that was 2020. First, the pandemic hit the US in February and forced most of us into lockdowns by mid-March, while most recently, we watched Trump deny the legal declaration that he was no longer president. The sheer weight of 2020s history, will make it difficult for future generations to ever, completely comprehend it.
All Images courtesy of Pixababy.
There are many sites posting the full year of ‘most unexpected’ events of 2020, (https://mashable.com/article/what-happened-2020/) or (https://cbs4indy.com/news/20-noteworthy-things-happening-in-2020/0. though there are several out there.) Each contain unique takes on 2020, and the news stories they felt were the most important. I will follow up on the items I felt more strongly, than the rest. Not to imply any of these more important than the other but, for whatever my thoughts count for these days.
1 – Death of Chadwick Boseman and BLM.
For someone who is not black but appreciates black culture, I feel like Chad and BLM go hand in hand. He was the epitome of beauty and grace in life and death. Black Panther was a testament to his spirit and I, personally, loved every minutes of it. Losing him, we lost part of our soul as a human race. He was also a constant statement to BLM and bringing equality to Hollywood as a whole. I was excited to see our country come together to demand change. I also really hope the dialogue continues into 2022. (Source:https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/06/black-artists-letter-hollywood-divest-from-police)
2 – Australia faced devastating fires, then California joined them later
This was hard to watch this year and our heart heart for the destructive path, fire left behind.
We live within the typical higher snow area, and the current snow situation has me concerned for this year, as well. Unless we get dumped on in early 2021, we will all be in the same situation, with little snow runoff, and our years of willful denial of Science and pollution will create our just desserts. This one of many years, I am embarrassed to be American, since we reuse to acknowledge science.
This was, to me, the saddest example of Trump’s ignorance of how the American Justice System is meant to work. We complain about this exact thing when it happens in other countries but no one that could, held him responsible.
Really? It was 2020 after all, and at least some of us were stuck inside and bored with our lockdowns. I have no words to express the epitome of ignorant that gave this any traction at all. Most days of the last 4 years, I have been embarrassed by Trump to claim I am American. Items like this obvious ignorance and unwillingness to accept reason, will always wear on my faith in us a nation.
5 – President Trump was first impeached and then, acquitted.
Another instance of wishing I could melt into a tree…There were sooooo many in his last four years.
6 – Discovered water on the moon and life on Mars.
Since I couldn’t do a list with only Trump embarrassment moments…This is also very exciting for all of us patiently waiting for flying cars and that premier hotel thing on the moon. Good job, guys!
7 – Macaulay Culkin turned 40. Because we all needed something to laugh about right?
Ha, ha, ha, sigh, OK I feel old. Really old.
8 – I really wanted more than 7, but some long works days cut into giving this post everything I wanted it to be.
Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Lol.
Wishing you all, a wonderful Happy New Year. May it be full of love.
What a year this 2020 has been, but I am always grateful for the Christmas Holiday. As a child, I never understood some parents asking children for socks as a Christmas gift until I became an adult. Well, maybe I can’t claim adulthood, but at least the age one usually reaches adulthood. Overnight my socks became a much bigger deal to me since my feet are so often cold, all. the. time. Even in the dead of summer, don’t ask me how, they don’t play by the rules. So this year I am thankful for receiving multiple rounds of those plush, mid-calf socks.
Santa was listening. To everyone else out there, I hope today was a great one.
“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”
