One Thousand Holidays: Hopping, Spitting, and Tattooing away from Zombies

Ever wonder how the "great outdoors" got that name? Well, I'm not going to give you that answer today, but you can always go ponder that question thanks to the first holiday celebrated today: Hop a Park Day. As odd as the name is, this holiday basically tells you to go out to a local park and simply enjoy the beauty of the trees, grass, bugs, playground equipment, benches, and whatever else you can find! The Holiday Hero and I went to one of our nearby parks--Roosevelt Park--to enjoy its grandeur (and the fact that grass and coniferous trees grow in Albuquerque). Unfortunately, our trip was cut a little too short thanks to the early uprising of monsoon season (I know, in ABQ!). Even with the rain and high winds, we were able to take in the wonder that is the "great outdoors"!

High winds, rain, cold...I read anywhere!

Beautiful, yes?

Our second holiday National Tattoo Day. Unlike on Piercing Day, we were not able to secure new tattoos for ourselves (economy sucks, especially for a grad student and musician). However, we have several between the two of us, so here is a glimpse of our ink:

Fancy, huh?

Each year a cherry pit spitting competition is held in Michigan at Tree-Mendus Fruit Farms at the beginning of the cherry picking season. This year's winner, Ron Matt, caused quite an upset because one of the two dominant families of the tournament did not win AND he was a first-time entrant. He won with a 69 foot spit; the world record, however, is held by one of the tournament's previous winners, Brian "Young Gun" Krause, at a distance of 93 feet! We tried this whole cherry pit spitting thing, and we were definitely not as successful as these folks. Mine might have gone about 5 feet and HH's probably flew about 10 feet at the most. Perhaps we need to work on this.

Yummy!

Our final holiday is certainly one of my favorites: National Zombie Day! Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me will tell you that I am definitely the zombie girl of both ABQ and my hometown back in Ohio. I have/read/seen/heard almost everything that has to do with the zombie myth, so it's no surprise as to why this holiday is one of my faves! I won't put all of my zombie memorabilia up here, but this is just a glimpse: