Holidays to celebrate this week

UNDATED – Today is  National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day. Crispy bread and melted cheese – delicious and a perfect way to start the week.

One of the earliest references to melted cheese sandwiches is featured in Sarah Tyson Rorer’s “Mrs. Rorer’s New Cookbook.”

The top five kinds of cheese Americans prefer on their grilled cheese sandwiches are:

  1. Cheddar (68%)
  2. American (60%) 
  3. Swiss (59%)
  4. Provolone (56%)
  5. Pepper Jack (47%)

Tomorrow will be fun and games for the verbose among you as it’s National Scrabble Day, a day for putting all of your efforts into grabbing the triple word score.

April 13 is the day Scrabble inventor Alfred Mosher Butts was born. He gave the world an iconic board game now played all over the world. Today, more than seven decades later,  we live for “Triple Word Scores”. Not to mention, the strategic use of those mysterious blank tiles.

It’s time to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E one of the world’s most iconic board games.

Wednesday is National Ex-Spouse Day, a day for reflecting on positive moments you shared with your ex. Although everything may have not worked out in the long run, it’s nice to remember the good times.

Reverend Ronald Coleman of Missouri, U.S. creates National Ex-Spouse Day as a way to dispel the bitterness associated with divorce.

We’re also incredibly sorry to reveal that Thursday is National Laundry Day. It’s not our favorite holiday, but it has to be done.

 Make sure to give a “high five” to everyone you meet on Thursday, April 15, because it’s National High Five Day.

How did this all start? Depends on whom you ask. We’re going with the baseball story that dates back to 1977 when Dodgers Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke gave each other a high five in celebration. Baker’s home run had just made L.A. the first team in history to have four hitters with at least 30 home runs in a single season.

Today people everywhere use it to mean “Congratulations!” or “Great job!” We’re still quite nostalgic for the “low five,” of course, which may have originated back in the 1920s.

Friday is Wear Pajamas To Work Day. We’ve got a sneaking suspicion that many of you have been wearing pajamas on your bottom half for the last year anyway, so this Friday is the day to go all out and get your colleagues involved too.

In the 1700s, masquerade ball attendees, actresses, as well as “ladies of the evening” began incorporating pajama trousers into their wardrobe, while but more “respectable” women continued to look down on such fashion.

In 1911, French couturier Paul Poiret was one of the first people to create pajama outfits intended for a use beyond sleeping, which was a step on their path toward widespread acceptance.

Saturday is Husband Appreciation Day. If your husband is always there for you, this is the day for letting him know he’s appreciated.

Since the earliest recordings of marriage, husbands, across many cultural and religious traditions, have been established as the protectors and providers of their wives and families.

We love this little-known holiday dedicated to the men in our lives who show up for us in bold and subtle ways every day of the year. Its fun-loving spirit gives us lucky spouses an opportunity to be creative and thoughtful in how we show our appreciation to our partners.

The National Today data science team surveyed 1,035 married women about their husbands.

The top five things that women appreciate most about their husbands:

  • He’s supportive of my goals & desires – 52 percent
  • He’s smart – 56 percent
  • He makes me laugh – 61 percent
  • I can be myself around him – 62 percent
  • He’s a hard worker – 69 percent

International Bat Appreciation Day is also Saturday, April 17, a chance to show our flying and mostly nocturnal friends some love. As well as it obviously being a great excuse to binge a few Batman movies, it’s also an opportunity to delve deep and learn the important role bats play in the ecosystem and biodiversity. There are more than 1,400 different bat species and contrary to popular opinion they aren’t blind. 

An Indiana bat unwittingly poses for the camera. Credits: Center for Bat Research, Outreach, and Conservation, Indiana State University.

Bat Conservation International (BCI) was founded in 1982 by a group of concerned scientists who recognized the importance of protecting bats. Bats contribute towards controlling pests, create rich fertilizer for landowners, and pollinate fruit and flowers. BCI aims to conserve bats and their habitats through a combination of education, conservation, and research. 

Human activities such as deforestation, mining, and irresponsible tourism have caused a substantial decrease in the bats’ population. Bats have often been understudied and misunderstood animals. They are often perceived as disease spreaders when in reality they help keep the numbers of many pests down.

Finally, on Sunday we celebrate National Velociraptor Awareness Day. It’s the perfect reason to watch Jurassic Park and get creeped out by that scene in the kitchen all over again.

Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” films turned raptors into legitimate Hollywood superstars during the early 1990s. This creature roamed the Earth 70 million years ago.

In 1923, Peter Kaisen recovered the first velociraptor fossil: a crushed but complete skull, along with one of the second-toe claws.

Here’s one fact we often overlook: raptors, unlike those in the films, did not stand over 7 feet tall. They were roughly 6 1/2 feet long and measured less than 2 feet high at the hip. They also had feathers and wings. In reality — they sort of resembled turkey dinosaurs.

Information, nationaltoday.com