Drive-In Movie Day

Posted on June 6, 2025 by arwenbicknell

This is probably incorrect, but the first movie I remember seeing at a drive-in was Star Wars when I was six. I remember this partly because my mom was excited that Star Wars was making her a bunch of money in the stock market (it paid for a ski vacation that winter), and partly because The Rescuers was showing on a screen behind us and I would have much preferred to see that instead, so I spent some portion of the evening twisting myself around in the back seat and staring out the back window.

But all in all, I loved the drive-in. You’d get there before dark and park. There were swings up by the screen where kids could play. The concession stand smelled amazing. And sprawling in the back seat of a car was way more fun than sharing an arm rest in a theater. Plus, it was California, so you could hang the speaker on your car window and NOT be plagued by swarms of bugs.

Drive-ins fell out of vogue, as we all know. I wrote a feature story on one trying to make a comeback in Florida back in 1998 or so, and lord, the mosquitoes were awful. I assume the fellow mowed and sprayed before the season actually started, but you would not have caught me there.

There was a drive-in about an hour away from us in Virginia that we discovered when Thomas was 13 or so and we went to once a summer after that. It was similar to my childhood memories—a playground, a crowded concession stand, and lots of kids. There were speakers, but only for show; audio was delivered via your car radio. There were also a lot more SUVs, needless to say—I saw a lot of families park backward, push down all the seats, and make giant beds to watch from. The first time we went, the place put on a “movies til dawn” extravaganza, starting with Ouija and then moving into a couple old Universal flicks—Frankenstein, Dracula. It started at 9 p.m. and ended around 5 a.m. What a bargain!

There’s a similar place near us now—the Route 66 Drive-In, with two screens. We went last year and saw a double feature of Twisters and The Fall Guy. Chances are we’ll be back in the next month or so!

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Start Over Day

Posted on June 5, 2025 by arwenbicknell

This is a totally made up day by some dude at the National Day Calendar outfit. I feel like maybe he didn’t have anything to put on the calendar and just said, “OK, this is a nice concept.”

And it is, although I find it a bit hazy. The basic premise is that every day above ground is a good one and a chance to be better. That part is fine. But the rest of the suggestions are sort of contradictory. Embrace new beginnings, OR accept failures and try again. These do not seem like the same thing to me. The adage is not “If at first you don’t succeed, try again—or, ya know, give up and do something else, whatever.” I can see the point of not throwing good money after bad, but I also kinda think quitting shouldn’t be a first approach.

I realize that the decision to start over vs. start anew comes entirely down to context. If you love basketball but are 5-foot-nothing, chances are you should not count on playing as a profession.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t find a basketball-adjacent vocation. 

That said, we have quit a lot of things in this family—and made fresh starts. I got hired and quit a lot of jobs in my time. I tried on a lot of relationships and quit on them when things went south. Then I met my husband, and that one stuck. I tried and opted out of playing sports. (And so did my kid.) Then my husband showed me some appeal in golf—and now that he is retired, I am taking a shot at trying to enjoy not only being bad at it but maybe getting a teeny bit better at it.

We are a family of writers. The hubs wrote a book and got shot down. He wrote another one and got it published—and three more after that. I tried and failed to find a publisher for a couple stories I wrote and really liked. I put them away. I wrote a different book and got it published. I am working a novel now that might have a shot. We’ll see where it goes. The kid is working on his first novel. I hope it succeeds, but if it doesn’t, I know he’ll try something else.

What’s something you quit on and wish you hadn’t? Today’s the day to think about revisiting it!

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Global Running Day

Posted on June 4, 2025 by arwenbicknell

I know so many people who are into running.

I don’t get it.

Off the top of my head, I can name at least five people I know personally who have run marathons. I find that sort of accomplishment impressive, if somewhat baffling. I can name at least two people who run marathons on a regular basis and although they seem OK and I admire their fitness and dedication, I do secretly (well, not so secretly) wonder occasionally if they have a screw loose.

Personally, I hew to the Satchel Paige school of thought: Never run if you can walk, never walk if you can sit, never sit if you can lie down. I am a big fan of lying down.

Back when I had a big dog and a small yard in my 20s, we would go for little jog/runs. Neither of us liked it very much. He vastly preferred running by himself at the dog park or the dog beach. I vastly preferred watching him.

When I met my husband, he was a big fan of hiking. I didn’t like that either. Too hot in Florida, too hilly in Virginia, too sweaty and winded and itchy after a half hour to enjoy it much, unless there was a waterfall or an ice cream parlor at the end of it. (Note: This was not true out West, where I hiked quite happily on little trails in Yellowstone, not to mention around Bryce Canyon, Arches, and other big red rocks. Perhaps I just need something to look at that is not impenetrable forest.)

I sat in my office job for years. I was quite good at that. Now I lie in bed and work on my laptop. If they had an Olympic event for that, I would definitely place.

I think part of this might stem from the fact that I’ve never really had a walk-around lifestyle. Until we moved to our current house, I always lived at least 3 miles from my workplace, the grocery store, etc., and I always drove everywhere. If parking was a problem, I would debate going and see how far I’d have to walk to and from the car.

Now that we live in a dinky town, I still drive almost everywhere, but I have the good manners to feel a little bit guilty about it now and then.

Hats off to all you runners out there!

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Egg Day

Posted on June 3, 2025 by arwenbicknell

Yesterday was Rotisserie Chicken Day and today is Egg Day, so now I guess we all know which came first.

I am a late adopter of eggs as a breakfast item. When I was a kid, my dad made bacon and eggs every weekend for my mom. I’d usually been up for hours by the time they got around to breakfast, so I was never expected to join them, and it was a relief. Raw eggs looked gross. Cooked eggs smelled funny. Didn’t matter what my dad did to them—fried, omelettes, smothered in cheese, every option was a hard no from me.

Eggs in cookies? No problem. Eggs in cake? You betcha. Eggs to make the flour mixture stick to fried chicken? Oh, absolutely. But by themselves? Nope nope nope.

I was 13 when I finally sat down to a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. I decided that was not the end of the world, as long as toast was involved.

Then I started paying more attention, and I realized that my mom’s preferred egg dishes were one-quarter Tabasco. And that cheese my dad put on eggs? Velveeta, because it melted smoother.

OK. Game on. Grandma’s deviled eggs, made with Miracle Whip and mustard and not much else? Yes, please (but no to all others that use mystery ingredients like pickle relish or chives). Eggs in restaurants were a new adventure. Ham and cheese omelets were dandy. McMuffins with egg became a weekly go-to in college.

So by the end of my 20s, I was fairly well schooled in the egg world. The one variation I had not steeled myself for was Fried Over Easy. All that goo just weirded me out and I didn’t see the point of a half-cooked egg.

Then I met my husband, who informed me that “breakfast any time” is one of the most beautiful phrases in the English language. That dude eats a LOT of eggs. Fortunately, he is not an over easy guy. But he is an “over medium” guy, which I had never heard of before I met him. He has pretty much perfected that skill, and we eat a lot of eggs in this house. But I do insist on a lot of toast to sop it all up, naturally.

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Leave the Office Early Day

Posted on June 2, 2025 by arwenbicknell

According to the interwebz, this day was championed by some sort of employee productivity expert. I have never heard of a company implementing this as policy, but I rather like the idea of being able to leave when you’re done. This was one of the nicest parts about working at a newspaper: You arrived, there was work to do. When the last page was with the printer, you went home. Next day, clean slate.

Unfortunately, most jobs don’t work like that. Bank tellers, grocery clerks, pharmacists, and the like can’t just check out when no customers come in for a few minutes. (On the plus side, when I was a bank teller, I was urged to have no guilt about taking a lunch break when the line was out the door. I never understood that policy, either. Why not schedule tellers’ lunch shifts when customers aren’t at the bank on theirs?)

My current job requires billing by the hour. So you can leave early, but you’ll take a hit—vacation time, sick time, working longer some other day. On the other hand, I also work from home, so I have no office to leave. That said, I do shuffle my hours around quite a bit to leave the house and go shopping/golfing/gallivanting.

So if you have a chance to leave the office early, what will you be doing instead? Give me a good answer and I’ll send you a book or a baked good.

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Pen Pal Day

Posted on June 1, 2025 by arwenbicknell

This is a perfect day to honor my dear friend Sara. We were pen pals in third grade, when I lived in Illinois and she lived in the distant land of Iowa, all the way across the Mississippi River, a whole five or ten miles from me.

The pen pal thing was devised as a writing project for school. I assume it happened because my teacher, Mrs. Mohler, was buddies with Sara’s teacher and they thought this would be a fun way to scam us brats into practicing composition and penmanship. Poor Sara was the big loser on that front. I’m pretty sure I wrote delightful and hilarious letters, but I’m also pretty sure that they were at least—probably more than—5 percent illegible. (Sara had beautiful penmanship. I don’t know if she still does. Facebook Messenger does not require that particular skill.)

My memory is shot, so I don’t remember how many of these letters were exchanged as part of the actual project. I think maybe it was two letters from each participant? And I suspect I still have them in a box somewhere, but it would take hours I don’t have right now to unearth them. I also don’t know how successful this project was overall and whether any of my classmates hit it off with their writing partners. But Sara and I were a happy match. Phone numbers were exchanged, visits were paid, sleepovers were held, birthday party invitations were exchanged. Her immaculately appropriate mom took us to see Six Pack. My entirely inappropriate parents took us to see Stripes. We lost touch when I moved to Florida—ironic considering we were pen pals.

Something like 15 years later, her mom found me on Facebook and we reconnected. By that time Sara was married and had a baby and lived in Wisconsin; I was engaged and living in Virginia. We had both gone into news: I did print, she did broadcast. We basically picked up as if we had never left off. We had lunch when she brought her family to DC a couple years later; we met up for an afternoon when the hubs and I took a kid-free anniversary trip to Chicago. We both got into baking: My sloppy self focuses on cookies, she makes gorgeously detail-oriented cakes. My only complaint about her is that we have not seen each other since I moved back to her time zone. Sara! When are we going to make this happen? At the very least, can we plan five years ahead and do a 50th anniversary thing? That seems worth celebrating!

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Speak in Complete Sentences Day

Posted on May 31, 2025 by arwenbicknell

This is another commemoration I do not understand. I just call this Saturday.

Complete sentences are not difficult. You’ve all heard the observation that “no” is a complete sentence. See? Easy. Aside from sentences along the lines of “no,” clear sentences require more effort. Well-constructed and complex sentences are even more difficult. I spend my days fixing those.

Complete sentences? Not so much. (See what I did there?)

But in keeping with the spirit of the day, I’ll keep on keeping on and be mindful that my communications all involve subjects and predicates, nouns and verbs, and capital letters and end punctuation.

Best of luck to you all in this oh-so-difficult endeavor!

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Hole in My Bucket Day

Posted on May 30, 2025 by arwenbicknell

I have talked before about my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Sturgis, and how she emphasized music that school year. All the teachers at my grade-school did this, but most of them handed out the music books and just played an accompanying record that we were supposed to sing along to. Mrs. Sturgis eschewed the record and played the piano to accompany us, which is why I remember her classes more clearly. She did not give lessons in or after class, but she recommended teachers (as a result, I didn’t take lessons until years later).

It’s too bad that those old-timey music books and music lessons aren’t still part of a grade-school curriculum. I learned a ton of history indirectly through those songs. Home on the Range, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, The Green Cathedral … and this one.

As with so many of these days, I’m not sure how this date is associated with the event. But seeing it go by did let me know that I still remember 90 percent of this song which is an extended discussion between Henry and Liza about a busted bucket and what to do about it. (Although I’m pretty sure the version I learned subbed in Willie for Henry. Weird how those things go.) It’s circular logic: To fix the bucket, they need straw, a knife, a whetstone, and water—for which they need a bucket. Probably every kid who ever had to sing this wondered why there wasn’t a spare bucket or a tin cup or some other vessel that would have worked. But as an old married woman, I have had more than my share of conversations than went this exact way. What songs did you sing in your youth that still live rent-free in your head? 

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Pillow on Your Fridge Day

Posted on May 29, 2025 by arwenbicknell

Some of these holidays strike me as oddly specific yet esoteric. The other one like this was Hug a Shed and Take a Selfie Day.  Like, why? What stoner sociopath came up with that just to see if anyone would do it?

Depending on the literature you read, this day originated either because people believed that putting bedclothes in with food would bring plentiful food and fertility to the household or because old-timey literal ice boxes required the use of blankets and such as insulation to slow the melting process and make the ice last longer—with the prosperity a byproduct of frugality by stretching your ice dollars.

I am aware of people who like very cold bed accoutrements and freeze their pillows. I don’t know anyone who puts pillows ON their refrigerators. Personally, I can’t do this. For one thing, my refrigerator has a cabinet over it with maybe one inch of clearance. Even if there were room, I still wouldn’t do it; the top of that appliance is super gross filthy.

I do have a minifridge in the bedroom, but that one has a microwave on top of it. (And now you know how incredibly lazy I am; I will not even go downstairs to the kitchen for nighttime snacks.)

Has anyone else heard of this tradition? Have you done it? Did it work?

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Hamburger Day

Posted on May 28, 2025 by arwenbicknell

I guess there are people who don’t like hamburgers, but I’m glad I don’t know any. (Or if I do, I don’t know that I know you. Leave me in the dark, please.)

When I was a really little kid, my dad would fire up the charcoal grill and make his version of hamburgers, which were akin to charcoal pucks with very pink interiors.  He got better with practice, fortunately, and did not turn me off all homemade burgers.

The first not-at-home hamburger I remember with any clarity was at a now-defunct restaurant called Rod’s Steak House in Williams, Ariz. They would bring you a hamburger shaped like a cow, and I thoroughly enjoyed announcing that “now I’m going to eat its head; now I’m going to eat its leg,” until my mother told me to shut up and just eat already. (Rod’s was awesome. It served five generations of my family before COVID (or something) killed it. However! It looks like it might get resurrected! If you are ever in Williams, Arizona, look it up!)

Up until high school, I was a burger purist. Just meat and bun, with ketchup. No other stuff on it. Then I branched out into cheeseburgers, with various types of cheese. And then on to bacon cheeseburgers. And a whole panoply of condiments: Mustard. Mayonnaise. Barbecue sauce. Pickles (but only dill, not sweet).

And not so much on the lettuce or tomato, either. And absolutely no onions. Ever. Just no. Not raw, not in rings or strings or straws. Sorry not sorry.

These days, you can get all sorts of bizarre permutations. Macaroni on a burger. Fried egg on a burger. Burgers made of bison. It’s a whole new world. I’m here for it.

The kid—who probably wouldn’t be alive today if burgers did not exist because he would have starved to death at some point in grade school—says the best burger he ever had was at 3 a.m. at a place called Dave’s Diner in St. Louis. I was not along for that outing, but it is on the list to try next time we head that direction. The kid said this place also met his real basis for judging a burger place—what he calls the Fry Rule: You do not judge a burger place by the quality of the burger; you judge it by the quality of their fries. I am of an age where I barely touch the fries after finishing a burger, so I am not as wedded to this philosophy, but I acknowledge its validity.

But honestly, if you want the best burger in the world, you need to swing by my house on a night that the hubs is grilling. His creations are out of this world. I don’t know what he does to them, and the kid has not committed any measurements to memory, so the secret may very will die with the elder statesman. I’m hoping that’s not for some time to come, however, so you’ve got a while to plan a visit!

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