U for Ultimate: Coffee Chat about the Ultimate, Perfect Spring Day

Rory Bore at Ink Interrupted hosts the Tuesday Coffee Chat, and this week she asks us to "Describe your perfect Spring day."

Ultimate.  

ul·ti·mate 

ˈəltəmət/ 

noun 

the best achievable or imaginable of its kind.

"the ultimate in spring days"

My perfect spring day would not start with me shivering and shaking and reaching for the heating pad and gloves, nor would it have me sweating in sweltering heat.  It would be mildly pleasant from morning until night.  (She says as she wraps her coat tighter around her on an unseasonably cool morning that will turn sweltering before the day is done.)

If there were any clouds in the lovely blue sky, they would be the puffy ones that decorate without drizzling all over you.  A light wind, perfect for drying clothes on the line, would gently move the trees.

No, i wouldn't necessarily do that laundry and put it out there, but i could if i wanted.

There would be no work scheduled on this ultimate, perfect spring day.  No specific place to be, no deadlines, no headaches.  If i wanted to go do something i could, but there would be no have tos.

The perfect spring day would smell like spring, not like the local factory is working overtime.  There would be flowers to enjoy, too.  From my own pet geranium to the neighbors' lovely gardens, the bees and butterflies and i would have plenty of buds to make us happy.

A bird chorus -- you cannot have a perfect spring day without a bird chorus.  Mr. Crow in the tall pine who caws at me would be welcome to join in, too.

An ultimate, perfect spring day would let me walk, and sit, and dream, and nap, and simply enjoy being.  No specific getting up or going to bed time, eating when i want and when i feel like fixing it.  Too often in my world i am on a tight schedule and i feel like a human doing instead of a human being.

How would you spend your perfect spring day?

Today is:

Adonia -- Greece (women's festival mourning the death of Adonis; date approximate)

ANZAC Day -- Australia; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Cook Islands; New Zealand; Niue; Norfolk Island; Tonga

Army Day -- North Korea

DNA Day -- structure of DNA first published this day in 1953; human genome project ended today in 2003; related observance

     DNA Day -- a day for teachers, students, and everyone to learn more about genetics and genomics sponsored by genome.gov and the Smithsonian

Duck Appreciation Society Day -- The Duck Appreciation Society (some sites say May 10; either way, go feed the ducks if you like them, but not stale white bread, it's no better for them than it is for us)

East Meets West Day -- Allies from the East and West finally met up this day in 1945 about 75 miles from Berlin

Festival of Robigalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (to protect against corn blight; festival of Robiga and Rogibus, the brother and sister fertility gods)

Flag Day -- Faroe Islands; Swaziland

Hairstylist Appreciation Day -- if you have a good one, let him/her know (some sites put this on the 30th)

Hocktide Festival/Tutti Day -- Hungerford, Berkshire, England (commemorates a battle in 1002 A.D. when Saxon women defeated the invading Danes, celebrated in the Middle Ages by women imprisoning their men and, after paying the church, retrieving them; now a celebration of the patronage of the Duchy of Lancaster, John of Gaunt; through tomorrow)

Hug A Plumber Day -- because when you are knee deep in it, you really need them around

Liberation Day -- Italy; Portugal

Mesir Paste Festival -- Manisa, Turkey (mesir paste is a blend of 41 different spices and is intended as a general cure-all and tonic; lots of craft exhibitions, concerts and sporting tournaments, as well as traditional throwing of paste off minaret of the Sultan Mosque; through Sunday)

National Crayola Day -- no one claims starting this holiday, observe it with your children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews/kids down the street/inner child, and remember how fun it is to color pictures

National Zucchini Bread Day -- they hold this at a time when you are not yet sick of all that zucchini you grew in the garden

Parental Alienation Awareness Day -- raising awareness of Parental Alienation or Hostile Aggressive Parenting 

Red Hat Society Day -- first Red Hat Tea Party held this day in 1998

School Bus Driver's Day -- these longsuffering drivers put up with a lot, thank a school bus driver today!

Sinai Liberation Day -- Egypt

St. Mark the Evangelist's Day (Patron of attorneys/barristers/lawyers/notaries, captives, glaziers, imprisoned people/prisoners, lions, stained glass workers, struma patients; Egypt; Boretto, Italy; Creazzo, Italy; Infanta, Philippines; Ionian Islands; Pordenone, Italy; Sonnino, Italy; Venice, Italy; against impenitence, insect bites, scrofulous diseases, struma)

Tag des Baumes -- Germany (Tree Day/Arbor Day)

World Malaria Day / Malaria Awareness Day -- WHO and the International Community

World Penguin Day -- because they begin migrating on or around this day 

20-Something Service Day -- can't find who started this one, but it's a good idea, whomever it was, whether you are 20 or older to do some community service or volunteer work regularly

Anniversaries Today:

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is established, ND, US, 1947

The United Negro College Fund is founded, 1944

Birthdays Today:

Jacob Underwood, 1980

Emily Bergl, 1975

Jason Lee, 1970

Renee Zellweger, 1969

Hank Azaria, 1964

Jeffrey DeMunn, 1947

Talia Shire, 1946

Stu Cook, 1945

Bjorn Ulvaeus, 1945

Al Pacino, 1940

"Meadowlark" Lemon, 1932

Paul Mazursky, 1930

Albert King, 1923

Ella Fitzgerald, 1918

Edward R. Murrow, 1908

William Joseph Brennan, Jr., 1906

John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, 1884

Guglielmo Marconi, 1874

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Little Murders"(Play), 1967

"Romulus the Great"(Play), 1949

"Another Language"(Play), 1932

"Turandot"(Opera), 1926

Robinson Crusoe(Publication date), 1719

Today in History:

Lysander's Spartan Armies defeated the Athenians and the Peloponnesian War ends, BC404

German geographer and mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller publishes his Cosmographiae Introductio map in which he gives the American continents their name, 1507

Highwayman Nicholas Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine, 1792

Charles Fremantle arrives in the HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom, 1829

The last survivors of the Donner Party arrive back in civilization, 1847

The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots, 1849

British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal, 1859

New York State becomes the first US state to require automobiles to be licensed, 1901

First DC Comic with Batman is published, 1939

Fifty nations gather in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations, 1945

Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA, 1953

The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping, 1959

Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit, 1961

Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula per the Camp David Accords, 1982

American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war, 1983

Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit, 1983

The Hubble Telescope is deployed, 1990

The Human Genome Project comes to an end 2.5 years before first anticipated, 2003

The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia  after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937, 2005

Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties to join the European Union, 2005

The U.S. government 'condemns' international media outlets, including 'The New York Times' for publishing confidential files, 2011