Besides being Boxing Day, December 26th is also the feast of St Stephen, the original Christian martyr. In Ireland, it's also known as Wren Day:
Of course, the wren is the king of all birds because, when it was determined that the king of birds would be the one that flew highest, a wren was piggybacking on the eagle, and when the eagle reached the apex of its flight, the wren took off, flying higher than the eagle.
As you may imagine, St Stephen's Day is a great day to hit the pubs, and I live in the tavern district. What better way to celebrate the stoning of St Stephen than to get stoned, eh?
Now, the best known song about St Stephen's Day in the Anglophone world is Good King Wenceslas, a song about a 10th century Czech king by a 19th century English churchman. How's this for trippy? Tom Jones singing about the bonny Bohemian:
Heh, I've got my own plans for the feast day:
Big Bald Bastard's drinking stout,
On the Feast of Stephen.
Acting like a drunken lout,
Tryin' to keep from heavin'.
Chatting up a local girl,
Trying to play the man-whore.
Says, "Hey, baby let's take a whirl
All around the dance floor!"
I'll never become the sainted king of Bohemia at this rate...
In a serious aside, I really hope I make it out tonight- I've had three consecutive workdays jammed into a forty hour period- Saturday 4PM to Midnight, Sunday 8AM to 4PM, Monday Midnight to 8AM. Sheesh, it's been eight hours on, eight hours off for the last two days- I need to have a talk with the scheduler (he's on vacation all week) about avoiding such madness in the coming year. I know we have a lot of ground to cover, and we're understaffed, but this kind of ass-kicking is unwarranted... I think he makes up the schedules for different sites separately, with no effort of reconcile them. I can sustain this sort of effort for a while, but can't do it without a resultant "crash" anymore. It'll be a St Stephen's Day miracle if I don't sleep straight into Tuesday!
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8 comments:
Poor Big B! You do deserve a good long sleep and a night out.
May your sleep be long,
you mug be full,
and Tom Jones there to sing you into a drunken stooper. :)
Ciao for Niao!
((Hugs))
Laura
I think he makes up the schedules for different sites separately
Could be he makes them up based on how much abuse the employees in question have shown themselves willing to tolerate, B^4.
~
Yeah, he's got that Wenceslas thing going on. Youvgathering the winter fuuuueeeell?
Best of luck old chum
IIRC "The Dark is Rising" describes the Hunting-the-Wren tradition.
Do talk to your scheduler. That kind of shift work can fuck you up for real, and for good. During a skeletal crew, our schedule was two days 8 a.m. to 4, two days 4 to midnight, two days midnight to 8. The morning we got off at 8 a.m. was our day off and we had to be in 8 a.m. the next day. My body was totally confused--- didn't know when to sleep or eat.
Never again did I wake up at whatever time I needed to wake up and set the alarm clock for the sake of ceremony.
At least you have the good sense to go out drinking.
I'll never become the sainted king of Bohemia at this rate...
The "sainted" part requires dying, right?
In the case of Saint Václav, it requires being stabbed by your brother, this being before defenstration, due to the invention of the "window" not having yet reached Bohemia.
Useful hint: avoid having a brother with a name like Boleslav the Cruel.
Pedantry note: Václav was only the Duke of Bohemia, not king.
Love Tom... have since I was 7. Can't help it, even though I should know better. :)
Belated Merry, B^4!!
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