Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Just a reminder to any who might have overlooked it, and news for folks who haven't heard of it before: Tomorrow, 3 April, is Cheese Weasel Day. Give somebody some cheese.

The email I sent to a mailing list the first time I heard of Cheese Weasel Day -- uh, 1992, I think; that was two email addresses ago -- is conveniently archived here (and my thanks go to the friends who've mentioned CWD in their journals lately and linked to that page -- I'd forgotten where it was).

It's a little-known holiday honouring the Cheese Weasel, who brings cheese in April to folks who've been good. I didn't want to post this reminder yesterday, lest folks think it was an April Fool's Day joke.

I had just started a new job maybe a month earlier when the events described in that email occurred. I'd gotten a "these are okay people" from my co-workers already, and this sort of clinched it. I was only there for a year and a half before fibromyalgia sidelined me, but they were cool folks. (And the owner of the company was the best boss I've ever worked for, by an impressively wide margin.)

The story behind the holiday, as I remember it a decade later, is something like this: One particular co-worker and her brother were enjoying a drive (I think it was Skyline Drive, but I'm not sure), and at one of their stops they spotted a weasel carrying a slice of cheese (Kraft American Single, hence the traditional use of that particular cheese for the holiday, though I don't think using a better cheese is prohibited) in its mouth. They decided it must be the Cheese Weasel, delivering cheese, and that the day they'd seen it must be Cheese Weasel Day. As far as I know, it was something just for their family and for our office at that point, and I do not know how long it had been going on. Well, I told my friends on a mailing list, since it really sounded very much like a "me" type of thing and a "this group of friends" type of thing, and sure enough, some folks ran with it. Now there are folks who remind me when Cheese Weasel Day is approaching.

My co-workers did manage to get Cheese Weasel Day mentioned on the radio at least once, if I recall correctly, but most references to it that I see can be traced to my having introduced the meme to the net. There are links on a few other web pages pointing to that copy of my email, with cryptic or not-so-cryptic references to the holiday. And now it's time to spread the meme even further, using LiveJournal. Pass it on.

The idea is that folks should find slices of cheese hidden where they'll be uncovered during the day, and the explanation should be that the Cheese Weasel must have brought it.

I think it'd be really cool for this to spread far enough that the ex-co-worker who originated it starts hearing about it from unexpected directions. And it's a really cute, fun little holiday, just bizarre enough that it probably won't turn into a Hallmark event any time soon, but catchy enough to make people want to play along. I leave it to each of you to independantly decide how mysterious to be about the origins of the holiday. You know your audiences better than I do.

Just remember that although I'm as far as the trail leads if you try to trace the origin on the net, I'm not the person who made it up. It had been going on for a while before I found out about it. It'd be cool to have been responsible for thinking up something with so long a lifespan, but I can't claim credit for it.

Have fun. Share some cheese. Spread the word. Confuse people, then get them in on it.