Puzzling days

Hello, and good morning to one and all. I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to my longtime friend Dusty. We're going on two decades of friendship now, and that blows my mind. Quick aside: In the board game "Loaded Questions," we were asked what we bring to a friendship. No one gives normal answers in that game, but Dusty's response of "friend life-preservers" for the "friend ship" made me laugh. Good times, good times.

I hope you had a good Veterans' Day yesterday, and I'm sure I'm not alone in thanking those who have served for their duty. Being in the military is probably one of the least-Peter activities out there, so I'm eternally thankful for those who join to defend our country. But today is about something else, folks, and I'm ready to launch right into it.

As you may know from previous UOPTA posts, I enjoy doing crossword puzzles from time to time. They get my brain going, give me a sense of accomplishment, and occasionally wow me with excellent themes and puns. Back in either 2000 or 2001, my friend Dave and I would sometimes work on the same puzzle separately, and then compare answers to create one completely-filled one.

There was one week in which the theme was about different holidays. When we put our puzzles together, we had almost everything done, and some of them were great. One clue was, "A marshal arts star's holiday?" It ended up being "Jackie Chanukah," for the movie star and the holiday combined. Get it? Good. Another theme questions was, "An ice skater's holiday?" Even with only one or two letters filled in, I knew it was going to be "Michelle Kwanzaa." Naturally, I loved these.

And then there was one that was stumping us. I saw that it ended in "Mas." My first thought was, "It can't be Jesus Christmas, right?" The clue was, "An actor's holiday?" "Hmmm, what actor's last name ends with Christ?" I thought. Dave and I talked through any other possibilities, but neither of us could think of any other holiday that could be a part of that answer. We decided our best option was to see what other letters we could get to shed some light on this for us.

A little while later, we got a minute amount of help. We now knew that the clue started with "ST" and that there was an "M" as the sixth letter. I stared at it for a minute, and then I said, "Ok, I know this doesn't make any sense, but 'Steve Martin...mas" would fit there." "Yeah, it would, but for what holiday?" Dave asked. We spent the next several minutes trying to find holiday names in those letters. "Maybe it's St. Eve Martinmas," I offered. "No, it's Ste...Vemartinmas," Dave countered. After a few more attempts to get some additional-letter help, we put the puzzle down and called it a day.

The next day, we eagerly opened up the paper to the crossword puzzle section to see the solution to the previous day's puzzle. Lo and behold, it said, "Steve Martinmas" for that particular answer. "What the hell?" we both asked. So I turned to the internets for an answer. Sure enough, it told me a little about the holiday called Martinmas. Celebrated on November 11th, it is the feast of St. Martin. (With the way the web has exploded in the intervening years, I now how much more information about this holiday at my disposal. Here's a taste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinmas.)

I would've been perfectly fine to just take that new bit of knowledge and stop there, but Dave opted to have some fun. He sent both me and Dusty an email about the holiday of "Vemartinmas." In it, he created customs for this made up holiday. The Vemartinmas Fairy would give people apples, and there was something about everyone having a Vemartinmas sack. I don't remember much more than that, but tradition has continued to this day (or more specifically, to yesterday).

The next Vemartinmas, Dave and I bought apples for each other without discussing it at all first. The following year, I saw him and Dusty a day or two before and brought them each an apple. The next year, I had moved farther away, so we send pictures to each other's phones. I sent a picture of an apple, and he sent a picture of an Apple computer. The year after that, I received a photo on my phone of singer Fiona Apple, and he got a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow holding her baby (named Apple for some reason). This year, I emailed him with a map of New York City (The Big Apple, naturally), and I got a picture back from him of a woman with a tattoo of an apple on her lower back.

Oh the games we play. I love it when my friends play along with my strangeness, and even more when they initiate. And so, my extended network of friends, I hope yesterday proved to be a good Veterans' Day, Martinmas, and Vemartinmas for you. I hope your sacks were filled and that your apples symbolized the fruit of the upcoming Vemartian year. See you all back here tomorrow, folks.