International New Year

Culturally, we have many differences around the world, but we seem to share a few things in common across the majority of inhabitants on this planet.  One of those things is our calendar year of 365 days which starts over on what we term, "January 1st."

The celebration of the new year is exciting and global in scope.  What other things do we share in common as humans, regardless of our location or upbringing?  The year with twelve months and associated number of days seems to be fairly standard with different pronunciations based on language.

Seven day weeks also seems to be standard and for the most part, we seem to have three main meals on each of those days. Okay, some people snack a lot.  I like to snack, but the general expectation culturally is for a mid-day lunch during the work day and an evening meal after work is done. 

Most commonly, we select a partner or mate or husband/wife or companion or significant other or any other of the myriad names you've heard of, but it's usually only one person, not three or seven. 

Typically we work during the day and sleep at night and eight hours is a great amount of sleep to get.  Also, typically, many of us don't get that much sleep and there is a large population that takes night shifts for work, but daytime seems to be the preferred time to work for most people.

I've never thought about global similarities before, especially considering how we have such strong cultural diversity around the world until I got to thinking about the international New Year's celebration.  I wonder what other, totally obvious things we all do, no matter who or where we are?

The Big Boy Update:  Fas sire.  He will ask for his pacifier by name now, as best as he can pronounce it.  It sounds like "fas sire."  He is so busy labeling everything and describing everything else that his day is full of words.  Earlier he did the first six word sentence I've ever heard, "Boose in the back fall down."  This would be the train caboose, which he knows goes, "in the back" of the train and it had fallen over.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Down the stairs forwards, with no fear.  She really wants to walk down the stairs forwards.  This is interesting, because she can't walk up the stairs yet.  We have helped her walk down by holding both her hands and usually we try to give her as little help as possible for balance so she gets a good understanding that she's not ready to do this walking down feat on her own yet.

Fitness Update:  We ran the loop, in the light with a later start time and made nine miles this morning.  Tomorrow marks school starting again but we may try for another run after the children are off to school.  It's nice to know I haven't lost my distance ability with the lack of long runs for over a month.

Someone Once Said:  I tried to explain the difference between a male friend and a bedmate—the scarcity of the first, the boring plethora of applicants for the other.