"Poisson d'avril!"

I rousted myself out of bed early this morning, washed my hair and skipped the all-important coffee ritual (also known as skritch-the-kitty-while-the water-boils time), trying to make it by 8:30 to a talk I was eager to see. When I got there, the room was locked. A kind stranger helped me discover that the talk is actually tomorrow.

Derr!

A self-inflicted April Fool's joke. In Scotland I'd be called a gowk, in France a "poisson d'avril" where the tradition is to try to stick a paper fish on someone's back.


So why April 1st? is it related to the zodiac and Pisces? does it have to do with the change from the Julian calendar (the Roman calendar as reformed by Julius Caesar) to the Catholic Gregorian Calendar, adopted slowly by European countries in the 1500s so that everyone would end up celebrating Easter on the same day?

Certainly, April 1st seems as if it should be the beginning of Spring, and May 1st is when we get ready to plant, but in these northern latitudes, we woke up to an April 1st snow flurry (already melted). But the green grass is starting to peek out of the dead grass on my lawn. This morning I could distinguish at least 6 different bird calls as I left the house. Squirrels are frisky, and any day know we will see bunnies on campus. I wonder where they live during the winter?

In Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America, April 1st is not the day for practical jokes; that would be the 28th of December, or Día de los Santos Inocentes and the jokes are called "inocentadas."

The Museum of Hoaxes website is a great place to waste time, which is what I have been doing this morning, instead of the dreary bureaucratic tasks on my list of things to do.