8/26: It's More Than Just a Date, It's OUR Date.

Mary Roderique would call and complain if I didn’t open this blog entry thusly: As you all should know, August 26 is MOST famous for being the birthday of our beloved volunteer Mary Roderique. You all know Mary as: Teacher of Amazing Workshops; Owner of Colby, the World’s Best Dog and 826’s Mascot; and Wife of The Blainer, One of the Stars of Better Bot’s ONWARD ROBOTS!, Our Kickball Team.

HOWEVER, August 26 is known around these parts for another, lesser reason as well: August 26, for those of you who haven’t quite put it together, is 8/26, which, if you drop the /, is 826, which, YOU ALL SHOULD KNOW OR WHY ELSE WOULD YOU BE ON THIS WEBSITE, is the name of our wonderful organization.

AND SO, every year, we celebrate OUR birthday (as well as Mary’s!) on 8/26. Despite the fact that our technical birthday is June 1 (as well as my mom’s and Marilyn Monroe’s!), our untechnical birthday is 8/26.

This year, we have two — that’s right, TWO — ways you can help us celebrate our birthday:

1. By attending: Our Annual Birthday Picnic. Please join us at the West Park band shell from 5-7pm on Wednesday, August 26. Bring: a picnic, your friends, pets, frisbees, hula hoops, skates, blankets, musical instruments, and anything else that seems picnic-appropriate. We are 99 percent certain that Intern Ashley will bring her heart-wrenchingly cute new puppy, Remy. In other words, you bring the picnic, WE will be responsible for making each and every picnic attendee’s heart EXPLODE into glitter.
2. By purchasing: Our Very Own Designed-by-Chris-Ware T-shirt on Shirt.woot.com. Many of you have probably heard of famed designer and graphic novelist and artist Chris Ware. And many of you probably know about Shirt.woot, a website that sells one t-shirt design each day for $10. Imagine my joy and elation when Chris Ware said he’d design a robot t-shirt for us (it’s the Jimmy Corrigan robot!) and Shirt.woot said they’d make it their featured shirt on 8/26. How it works: Just go to Shirt.woot.com on 8/26, and if you like the shirt (and why wouldn’t you??), order it!

Please help us celebrate our FOURTH birthday this year by participating in one (or BOTH, that’s what I’m doing!) of these events! Hope to see you soon! Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to ussss…