Thursday, March 20, 2025

On the Horizon (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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#2 Son, His Bride (D-i-L) and little Annie are moving soon.


They're going to park an RV on a concrete slab in our back yard and live here to save rent money for a downpayment and eventually have their own place.


It's going to be great having them so close, although i have determined i will only go over or help out when asked, or if i offer and they specifically say yes.  The last thing i want to be is the interfering in-law, and i've told D-i-L she is to tell me directly if i ever overstep my bounds.


The only cloud on the horizon is when they do save enough, they want to move out of state.


As long as they are near, i'm going to relish every moment.



Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Cloud.      





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While Good Fences Around the World seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, i still enjoy looking for and posting interesting fences, so i will!





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It's Angel Sammy's Poetry Day This week's image and my poem:    





Don't try this at home,

I've known this guy for years,

I helped park rangers raise him,

between us there are no fears.



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Angel Brian's Family of Brian's Home - Forever hosts the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.   It's time to share something for which i am thankful.  


Today i'm thankful i was able to help my Daughter-in-Law with getting to the doc-in-a-box for a steroid shot.  She got poison ivy and i baby-wrangled while she got it taken care of.



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It's the Equinox!  It occurs at 03:06 UTC, and is the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the Autumn Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere.


Here are some festivals associated with the equinox around the world:

     Akitu Festival begins -- Ancient Sumerian Calendar

     Chunfen -- China

     Festival of Dumuzi -- Ancient Sumerian Calendar (return of the god of life and death to be with the goddess of life and bring the spring)

     Festival of Iduna -- Ancient Norse Calendar (goddess of spring, keeper of the apples of youth for the gods)

     Haru-no-Higan -- Japanese Buddhist

     Harvest Festival and Coming Forth of the Great Ones from the House of Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar

     Jare -- Old Slavic Calendar

     Kukulcan Snake God in Chichen Itza -- Yucatan (the snake shadow appears only at the equinox, and celebrations are held before and after)

     Maslenitsa -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan Calendar

     Ostara/Mabon -- Wicca/Pagan, Ancient Norse Calendar, Old Anglo-Teutonic Calendar

     Pacha Pucuy -- Ancient Inca Calendar ("Earth Ripening")

     Shunbun no Hi -- Japan

     Snowman Burning Day  -- Lake Superior State University, Sault Ste. Marie, MI, US (celebration of the start of spring)

     Taoist festival of Shen -- Deities of water, East, and Spring


Thanks to Barb Kowalik and The Cat Blogosphere for the event badge.         



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Today is:


Absolutely Incredible Kid Day -- Camp Fire USA encourages everyone to send a note or letter to a young person today, telling him/her exactly what an incredible kid s/he is!


Big Bird Day -- it's his birthday, and he's still only 6 years old!  (wish i could figure out that trick)


Bockbier/Bock Beer Day -- bock is the German word for strong, so a day to honor very strong, very dark, sweet, heavy beer


Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Day -- birth anniversary of children's author Bill Martin


Companies That Care Day -- national event that encourages employers to highlight and expand their employee and community initiatives, and recognize the people who make their companies successful


Extraterrestrial Abductions Day -- another silly made up one, but try telling that to the people who believe in it!


Great American Meat Out Day -- go vegetarian today!    


Independence Day -- Tunisia


International Day of the Francophonie /  Journée internationale de la Francophonie


International Day of Happiness -- UN


International Earth Day -- the traditional date, still observed in many countries


Kiss Your Fiancé Day -- do you really need to be reminded to do this? a wedding planner thinks so, that you should stop today and focus on each other, not the wedding


Lajos Kossuth Day -- Hungary


Martyrdom of Sibghatullah Shah Rashidi -- Pakistan


National Cherry Blossom Festival -- Washington, DC, US (through April 14; Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival and parade on April 13)


National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 


National Jump Out! Day -- sponsored by Discovery Girls Magazine and Fundex Games; encouraging kids to get out and get active


National Ravioli Day


Nowruz/Nauruz/Novruz Bairam/Norooz (begins at sunset) -- Iranian diaspora, Kurdish diaspora, Zoroastrians; Afghanistan; Azerbaijan; Georgia; Iran (Persian New Year); Iraq; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan

     celebrations go on for up to seven days or more

     Naw Ruz -- Baha'i (New Year, and an end of the time of fasting; begins sunset)


Proposal Day® -- a day for singles to propose to their true love; on the equinox, equal night and day symbolizing equal commitment; www.proposalday.com


Shunki-Korei-Sai -- Shinto (rite to honor ancestral spirits, around the vernal equinox)


Smile Rejuvenation Day -- another one from the ecard companies, make someone smile today


St. Cuthbert of Lindisfane's Day (Patron of boatmen/mariners/sailors, shepherds; England; Durham, England; Lancaster, England; Northumbria, England; against plague and plague epidemics)


Won't You Be My Neighbor Day -- in honor of Mr. Rogers' birth anniversary


World Frog Day -- an initiative, on the first day of spring, to remind people of our fragile ecosystems and the disappearance of our amphibian friends   


World Storytelling Day -- to celebrate the tradition of oral storytelling


Zipper Day -- the 'Separable Fastener' by Gideon Sundback was patented this day in 1917




Birthdays Today:


Louis "Louie" Vito, 1988

Fernando Torres, 1984

Kathy Ireland, 1963

David Thewlis, 1963

Holly Hunter, 1958

Spike Lee, 1957

Theresa Russel, 1957

Jimmie Vaughan, 1951

William Hurt, 1950

Bobby Orr, 1948

Pat Riley, 1945

Paul Junger Witt, 1943

Brian Mulroney, 1939

Lois Lowry, 1937

Hal Linden, 1931

Fred "Mr." Rogers, 1928

Carl Reiner, 1922

Marian McPartland, 1920

Bill Martin, Jr., 1916

Ozzie Nelson, 1906

B.F. Skinner, 1904

Frederick Winslow Taylor, 1856

Henrik Ibsen, 1828

Ovid, BC43



Debuting/Premiering Today:


"Uncle Tom's Cabin"(Publication date), 1852



Today in History:


Sixth recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet, 141

Maximus Thrax, who never set foot in Rome, becomes the first of the Foreign or Barracks Emperors of the Roman Empire, 235

A Saturn/Jupiter/Mars-conjunction is thought to be the "cause of plague epidemic," 1345

Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment, 1616

France and Spain sign an accord for fighting protestantism, 1627

Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne, 1739

The Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings, 1760

After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule, 1815

US and Siam sign commercial treaty, 1833

Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is published in Boston, 1852

An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza, Argentina, 1861

The first AC power plant in the US begins commercial operation, in Massachusetts, 1886

In the first known intercollegiate basketball game, Yale beats Penn 32-10, 1897

The first international figure skating championship takes place, in New Haven, Connecticut, 1914

Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity, 1916

The Arts Club of Chicago hosts the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, 1923

A test of a practical radar apparatus is made by Rudolf Kuhnold in Germany, 1934

The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) is established, 1964

Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, 1985

Ferdinand Marcos's widow, Imelda Marcos, goes on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering, 1990

Stephen Harper wins the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party's first leader, 2004

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years, 2005

Cyclone Larry makes landfall in eastern Australia, destroying most of the country's banana crop, 2006

In Morocco, thousands rally to demand and end to corruption and more civil rights for the Moroccan people, 2011

The Indian rivers Yamuna and Ganges are declared to be "living entities" by a court in the state of Uttarakhand, 2017

Finland is the world's happiest country, South Sudan is world's least happy, according to annual World Happiness Report, 2019

Japanese organizers of the Tokyo Summer Olympics confirm that overseas spectators will not be allowed because of the pandemic, 2021

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says world has less than a decade to stop catastrophic warming, 2023

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

We Mean It (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Catsynth, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     



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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    


While Elephant's Child takes a blog break, River is providing the prompts on her blog.      



This week's words/prompts are: 


1.herring  

2.detectives  

3.beer  

4.mask  

5.peaches


Charlotte (MotherOwl)  has selected Saint Patrick's Green as the colour of the month



In these days when cozy mysteries are all the rage, he wondered what ever happened to the plain, old fashioned gumshoe DETECTIVES.


You know the kind, the hard boiled guy, always with a B-girl around somewhere.  It stood for Bar-girl, a girl the bar or speakeasy would hire to get the hard boiled guys to buy them drinks, like Joan Miller in the Burt Lancaster noir classic Criss Cross.


These guys wore the MASK required to appear tough, saw right through the red HERRINGs thrown their way, drank hard liquor not BEER, and had girlfriends with flighty names like PEACHES.


Now, understand he loves mysteries that are not easy to solve no matter what style.  It's just sometimes reading about, say, the interior designer turned amateur sleuth who is solving the mystery while deciding between lime and St. Patrick's Green for the paint color kind of gets to him and he wants one of those Humphrey Bogart types again.


(Grandpa loves mysteries and someone gave him a stack to read, some of which were cozies.  He liked them okay, but really prefers the harder, edgier type.)



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Today is:


Commemoration of the Victory over Kadhafi -- Libya


Corn Dog Day -- some sites say the 20th


Dietician's Day -- Canada   


Greater Dionysia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (largest festival to Dionysos, lasting five days; date approximate


International Read to Me! Day -- a day for children to remind the adults in their lives to read to them often  


Kashubians' Unity Day -- among Kashubians in northern Poland


Let's Laugh Day -- a holiday spread by ecard companies, because any day is a good day for a laugh


Mojoday -- Discordianism


National Chocolate Caramel Day


Oil Nationalization Day -- Iran


Pet Passport Day -- today in 2000, the UK passed the pet passport law, allowing pets into Great Britain without quarantine if they met certain criteria


Poultry Day -- a day to honor the role poultry plays in our lives


Quinquatria -- Roman Empirical Calendar (celebration of Minerva and Mars, especially the birthday of Minerva today; through the 23rd)


Swallows Return to San Juan Capistrano Day -- despite what you think, the bird you saw there yesterday was not a swallow, the natives will tell you


St. Joseph's Day (Patron of bursars, cabinetmakers, carpenters, civil engineers, confectioners, craftsmen, dying people, emigrants, expectant mothers, families, fathers, happy death, holy death, house hunters, immigrants, interior souls, laborers, married people, Oblates of St. Joseph, people in doubt, people who fight communism, pioneers, protection of the church, social justice, travelers, unborn children, wheelwrights, workers; Universal Church; over 50 cities, diocese, and countries; against doubt and hesitation)

     As Patron of fathers, his day is also Father's Day in Belgium, Bolivia, Honduras, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

     Valencia, Spain has it's biggest day of the Las Fallas Festival today, with the fireworks.


Time Zone Day -- US Congress passed the Standard Time Act to sort out the fact that different states and cities used different times, with no rhyme or reason



Birthdays Today:


Michael Bergin, 1969

Bruce Willis, 1955

Glenn Close, 1947

Clarence "Frogman" Henry, 1937

Ursula Andress, 1936

Phyllis Newman, 1935

Renee Taylor, 1935

Phillip Roth, 1933

Ornette Coleman, 1930

Patrick McGoohan, 1928

Brent Scowcroft, 1925

John Joseph Sirica, 1904

Earl Warren, 1891

Edith Nourse Rogers, 1881

Charles M. Russell, 1864

William Jennings Bryan, 1860

Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1847

Wyatt Earp, 1848

Sir Richard Burton, 1821

David Livingstone, 1813

Thomas Mckean, 1734

William Bradford, 1590



Debuting/Premiering Today:


"Kate and Allie"(TV), 1984

"A Child of Our Time"(Oratorio), 1944

"Amos and Andy"(Radio), 1928

"Faust"(Opera), 1859

"Die Braut von Messina"(Schiller Play), 1803



Today in History:


A Mongolian victory in the Battle of Yamen ends the Song Dynasty in China, 1279

Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River, is murdered by his own men, 1687

The SS Georgiana, said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser, is destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, medicines and merchandise then valued at over $1,000,000, 1863

Pluto is photographed for the first time but is not recognized as a planet, 1915

Eight American planes take off in pursuit of Pancho Villa, the first United States air-combat mission in history, 1916

The U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time, 1918

Willie Mosconi sets a world record by running 526 consecutive balls without a miss during a straight pool exhibition at East High Billiard Club in Springfield, Ohio. The record still stands today, 1954

Gumby makes his debut, 1957

The wreck of the SS Georgiana, valued at over $50,000,000 and said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser, is discovered by then teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence exactly 102 years after its destruction, 1965

Texas Western becomes the first college basketball team to win the Final Four with an all-black starting lineup, 1966

India and Bangladesh sign a friendship treaty, 1972

The United States House of Representatives begins broadcasting its day-to-day business via the cable television network C-SPAN, 1979

Argentinian forces land on South Georgia Island, precipitating the Falklands War with the United Kingdom, 1982

Zimbabwe is suspended from the Commonwealth on charges of human rights abuses and of electoral fraud, following a turbulent presidential election, 2002

A cosmic burst, GRB 080319B, that is the farthest object visible to the naked eye is briefly observed, 2008

After two decades of being closed due to civil war, the Somali National Theater reopens in Mogadishu, 2012

The papal inauguration ceremony for Pope Francis is held in St. Peter's Square, 2013

The world's last male northern white rhino, 45-year-old Sudan, dies in Kenya, 2018

American Karen Uhlenbeck becomes the first woman to win mathematics' Abel Prize, 2019

The Icelandic volcano Fagradalsfjall erupts for the first time in 800 years, 2021

In a deal brokered by the Swiss government, Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, agrees to buy its rival Credit Suisse to help ease global financial panic, 2023

Finland is ranked the happiest country in the world by the UN for the seventh year in a row, 2024