Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Ready or Not (Random Tuesday)

Stacy Uncorked

And now, bits of random news and pictures from around here, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked.  

It’s time for The Great Neighborhood Candy Exchange, and we are as ready as we can ever be. 

One of my Monday clients rescheduled for this afternoon for health reasons, so i may be late for handing out candy.  It’s okay, Sweetie enjoys doing it, too, and since i’ll have it all set up for him, he can start and i can finish.

The neighborhoods have been getting their spooky on:







Little Girl has been busy making treat bags, and Bigger Girl has been busy making plans for the wedding of two of her friends.  Because she is now an official minister in the Universal Life Church, she has registered with the state and can perform weddings.  Said church only has two tenets:  be excellent to each other and respect each other's beliefs. She's just glad she can perform the wedding for her friends and save them some money (their only costs will be the marriage license and punch and cookies for the officiant and witnesses).

Sweetie got his new boots with his birthday money, and he is as happy as a kid at Christmas.  He's been talking about these boots forever, the ones with the steel shanks for arch support and real stitching so they can be resoled and reheeled when they need it and thus last forever.

This especially makes sense when you find out he has more clothes and shoes than i do, and spends more time and money on his hair than i do on mine.  He's a musician, and all musicians have that prima donna in there someplace.

The weather has been lovely, the parts of the pet geranium that have survived the dog are repotted into two separate pots and seem happy, and Tripod SissyCat and i are spending most evenings on the porch, her nice and cozy in her fur coat and me wrapped in jackets and clutching my rice sock.  No, it isn't that cold, but it only takes temperatures below 70° for my body temperature to drop and my fingers and toes to turn to ice cubes.  That's one reason i am willing to visit almost anyplace, but i don't want to live full time anywhere but a desert or the Deep South.   Well, maybe Hawaii or Tahiti, but i'd have to be rich to live either of those places.

Happy Halloween everyone!  May you receive only treats and no tricks.


Today is:

Admission Day -- Nevada, US

Allantide -- Cornwall, England

All Hallows Eve -- Christian

Apple and Candle Night -- Wales

Books for Treats Day -- San Jose, CA, US (give gently used books to kids, not candy -- feed their brains, not their cavities!)

Chiang Kai-Shek Day -- Taiwan

Day of the Seven Billion -- day in 2011 the UN declared the world population to have reached 7,000,000,000  

Dias de los Muertos -- Mexico, esp. Michoacan and Oaxaca (through Nov. 2; ceremonies, sand sculptures, decorated altars, and parties through the nights in the cemetaries)

Dookie Apple Night -- Newcastle, England

Duck Apple Night -- Liverpool, England

Feast of Sekhmet Bast Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Festival of Inner Worlds -- Pagan (fight between the old and new year)

Founder's Day -- Girl Scouts of the USA (Juliette Gordon Low's birth anniversary)

Ghostwriter's Day

Hallowe'en or Beggar's Night

Increase Your Psychic Powers Day -- originated in England in the 19th century, some celebrated on the 30th

King Father Nordom Sihanouk's Birthday -- Cambodia

National Candy Apple Day

National Knock-Knock Joke Day
    Knock, Knock
    Who's There?
    Police.
    Police who?
    Police stop telling knock-knock jokes!

National Magic Day -- Society of American Magicians (in honor of Harry Houdini, who died on this day in 1926, and who was president of the SoAM)

National UNICEF Day

Nut-Crack Night -- England; Scotland

Old Celtic New Year's Eve

Out of the Broom Closet Day -- Pagan, Heathen, and all earth-based and ethnic religions

Reformation Day -- Protestant Christian (trad.)
    Official Holiday -- Germany; Slovenia

Samhain (northern hemisphere) / Beltane (southern hemisphere) -- Druids, Gaels, Welsh peoples, Neopagans, Wiccans (begins at sunset)

Scare a Friend Day -- just not so much that he/she isn't a friend any more

Senior Absurdity Day -- Horace Mann School, Bronx, NY, US (a day the kids look forward to each year)

Sneak Some of the Candy Yourself Before the Kids Start Knocking Day

St. Quentin's Day (Patron against coughs)

St. Wolfgang of Ratisbon's Day (Patron of apoplexics, carpenters, paralysed people, stroke victims; Regensburg, Germany; against apoplexy, paralysis, stomach diseases, strokes)

Thump-the-Door Night -- Isle of Mann

Trick or Treat Night

Vetmaetr -- Norse Calendar (Winter Nights; beginning of winter, the New Year, and the start of Odin leading the Wild Hunt)

Youth Honor Day -- Iowa, US



Anniversaries Today:

Mt. Rushmore is completed, 1941
Nevada becomes the 36th US State, 1864


Birthdays Today:

Robert "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle, 1967
Adam Horovitz, 1966
Dermot Mulroney, 1963
Rob Schneider, 1963
Peter Jackson, 1961
Larry Mullen, Jr., 1961
John Candy, 1950
Jane Pauley, 1950
Deidre Hall, 1947
Stephen Rea, 1943
David Ogden Stiers, 1942
Ron Rifkin, 1939
Michael Landon, 1936
Dan Rather, 1931
Michael Collins, 1930
Barbara Bel Geddes, 1922
Dale Evans, 1912
Ethel Waters, 1896
Chaing Kai-shek, 1887
Juliette Gordon Low, 1860
John Keats, 1795
William Paca, 1740
Jan Vermeer, 1632


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Car Talk"(Radio), 1987 (national debut, ten years after their start as a local show in Boston)
"Jamaica"(Musical), 1957
"Capricio Espagnol"(Rimsky-Korsakov Op. 34), 1887
"Tamerlano"(Handel opera, HWV 18), 1724


Today in History:

Ezra reads the Book of the Law to the Israelites after their return to Jerusalem from exile, BC445
First All Hallows Eve observed to honor all the saints, 834
Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg church door, marks the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, 1517
Georg Ludwig van Hannover is crowned as the English King George I, 1714
Execution of Girondins at Paris during the Reign of Terror, 1793
Sir Humphrey Davy of London patents the miner's safety lamp, 1815
A standard uniform is approved for US Postal workers, 1868
A tropical cyclone hits Bengal, about 200,000 die, 1876
John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tire, 1888
Arthur Conan Doyle publishes "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", 1892
Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States, 1913
The Battle of Beersheba of WWI marks the last successful cavalry charge in history, 1917
The first of 160 consecutive days of 100°F + temps at Marble Bar, Australia, 1923
World Savings Day is announced in Milan, Italy by the Members of the Association at the 1st International Savings Bank Congress, 1924
Mt. Rushmore sculptures are completed, 1941
The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal, 1956
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two security guards, 1984
EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board, 1999
Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted, 1999
Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station, which has been continually crewed since, 2000
Surfer Bethany Hamilton loses her left arm and 3 liters of blood in a tiger shark attack; within a month she would be back on her board, and competing again within the year, 2003
The NYSE reopens after its first weather related shut down since the late 19th century; the two-day closure was due to Hurricane Sandy, 2012

11 comments:

  1. I learned about (and joined as a minister) the Universal Life Church quite a few years ago. I'm delighted that Bigger Girl has become a Minister and also that the State recognises it. (I doubt the UK government does!) i'm sure the wedding will be done wonderfully.

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  2. I am glad to see your Halloween is going so well. I have candy here, but it is only for me and I do try to be judicious.

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  3. Sounds like you have a lot going on at your house. We are sure the wedding will be terrific. You all have a Happy Halloween.

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  4. Mimi,

    Sounds like y'all got a whole lot gonna on in your neighborhood and family. I don't like the cold, either. We had two nights temps below freezing but we're expected to warm up a bit tomorrow. I hope we get another nice weekend so we can finish the roof. DH worked on Friday but we didn't get the right spot so it's back up we go. Bah-hum-bug! OH wrong holiday! :D Have a safe, fun Halloween!

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  5. My husband is a notary and has performed two marriages. He likes to joke that he married my brother ;) Good luck to Bigger Girl on the upcoming nuptials.

    I'm with you on the cold. My toes & feet are the first to freeze with the slightest chill.

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  6. With any little ones getting excited I kind of dislike Halloween. We don't get many treaters, our front door is a bit caty-cornerd to the other town-homes and we get skipped over a lot...I don't mind.

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  7. We are on our boat and will miss all the kiddies. We don't dislike Halloween, but it's not a favorite holiday either. So we'll enjoy a quiet evening on our boat with no trick and treat going on. Works for us.

    Have a fabulous day and a very happy Halloween. ♥

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  8. Your neighborhood certainly has the holiday spirit.

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  9. We don't celebrate Halloween here. Kids love candy!

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  10. I think it is great that your daughter will officiate her friend's wedding. I have gotten a one day pass from the state 3 different years ( you can only do it once a year) and officiated for my Godson, a cousin and a friend. Happy Halloween!

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  11. Love your neighborhood halloween pics! And how lovely to hear that "be excellent to each other and respect each other's beliefs" are the key principles of Bigger Girls church. She sounds (like the rest of your family) like an exceptional, generous person, you must be so proud!

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