It's Hard to Make Up a Foggy Mind (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day, and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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Ms. G had let me know she would not be at her house when i arrived but since i have a series of tasks to do whether she's there or not, it wasn't going to be a problem; the day's real problem was defined when she arrived soon after and told me there was an emergency, she had to go to the hospital to see someone and it wasn't a good situation, so could i please help her unload the car and do a few things and she had to run and probably wouldn't be back before i was finished.

Her sinus infection is mostly gone but she's been left with a cough and sometimes a brain fog which was in evidence as we emptied some things to go to the house and she chose what to put back and leave in the car and which items i was to run to Ms. Fiona for her.

We went in, then she asked where the cleaners were, which were some of the things we'd left, so i went back to the car for the cleaners to take them out in the back yard to be used when cleaning some things she'd left out there for me to tend, and then she said, "Well, you should probably use bleach, where's the spray bottle from the car?"

We'd also left the new spray bottles in the car, so i went to get one, coming back in to find her with the bleach and a spray bottle saying, "Well, I found a spray bottle so we won't need that one, just leave it on the table, and I think I left a loaf of bread in the car since I can't find it in her with the stuff we brought in, could you go get it?" and thus after a third trip back to the car and a fruitless search for the bread i came in and told her it was not in the car and she said, "Oh, that's right, I decided not to buy that."

Then she gave me specific instructions to tell Ms. Fiona she'd see her as soon as she stopped coughing (no need to take a cough, contagious or not, into a nursing home), and although she forgot to specify how i was to clean the objects she'd left outdoors for me although she was very forceful in telling me i should do it as soon as i got back so it wouldn't get to hot to be outdoors, and when she finally left, it gave me space to breath and get Ms. Fiona's stuff to my car.

I had a quick run to Ms. Fiona and then got to come back to clean the outdoor items, all of which will be put in the shed to get dirty again, but that's how we roll, and then i got to the regular list which was going well until she called to start asking for details (how much cat hair are you getting up, she's trying to gauge whether Sassy is almost finished spring shedding); she suddenly got a call with meant she hung up with me and by the time we crossed paths again she was coming home in the pouring rain and i was leaving as it was all done, which was fine by me.

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

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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:    

Oh de weather in Louisiana

tryin' to wash us away,

we are bruised and battered,

but here we gonna stay.

We love our old bayou

an' we're not gonna stray,

dey's jes' somethin' 'bout these swamps.

De water table's low an' den

de water table's high,

sometimes it rain so much

clo'es on de line don' dry,

when de hurricane's a comin'

dere's no blue up in de sky,

dey's jes' somethin' 'bout these swamps.

We gotta stick it out 'cause

dis jes be where we be,

an' when a place is home to you

dat's all you gotta see,

an' out here it be wild

an' we be's free,

dey's jes' somethin' 'bout these swamps.

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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 am thankful we still have GusGus die Fledermaus, our Ford, for #1 Son to use while his car is being repaired.  I'm also thankful to know how to do both rooms and cages at the cat shelter, as someone had signed up for cages yesterday and i was able to just do the rooms instead, easy.

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Today is Hug Your Cat Day!  There are several such days noted for this on various websites; if you celebrate all of them, your cat will be well hugged! 

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

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Today is:

Audacity to Hope Day -- to encourage all to have the audacity to keep hope

Corpus Christi -- Catholic Christian

Emancipation Day -- Tonga (trad.)

Fardagar -- Traditional Icelandic Calendar (time when farm workers moved from one farm to another, the time to settle debts, and until the 20th Century, the day to start the fiscal year; always the Thursday through Sunday of the 7th week of summer)

Festival for Hercules Custos -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Hercules the Custodian)

Flag Day -- Estonia

Flag Day -- Finland (Armed Forces observe the birth anniversary of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim)

International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression -- UN

Jarila's Day -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan Calendar (Festival of Jarila, god of the sun and fertility)

Lassie Day -- the first dog to play the role of Lassie, in the movie Lassie, Come Home, was born this day in 1940

National Cheese Day -- not to be confused with Cheese Lover's Day earlier in the year

National Cognac Day

National Frozen Yogurt Day -- not to be confused with the Frozen Yogurt Day celebrated on Feb. 6 in Los Angeles, where the temperatures make such a thing possible

National Unity Day -- Hungary

Old Maid's Day -- supposedly established after WWII, when there were so many eligible young ladies who weren't getting any younger

Plynteria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival in Athens in honor of Athena; date approximate)

St. Petroc's Day (Patron of Cornwall and Wales, as well as many locations in Cornwall, Wales, and England, and Saint-Meen, France)

Birthdays Today:

Evan Lysacek, 1985

Russell Brand, 1975

Angelina Jolie, 1975

Noah Wyle, 1971

James Callis, 1971

Scott Wolf, 1968

Cecilia Bartoli, 1966

Sam Harris, 1961

Eldra DeBarge, 1961

Keith David, 1956

Parker Stevenson, 1953

George Noory, 1950

Bettina Gregory, 1946

Michelle Phillips, 1944

Joyce Meyer, 1943

Freddy Fender, 1937

Bruce Dern, 1936

John Drew Barrymore, 1932

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, 1928

Dennis Weaver, 1924

Robert Merrill, 1919

Rosalind Russell, 1907

George III, 1738

Aesop, BCE620 (not certain, but close enough)

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Born in the USA"(Album release), 1984

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan(Film), 1982

"Cavalcade of Stars"(TV), 1949

Today in History:

Chinese astronomers make the first recording of a solar eclipse, BC781

Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the first English colony on Roanoke Island, old Virginia (now North Carolina), 1584

Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan, 1615

New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada taken from the Acadians, 1760

A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in history, 1769

The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon), 1783

Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain, 1792

The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title, 1878

Henry Ford test drives his first prototype automobile, the Ford Quadricycle, 1896

Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage, 1912

A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain, 1973

The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, 1989

Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, 1989

Falcon 9 Flight 1 was the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, 2010

Negotiations break down between Greece's leftist Syriza government and the European Union regarding issuance of additional bailout funding, 2015

A State of Emergency is declared after 20,000 tonnes of diesel oil spills near the Russian city of Norilsk, Siberia within the Arctic Circle, 2020

Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli makes a desperate plea for vaccines amid his country's devastating COVID-19 second wave, 2021

Google signs an agreement with Chile to build the first submarine fiber-optic cable connecting South America and Australia, 2025

Not Canny, a Six Sentence Cafe and Bistro Story

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Mimi sat at the end of the bar past the last table on the floor of the Six Sentence Cafe and Bistro, the seat closest to the hall with the men's room door on one side and the women's on the other, and just past them, the Manager's Office where The Tall Thin Man presided.

Beyond this, who knew what was back there, the hall turned and turned again, with rooms and passages and staircases to the upper floors most of them unexplored and unused for many years since this ceased to be the bustling center of commerce in a warehouse area.

Just before you got to beyond, however, was a wide set of double doors which was the mechanical room, the A/C and heating units, large water heater, space for the larger janitorial supplies like the janitor's cart and big mops and wringer buckets, and this is also where the electrical panel was housed with what Mimi always called the "fuse box" from habit, although it was all circuit breakers now, including the panel for the emergency power generator they'd had installed in case of a major outage during storms.

As she sat taking a breather from kitchen duty (banana pudding dessert day was always busy), the light in the hall, never very bright and always trying to show signs of ceasing to function, did exactly that once again, plunging the hall into the darkness which seemed to be its natural state.

With a sigh, Mimi stood up and called Hūnga, "Boy, do you want to come with me and help me find which breaker tripped this time?" and always game for adventure, Hūnga came over, Mimi turned on the light on her phone, which led them both to the mechanical room doors, and by habit she went in and started running the light over the panel to look for the "soft" one, because it never fully tripped all the way to the "off" position but just wasn't quite making contact with the "on" side, either.

Flipping it all the way off and back on again, through the open door to the hall behind her she saw the light flicker on, very dim, so she closed the panel, she and the dog left the mechanical room and went back to the Bistro proper with Mimi muttering, "I know it's going to go out again, the electricals are as odd in this place as at my house, and there's something just not canny about the hallway."

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

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I'm Afraid to Ask (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Catsynth, Keith, 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.    

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Hilary Melton-Butcher and can be found right here at River's blog.

This week's words/prompts are:

1.sculpture  

2.amendment  

3.timeline  

4.bog  

5.castle

and/or:

1.sword  

2.crew  

3.buffalo  

4.forest  

5.variation

use either list or both, or mix and match, just have fun.

Charlotte's colour of the month is Razzmatazz.

You never know where your family will drag you next for vacation.

Yes, it's that time of year again, the time to watch all your friends go off to cool amusement parks, national parks, or summer camps, or just get to hang around at home most of the time sleeping in.

Meanwhile, your family has to do something "educational" for a vacation every summer.

A few years ago, it was, "Let's go to our nation's capital, and while there, make the kids learn the TIMELINE of the presidents and all of the first ten AMENDMENTs."

Next it was, "Let's go to Europe and make them tour some CASTLEs and other places of historic interest!"  Some castles they were, most were just ruins, no guards with a SWORD or knights or anything.

The, "It's time for them to learn about different ecosystems and environments from BOG to desert to FOREST" could have been okay, but we ended up mostly in the car driving from place to place for hours with nothing to do, and when we got there, got lectures about flora and fauna.  The best part of the whole trip was when a BUFFALO got mad at the tour guide/lecturer and tried to chase him but he got back in the tour vehicle fast enough.

We can't forget "The Great Museum Run."  No matter how many famous paintings we saw, yellow is still yellow not corn and lemon and canary and saffron, and pink is still pink, not baby and bubblegum and Razzmatazz.  As for the SCULPTUREs, they were all either naked people or weird or both.

Last year, we went to the place where they have a CREW of people who re-enact being colonists from the early part of our country's history and had to learn all about stuff like making our own tools or chopping wood for a fire 'cause there's no other heat in winter and Dad decided to try his hand at chopping wood, thinking it wouldn't be hard, and sprained his shoulder and we had to come home early.

This year for a VARIATION, all of us but Mom voted for Dollywood ('cause after last year, Dad's tired of education, too) but Mom wants us to go see some Native American places carved into cliffs.  I don't get how Mom's one vote is more than our three votes, but it is.

Next year, I want to get adopted into another family for vacation time!

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Today is:

Broken Dolls Day -- Japan (all broken dolls are taken by their children to monks for burial)

Callynteria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (a service of atonement and cleaning Athena's temple; date approximate)

Chimborazo Day -- to publicize that while Mt. Everest may be the highest, the top of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest from the center of the earth

Clean Air Day -- Canada

Dr. Charles Drew Day -- honoring the man who made blood transfusions possible

Festival to Bellona -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of war)

Global Running Day   

Impersonate Authority Day -- at your own risk, i will not bail you out just because i noted an internet holiday and you decided to celebrate it ;)

Jack Jouett Day -- Virginia (the "Paul Revere" of his day and place, rode to warn Governor Thomas Jefferson that the British were coming, 1781)

Mabo Day -- Australia

Martyr's Day -- Uganda

National Chocolate Macaroon Day

National Egg Day

Opium Suppression Movement Day -- Taiwan

Pull Your Pants Up Day -- internet generated, various dates given, and some are trying to make it a national movement; to encourage young men to pull up their pants for 24 hours and see if they enjoy having both hands free

Repeat Day -- i said, "repeat day" (no, i don't know who comes up with this stuff, sometimes; if i do, i try to place the blame appropriately)

St. Clotilde's Day (Patron of adopted children, brides, disappointing children, exiles, parenthood, parents of large families, queens, widows; against the death of children)

St. Kevin of Glendaulough's Day (Patron of blackbirds; Dublin, Ireland; Glendaulough, Ireland; Ireland)

Tailor's Day -- the first Wednesday of June is noted on many sites as the day to thank your tailor

Turtle Races -- Nisswa, MN, US (Wednesdays through August 12th, go race a turtle, it's only $5 to adopt a turtle for the race and get a participation racing button, and you might even win a cool prize!

Anniversaries Today:

U.S. Air Force Academy first graduating class, 1959

The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson, 1937

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo founded, 17

Birthdays Today:

Lalaine, 1987

Rafael Nadal, 1986

Anderson Cooper, 1967

Charles Hart, 1961

Scott Valentine, 1958

Denice Williams, 1951

Suzi Quatro, 1950

Curtis Mayfield, 1942

Larry McMurtry, 1936

Norman Brinker, 1931

Raul Castro, 1931

Chuck Barris, 1929

Colleen Dewhurst, 1926

Allen Ginsberg, 1926

Tony Curtis, 1925

Leo Gorcey, 1917

Josephine Baker, 1906

Dr. Charles Drew, 1904

Ransom E. Olds, 1864

Jefferson Davis, 1808

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Dragnet"(Radio), 1951

“Casey at the Bat”(Publication date), 1888

Today in History:

French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy, 1140

Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain, 1539 

Construction of the oldest stone church in French North America, Notre-Dame-des-Anges, begins at Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, 1620

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo is founded in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, 1770

President John Adams moves to Washington, D.C., to live in a tavern (the White House wasn't ready), 1800

In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, which prompts the First Opium War, 1839

In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, Cree leader Big Bear escapes the North West Mounted Police, 1885

The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in the San Francisco Examiner, 1888

The coast-to-coast Canadian Pacific Railway is completed, 1889

One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, British Columbia, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa, Ontario, 1935

Launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew, which included the first space walk by an American, 1965

A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels of oil to be spilled into the waters, the worst oil spill ever recorded, 1979

SkyDome is officially opened in Toronto, Ontario, 1989

Aboriginal Land Rights are granted in Australia in Mabo v Queensland (1988), a case brought by Eddie Mabo, 1992

USS Carter Hall engages pirates after they board the Danish ship Danica White off the coast of Somalia, 2007

A pageant on London's River Thames marks the highpoint of a series of events celebrating The Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, 2012

Three of the most extremely well-preserved and most complete triceratops specimens ever found are unearthed in Wyoming, 2013

The Amazing world of Dr Seuss Museum opens in Springfield, Massachusetts, 2017

Guatemala's Fuego volcano erupts, causing widespread death and destruction, 2018

NASA launches 128 baby squid and 5,000 microscopic animals, to study effects of spaceflight, to the International Space Station aboard Space X's Falcon 9 rocket, 2021

Lee Jae-Myung of the Democratic Party is elected the 14th president of South Korea in snap election, 2025