If all has gone as planned, today is the day I am traveling to San Antonio to meet up with a friend.

We will carpool with a third friend to New Mexico.

I am calling it a retreat. It is not particularly religious, but to me it is a pilgrimage of a sort. I get to spend some time with people whose presence will give me hope.

Maybe, someday, I will be able to host one of these get togethers. That is my goal, but for now, I travel.


Today is:

American Indian Day

Bolton Fair, UK

Buy Nothing Day

18th Century Military Encampment Day

Feast of Ingathering/Harvest, UK

Feast of Maiso, Brazil (pre-existent mother goddess)

Feast Day of Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, Dominican Republic

Feast of Our Lady of Mercy -- Catholic Christian

Festival of the Latest Novelties

Festival of Nafulectu Dilxiln, Arizona (Black Big Spider, San Carlos Apache)

Fidelity Day

Independence Day, Guinea-Bissau

Metropolitan Opera in NYC Opening Night

Milligan Mini-Polka Day, Nebraska

National Bluebird of Happiness Day

National Cherries Jubilee Day

Nuestra Senora De Las Mercedes (Our Lady of Hope), Peru

Punctuation Day

Republic Day, Trinidad

Schwenkfelder Thanksgiving (Pennsylvania Dutch)

St. Gerard's Day (patron of Hungary)

Third Republic Day, Ghana


Birthdays Today:

Nia Vardalos, 1962
Phil Hartman, 1948
Linda McCartney, 1941
Jim Henson, 1936
Anthony Newley, 1931
Sheila MacRae, 1924
Jim McKay, 1921
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896


Today in History:

The last Emperor of the Komnenian restoration of the Byzantine Empire, Manuel I Komnenos, dies; the empire slips into terminal decline, 1180
The first autopsy and coroner's jury verdict is recorded in the state of Maryland, 1657
John Jay is appointed by George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the then six-person Supreme Court, which was instituted by the Federal Judiciary Act passed that same day, 1789
US Attorney General Office is created, 1789
The Northern Daily Times becomes the first provincial daily newspaper in London, 1853
Alexander Dey patents a dial time recorder, 1889