Back to Work

So, today is back to work day.

We still haven't decided what to do with the van, so it sits. Brother-in-Law, The Mouth, will pick Sweetie up for work each day and bring him home most days. In exchange, we will buy him gas each week.

It's trite to say that the holidays went too fast. It's trite to say winter is cold, too, but it is still true. Back when we did decorate more for the holiday, it seemed to last a bit longer.

One thing that has to be on the schedule this week is to get everyone, and i mean everyone, to the vet's office. My cats need a check up, Mike is sneezing, and the 6 tiny kittens aren't so tiny any more, and need to be weighed and scheduled for surgery. Especially Nightpelt. He is very close to two pounds if he is an ounce, about twice the size of his sister Ming. She could almost fit with the younger four.

Also, back to work time means everyone's favorite, get ready for tax time. My papers are in sad shape, as usual, and one thing i need to do is take everything up to the church, spread it all out on one of the nice, big tables they have there, and just dig into it all.

Another thing is to figure out how to keep the kittens from getting behind the refrigerator without blocking it in so much that it overheats. It's getting to be a chore, trying to coax them to where i can grab them and haul them out when they get stuck.

Then there is the kitchen table situation. Sweetie and Bigger Girl want another table. #1 Son, #2 Son, and Little Girl don't really care if we have one or not. I'm all for turning that room into kitten central, instead of having them under my feet in the main kitchen area. They would, instead, be only a few feet away. Maybe a smaller table, with leaves that fold down when the whole family isn't using it. Or two card tables, one up all the time, the other only when needed. It's going to take some thought. And more work. So, back to it.


Today is:

Earth at Perihelion

Festival of Pax -- Roman Empirical Calendar (goddess of peace)

Festival of Sleep Day (Because it is assumed we could all use some extra z's after the holidays.)

Genshi-sai (First Beginning Ceremony) -- Imperial Palace and various shrines, Japan

Handsel Monday -- Scotland

Icing Morning -- Fairy Calendar

Humiliation Day

J.R.R. Tolkien Day

Memento More "Remember You Die" Day (Tibet tradition says the fates decide who will die this year on this day.)

National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day

Shigoto-hajime -- Japan (first work day of the New Year)

St. Genevieve's Day (patron of Paris, secretaries, actors, lawyers; against drought, fever, floods, plague)

Tamaseseri Festival -- Hakozaki Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan

Tenth Day of Christmas


Anniversaries Today:

Alaska becomes the 49th US State, 1959


Birthdays Today

Eli Manning, 1981
Danica McKellar, 1975
Joan Chen, 1960
Mel Gibson, 1956
Victoria Principal, 1950
John Paul Jones, 1946
Stephen Stills, 1945
Van Dyke Parks, 1943
Dabney Coleman, 1932
George Martin, 1926
Maxine Andrews, 1918
Victor Borge, 1909
Ray Milland, 1905
Zasu Pitts, 1898
Marion Davies, 1897
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1892
Father Joseph Damien, 1840
William Tucker, 1624 (first African American child born in North America)
Cicero, BC106


Today in History:

Joan of Arc is handed over to the bishop for trial, 1431
Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine, 1496
Martin Luther is formally excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, 1521
The first theater in Amsterdam, the Schouwburg, opens, 1638
Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont as a separate state, 1749
Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico, 1823
Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia, 1848
The Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors, 1868
Oleomargarine is patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY, 1871
The wax drinking straw is patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington DC, 1888
The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, then the largest in the world, is put into use, 1888
The first known use of the word automobile was seen in an editorial in The New York Times, 1899
British explorer Howard Carter discovers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt, 1924
Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy, dissolves the Italian parliament, 1925
Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States, 1933
Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress, 1953
Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland, 1958
The West Indies Federation is formed, 1958
Apple Computer is incorporated, 1977
Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century, 1988
In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), 1993
More than seven million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, receives South African citizenship, 1994
The People's Republic of China announces it will spend fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys, 1977
The Mars Polar Lander is launched, 1999