Dreamland

Little Girl wandered out of her bedroom early one morning and said, "Mom, what ever happened with all the goop we were dealing with last night?"

What? i asked her, not knowing at all what she was talking about.

"You know, the goop!" she said insistently.

When i still looked blank, she sighed heavily, as only 13 can do, and walked back into her bedroom.

Later, when it was her usual wake up time, she reappeared.

So i asked her what she had been talking about earlier.

"Oh," she said. "Sorry about that. I was having a dream. Don't ask, it was really weird."

So there was no goop?

"No, i asked, then went back to sleep and remembered it was a dream."

Is my kid doing a bit of sleepwalking, maybe? This could get interesting.


Today is

Act Like A Caveman Day -- internet generated, just to be fun, especially if your neighbors think you are crazy anyway

Bayreuther Festspiele -- Bayreuth, Germany (Wagner festival, through Aug. 28)

Commonwealth Constitution Day -- Puerto Rico

Culinarian's Day -- another one here because of the internet, but a good excuse to let your inner chef go wild, and enjoy the results

Ebernoe Horn Fair -- Sussex, England

Experimental Aircraft Association Airventure -- Wittman Regional Airport, Oshkosh, WI, US (world's largest sport aviation event, through the 31st)

Festival of the Knee-Knockers -- Fairy Calendar

Furrinalia -- Ancient Etruscan Calendar (Furrina, goddess of the sacred grove and spring on Janniculum hill)
also Ancient Roman Calendar (to honor those who searched for underground water sources)

Guanacaste Day -- Costa Rica

Hurricane Supplication Day -- Virgin Islands

Ilyap'a -- Ancient Inca Calendar (festival of the thunder god)

Jekaba Diena -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (Jacob's Day, start of the hay harvest)

John Knill Day -- St. Ives, Cornwall, England (every five years on St. James' Day, a ceremony John Knill left money to fund upon his death in 1801)

Loiza Aldea Fiesta -- Puerto Rico (associated with the feast day of St. James)

National Day -- Galicia

National Hot Fudge Sundae Day

Republic Day -- Tunisia

St. Christopher's Day (patron of travel, motorists, bachelors, bus drivers, ferryboat men, police, soldiers, skiers, truck drivers; against nightmares, tempests)

St. James' Day (The Apostle, brother of St. John and son of Zebedee, the first martyr, patron of furriers, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Spain, veterinarians and against arthritis, sometimes called Jacob, the Latinized version of his name)
The Pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela -- Galicia, Spain (one of the world's largest pilgrimages still, to the church that has the supposed relics of St. James, culminates on the Saint's feast day)


Birthdays Today

Brad Renfro, 1982
Louise Brown, 1978
Matt LeBlanc, 1967
Walter Payton, 1954
Barbara Harris, 1935
Estelle Getty, 1923
Walter Brennan, 1894
Maxfield Parrish, 1870


Today in History

Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler, 285
Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops, 306
The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings, 864
Sebastián de Belalcázar, on his search for El Dorado, founds the city of Santiago de Cali, Colombia, 1536
Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, 1567
Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism, 1593
James VI of Scotland is crowned James I of England, bringing the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into personal union; political union would occur later, 1603
Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, México, 1693
British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians; thousands of Acadians are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England, and some later move to Louisiana, while others resettle in New Brunswick, 1755
Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain), 1797
Costa Rica annexes Guanacaste from Nicaragua, 1824
The first commercial use of an electric telegraph is successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone between Euston and Camden Town in London, 1837
The Japanese daimyo begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms, 1869
Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it, 1908
Sir Thomas Whyte introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure, 1917
The first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast takes place, 1920
Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established, 1925
At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team, 1946
Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51, 1956
The Republic of Tunisia is proclaimed, 1957
Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube baby" is born, 1978
Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, which formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948, 1994
K.R. Narayanan is sworn-in as India's 10th president and the first Dalit— formerly called "untouchable"— to hold this office, 1997
Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde supersonic passenger jet, F-BTSC, crashes just after takeoff from Paris killing all 109 aboard and 4 on the ground, 2000
Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India's first woman president, 2007