Good News/Bad News

The bad news is that there was a beautiful feral tortoiseshell cat hanging around a Wal-Mart north of us which could not be caught. She was too smart for even the drop traps, and she kept having litters, of course. Twice a year.

The rest of the cats out there have been trapped, altered, and released, but not her. So i was not surprised that the first kitten call of the year was her.

The good news is that Karen, a friend of mine who has been in animal rescue forever and who is willing to take almost any risk to trap ferals went to get the kittens. She decided to have one more try for the mother.

The good news is that Karen performed a miracle and caught her. So mama will raise her own kittens, then get spayed. They are all in a foster home now, and the babies will be raised around people and be adopted. Mama will be returned to her feral colony no longer to raise its numbers at every opportunity.

The other bad news, she said sarcastically, is that we don't have to be up all night bottle feeding kittens quite yet.

The litters will start coming soon, though. We are ready.


Today is:

Constitution Day -- Mexico

Dump Your Significant Jerk Day -- beginning of Dump Your Significant Jerk Week; make a resolve and do it now, before Valentine's Day

Feast Day of Jacob, Patriarch -- Catholic Christian

Four Chaplains Memorial Day -- US

Homstrom -- Scuol, Switzerland (burning of the straw man effigy of Old Man Winter, signaling the coming spring and winter's demise)

Igbi -- Shaitli and Kituri among the Avar ethnic group, Dagestan, Russia (midwinter celebration, the first day the sun returns to shine on the towns here)

Kashmir Day -- Pakistan

Liberation from the Alberoni Occupation -- San Marino

Move Hollywood & Broadway to Lebanon, PA Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays, and Why would they want it?

National Chocolate Fondue Day

National Weatherperson's Day -- US (mostly, though some other countries now observe it as well; in honor of the first US meteorologist, John Jeffries)

Nones of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Runeberg's Birthday -- Finland

Scout Sunday -- BSA (Boy Scouts are encouraged to wear their uniforms to church and represent scouting; the United Methodist Church and Presbyterian Church USA celebrate next Sunday, so as not to conflict with Transfiguration Sunday)

Shiretoko Fantasia -- Shiretoko, Hokaido, Japan (through March 8; laser lights and music illuminate the drift ice and waves of the Okhotsk Sea)

St. Agatha's Day (Patron of Malta, nurses, jewelers, bell makers, bell ringers, wet nurses; against fire, breast cancer)

Super Bowl Sunday

Unity Day -- Burundi

World Nutella Day

Yuki no Carnival -- Unazaki Onsen, Toyama Prefecture, Japan (snow and ice sculpture winter festival)

Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race -- Fairbanks, AK, US to Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada


Birthdays Today:

Jeremy Sumpter, 1989
Michael Sheen, 1969
Jennifer Jason Leigh, 1962
Christopher Guest, 1948
Barbara Hershey, 1948
Roger Stauback, 1942
H.R. Giger, 1940
Alex Harvey, 1935
Henry "Hank" Aaron, 1934
Andrew Greeley, 1928
Red Buttons, 1919
William Burroughs, 1914
Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr., 1900
Andre' Citroen, 1878
Belle Starr, 1848
Dwight Lyman Moody, 1837
Ole Bull, 1810
Sanjo, Emperor of Japan, 976


Today in History:

Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy, 62
King Alfonso V orders Sicily's Jews to attend conversion sermons, 1428
A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society, 1597
The first US livestock branding law is passed, in Connecticut, 1644
Georgia becomes the first state to abolish both entail and primogenature, 1777
Sweden recognizes US independence, 1783
Hannah Lord Montague of New York creates the first detachable shirt collar, 1825
The "Oregon Spectator" is the first newspaper published on the American West Coast, 1846
An adding machine employing depressible keys is patented in New Paltz, NY, 1850
Two innovations which helped pave the way for motion pictures are patented, a hand turned stereoscope by Samuel Goodale of Cincinnati, and the Kinematoscope by Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia, 1861
Four inches of snow falls in San Francisco, 1887
The loop-the-loop centrifugal railroad (a/k/a the roller coaster) is patented by Ed Prescot, 1901
Greek military aviators, Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis performed the first naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane, 1913
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists, 1919
Reader's Digest magazine is first published, 1922
The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal, 1924
A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered, 1958
The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families, 1997