Ever have a Friday explode?

Well, i did.

It started out well enough.  Got up early.  Feed kittens.  Laundry and tidy up.

Then it was time to wake the girls for shelter duty.  (We scoop boxes, feed, water, and medicate cats at the shelter every Friday morning, and for this month, Tuesday evenings, too.)  Bigger Girl has a huge test, wants to bow out this week.  Okay, that may put me a bit late, but it can still work.

It did still work.  Little Girl and i were lucky, only a few cages, only one cat to medicate, no one had made a huge mess.  We took about an hour.  And i even picked up the microchips for the four kittens that will be going to adoption day this weekend.  (Yes!  really!  some of them are getting old enough to find new homes.  Seems like we got them just yesterday.  But we won't run out soon, we have 24 in the house right now, and 3 are just barely over 2 weeks old.  Yes, 24 is a record for us.)

On the way home, my day went south.  The thunking under the car gave it away.  The brakes i had hoped wouldn't need replacing until after summer announced quite forcefully that they wanted to be attended to NOW, no excuses.

When brakes talk, it's time to listen.  No way i was going to be able to let the kids on the interstate to school this way.  So i called Sweetie to see if he could get a half hour and come meet me at the shop, so i could take him back to work and let the kids use his car.

That worked fine.  Took the kittens and the microchips to the vet, then across the street to the mechanic.  Told them what i needed, and when Sweetie showed, took him back to work.

Then the fun call from the vet.  They don't have the proper equipment to put in this type of microchip.  It seems the rescue changed type, and i didn't know.  So back to the shelter for the applicator device, then gas, then back to the vet.

The running around was not how i planned to spend the morning, for certain.  At least the kids didn't miss one of their last days of school, and it was only $800 for all the work on the car (that included a badly overdue change of transmission fluid, too).  Only.  Yeesh.


Today is

Armed Forces Day -- US

Boy's Club Day -- founding in 1906

Circus Day -- the four Ringling Brothers opened their first circus on this day in 1884


Do Dah Day -- Rhodes and Caldwell Parks, Birmingham, Alabama (fun while fundraising for local animal charities)

Dance to Mark the Third of January -- Fairy Calendar (Third of January is when the Founding Fairy Fathers and Mothers arrived in what is now called Fairyland [no one knows where they lived before, or what lived in Fairyland before], so it is one of their most important days; no one knows why it is celebrated in May, either)

Greek Genocide Remembrance Day -- Greece

Iris Festival -- Greeneville, Tennessee, US (through tomorrow)

Lewis & Clark Heritage Days -- St. Charles, MO, US (reenacting the 1804 encampment just before their departure; through tomorrow)

May Ray Day -- to celebrate being able to go out into the sun's rays as summer nears

National Devil's Food Cake Day

New England's Dark Day

O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships -- Austin, TX, US

Plant Something Day -- because it's fun, and summer is coming so you can!

Praia Municipal Day -- Cape Verde

Preakness Stakes -- Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore, MD, US (137th annual)

Skerpla (Sharpness) Month begins -- Icelandic Calendar

St. Dunstan's Day (Patron of armourers, blacksmiths, blind people, gold workers and smiths, jewellers, lighthouse keepers, locksmiths, musicians, silver workers and smiths, swordsmiths; Charlottetown, PEI, Canada)

St. Ives' Day (an honest lawyer; Patron of abandoned children and orphans, advocates, canon lawyers, judges, lawyers, and notaries)

St. Peter Celestine's Day (Patron of bookbinders; Aquila, Italy)

Suigo Itako Ayame Matsuri -- Maekawa Ayame-en, Itako, Japan (Iris Flower Festival, with over a million blooms of 500 species, special dance and demonstrations on weekends; through June 24)

Youth and Sports Day / Commemoration of Atatürk -- North Cyprus; Turkey


Birthdays Today:

Rachel Appleton, 1992
Jordon Pruitt, 1991
Kevin Garnett, 1976
Kyle Eastwood, 1968
Grace Jones, 1952
Joey Ramone, 1951
Andre the Giant, 1946
Pete Townshend, 1945
Nora Ephron, 1941
James Fox, 1939
Malcolm X, 1925
Ho Chi Minh, 1890
Nancy Astor, 1879
Johns Hopkins, 1762


Today in History:

Jacques Cartier sets sail on his second voyage to North America, 1535
Anne Boleyn is beheaded, 1536
Queen Elizabeth I orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1568
French forces under the duc d'Enghien decisively defeat Spanish forces at the Battle of Rocroi, marking the symbolic end of Spain as a dominant land power, 1643
The Long Parliament declares England a Commonwealth, and England remains a republic for the next 11 years, 1649
King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River, 1749
A combination of thick smoke and heavy cloud cover causes complete darkness to fall on Eastern Canada and the New England area of the United States at 10:30 A.M, 1780
Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Légion d'Honneur, 1802
Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo thus ending the Mexican-American War and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for $15 million USD, 1848
Jan Matzeliger begins the first mechanized shoe production, 1885
Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol, 1897
White women win the right to vote in South Africa, 1930
Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind is published, 1936
Churchill and Roosevelt set May 1, 1944 as their goal date for D-Day (it had to be delayed over a month because of weather), 1943
The Soviet Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus, 1961
Croatians vote for independence, 1991
The Sierra Gorda Biosphere, the most ecologically diverse region in Mexico, is established as a result of grassroots efforts, 1997