Excavation

#2 Son is excavating his man cave.

He is not, i should add, doing it voluntarily.

"Sohn, kommen zu hier, bitte!" Sweetie called across the house.

"Dad, you know I don't speak Portuguese!" he answered with a grin as he entered the kitchen.  The truth is, Sweetie has taught the kids just enough very rough German to get their faces slapped or their mouths washed out with soap.

"Son, you know that vacation is coming up soon."

"Yes..."

"Unless you get that mess you call a room cleaned up, you are going to stay home with your brother."

Well, that was enough of a threat, although he does like his brother.  He doesn't want to be stuck at home doing cat duty, so the excavation has begun.

Really, that is the only term for it.

He has started with the dishes.  After promising me that there was no way there were any dishes in his room, he went in and began to dig.  Brave kid, i won't even enter the room, i'm afraid it is growing alien life forms and i know something growled at me the last time i dared to peek under his bed.

So, after promising there wasn't another dish in there a couple of weeks ago, he came out with a plate, a cafeteria style divided tray, 7 cups, and half of our flatware.  We now actually have 3 steak knives in the drawer.  Also my big spatula that he has sworn for half a year he had no idea where it was and it most certainly wasn't in his room.

All of it went straight outside for a rinse and into the bleach bath, just like any dishes they "accidentally" leave outside on occasion.  Outdoor rinse, into a bleach bath, another rinse, then into soapy water, rinse, soap again, rinse, and a final inspection to be declared worthy of future use.  Labor intensive, so it's a good idea, on days when we do this sort of thing, to have dinner in the crock pot, which i did.  Otherwise the dishes that eat the whole afternoon make for a dinner that is less than stellar.

It's going to take him a few days to get through all the layers.  Once he does, i will no longer have to say that parts of my home are decorated in the unofficial teenage style called "Recently Ransacked."


Today is

Alma Highland Festival and Games -- Alma College, Alma, Michigan (through tomorrow; the 45th annual celebration of Scottish heritage)

Bob Day -- an internet holiday i couldn't confirm, but if your name is Bob, you deserve a special day just for having that name!

Crown Prince's Birthday -- Denmark

Goblin Races -- Fairy Calendar

Grubstakes Day -- Yuma Valley, CA, US (parade, carnival, rodeo, fun!)

Holiday of the Receiving of Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Independence Day -- Georgia; Guyana

International Jazz Day

Isle of Man Tourist Trophy -- Isle of Man (through June 8; two weeks of the finest road racing on earth)

Julia Pierpont Day -- she came up with Decoration Day, the precursor to US Memorial Day; prepare veterans' graves for Memorial Day today

Mother's Day -- Poland

National Blueberry Cheesecake Day

National Cherry Dessert Day

National Day of Healing -- Australia (formerly called National Sorry Day; to express regret for the ill treatment of Aboriginal Peoples of Australia, especially the Stolen Generation)

National Paper Airplane Day -- not an official holiday, but go make one, and have a blast

Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day -- Hawai'i

Sally Ride Day
 
Shauvot -- Judaism (begins at sundown)

St. Augustine of Canterbury's Day (Patron of England)

St. Philip Neri's Day (Patron of Gravina, Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo, and Rome, Italy; the United States Army Special Forces)

Thargelia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (birthday festival of Apollo and Artemis; through tomorrow, date approximate)


Tohoku Rokkon Matsuri -- Morioka, Japan (a special matsuri, bringing together six major festivals from the district that was hard hit by last year's earthquake; through tomorrow)


Anniversaries Today:

Boston University is founded by the Massachusetts legislature, 1869


Birthdays Today:

Helena Bonham Carter, 1966
Lenny Kravitz, 1964
Sally Ride, 1951
Pam Grier, 1949
Philip Michael Thomas, 1949
Hank Williams, Jr., 1949
Stevie Nicks, 1948
Brent Musburger, 1939
Miles Davis, 1926
James Arness, 1923
Peggy Lee, 1920
Jay Silverheels, 1919
Frankie Manning, 1914
Peter Cushing, 1913
Robert Morley, 1908
John Wayne, 1907
Dorothea Lange, 1895
Al Jolson, 1886


Today in History:

Armenian rebels battle the Sassanid empire and win the right to openly practice Christianity, 451
An earthquake  strikes Kamakura, Japan, killing about 30,000, 1293
Geneva  expels John Calvin and his followers from the city, 1538
Alse Young becomes the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, 1647
Lewis and Clark first see the Rocky Mountains, 1805
The Indian Removal Act is passed by the U.S. Congress, 1830
Dred Scott is emancipated by the Blow family, his original owners, 1857
The impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson ends with Johnson being found not guilty by one vote, 1868
Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia, 1894
Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, 1896
The first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made, 1908
The world's longest-lasting tornado, lasting for over 7 hours and traveling 293 miles, strikes Mattoon, Illinois, 1917
British Guiana gains independence, becoming Guyana, 1966
Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first manned moon landing, 1969
The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2, 1970
Willandra National Park is established in Australia, 1972
George Willig climbs the South Tower of New York City's World Trade Center, 1977
A 7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes Japan, triggering a tsunami that kills at least 104 people, injures thousands. Many people go missing and thousands of buildings are destroyed, 1983
The European Community adopts the European flag, 1986
Zviad Gamsakhurdia becomes the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era, 1991
The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York, 1998
Sherpa Lakpa Gelu climbs Mount Everest in 10 hours 56 minutes, 2003
The New York Times publishes an admission of journalistic failings, claiming that its flawed reporting and lack of skepticism towards sources during the build-up to the 2003 war in Iraq helped promote the belief that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, 2004
The May 2006 Java earthquake kills over 6,600 people, leaves 200,000 homeless, 2006*

*Occurred 22:54 GMT May 26, 05:54 Local Time May 27, so some sources date it today, some tomorrow