Well, Saturday had plans.

Plans got hijacked again.

Yes, the van is still making noise, but since the brakes (that i had been on notice would be needed around now anyway) are fixed, it has to be transmission.  That's a worry for when we get rich.

Meanwhile, it ended up with lots of boiling water.  No, no babies being born, and there was never a real need to boil that much water anyway for a baby being born.  Really i have no clue where that idea originated, but someday i'll have to look it up.

No, since the toilet troubles a little while back, all of the kids were using our slightly larger loo for what we will term "heavy duty" use.


Let me digress for a moment with an explanation of something.  Sweetie is 6'2" and weighs over 200lbs.  He has stopped up our toilet exactly once in the 18 years we have lived here.  #2 Son, whose baby diapers rivaled those of adults in both content and stench (so says my mother, who claims they were worse than the ones she had to change in the geriatric ward during nursing school), has done it twice in the 13 years he has been potty trained.


Miss Lizzie has now managed it twice in the few months she has lived here.  Don't ask me how, and there is no way to put it delicately or politely.  She has been asked by others in the past to not use their plumbing because of this, and now i understand why.  Yes, i am accusing the lady of being less than a delicate flower in her internal workings.


Saturday got spent with Dawn and boiling water, over and over.  By the time i was done, it was time to bring the kittens back from adoption day, then cook dinner.  No, no adoptions this weekend, but that's okay.

In better news, the kittens are all getting over their own internal difficulties.  Ponazeril doesn't do a thing, Albon has proven to be the key.  Ugly, stinky, yellow, around since the dawn of time, messy as all get out, takes forever, and takes a ton of it, but it actually works, and that's what counts.


You know your name is mommy when your whole life is about plumbing, house and personal.  After all, when mommy is tired, everyone gets a nap.  When mommy is cold, everyone needs a sweater.  When mommy is irregular...never mind.


Enjoy your Sunday, may it be restful



Today is

Annular Solar Eclipse -- visible in parts of Asia, the Pacific, and North America; do not look at it without special lenses!

Be a Millionaire Day - now we all can go for that

Dainty-Four Remembrance Day  -- Fairy Calendar

Day of Remembrance -- Cambodia

Eliza Doolittle Day* -- in honor of Shaw, to encourage proper use of language

Emancipation Day -- Florida, US

European Maritime Day -- European Council

Festival of Mjollnir -- Ancient Norse Calendar (feast of Thor's Hammer, date approximate)

Grudie Rosnoe -- Slavic Pagan Calendar (ten days of sacrifices to Rod for rain and good harvests)

Independence Day -- East Timor

Indonesian National Awakening Day -- Indonesia

Mifune Matsuri -- Kurumazaki Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (Boat Festival, with over 20 different kinds of traditional Japanese performing arts and costumes of the Heian Period)

National Day -- Cameroon

National Quiche Lorraine Day

Pick Strawberries Day

Shakyamuni Buddha Day -- Tibetan Buddhists (day to meditate on Buddha's teaching and strive to fulfill the Precepts)

St Bernadine of Siena's Day (Patron of publicity agents, advertising, communications, he city of Carpi (Italy), and the diocese of San Bernardino, California; against compulsive gambling, respiratory problems and hoarseness of the throat)


Stepmother's Day -- the too often overlooked and unsung heroines of families; if you have one, and she has been there for you, thank her today

Upper Canada Village -- Morrisburg, ON, Canada (through early October, various programs that let visitors and students enter the world of the 1860s)

World Metrology Day / Weights and Measures Day

Yom Yerushalayim -- Israel (Jerusalem Day)

*"One evening the King will say, "Oh, Liza, old thing,
I want all of England your praises to sing,
Next week on the twentieth of May,
I proclaim Liza Doolittle Day."


Birthdays Today:

Tony Stewart, 1971
Bronson Pinchot, 1959
David Paterson, 1954
Cher, 1946
Joe Cocker, 1944
Stan Mikita, 1940
Anthony Zerbe, 1936
George Gobel, 1919
Jimmy Stewart, 1908
William Fargo, 1818
John Stuart Mill, 1806
Honore de Balzac, 1799
Dolly Madison, 1768


Today in History:

The first Ecumenical Council in the Christian Church, the Council of Nicea, opens, 325
An earthquake kills about 300,000 people in Syria and Antiochia, 526
John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship  Matthew looking for a route to the west, 1497
Cartographer  Abraham Ortelius issues the first modern atlas, 1570
Shakespeare's Sonnets  are first published in London, 1609
Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution, 1802
Otto is named the first modern king of Greece, 1835
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sail from the River Thames in England, beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage in which all hands are lost, 1845
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law, 1862
Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets, 1873
The Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy is formed, 1882
Krakatoa begins to erupt (the volcano's final and most notable explosion will occur on August 26), 1883
The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope, 1891
Cuba gains independence from the United States, 1902
The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting ("Boy with Baby Carriage"), 1916
Montreal, Quebec radio station XWA broadcasts the first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America, 1920
By the Treaty of Jedda, the United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 1927
At 07:52 Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, 1927
Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, 1932
In a referendum in Quebec, the population rejects by a 60% vote the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada, 1980
First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo individually, 1983
The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre, 1989
In a second referendum in Quebec, the population rejects by a slight majority the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada, 1995
The independence of East Timor is recognized by Portugal, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and 3 years of provisional UN administration (Portugal itself is the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976), 2002