Happy Snoopy Dance!

Today, i begin my driving with my heart as light and merry as can be.

The taxes are on their way to the CPA!  Really!  This early!

Never before have i gotten it organized before the middle of March at the earliest.

Happy Snoopy Dance!  Nose up, feet moving!

There's no telling how it will all turn out, but at least it's not hanging over my head, making me feel guilty for neglecting it and not having it done, which is how i generally spend all of February and most of March.

Oh, and Bigger Girl has decided that i am, in the words of Dickens, a "ministering angel of domestic bliss."

At this point, i'm not sure what to make of that, but the thought is amusing.  Especially when domestic bliss comes with as many litter boxes as we have.


Today is:

Ash Wednesday -- Christian (beginning of the Lenten Fast)
     Oskudagur -- Iceland (with the special tradition of hanging oskupokar [ash bags] on people, as girls try to hang bags of ash on men's clothing, and boys try to hang bags of stones on women's clothing; begins Langafasta, and during the fast, you may not even mention meat at all)

Break-Up Day -- if you are over him/her, don't go through tomorrow pledging love falsely, get out today

Dream of Your Sweetheart Day -- a reminder that if you aren't ready for Valentine's Day tomorrow, you'd better get cracking

Get a Different Name Day -- for those who hate their name; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Ides of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also
     Parentalia begins -- through the 21st (honoring divi parentes -- the deified ancestors)
     Lupercalia begins -- through the 15th (to rid the city of evil spirits)
     Orgiastic festival of Juno Februa begins -- through tomorrow

Employee Legal Awareness Day -- Australia

Madly in Love With Me Day -- because you have to love "me" before you can love "we"

National Stop Bullying Day -- US (sponsored by HeyUGLY - Uniquely Gifted Lovable You - in schools across the country)

National Tortellini Day

St. Catherine dei Ricci's Day (Patron of the ill)

Ta-asobi -- Akatsuka Suwa Shrine, Itabashi-ku, Japan (ceremony to pray for a good harvest)

Trndez or Tearnandarach -- Armenian Christian Church (fire celebration, begins in the evening and goes through tomorrow; originally a pagan sun worship celebration, it is now a Candlemas celebration by the OS Calendar)



Birthdays Today:

Mena Suvari, 1979
Robbie Williams, 1974
Kelly Hu, 1968
Peter Gabriel, 1950
Stockard Channing, 1944
Jerry Springer, 1944
Peter Tork, 1942
George Segal, 1934
Kim Novak, 1933
Chuck Yeager, 1923
Eileen Farrell, 1920
Tennessee Ernie Ford, 1919
Grant Wood, 1892
Alvin York, 1887
Bess Truman, 1885
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, 1754


Today in History:

Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed, 1258
Jews are expelled from Burgsordf, Switzerland, 1349
The Disfida di Barletta (Challenge of Barletta); Frenchman Charles de la Motte accused Italians of cowardice, and thirteen Italians proceeded to rout 13 Frenchmen in a chivalrous horseback tourney, 1503
St. Augustine, Florida, is founded, becoming the oldest continuously occupied European established city, and the oldest port, in the continental United States, 1566
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for trial before the Inquisition for professing belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, 1633
Treaty of Lisbon:  Spain recognizes Portugal, 1668
The Massacre of Glencoe: 78 members of the clan Macdonald are murdered for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange (William III), 1692
Cholera appears in London, 1832
Work begins on the covering of the Zenne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards, 1867
The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert, 1881
Painter Thomas Eakins resigns from Philadelphia Academy of Art after controversial over use of male nudes in a coed art class, 1886
Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector, 1894
English suffragettes storm British Parliament and 60 women are arrested, 1907
The Negro National League is formed, 1920
A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, 1935
France tests its first atomic bomb, 1960
Black Sabbath, arguably the very first heavy metal album, is released, 1970
A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky, 1981
An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany, 1990
The last original "Peanuts" comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies, 2000
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", 2004
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations, 2008
At 23:31:30 UTC the Unix system time (time_t) number reaches 1234567890 seconds, 2009
For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, were able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855, 2011