The last two days...

 ...went as well as can be expected.

Sixty-six deliveries, four of those out of town.  A few of the usual glitches came up, but they were handled. This time i didn't break any balloons, but i did manage to lose my favorite pen.

The florist i work for at these very busy times is one of the busiest, and in my opinion, the best.  Somehow i managed not to get into any traffic jams that kept me delayed for hours, and the only road construction i had to drive through was on Saturday, so the traffic was light anyway.

The rain spent itself in the very early mornings before we really got started, at least the heavy stuff did, so i didn't end up with wet socks and trying to tote an umbrella everywhere.

The big joy of this job is seeing the smiles on people's faces.  The smiles when they peep to see who is there, and the first thing they see through the peephole or curtain is a bouquet.  It makes people's day, and it makes me smile with them.

Even coming home to kittens squalling like they haven't been fed in days (when, in fact, they had been well cared for by the kids all day each day), and a messy kitchen couldn't damp down my enthusiasm.

Maybe i missed my calling.  Maybe i should be a delivery driver for a living.  Then again, on second thought, i would probably get tired of it eventually, and you can't exactly be gone all day every day and raise kittens.

Well, i'll just continue to enjoy doing this a few times a year.  And maybe someday one of my lists of ways to make a delivery person's job easier will go viral.  As soon as i recover enough to consolidate them and link to them, which won't be today as i will teach Sunday school and meet up with my parents for lunch, among other things.

A blessed and beautiful Mother's Day to all of you.


Today is

Day of Purification of All Things -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Fairy Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Royal Humans Disbanded -- Fairy Calendar (and don't ask how we blew it)

Fibromyalgia Awareness Day http://www.fmcpaware.org/awareness-day-2013

Hug Your Cat Day -- this link for details

Infant Mortality Awareness Day -- as we celebrate mothers today, let's remember those who have lost children

International CFS/ME Awareness Day -- bringing awareness about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Myalgic Encephalomyelitishttp://www.whathealth.com/awareness/event/internationalcfsmeawarenessday.html

International Nurses Day -- birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale

Limerick Day -- birth anniversary of Edward Lear

Mother's Day -- Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; Aruba; Australia; Austria; Bahamas; Bangladesh; Barbados; Belgium; Bermuda; Bonaire; Botswana; Brazil; Brunei; Canada; Cambodia; Chile; China(People's Republic of China); Colombia; Croatia; Cuba; Curaçao; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Denmark; Dominica; Ecuador; Estonia; Ethiopia; Fiji; Finland; Germany; Ghana; Gold Coast; Greece; Grenada; Guyana; Honduras; Hong Kong; Iceland; India; Italy; Jamaica; Japan; Kurdistan; Latvia; Liberia; Liechtenstein; Macao; Malaysia; Malta; Myanmar; Netherlands; New Zealand; Pakistan; Papua New Guinea; Peru; Philippines; Puerto Rico; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Samoa; Singapore; Sint Maarten; Slovakia; South Africa; Sri Lanka; Suriname; Switzerland; Taiwan; Tanganyika; Tonga; Trinidad and Tobago; Turkey; Uganda; Ukraine; United States; Uruguay; Vietnam; Venezuela; Zambia; Zimbabwe                 

National Nutty Fudge Day

Odometer Day -- actually first called a "roadometer", it measured wagon wheel revolutions, as 360 of them made a mile, and was invented and first used this day by William Clayton, Orson Pratt, and Appleton Milo Harmon, Mormon pioneers traveling to Utah in 1847

Olde May Day (Julian Calendar)

Pilgrimage to Fatima -- Fatima, Portugal (procession, mass, and etc. to commemorate the first appearance of the Virgin of the Rosary to the three shepherd children on this day in 1917)

Punch's Birthday / Covent Garden Maye Fayre and Puppet Festival -- St. Paul's Cathedral, London, England (Punch, of Punch and Judy, celebrates his birthday on the Sunday closest to May 9 with a fair and by preaching at the cathedral to other puppets and their puppeteers, or "professors".)

Resistance and Liberation Day -- Lebanon

Rotuma Day -- Rotuma, Fiji

Saint Andrew, the First Called Day -- Georgia

Snellman Day/Day of Finnish Identity -- Finland

State Flag and State Emblem Day -- Belarus

Stay Up All Night Night -- because George Mahood thinks everyone should, at least once a year

St. Diomma of Kildimo's Day (Patron of Kildimo, County Limerick, Ireland)

St. Francis Patrizi's Day (Patron of reconciliations)

St. Pancras' Day (2nd Ice Saint; Patron of children, oaths, treaties; Albano, Italy; Iserlohn, Germany; Pontevico, Italy; Sestino, Italy; against cramps, false witness, headaches, and perjury)



Anniversaries Today:

Richard I (Lionheart) of England marries Berengaria of Navarre, 1191
Jagiellonian University is fouded in Krakow, Poland (oldest in Poland), 1364
National University of San Marcos is founded in Lima, Peru (oldest in the Americas), 1551
Maria Theresa of Austria is crowned Queen of Bohemia, 1743
Coronation of George VI, 1937


Birthdays Today:

Jason Biggs, 1978
Kim Fields, 1969
Tony Hawk, 1968
Stephen Baldwin, 1966
Emilio Estevez, 1962
Ving Rhames, 1961
Steve Winwood, 1948
George Carlin, 1937
Tom Snyder, 1936
Burt Bacharach, 1929
Yogi Berra, 1925
Mary Kay Ash, 1918
Katharine Hepburn, 1907
Florence Nightingale, 1820


Today in History:

Antipope  Nicholas V, a claimant to the papacy, is consecrated in Rome, 1328
Rao Jodha, a Rajput chief  of to the Rathore clan, founds Jodhpur, India, 1459
Philip Lenzi places the first ice cream advertisement, in the NY Gazette, 1777
Society of St Tammany is formed by Revolutionary War soldiers; it later becomes an infamous group of NYC political bosses, 1789
The Manitoba Act is given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15, 1870
US District Court Judge J. Dundy rules, in Standing Bear vs. George Crook, that Native Americans are persons within the meaning of the laws of the United States, 1879
Tunisia  becomes a French protectorate, 1881
In the North-West Rebellion, the four-day Battle of Batoche, pitting rebel Métis against the Canadian  government, comes to an end with a decisive rebel defeat, 1885
Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, 1932
Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin, 1941
A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada, 1958
West Germany and Israel establish diplomatic relations, 1965
The U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez seized by Cambodian forces in international waters, 1975
South Africa prisoner Nelson Mandela sees his wife for 1st time in 22 years, 1984
Amy Eilberg is ordained in New York as 1st woman Conservative rabbi, 1985
Fred Markham of the US becomes the first person to pedal a bike at 65mph unaided by wind, 1986
Ingrid Baeyens becomes the first Belgian woman to ascend Mount Everest, 1992
Russia and Chechnya sign a peace agreement after 400 years of conflict, 1997
The Texas, US, legislature is brought to a standstill when 59 Democratic lawmakers go into hiding in a dispute with Republicans over redistricting, 2003
An 8.0 earthquake in southwest China kills more than 69,000 people, 2008
Queen Elizabeth II becomes the second-longest-reigning monarch in British history, 2011