Ugh! Bug

 "Hand my the fly flap, quick!"  Little Girl, who was in the library, was yelling to Bigger Girl, who was in the kitchen.

"Say 'please,'" Bigger Girl teased as she ran in there with it.

Then i heard Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! at least a dozen times.

What in the world? i wondered, and asked them how many times it takes to kill a fly.

"It's not a fly, it's an Ugh! bug," Little Girl answered, which is our term for the roaches that get into any and every home south of the Mason-Dixon Line, no matter what you do.  Usually they don't survive long in our house, even though the things are going to survive the nuclear blasts, and then live on radioactive Ho-Hos and Ding-Dongs until the Earth melts, they are mostly unstoppable, but in our house the cats like to hunt them, and since we don't have any oak trees in our yard, we rarely see them in here.

So, after dispatching the nasty thing, she put the fly flap away and washed her hands so she could grab some broccoli from the pan where it was sauteing.

What else do you want for dinner? i asked her, as i had made burgers for the meat eaters, as well as potatoes and the broccoli to share and we had home-grown tomatoes from a friend's garden for everyone.

"I'm making pancakes," said the voracious #2 Son as he came in to devour his share of the broccoli and grab a burger.

The kitchen is never closed, they sat and ate dinner and got up to make pancakes, the picture of harmony as they mixed and measured.

If only they would cooperate this way when it comes to clean up time.


Today is

Asatru Alliance Founding Day -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan

Birthday of José Gervasio Artigas / "Never Again" Day -- Uruguay (Dia del Nunca Mas)

Butterfly Day -- an ecard holiday; if you know someone who loves butterflies, send an ecard, let them know you are thinking of them

Day of the Independent Hungary -- Hungary (a memorial day for those martyred in 1958, and for the end of Soviet occupation)

Festival for Minerva -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of arts, crafts, skill, war, and intelligence)

Festival of the Coming Ice Age -- can't find out anything about this one, but it sounds hilarious

Garfield the Cat Day (his birthday)

Juneteenth -- US, celebrates the news of freedom on the day it came to slaves on Galveston Island, Texas

Labour Day -- Trinidad and Tobago

Little Bighorn Days -- Hardin, MT, US (celebrating the life and legends of the American West; through Sunday)

National Martini Day -- some sites specify a dry martini

New Church Day -- Swedenborgian Christian

Polar Bear Swim -- Nome, AK, US (every year since 1975, if they can break through the ice, the intrepid swimmers gather on the shore of the frigid Bering Sea to swim; if they can't break through the ice yet, it may be rescheduled)

Rusalka's Week begins -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan Calendar (week long festival to honor the divinity of rivers)

Sonoma-Marin Fair and World’s Ugliest Dog Contest® -- Petaluma, CA, US (livestock exhibitions, wine gardens, demolition derby, Ugly Dog Contest, and more; through Sunday)

Spooky Stories Appreciation Night -- because someone thought it would be a good night to tell a few scary tales

St. Boniface of Querfurt's Day (Patron of Prussia)

St. Jude's Day (Patron of desperate situations, forgotten/impossilbe/lost causes, hospitals, hospital workers; Saint Petersburg, FL, US)

Tiger-Get-By's Second Birthday -- Fairy Calendar

World Sauntering Day -- origin unknown, but perhaps begun at Grand Hotel (Mackinac Island) in Michigan during the 1970s as a response by W.T.Rabe to a growing movement toward the recreation of jogging and the idea was to encourage people to slow down and appreciate the world around them; the rules are to observe the lost art of Victorian sauntering, discouraging jogging, lollygagging, sashaying, fast walking, and trotting, but no word on meandering that i can find!

World Sickle Cell Day -- International


Anniversaries Today:

Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, marries Sophie Rhys-Jones, 1999


Birthdays Today:

Zoe Saldana, 1978
Mia Sara, 1967
Paula Abdul, 1962
Kathleen Turner, 1954
Phylicia Rashad, 1948
Salman Rushdie, 1947
Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane, 1942
Gena Rowlands, 1930
Louis Jourdan, 1919
Pauline Kael, 1919
Pat Buttram, 1915
Lou Gehrig, 1903
Guy Lombardo, 1902
Moe Howard, 1897
Wallis Simpson, 1896
Charles H. Spurgeon, 1834
Blaise Paschal, 1623
King James I of England and VI of Scotland, 1566


Today in History:

King Louis IX of France orders all Jews  found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres  of silver, 1269
The Earl of Pembroke's army defeats Bruce's Scottish army at the Battle of Methven, 1306
English colonists leave Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in America, 1586
Emanuel Swedenborg reports the completion of the Second Coming of Christ in his work True Christian Religion, 1770
Battle of Seven Oaks between North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 1816
The first officially recorded, organized baseball match was played under Alexander Joy Cartwright's rules on Hoboken's Elysian Fields (Hoboken, New Jersey)with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23-1; Cartwright umpired, 1846
Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom; the anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 35 other states as Juneteenth, 1865
Maximilian I of the Mexican Empire is executed by a firing squad in Querétaro, Querétaro, 1867
After all of the Southern States are formally readmitted to the United States, the Confederate States of America ceases to exist, 1870
The Herzegovinian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire begins, 1875
The first Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington, 1910
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York, 1953
Kuwait declares independence from the United Kingdom, 1961
In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University in Beirut, is kidnapped, 1982
Norway ratifies the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989, 1990
Prime ministers of several northern European nations participate in a ceremonial "laying of the first stone" at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Spitsbergen, Norway, 2006