So, what do you write about...

...on the second Monday in July?

Right now, i have no clue.  Thus i am just rambling.

Misha and Collins, the two bottle kittens, are growing and eating more, and both use a litter box now.

#2 Son's cat, Dansig, is limping and we have no clue why.  He's going to the vet later today.

#1 Son has decided he is moving back to this area.  He's going to be rooming with some friends who have a rental house just a few blocks from the cat shelter.  In the next few days he will be going back to Kansas to pick up the rest of his stuff.  This was a big surprise in some ways, and in others not so much.  He didn't seem happy up there to me.

The week is shaping up to be the typical swamp weather week, hot, with a bit of rain in the afternoon or not as the clouds and humidity see fit.  There will be days with thunderous "frog stranglers," and days with clouds looking like they could wash away the world, and yet not producing a drop.  Some days will have no rain at all except in very limited areas from a few stray dark clouds.  The other day, there was no rain on the radar at all, and the sun was beautiful as one dark cloud moved in and started raining in our front yard.  We watched it move, eventually bringing rain to the back, and continuing on its merry way until it was no longer over us.

It's something i've come to expect, having to watch like a hawk for rain so i can go get clothes off the line and put them back as needed.  Sometimes you only have to take them down for 10 minutes, it's like playing cat and mouse with the sun.

Swim league is done, so Little Girl is preparing for City Meet, and spent the weekend helping a friend and her mother get ready for the older daughter to move back to the area.  Older daughter and her husband will live with them for about 2 weeks while they apartment hunt and he gets used to his new job.  It ought to be interesting as they still have the four younger kids (of their eight) living at home and it's not a big house.  Son-in-law may well be in for some culture shock, i understand he's an only child.

The morning caretaker for Mondays at the shelter is out of town, so i'm filling in this morning.  The new Friday lady did better last week -- she brought her mother to help.  If she continues to do that, it may work out quite well to have her, as she is very thorough.

The news this weekend about the railway accident in Ontario has hurt my heart.  Like other such disasters, there is so much more than the news can show, lives taken, lives disrupted so much that the person feels there is nothing much left.  Living in a hurricane zone and having gone through them makes it easy to put yourself in their places.

Finally, to wrap up this meander through my abnormal brain, a wonderful idea that comes from Brunete, Spain, which is near Madrid.  It seems that they have seen a radical drop in the amount of unscooped poop from dogs by using volunteers to get the name of the offending dogs off their tags, match them with the town dog registration records, and send the dog's business in the mail to said owner, deeming it "lost property."

It's fun to think about implementing that, at least.  Now if only we could take pollutants and mail them to factory owners or board members and CEOs.  That would be something.

 


Today is


Buxton Wells Dressing -- Buxton, Derbyshire, England (preserving the 650+ years of traditional "dressing" wells in foliage to thank the patron saint of that well for blessings, now with parades and carnivals; through next Sunday)

Celtic Tree Month Tinne begins (Holly)

Feast of St. Sunniva (Ancient Norse solar maiden Sunna's worship around this time of year was merged with the story of this medieval saint; Patron of Bergen, Norway and the Norwegian west coast)

Gospel Day -- Kiribati

International Town Criers Day

Kaustinen Folk Music Festival -- Kaustined, Finland (the largest international music festival in the Nordic countries; through Sunday)

King Tupou VI's Birthday -- Tonga (obs.)

Nagoya Sumo Tournament -- Nagoya, Japan (one of the 6 major tournaments; through the 22nd)

National Milk Chocolate with Almonds Day

Old Crafts Day -- it's listed in a few places, but i can't find the history; Old time crafts, or old crafts you've had sitting around the house and never gotten done? If you have the latter, do them or toss them!

Olive Branch Petition Day -- the final attempt, by the 13 Colonies, to avoid a complete break with England in 1775

SCUD Day (Savor the Comic, Unplug the Drama) -- a good habit, on every day

Soapy Smith Wake -- held simultaneously in 4 locations: Skagway, AK, US; Hollywood, CA, US; Denver, CO, US; Chicago, IL, US (held by Soapy Smith Preservation Trust and Friends of Bad Man Soapy Smith, preserving the memory of one of the Wild West and Alaskan Gold Rush's most notorious con men, killed in a gunfight this day in 1898)

#Sempach Battle Commemoration -- Lucerne, Switzerland (remembrance of the battle in 1386 includes a solemn procession to the battlefield and services in the chapel)

Sts. Aquila and Prisca's Day

St. Kilian's Day (Patron of people with gout or rheumatism, whitewashers; Bavaria, Germany; Paderborn, Germany; Tuosist, Ireland; Wurzburg,Germany)

Video Games Day -- do they really need a day?

Vitulatio -- Ancient Roman Calendar (when Vitula was given the first fruits of the earth)

Ziegfeld Follies Day -- the first "Follies of 1907" opened on this day



Birthdays Today

Jaden Smith, 1998
Sophia Bush, 1982
Kathleen Robertson, 1973
Beck Hansen, 1970
Toby Keith, 1961
Kevin Bacon, 1958
Christopher G. Moore, 1952
Marianne Williamson, 1952
Anjelica Huston, 1951
Wolfgang Puck, 1949
Raffi, 1948
Steve Lawrence, 1935
Marty Feldman, 1933
Roone Arledge, 1931
Billy Eckstine, 1914
Nelson Rockefeller, 1908
Alfred Binet, 1857
John D. Rockefeller, 1839
Ferdinand von Zeppelin, 1838
Etienne De Silhouette, 1709


Today in History

Vasco da Gama sets sail on first direct European voyage to India, 1497
Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal Charter to Rhode Island, 1663
Battle of Restigouche – British defeat French forces in last naval battle in New France, 1760
The Olive Branch Petition is drafted by the Second Continental Congress as the Congress' last attempt to get King George III of Great Britain to reason with them, 1775
The Declaration of Independence has its first public reading, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Liberty Bell is rung, 1776
Chippewas turn over huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom, 1822
Commodore Perry sails into Tokyo Bay, 1853
The initial force of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police begin their March West, 1874
The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published, 1889
St. John's, Newfoundland is devastated in the Great Fire of 1892
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22, 1932
The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called Women in the Air Force (WAF), 1948
Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American Self-Determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination Act, 1970
The Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe creates the office of High Commissioner on National Minorities, 1992
NATO invites the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance, membership to become effective in two years, 1997
The Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program, 2011