Egg-cellent Argument!

"Well, I've just had an interesting day."

When Bigger Girl comes in the house with this announcement, i've learned to be prepared to hear something good, and i'm seldom disappointed.

"First, I forgot to tell you about a dream I had last night.  I dreamed I heard a noise coming from inside the refrigerator, so I opened it, and you were storing kittens in the fridge!  It was weird, it was lots and lots of them, and I took the first few out and found more, even smaller kittens behind them, then more smaller ones behind that, they kept getting smaller, down to the size of a robin's egg!  But they were fully developed though so small, and kept mewing and mewing even as I was taking them out of the refrigerator!  What do you think that meant?

Child, i haven't a clue! i told her.  Dream interpretation isn't my forte.

"Anyway, when I got to work, Ms. Sadie had seen a snake outside, and she was freaking out.  She had gone to the store and bought moth balls, because she says snakes don't like the smell and it chases them away.  She was running around the building throwing moth balls all over like confetti!  It was so weird.  The smell was so pervasive I could smell it in the sterilization room, and you know how deep in the building that is, so I was afraid it was going to make me sick.  Isn't that why they used to say to make sure you didn't accidentally close a child in the closet, because they used moth balls all of the time and a child could die from the fumes?"

They are rather toxic, i noted, but i've never heard about people dying from being locked up in a small space with them.  Maybe it could happen.

"Well, it was weird, and I think the cows and horses and goats aren't too happy about it, either.  But anyway, we all got to talking later about it, and someone commented that the moth balls looked like a bunch of little eggs in the grass around the place, then someone asked 'What came first, the moth balls or the moth ball eggs' and we were all laughing, and which do you think came first, mom, the chicken or the egg?"

"That's obvious," Little Girl piped up, walking into the room.  "The egg.  Think about it.  The modern chicken descended from some other species that was not quite a modern chicken, call it a proto-chicken.  So, two proto-chickens get together, and conceive a bird that has a mutation that makes it what we now know as the first modern chicken, and the female lays it as an egg.  So, the egg came first!"

An egg-cellent argument, i noted with a smile.


 
Today is:

Armed Forces Day -- Poland

Artists in the Park -- Cate Park, Wolfeboro, NH, US (rain or shine, the 34th annual juried exhibit and sale, along with demonstrations and family entertainment)

Asuncion Foundation Day -- Paraguay

Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary -- Catholic Christian Holy Day of Obligation
     Related Observances
          Coeur d'Alene Indian Pilgrimage -- Coeur d'Alene's Old Mission State Park, Cataldo, ID, US
          Dormition of the Theotokos -- Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Christian
          Ferragosto -- Italy (During the Roman Empire, a festival to Diana and a fertility and ripening celebration)
          Mother's Day -- Antwerp; Costa Rica
          National Acadians Day -- Acadians
          Virgin of Candelaria, patron of the Canary Islands -- Tenrife, Spain
          Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte Fiesta -- Bahia, Brazil (Festival of the Order of Our Lady of the Good Death)
          Festival of the Outremeuse -- Liege, Belgium
          Public Holiday or Publicly Observed -- Andorra; Austria; Belgium; Benin; Bosnia; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cameroon; Cape Verde; Central African Republic; Chile; Colombia; Côte d'Ivoire; Croatia; Cyprus; East Timor; France; French Guiana; French Polynesia; Gabon; Gambia; Germany; Greece; Guadelupe; Guatemala; Guinea; Holy See; Hungary; Italy; Lebanon; Liechtenstein; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Macedonia; Madagascar; Malta; Martinique; Mauritius; Mayotte; Monaco; New Caledonia; Paraguay; Poland; Portugal; Reunion; Romania; Rwanda; Saint Barthelemy; Saint Martin; Saint Pierre et Miquelon; San Marino; Senegal; Seychelles; Slovenia; Spain; Switzerland; Togo; Vanuatu; Wallis and Fortuna    

Best Friend's Day -- sponsored by Thema Martin

Bon/Obon Festival -- Japan (biggest day of the festival in most parts of Japan)

Bucyrus Bratwurst Festival -- Bucyrus, OH, US (food and fun celebration of German heritage; through Saturday)

Chauvin Day -- observed on Napoleon's birthday because his is unknown, the day is named for Nicholas Chauvin, whose blind devotion to Napoleon was immortalized in his name's use for absurdly intense attachments to any cause

Dia de la Ley Fundamental -- Equatorial Guinea (Constitution Day)

Eleusinian Mysteries -- Ancient Greek Calendar (through the 18th, dates approximate)

Festival of Vesta -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of the hearth)

Fete Nationale -- Republic of the Congo (National Day/Independence Day)

Fool's Dance -- Japan (part of the Awa Dance Festival)

Independence Day -- India(1947)

Kentucky State Fair and World Championship Horse Show -- Louisville, KY, US (if you love horses, it's the place to be since 1904; through the 25th)

Liberation Day -- both Koreas
     Gwangbokjeol -- South Korea
     Jogukhaebangui nal -- North Korea

Little League 2013 World Series -- South Williamsport, PA, US (through the 25th)

Maras Diena -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (celebration of the goddess Mara, cognate of Mary)

Milwaukee Irish Fest -- Milwaukee, WI, US (the world's largest Irish music and cultural event outside of the Emerald Isle; through Sunday)

National Day -- Lichtenstein (a/k/a Liberation Day [1945])

National Failures Day -- some websites say the 16th, and may i suggest a book called "Fail Better", a small quotations book about how failure is just the beginning.

National Lemon Meringue Pie Day

National Mourning Day -- Bangladesh

National Relaxation Day -- sponsored by Sean Moeller of Clio, Michigan; if you call in sick to stay home and relax, blame him

Panama La Vieja Day -- Panama (Founding of Panama City)

Shoro Nagashi Nagasaki -- Nagasaki, Japan (floating lanterns are released into the harbor in honor of the ancestors)

Soldiers' Reunion Celebration -- Newton, NC, US (the oldest patriotic event of its kind in the US, honoring all veterans; annually since 1889)

Sour Herring Premiere -- Sweden (by ordinance, the year's supply of sour herring may begin to be sold on the third Thursday in August)

Sproshinki -- Slavic Pagan Calendar (end of the hay harvest festival)

St. Tarcisius' Day (Patron of altar servers, first communicants)

Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival -- Sun Prairie, WI, US (family fun with a carnival, midget auto races, parade, food, entertainment, and lots of hot, buttered sweet corn; through Sunday)

Tuva Republic Day -- Tos-Bulak fields south of Kyzuk, Tuva, Russia (celebration of the Tuva Republic, a Naadam festival of Mongolian wrestling, horse racing, and archery; held by the Tuva people, the closest genetic relatives to the North and South American Native Peoples)

Wafaa El-Nil -- Egypt and Coptic Church ("Fidelity of the Nile", celebration of the annual of Flooding of the Nile)


Anniversaries Today:

Transcontinental US railway is completed at Promontory Point, UT, US, 1870
Panama Canal opens, 1914
Woodstock, 1969


Birthdays Today:

Joe Jonas, 1989
Ben Affleck, 1972
Melinda Gates, 1964
Jimmy Webb, 1946
Linda Ellerbee, 1944
Mike Connors, 1925
Rose Marie, 1925
Huntz Hall, 1919
Oscar Romero, 1917
Julia Child, 1912
Elizabeth Bolden, American Supercentenarian, 1890 (d. 2006)
Ethel Barrymore, 1879
E. Nesbit, 1858
Sir Walter Scott, 1771
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769


Today in History:

Battle of Roncevaux Pass, the Basques defeat Charles the Great (Charlemagne) and Roland is killed, 778
Macbeth defeats his cousin and rival King Duncan I, who is killed in the battle, and becomes king of Scotland, 1040
Battle of Lumphanan, in which King Macbeth is killed by the forces of Mael Coluim MacDonnchada, 1057
The cave city of Vardzia is consecrated by Queen Tamar of Georgia, 1185
The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, built to house the relics of the Three Wise Men, is laid, 1248*
The "Mainz Psalter" is completed, the earliest dated book, 1457
Founding of Panama City, 1519
Jesuit priest St. Francis Xaverius land in Kagoshima, Japan, 1549
Joseph Haydn departs England, never to return, 1795
Country of Liberia is founded by freed American former slaves, 1824
Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark, 1842
The Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu, Hawai'i, is dedicated; it is the oldest continuously used Roman Catholic Cathedral in the US, 1843
San Sebastian Church in Manila, the first all-steel church in Asia, is officially inaugurated and blessed, 1891
A male servant of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright sets fire to the living quarters of the architect's Wisconsin home, 1914
The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship Ancon, 1914
Will Rogers and Wiley Post are killed in a plane crash, 1935
The birth of stadium rock:  The Beatles play Shae Stadium, 1965
President Richard Nixon completes the break from the gold standard, 1971
The "Wow! signal":  The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space, 1977
An 8.0-magnitude earthquake off the Pacific coast devastates Ica and various regions of Peru killing 514 and injuring 1,090, 2007


*Yes, we just noted the other day the date of completion in 1880!