Who's That!

That, it just so happens, is PepperJack.

PepperJack has been our guest for a couple of days.  He is Miss Lizzie's dog.

So, how did we end up, again, taking care of Miss Lizzie's dog?

Funny you should ask.  It's long, and it's complicated.

Miss Lizzie, the young lady who lived with us for a while, has a section 8 apartment now, and is trying to arrange surgery for her arms and neck so she might be able to go to work.

Meanwhile, she is still having post traumatic stress flashbacks to the abuse from her childhood.  She had a flashback the other day, and in it, dropped something on the floor that broke, and she cut her foot on it very badly.  She sent me a 2am text asking me to send Bigger Girl to help, and called 911.

Until help got there, she poured bleach everywhere, because she is very highly germ phobic when she is having a flashback.  She also got scared that she had gotten something rotten in her mouth, and rinsed her mouth with a bit of the bleach.

The EMTs and Police got there before Bigger Girl, who might have been able to explain the way Miss Lizzie's mind works in these situations.  Instead, they saw blood, bleach, and heard her incoherently talking about rinsing her mouth with bleach, decided she had attempted suicide, and carted her off to the hospital, from which she was admitted to the psychiatric ward.

It took us almost 3 days to get it sorted out and spring her, because she is not suicidal, just undergoing her usual trials and tribulations that go along with having been molested many times as a young child by your grandfather.

So, Bigger Girl cleaned the blood and locked up the apartment and brought PepperJack here.

The cats were insulted, but they got over it.

Meanwhile, we got two more litters of kittens, had my parents up at the hotel, where we went to visit them, and i had to spend hours and hours fielding phone calls from two other emergency situations that only mommy can fix.  Of course.

PepperJack is back home with Miss Lizzie, though, and the week is finally done.  And i am done in.

Oh, and Bigger Girl visited Miss Lizzie in the hospital, and talked the doctor in to letting her out.  Meanwhile, she says there is a person in there right now who thinks he is Michael Jackson.  He spends as much time as they will let him spend in one room playing Michael Jackson Albums and singing/dancing along, very badly.

Let's hope i can find my sanity again, i'm not a huge fan of lousy Michael Jackson interpretations.



Today is:

Bartletide -- West Witton, Yorkshire Dales, UK (a/k/a Burning Bartle, a ceremony in which a straw effigy of Owd Bartle, a sheep theif of yore, is paraded, then burned after sunset, as a warning to the light fingered)

Birthday of Osiris -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Corvette Crossroads Auto Show -- Mackinaw City, MI, US (show that includes a Corvette parade across the Mackinaw Bridge; through tomorrow)

Country Fair and Auction -- McHenry, MD, US (sponsored by the local Mennonite churches, a good old-fashioned time of family fun)

De Ducasse -- Ath, Belgium (Giants of Ath Festival or Wedding of the Giants, a celebration since medieval times in which "Goliath" marries, then goes to do battle with David; through tomorrow)

Ferret Buckeye Bash -- Colombus, OH, US (ferret show)

Festival for Luna -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Festival of Mania -- Ancient Roman Calendar (to placate the Manes, a day when the Mundus, the portal to the afterlife, is open and the dead are free to roam)

Flag Day -- Liberia

Flitting Appreciation Day -- another "holiday" with no particular reason except that someone who enjoys flitting around wanted to celebrate it

Gangara Fire Festival -- Atago Shrine, Ikeda City, Japan

Green Corn Pow Wow -- Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (through tomorrow, Pow Wow and presentations of Native heritage to all)

Hotter 'n H*ll Hundred Bike Race -- Wichita Falls, TX, US (cyclists of all ages in the largest sanctioned century ride in the US, in the Texas summer heat)

Independence Day -- Ukraine(1991)

International Bat Night -- through tomorrow, go enjoy these wonderful creatures; www.eurobats.org or www.batcon.org

International Day Against Intolerance, Discrimination and Violence Based on Musical Preference, Lifestyle, and Dress Code -- sponsored by the Romanian Humanist Association and the Sophie Lancaster Foundation

International Strange Music Day -- as declared by strange musician and composer Patrick Grant

Knife Day -- internet generated, but how would we cook without them?  today remember how much you do each day with a good kitchen knife.

Koenji Awa Odori Festival -- Suginami City, Tokyo, Japan (thousands dance in the streets, through tomorrow)

National Peach Pie Day

National Waffle Day -- Cornelius Swarthout patented the first waffle iron in the US on this day in 1869

Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival -- Pittsburgh, PA, US (relive the days of yore, watch artisans practice the olde crafts, and have a high good time; weekends through September)

Saddleworth Rushcart -- Saddleworth, West Yorkshire, England (similar to rushbearing, a cart goes through the area with Morris men, the bounds of the area are checked for enemy breaches, rushes are gathered to line the church floor, and there is celebrating, gurning, wrestling, singing, and a final procession tomorrow to St. Chad's Church at Uppermill for the 11am service)

Sidewalk Art Festival -- Portland, ME, US

St. Bartholomew's Day (Patron of bookbinders, butchers, cobblers, Florentine cheese merchants, Florentine salt merchants, leather workers,plasterers, shoemakers, tanners, trappers, whiteners; Armenia; Borgo Tossignano, Italy; Boves, Italy; Carpineto dell Nora, Italy; Civitella in Val di Chiana, Italy; Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Gambatesa, Italy; Gharghur, Malta; Lipari, Sicily, Italy; Maastricht, Netherlands; Magalang, Philippines; Plzen, Czech Republic; Potosí, Bolivia; Salzano, Italy; Trino, Italy; against nervous diseases, neurological diseases, and twitching) related observance
     Schaferlauf -- Markgroeningen, Germany (Festival to honor St. Bartholomew, Patron of Herdsmen, on this day or the weekend after; includes traditional barefoot race by children of active shepherds and water carrying contests; also now has a music festival)

St. Owen of Rouen's Day (Patron of the deaf; against deafness)

Usuki Stone Buddhas Fire Festival -- Usuki, Japan (torchlight at twilight lights the regions mysterious Buddha statues)

Vesuvius Day -- anniversary of 79CE eruption which destroyed Pompeii, Stabiae, and Herculaneum

Vuelta a Espana -- Spain (the third of cyclings' prestigious Grand Tours; through Sept. 15)

Waratambar -- New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea (a native thanksgiving)

William Wilberforce Day -- Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, OH, US (birth anniversary of founder, in 1759)


Birthday's Today:

Rupert Grint, 1988
Marlee Matlin, 1965
Cal Ripken, Jr., 1962
Steve Guttenberg, 1958
Yasser Arafat, 1929
Hal Smith, 1916
Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, 1890
Daniel Gooch, 1816
William Wilberforce, 1759


Today in History:

The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buries Pompeii and Herculaneum, 15,000 die, 79
The Visigoths under Aleric begin to pillage Rome, 410
King John of England, a/k/a Humpty Dumpty for having to issue the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoileme, 1200
Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague, 1349
The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed, 1456
The first English convoy lands at Surat, India, 1608
Calcutta, India is founded, 1690
British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn down the White House and several other buildings, 1814
Charles Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle, 1831
The Panic of 1857 begins, touching off one of the most severe economic crises in US history (Which just goes to show you, the more things change, the more they stay the same), 1857
Cornelius Swarthout patents the waffle iron, 1869
The Wolseley Expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River
Rebellion, 1870
Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim English Channel, 1875
Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera, 1891
Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal, 1909
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly non-stop across the North American continent, 1932
The treaty creating NATO goes into effect, 1949
France explodes its first hydrogen bomb, thus becoming the world's fifth nuclear power, 1968
Voyager 2 (launched 1977) reaches Neptune, 1989
Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1991
The first RFID human implantation is tested in the UK, 1998
Argon fluorohydride, the first Argon compound ever known, is discovered at the University of Helsinki, 2000
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is considered a Dwarf Planet, 2006