If i'm going to be this tired...

...before the holiday even begins, i'm scared to see how the rest of the week is going to go.

Anyway.  Last Thursday and Friday, Grandma and Grandpa were in town.  Friday was Grandpa's birthday, and i had prepared two batches of the fried, sweet flatbreads called hojaldras that he loves for his gift.  Most of those two days were spent entertaining Grandma while Grandpa had meetings and dinners and luncheons and the interminable discussions that go into doing work on Boards of AnythingAndEverything.

By the time they left Friday afternoon, Little Girl and i went and took care of the cats at the shelter, then i dropped her and some friends off for a movie.  A couple of hours after that, a friend of mine came into town to stay with us.

She had expressed interest in seeing a home football game, and, since #1 Son was going to be working, i invited her.  She drove down in her daughter the lawyer's Mercedes convertible, the one that still has some damage from a bullet hole in it.  Note for those who want to be lawyers -- be careful which type of law you decide to practice.  Divorces get messy, and sometimes the lawyer for the other side gets in the way.

Having her here was a breath of fresh air.  We stayed up later than we should have, then i got up crazy early as i generally do.  The game was a highlight, but absolutely cold.  Not just a bit of autumn chill, the highest temp for the day was mid-50's and dropped from the time the game started.  It's a good thing the team won, or it would have been insufferable.  As it was, the inside areas were so crowded with us Southern hothouse flowers who don't do cold well that there wasn't room to breathe deeply.

Sunday morning the plan was to attend the very early service, then my friend Di would go toodle around the town a bit and meet me at noon when my nursery shift was over.  Only problem:  perfume.

People, i'm not a meanie, and i'm not against you wearing your favorite perfume, cologne, aftershave, whatever.  What i am against is having to say, "Nice scent.  Must you marinate in it?"  Seriously, when your perfume is so strong that a person can't stay for a church service because her throat is closing up, you have used way too much.  Take a tip from Miss Manners (Judith Martin) and make sure your scent is not so strong that it will stay in the room even when you are no longer present!

Anyway, Di had to leave the service, and she did toodle around the town a bit, and found her dog, The Terrorist Terrier, a Christmas outfit at the BigBoxStore.  Meanwhile, Little Girl played with the 2-year-olds and i sat with crying babies in my lap.  She and i met up again for lunch and talk and more talk.

Little Girl, by the way, deserves great kudos for giving up her room so my friend could stay.  The child slept on the couch downstairs for two nights without complaint, and in fact, she had offered.

After Di left, extracting a promise from me that i would come visit her during the Christmas break, and i will, it was time for me to get ready for the annual ecumenical Thanksgiving service that several area churches take turns hosting each year.  It was a lovely service, at the Methodist Church this year.  They have a wonderful choir, and the speaker was from a local outreach ministry for the homeless that all of these churches band together to support.

So Sunday evening saw me ready for bed in earnest, and hoping for a break.  Even though there is no school this week, there's no rest for the weary.  Little Girl took her driving classes, the classroom instruction portion, in August.  She has been waiting ever since to be called to do the 8 hours of behind the wheel instruction.  They finally called, and that starts today, 8am sharp.

That, and the fact that we are again out of toilet paper, meaning i have no further excuses to put off grocery shopping, and the fact that we have so much to do for the holiday week, is going to keep us jumping.

 




Today is:

Anniversary of Moquegua City -- Peru (founded this date in 1541)

Cat-Napping Convention -- Fairy Calendar

Day Sacred to Proserpina -- Ancient Roman Calendar (also Persephone, of the Greeks, the Wheel goddess of the Underworld, often associated with St. Catherine; see below)

Dia de la Soberania Nacional -- Argentina (Sovereignty Day)

Evacuation Day -- 19th Century New York City (withdrawal of British troops in 1783)

Hari Guru -- Indonesia (Teacher's Day)

Icelandic Calendar Month Ylir (Whiner) begins -- named after the whining winter winds

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women -- UN

Learn When To Start Thawing the Turkey Day -- US (USDA "Let's Talk Turkey" hotline 800-535-4555; Butterball "Turkey Talk-Line" 800-323-4848)

Mangé Yam -- Haiti (fete de la moisson; a yam harvest festival)

National Day -- Bosnia and Herzegovina (commemorates the 1943 declaration of statehood within Yugoslavia)

National Don't Utter A Word Day -- internet generated, and variously listed as the 25th of November, February, or May; pick one if you want

National Military Families Recognition Day -- US (by Presidential Proclamation in 1993, the Monday before Thanksgiving Day)http://www.militaryfamily.org/

National Parfait Day

Persephone Day (a/k/a Kore) -- Ancient Greek Calendar (celebration of her as wheel goddess of the underworld; date approximate, but she is often associated with St. Catherine; see below)

Saint Catherine of Alexandria's Day -- of the Catherine Wheel, sometimes associated with the Wheel of Karma and the Hindu Kali; one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (Patron of apologists, archivists, attorneys, barristers, craftsmen who work with wheels of any sort, dying people, educators, girls, jurists, knife grinders and sharpeners, lawyers, librarians, libraries, maidens, mechanics, millers, nurses, old maids, philosophers, potters, preachers, scholars, schoolchildren, scribes, secretaries, spinners, spinsters, stenographers, students, tanners, teachers, theologians, turners, University of Paris, unmarried girls, and wheelwrights; Aalsum, Netherlands; Bertinoro, Italy; Camerata Picena, Italy; Dumaguete, Philippines; Heidesheim am Rhein, Germany; Kuldiga, Latvia; Mähring, Germany; Saint Catharines, Ontario; Zejtun, Malta; Zurrieq, Malta) related observance
     Women's Merrymaking Day -- Women go 'Cath'rining' and have a good time (in some places, especially France, women may propose marriage on this day)

Shopping Reminder Day -- exactly a month until Christmas

Srefidensi -- Suriname (Republic Day/Independence Day)

Statehood Day -- FBiH, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Strange Names Day -- in honor of all the celebrity -- and other -- kids with "unique" names; sponsored the last Tuesday in November by Marlar in the Morning at 101QFL in Rockford, IL, US
 
Vajiravudh Day -- Thailand

Zibelemarit -- Bern, Switzerland (Onion Market Festival, in front of the Federal Palace, one of the country's best known and most popular autumn markets, always on the fourth Monday in November to commemorate the granting of market right to people after great fire of Berne in 1405.)


Birthdays Today:

Barbara and Jenna Bush, 1981
Donovan McNabb, 1976
Christina Applegate, 1971
Jill Hennessy, 1968
Amy Grant, 1960
John F. Kennedy, Jr., 1960
John Larroquette, 1947
Paul Desmond, 1924
Ricardo Montalban, 1920
Joe DiMaggio, 1914
Solanus Casey, 1870
Carry Nation, 1846
Karl F. Benz, 1844
Andrew Carnegie, 1835


Today in History:

A tsunami, caused by the earthquake in the Tyrrhenian Sea, devastates Naples (Italy) and the Maritime Republic of Amalfi, among other places, 1343
The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, begins, 1491
A deadly earthquake rocks Shemakha, in the Caucasus, killing 80,000 people, 1667
The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, reaches its peak intensity which it maintains through November 27. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people died, 1703
First English patent granted to an American, for processing corn, 1715
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is founded, 1758
Farmer's Almanac first published, 1792
The Greek frigate Hellas arrives in Nafplion to become the first flagship of the Hellenic Navy, 1826
A cyclone slams India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa (never to be entirely rebuilt again); the storm wave sweeps inland, taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths result from the disaster, 1839
Alfred Nobel patents dynamite, 1867
John B Meyenberg of St Louis patents evaporated milk, 1884
American College of Surgeons incorporates in Springield, Illinois, 1912
First Thanksgiving Day Parade is held in Philadelphia, 1920
690 earthquake shocks recorded in 1 day in Ito, Japan, 1930
The first Soviet liquid fuel rocket attains altitude of 261' (80m), 1933
Woody Woodpecker debuts with release of Walter Lantz's "Knock Knock", 1940
New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom, 1947
Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London later becoming the longest continuously-running play in history, 1952
The Minneapolis Thanksgiving Day Fire destroys an entire city block, 1982
The United Nations establishes the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to commemorate the murder of three Mirabal Sisters for resistance against the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in Dominican Republic, 1999
Powerful storm brings 3 years worth of rain in 4 hours to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, sparking terrible floods, 2009