Aww Monday: Let Me Help!

In this house, i try to recycle everything that can be recycled.  We are blessed with curbside recycling, and things that aren't taken curbside can be dropped off at different places at times though the year. 

My children know, when in doubt, check to see if we can recycle it.  Most of the friends who hang around here also know that i'm a stickler for putting everything i possibly can in the bin.

What the children and their friends don't always do is clean things like soup cans thoroughly before tossing them in.  So, the kittens always stand ready to help notify me when something is in there that shouldn't be.

Sulu, who jumps in there himself.

But, mom!  I know there's something in here that shouldn't be!

He does climb in, and cries and digs until i pull out what he wanted -- the chicken soup can, not quite rinsed properly, that he was smelling.




Today is:

Armed Forces Day -- Mali

Blue Monday -- UK (it's gloomy winter, it's after the holidays, it's time to cheer someone up by doing something nice for him/her)

Camcorder Day -- five companies agreed, this day in 1982, to cooperate and construct a camera with a built in VCR

Celtic Tree Month Beth (Birch) ends

Clean Out Your Email Inbox Week -- cure your email e-ddiction, get rid of the old stuff clogging up your inbox; see InboxDetox for details

Coffee Break Day

Day of National Mourning -- Azerbaijan (a/k/a Martyrs' Day)

Festival of Jubilation for Osiris -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate, in Busiris)

Heroes Day -- Cape Verde; Guinea-Bissau (death anniversary of Amilcar Cabral)

La Tamborrada de San Sebastian -- San Sebastian, Spain (24 hours of drumming, begun last evening)

Maouloud -- Mali (Baptism of the Prophet)

Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- US and Territories (obs.)

National Buttercrunch Day

National Cheese Lover's Day

National Granola Bar Day

National Disc Jockey Day -- listed lots of places, but no particular reason given for the choice of date

Penguin Awareness Day -- lots of celebrating, but no history of who started it

Sacrifices to Athena -- Ancient Greek Calendar (date approximate)

Stay Young Forever Day -- celebrate the child in all of us, do something fun

St. Sebastian's Day (Patron of archers, armorers, arrowsmiths/fletchers, athletes, bookbinders, diseased cattle, dying people, gardeners, gunsmiths, hardware stores, ironmongers, lace makers/lace workers, lead workers, masons, plague victims, police officers, Pontifical Swiss Guards, raquet makers, soldiers, stone masons/stone cutters; several cities, but especially of Rio de Janiero, Brazil and San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, where today is marked with celebrations; against cattle disease, enemies of religion, plague)

Take a Walk Outdoors Day -- unless it's storming, a good way to get some exercise

Tenmangu Kowakamai -- Setaka, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan (festival of old style Japanese dances)

Wellington Province Anniversary Day -- Wellington, New Zealand (obs.; trad. date 22nd)


Birthdays Today:

Skeet Ulrich, 1969
Rainn Wilson, 1968
Rainn Wilson, 1966
James Denton, 1963
Lorenzo Lamas, 1958
Bill Maher, 1956
David Lynch, 1946
Dorothy Provine, 1937
Arte Johnson, 1934
Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, 1930
Patricia Neal, 1926
Otis Dewey "Slim" whitman, 1924
Federico Fellini, 1920
DeForest Kelley, 1920
Joy Adamson, 1910
George Burns, 1896
Harold Lincoln Gray, 1894
Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, 1889
Carolus Linnaeus, 1778
André-Marie Ampère, 1775
Richard Henry Lee, 1732


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Meet the Beatles"(Album, US release), 1964



Today in History:

The first elected English Parliament called into session by the 6th Earl of Leicester, and meets in the Palace of Westminster (a/k/a Houses of Parliament), 1265
The present-day location of Rio de Janeiro is first explored, 1502
The Casa Contratacion (Board of Trade) is founded in Spain to deal with American affairs, 1503
The cornerstone of Amsterdam town hall laid, 1648
The third and main part of First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. Arthur Phillip decides that Botany Bay is unsuitable for the location of a penal colony, and decides to move to Port Jackson, 1788
China cedes Hong Kong to British, 1841
L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster, 1885
The first full length talking motion picture filmed outdoors is released, "In Old Arizona", 1929
Nazi officials hold notorious Wannsee conference in Berlin deciding on "final solution" calling for extermination of Europe's Jews, 1942
The first atomic submarine, USS Nautilus, is launched at Groton, Connecticut, 1955
Witnesses report sightings of a Bottlenose whale swimming in the River Thames, the first time the species had been seen in the River Thames since records began in 1913, 2006
A three-man team, using only skis and kites, completes a 1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility for the first time since 1958 and for the first time ever without mechanical assistance, 2007