We Officially Announce

That school is canceled.  Like we couldn't have guessed.

It was plastered all over the news, and they robo-called us and sent home a letter to boot, just to make sure we knew.

Yes, it's another of those ice on the roads, interstate shut down, most streets impassible because they have a bridge over a creek that has ice on it, no school, no government workers to report except essential personnel, uni is closed, junior college is closed, everyone go home, stay home, and don't come out until it warms up enough that you Southerners won't kill yourselves trying to drive in the mess that you aren't used to kind of days.

As Bigger Girl says, "The South shut down."

These are the kind of days we don't get very often, and thank heavens.  Last Friday's big shutdown resulted in over 200 accidents that can be blamed on weather.

Yet, Sweetie has to go to work.  The women in his building do not have to report.  Maintenance, since they can't mow or weed or do set ups for meetings (there aren't any), do not have to report.  The whole university, except those who work the power plant so nothing freezes or is destroyed, is staying home.

He works for the alumni association, and he has to report for duty for a couple of hours so the Big Boss can brag that his people came to work when no one else at the university did.  It makes him feel superior.  We just hope Sweetie can get back home, there are so many road closures that "you can't get there from here" becomes a real possibility.

#1 Son keeps updating me on how cold it is in Chicago, Bigger Girl is lamenting her broken computer screen (yes, she broke it again) and begging Little Girl to allow her on the tablet, #2 Son is camping out with Festus and Young Jacob around a fire on the side porch, and Little Girl has turned the "No Sleep 'til Brooklyn" song into "No School 'til Brooklyn" and is singing it with glee.

As for me, i'm tempted to hibernate with the heating pad.  Sweetie is accusing me of having a love affair with it.  Since he won't snuggle because he can't sleep with anything or anyone touching him except his blanket, it certainly is my second-best friend at the moment.

If you are in the cold weather places right now, i hope you thaw out soon, and i hope we do, too!


 
Today is:

Army Day -- Armenia

Data Privacy Day -- International

Feast of the Holy Family -- Catholic Christian

Festival of the Lenaia to Dionysus -- Ancient Greek Calendar, end January through early February

Jackhammer Day -- US (the pneumatic jackhammer was patented this day in 1894 by Charles Brady King of Detroit, MI)

National Blueberry Pancake Day

National Kazoo Day -- because anyone can play one!

National Speak Up and Succeed Day -- encouraging joining Toastmasters International, as fear of speaking can block your road to success!

National Spieling Day -- internet generated, and whatever your area of expertise, spiel about it today

Rinkydinks Annual Snowball Fight -- Fairy Calendar

Runic Half-month Elhaz (elk) commences

St. Charlemagne's Day (Patron of the University of Paris)

St. Thomas Aquinas's Day (Patron of academics, apologists, book sellers, chastity, colleges, learning, pencil makers, philosophers, publishers, scholars, schools, students, theologians, universities; Aquino, Italy; Belcastro, Italy; Falerna, Italy; University of Vigo; all Catholic academies, schools, and universities; against lightning, storms)

Telephone Exchange Day -- US (the first telephone exchange was set up in New Haven, CT with 22 subscribers on this day in 1878)

Up-Helly-AA Day -- Lerwick, Shetland (the largest fire festival in Europe, with tomorrow as a day off so everyone can recover)


Anniversary Today:

Adoption of the Great Seal of the United States, 1782


Birthdays Today:

Elijah Wood, 1981
Nick Carter, 1980
Joey Fatone, Jr. 1977
Kathryn Morris, 1969
Sarah McLachlan, 1968
Harley Jane Kozak, 1957
Nicolas Sarkozy, 1955
Rick Warren, 1954
John Beck, 1943
Susan Howard, 1943
Alan Alda, 1936
Susan Sontag, 1933
Claes Oldenburg, 1929
Jackson Pollack, 1912
Robert Stroud, 1890 (The Birdman of Alcatraz)
Arthur Rubenstein, 1887
Auguste Piccard, 1884
Jean Felix Piccard, 1884
Colette, 1873
Jose' Marti, 1853
Henry Morton Stanley, 1841
Alexander Mackenzie, 1822
Peter the Great of Russia, 1775
St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Fantasy Island"(TV), 1978
"Barnaby Jones"(TV), 1973
"Symphony No. 1/Jeremiah"(Bernstein), 1944


Today in History:

The Walk to Canossa: The excommunication of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor is lifted by Pope Gregory VIII, 1077
The first Crusaders begins siege of Hosn-el-Akrad Syria, 1099
Pope Alexander VI gives his son Cesare Borgia as hostage to Charles VIII of France, 1495
Edward VI, age nine, succeeds his father Henry VIII as king of England, 1547
By the Edict of Orleans, the persecution of French Huguenots is suspended, 1561
Articles of the Warsaw Confederation are signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland, 1573
Sir Thomas Warner found the first British colony in the Caribbean, on St. Kitts, 1624
The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented in the Senate decree (it was called St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences until 1917), 1724
Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity, 1754
London's Pall Mall is the first street lit by gaslight, 1807
Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom, 1813
The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway, 1855
In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world's largest snowflakes are reported, being 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick, 1887
Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent became the first person to be convicted of speeding in an automobile. He is fined 1 shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h), 1896
The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie, 1902
An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard, 1915
The first Jewish  US Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, appointed by Wilson, 1916
A symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is installed beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to honor the unknown dead of World War I, 1921
The name Pakistan is coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence, 1933
The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today, 1958
The current design of the Flag of Canada is chosen by an act of Parliament, 1965
Tropical Storm Domoina makes landfall in southern Mozambique, eventually causing 214 deaths and some of the most severe flooding so far recorded in the region, 1984
Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) records the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief, 1985
Space Shuttle Challenger breaks apart after liftoff killing all seven astronauts on board, 1986
Hundreds of thousands of protesters filled up the Egyptian's streets in demonstrations referred to as "Friday of Anger" against the Mubarak regime, 2011