A to Z Challenge: V is for Visit and Victory

My reason for traveling to see my friend DiDreaming was twofold.  First, i love to visit.  Second, she needed help.


One thing i like about the help she needed is that i got to use tools.  Not just any tools, my friend lets me play with power tools!

Power tools are fun!

The whole visit was a victory.  We got pictures up, and we got the canopy up

One princess canopy, one happy princess.

We got the curtains up.

Yes, i had to climb on the furniture to do it.

Best of all, we didn't let the TV defeat us!  Victory was ours, we got it up, too!

We Did It!

Today is

Adonia -- Greece (women's festival mourning the death of Adonis; date approximate)

American Family Pet Expo -- Costa Mesa, CA, US (includes displays on any type of domesticated pet you can imagine; through Sunday)

ANZAC Day -- Australia; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Cook Islands; New Zealand; Niue; Norfolk Island; Tonga

Arbor Day -- US

Army Day -- North Korea

Austin Food and Wine Festival -- Austin, TX, US (superstar chefs and sommeliers, over 40 cooking demos and wine seminars, private grand tastings and more; through Sunday)

Cape May Spring Festival -- Cape May, NJ, US (ten days of spring activities highlighting the Victorian lifestyle)

C2E2 (Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo) -- Chicago, IL, US (through Sunday)

Dandelion Day -- University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, US (annual celebration used as a respite to diffuse tension around exam time)

DNA Day -- structure of DNA first published this day in 1953; human genome project ended today in 2003
     DNA Day -- a day for teachers, students, and everyone to learn more about genetics and genomics
sponsored by genome.gov and the Smithsonian

Duck Appreciation Society Day -- The Duck Appreciation Society (some sites say May 10; either way, go feed the ducks if you like them, but not stale white bread, it's no better for them than it is for us)

East Meets West Day -- Allies from the East and West finally met up this day in 1945 about 75 miles from Berlin

Festival of Robigalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (to protect against corn blight; festival of Robiga and Rogibus, the brother and sister fertility gods)

Flag Day -- Faroe Islands; Swaziland

Hairball Awareness Day -- sponsored by Furminator (which product actually does work, by the way) and Hills Pet Nutrition

Hairstylist Appreciation Day -- if you have a good one, let him/her know (some sites put this on the 30th)

Hug A Plumber Day -- because when you are knee deep in it, you really need them around

Interstate Mullet Toss / The Gulf Coast's Greatest Beach Party -- FloraBama Bar, Gulf Shores, Alabama, US (fish flingers stand on the Alabama side of the property and toss them onto the Florida side, with proceeds going to charity; through Sunday)

Liberation Day -- Italy; Portugal

National Crayola Day -- no one claims starting this holiday, observe it with your children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews/kids down the street, and remember how fun it is to color pictures

National Dream Hotline® -- sponsored by the School of Metaphysics, any time from this evening until Sunday night, call in and get your, or someone else's for that matter, dream interpreted

National Pie Championships and Great American Pie Festival -- Orlando, FL, US and Celebration, FL, US (three days of celebrating the best pies anywhere)

National Zucchini Bread Day -- they hold this at a time when you are not yet sick of all that zucchini you grew in the garden

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival -- NOLA, US (the best music and food festival around! through May 5)

Panoply® -- Huntsville, AL, US (comprehensive arts festival, including music, theater, dance, and a juried art show; through Sunday)

Parental Alienation Awareness Day -- raising awareness of Parental Alienation or Hostile Aggressive Parenting

Plumber's Day/Hug a Plumber Day -- one of the original sites to list this is here

Red Hat Society Day -- first Red Hat Tea Party held this day in 1998

Sinai Liberation Day -- Egypt

St. Mark the Evangelist's Day (Patron of attorneys/barristers/lawyers/notaries, captives, glaziers, imprisoned people/prisoners, lions, stained glass workers, struma patients; Egypt; Boretto, Italy; Creazzo, Italy; Infanta, Philippines; Ionian Islands; Pordenone, Italy; Sonnino, Italy; Venice, Italy; against impenitence, insect bites, scrofulous diseases, struma)

Tag des Baumes -- Germany (Tree Day/Arbor Day)

Undiagnosed Children's Day -- sponsored by SWAN UK (Syndromes Without A Name), supporting families of children with undiagnosed genetic conditions; this year's theme is "It's A Mystery"

World Championship Wildfowl Carving Competition and Art Festival -- Ocean City, MD, US (carvings and sculpture of all sizes, for competition and for sale; through Sunday)

World Malaria Day / Malaria Awareness Day -- WHO and the International Community

World Penguin Day -- because they begin migrating on or around this day

20-Something Service Day -- can't find who started this one, but it's a good idea, whomever it was, whether you are 20 or older to do some community service or volunteer work regularly


Anniversaries Today:

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is established, ND, US, 1947
The United Negro College Fund is founded, 1944


Birthdays Today:

Jacob Underwood, 1980
Emily Bergl, 1975
Jason Lee, 1970
Renee Zellweger, 1969
Hank Azaria, 1964
Jeffrey DeMunn, 1947
Talia Shire, 1946
Stu Cook, 1945
Bjorn Ulvaeus, 1945
Al Pacino, 1940
"Meadowlark" Lemon, 1932
Paul Mazursky, 1930
Albert King, 1923
Ella Fitzgerald, 1918
Edward R. Murrow, 1908
William Joseph Brennan, Jr., 1906
John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, 1884
Guglielmo Marconi, 1874


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Little Murders"(Play), 1967
"Romulus the Great"(Play), 1949
"Another Language"(Play), 1932
"Turandot"(Opera), 1926
Robinson Crusoe(Publication date), 1719


Today in History:

Lysander's Spartan Armies defeated the Athenians and the Peloponnesian War ends, BC404
German geographer and mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller publishes his Cosmographiae Introductio map in which he gives the American continents their name, 1507
Highwayman Nicholas Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine, 1792
Charles Fremantle arrives in the HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom, 1829
The last survivors of the Donner Party arrive back in civilization, 1847
The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots, 1849
British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal, 1859
New York State becomes the first US state to require automobiles to be licensed, 1901
First DC Comic with Batman is published, 1939
Fifty nations gather in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations, 1945
Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA, 1953
The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping, 1959
Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit, 1961
Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula per the Camp David Accords, 1982
American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war, 1983
Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit, 1983
The Hubble Telescope is deployed, 1990
The Human Genome Project comes to an end 2.5 years before first anticipated, 2003
The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia  after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937, 2005
Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties to join the European Union, 2005
The U.S. government 'condemns' international media outlets, including 'The New York Times' for publishing confidential files, 2011