Awww Monday: Crackers for Crackers!

Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee, of Comedy Plus.  It's easy to participate, just post a picture that makes everyone say, "Awww!"  After all, we can all use some cute stuff at the start of the work week.

The first Sunday of every other month, our church hosts a community outreach meal.  We prepare a huge, hot meal and it's free.  Each person who comes is escorted to a table and served a meal, including refills, and given time and attention and a listening ear.  Most of the people who come are homeless or live on the side of town where many have "food insecurity," to use the new term.

There's plenty of room for all who come.

One family that came had a sweet little four-year-old girl who decided to get creative with the gumbo and crackers.  She made the funniest little cracker and rice sandwiches by carefully fishing grains of rice out of her gumbo!

Cracker-rice sandwiches!

She ate her gumbo, too, but decided to save her little snack cake for later, having me put it in her pocket.  Her three-year-old brother gave us all a run for the money when he decided to run around the playground outdoors. 

They were fun kids, and i got to talk to several adults in the community who are homeless for one reason or another.  Their stories will break your heart.  It makes me wish we could give them a hot meal and a respite from life every day.





Today is:

Apple Howling Day -- Henfield, West Sussex (Held at Gill Orchard, always on Epiphany Eve, horn blowing and howling at the trees is said to wake them up and yield a good crop.)

Armenian Christmas Eve -- Armenia (Old Chrismas Day in the West)

Can Opener Day -- one of the earliest forms of can opener was patented this date in 1858 by Ezra Warner of CT, US (tin cans had been around for over 50 years by then, usually opened with a knife or hammer and chisel)

Epiphany Fair -- Piazza Navona, Rome, Italy (toys, sweets, and presents among the beautiful Bernini Fountains)

Get on the Computer Day -- obviously dates back to a time when people didn't have to check email daily or get inundated 
Guru Goyind Singh Jayanti -- CR, HR, and PB, India; Sikh celebration

Handsel Monday -- Scotland (traditionally a day to exchange small tokens of good luck with friends and neighbors; celebrated in rural areas on the Monday after Jan. 12, where they did not want to deviate from the OS/Julian Calendar)

Harbin Ice Festival -- Harbin, China (with a theme of "Happy Ice Snow, Exciting City," a festival of illuminated ice sculptures, ice sports, and fun through Chinese New Year and beyond; in 2015, through Feb. 28)

Joma Shinji Festival -- Kamakura, Japan (ceremony and festival to keep evil spirits away)

Mungday -- Discordianism (festival of St. Hung Mung)

National Bird Day -- US (National Association of Audubon Societies incorporated today in 1905) 

National Whipped Cream Day

Nones of January -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also
     Festival of Vica Pota (ancient goddess of victory)

Review Your Wrestling Holds Day -- internet generated, and weird

St. Gerlac of Valkenberg's Day (Patron of domestic animals)

St. Simeon Stylites' Day (The original and most maniacal of the "Pillar Saints")

Take the Cake Day -- a day to do something, anything, over the top, just because

"Thank G-d It's Monday" Day

Trettondagsafton -- Sweden (Epiphany Eve)

Turn Up the Heat Day -- all over the internet, but no one explains it

Twelfth Day of Christmas -- and thus, Twelfth Night (Although by some reckonings, this is actually only the 11th day of Christmas, and thus Twelfth Night Eve.  Take your pick.)


Anniversaries Today:

George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis, 1759


Birthdays Today:

January Jones, 1978
Bradley Cooper, 1975
Warrick Dunn, 1975
Carrie Ann Inaba, 1968
Pamela Sue Martin, 1953
Diane Keaton, 1946
Charlie Rose, 1942
Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, 1938
Umberto Eco, 1932
Alvin Ailey, 1931
Robert Duvall, 1931
Walter Mondale, 1928
George Reeves, 1914
George Dolenz, 1908
Jeannette Ridlon Piccard, 1895
King Camp Gillette, 1855
Edmund Ruffin, 1794
Constanze Mozart, 1762 (wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Pietro Filippo Scarlotti, 1679
Shah Jahal, 1592 (Mughal emperor of India, built the Taj Mahal)


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"All My Children"(TV), 1970
"Bozo the Clown"(TV), 1959
"The Member of the Wedding"(Play), 1950
"Pepe LePew"(cartoon character, in "Odor-able Kitty"), 1945

Today in History:

Edward the Confessor dies with no heir, leading to a succession crisis that ends with the Norman Conquest, 1066
Felix Manz, a leader of the Anabaptist congregation in Zürich, is executed by drowning, 1527
Pope Clemens VII forbids English king Henry VIII to re-marry, 1531
A petition in Recife, Brazil leads to closing of their 2 synagogues, 1638
Anne Clarke of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted the first divorce in the colonies, from her absent and adulterous husband, Denis Clarke, by the Quarter Court of Boston, Massachusetts, 1643
The first Swedenborgian temple in the US holds its first service, in Baltimore, 1800
The Ohio legislature passes the first laws restricting the movement of free blacks, 1804
Davy Crockett arrives in Texas, just in time for the Alamo, 1836
The US House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the UK, 1846
The first US school of librarianship opens at Columbia University, 1887
An Austrian newspaper makes the first public report on Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of xrays, 1896
The National Association of Audubon Society incorporates, 1905
Colombia recognizes Panama's independence, 1909
The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor, 1914
British premier Lloyd George issues a demand for a unified peace, 1918
Nellie Taylor Ross is sworn in as governor of Wyoming, the first woman governor of a US state, 1925
Mao Tse-tung writes "A Single Spark Can Start A Prairie Fire," 1930
FM radio is demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission for the first time, 1940
The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper, 1944
Warmest reliably measured temperature in Antarctica of +59°F (+15°C) recorded at Vanda Station, 1974
Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, is discovered, 2005