Thankful Thursday

Today is a long work day.  Get there before 7am so i can get the kids to school, and then come back and do the laundry and cleaning.

So i am thankful:

     that i have work
     that Bigger Girl can take Little Girl to school for me on days like this
     that Little Girl got to get her project for extra credit done last night
     that we seem to have finished the big car repairs for the time being
     that prayer meeting last night was concentrated on prayer for more understanding between peoples here and around the world
     that the rain stopped
     that...

"Hey, guess what!" Red-Headed Alec said.

What? i asked.

"Your #2 Son challenged me to a grip fight!  He said he could break out of any grip I could put him in, because he's so skinny."

Note:  the kid is a bean pole, really.

And? i asked.

"All I had to do was grab him and hold him over my head, and he couldn't move!"  Red-Headed Alec grinned from ear to ear.

"Yeah, we were laughing and telling him no to drop him!" Little Girl said.

Yes, i said, please don't do that -- i'd have to pay the medical bills!

So, i'm thankful Red-Headed Alec did not drop #2 Son when his mouth got away from him.



Today is:

Berlin International Film Festival -- Berlin, Germany (a premier international film festivall; through the 15th)

Calgary Boat and Sportsmen's Show -- Calgary, AB, Canada (through Sunday)

Constitution Day -- Mexico (trad.)

Feast Day of Jacob, Patriarch -- Catholic Christian

Kashmir Day -- Pakistan
  
Liberation from the Alberoni Occupation -- San Marino (also St. Agatha's Day)

Longest War in History Ends -- The Third Punic War, between Rome and Carthage, was officially ended on this date with a peace treaty signed in 1985, which is 2,131 years after the war began

Move Hollywood & Broadway to Lebanon, PA Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays, and Why would they want it?

National Chocolate Fondue Day

National Weatherperson's Day -- US (mostly, though some other countries now observe it as well; in honor of the first US meteorologist, John Jeffries)

Nones of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also
     Fornacalia -- celebration in honor of bread and the ovens used to dry grain; held any day between now and the 17th, one of Rome's few movable feasts)
 
Runeberg's Birthday -- Finland (National Poet)

Sapporo Snow Festival (Sapporo Yuki Matsuri) -- Sapporo City, Japan (fun in the cold, ice sculping competitons, and hot springs with hot sake to take the edge off; through the 11th)

Shiretoko Fantasia -- Shiretoko, Hokaido, Japan (laser lights and music illuminate the drift ice and waves of the Okhotsk Sea each night; through mid-March)

St. Agatha's Day (Patron of bell-founders, fire prevention, jewelers, martyrs, nurses, rape victims, single laywomen, torture victims, wet-nurses; Malta; San Marino; as well as over 50 cities around the world; against breast cancer, breast disease, earthquakes, eruptions of Mt. Etna, fire, natural disasters, sterility, volcanic eruptions)

Unity Day -- Burundi

World Nutella Day


Birthdays Today:

Jeremy Sumpter, 1989
Sara Evans, 1971
Bobby Brown, 1969
Michael Sheen, 1969
Laura Linney, 1964
Jennifer Jason Leigh, 1962
Christopher Guest, 1948
Barbara Hershey, 1948
David Alan Ladd, 1947
Charlotte Rampling, 1946
Roger Stauback, 1942
Jane Bryant Quinn, 1941
David Selby, 1941
H.R. Giger, 1940
Alex Harvey, 1935
Henry "Hank" Aaron, 1934
Andrew Greeley, 1928
Red Buttons, 1919
William Burroughs, 1914
John Carradine, 1906
Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr., 1900
Andre' Citroen, 1878
Belle Starr(Myra Maybelle Shirley), 1848
Dwight Lyman Moody, 1837
Ole Bull, 1810
Robert Peel, 1788
John Witherspoon, 1723
Sanjo, Emperor of Japan, 976


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Where On Earth Is Carmen San Diego"(TV), 1994
Hagar The Horrible(Comic strip), 1973
"Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour"(TV), 1967
Peter Pan(Disney cartoon film), 1953
"Otello"(Verdi Opera), 1887

 
Today in History:
 
Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy, 62
King Alfonso V orders Sicily's Jews to attend conversion sermons, 1428
A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society, 1597
The first US livestock branding law is passed, in Connecticut, 1644
Georgia becomes the first state to abolish both entail and primogenature, 1777
Sweden recognizes US independence, 1783
Hannah Lord Montague of New York creates the first detachable shirt collar, 1825
The "Oregon Spectator" is the first newspaper published on the American West Coast, 1846
An adding machine employing depressible keys is patented in New Paltz, NY, 1850
Two innovations which helped pave the way for motion pictures are pateneted, a hand turned stereoscope by Samuel Goodale of Cincinnati, and the Kinematoscope by Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia, 1861
Four inches of snow falls in San Francisco, 1887
The loop-the-loop centrifugal railroad (a/k/a the roller coaster) is patented by Ed Prescot, 1901
Greek military aviators, Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis performed the first naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane, 1913
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists, 1919
Reader's Digest magazine is first published, 1922
The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal, 1924
A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered, 1958
The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families, 1997
Danish special forces storm a ship captured by Somali pirates, freeing 25 crew members on board, 2010