Losing People

We love the Naval Aviation Museum and watching the Blue Angels practice. 

They used to practice very early in the morning, as in, 8:30am early.  Now it's at 11:30am, but you better get there by about 10am or you won't get a parking space.

We went yesterday in 3 separate vehicles and Bigger Girl, even after all these years, had to ask for directions.

Go to the Wal-Mart and take a right, i told her.  With her, you have to keep it very simple.  As she says, "Mom, I could get lost in a Kleenex box!"

While we were there, i got a call from Bigger Girl, too.  Yes, it's a huge museum, you lose children and even the adults you came with in there.  She had lost Junior.

When i told her not to worry, he couldn't leave the base except in her car she said, "Mom, I know that, but how in the world do you lose a 6'1", 300-pound Cuban with a Mohawk?"

That i cannot answer, except to say that she can probably also lose anything in the aforementioned Kleenex box as well.

As i tried to rest during the afternoon after we got back, Little Girl called me with a problem.  She hadn't planned and packed properly for a "women's issue."

Into the car and drive a mile-and-a-half or so up the road to the mini-mart.  Back with what i thought she wanted.  Nope.  Back to the car, back to the mini-mart, and to the condo again.  Finally, now she will feel comfortable enough to go swim.

The evening was spent going to the arcade up the road.  You know the kind, with go-karts and mini-golf and the games where you spend a ton of money to get tickets that you can trade for a ten-cent trinket.  We had a blast, with Bryn and Bryn's Friend choosing as their prizes fake glue-on mustaches.  With their trench coats and hats and mustaches we were all in hysterics.

And yes, somehow, we lost Junior again.  How a guy that big disappears is beyond me.  That must be one of his talents, along with cooking (he made a fabulous vegetable teriyaki for dinner) and playing air hockey.  Don't challenge him, you won't win.

Today is

Audacity to Hope Day -- to encourage all to have the audacity to keep hope

Curwood Festival -- Owosso, MI, US (over 40 events commemorate the life and work of James Oliver Curwood, the Owosso-born author and conservationist; through Sunday)

Emancipation Day -- Tonga (trad.)

Fardagar -- Traditional Icelandic Calendar (time when farm workers moved from one farm to another, the time to settle debts, and until the 20th-Century, the day to start the fiscal year; always the Thursday through Sunday of the 7th week of summer)

Festival for Hercules Custos -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Hercules the Custodian)

Flag Day -- Estonia

Flag Day -- Finland (Armed Forces observe the birth anniversary of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim)

Great American Brass Band Festival -- Danville, KY, US (this year's theme is Brass Greats of American Jazz; through Sunday)

Harvard Milk Days Festival -- Harvard, IL, US (parade, carnival, food, fireworks, petting zoo, and more, all as a salute to hard working dairy farmers; through Sunday)

Hug Your Cat Day -- yet another date for this noted on many sites; if you celebrate all of them, your cat will be well hugged! 

International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression -- UN

Jarila's Day -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan Calendar (Festival of Jarila, god of the sun and fertility)

Lassie Day -- the first dog to play the role of Lassie, in the movie Lassie, Come Home, was born this day in 1940

National Cheese Day -- not to be confused with Cheese Lover's Day earlier in the year

National Cognac Day

National Frozen Yogurt Day -- not to be confused with the Frozen Yogurt Day celebrated on Feb. 6 in Los Angeles, where the temperatures make such a thing possible

National Unity Day -- Hungary

Old Maid's Day -- supposedly established after WWII, when there were so many eligible young ladies who weren't getting any younger

Plynteria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival in Athens in honor of Athena; date approximate)

Shelburne County Lobster Festival -- Shelburne County, NS, Canada (celebrating the Lobster Capital of Canada; through Sunday)

St. Petroc's Day (Patron of Cornwall and Wales, as well as many locations in Cornwall, Wales, and England, and Saint-Meen, France)

Winnipeg International Children's Festival -- The Forks, Winnipeg, MB, CA (a premier family festival with incomparable entertainment and activities; through Sunday)


Birthdays Today:

Evan Lysacek, 1985
Russell Brand, 1975
Angelina Jolie, 1975
Noah Wyle, 1971
James Callis, 1971
Scott Wolf, 1968
Cecilia Bartoli, 1966
Sam Harris, 1961
Eldra DeBarge, 1961
Keith David, 1956
Parker Stevenson, 1953
George Noory, 1950
Bettina Gregory, 1946
Michelle Phillips, 1944
Joyce Meyer, 1943
Freddy Fender, 1937
Bruce Dern, 1936
John Drew Barrymore, 1932
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, 1928
Dennis Weaver, 1924
Robert Merrill, 1919
Rosalind Russell, 1907
George III, 1738
Aesop, BCE620 (not certain, but close enough)


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Born in the USA"(Album release), 1984
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan(Film), 1982
"Cavalcade of Stars"(TV), 1949


Today in History:

Chinese astronomers make the first recording of a solar eclipse, BC781
Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the first English colony on Roanoke Island, old Virginia (now North Carolina), 1584
Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan, 1615
New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada taken from the Acadians, 1760
A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in history, 1769
The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon), 1783
Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain, 1792
The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title, 1878
Henry Ford test drives his first prototype automobile, the Ford Quadricycle, 1896
Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage, 1912
A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain, 1973
The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, 1989
Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, 1989
Falcon 9 Flight 1 was the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket,2010