And it was only Monday!

The week started again with us not knowing whether we were coming or going.

Little Girl had school as usual, and needed to be dropped off because her regular bus driver isn't back on duty and the others change the pick up time.  Then she has to be picked up at 1pm promptly.  Any student who finishes classes early and is dismissed has to leave the school property within five minutes or be considered a trespasser.  Yes, really.

Bigger Girl's phone had stopped receiving texts, and no wonder, it was her old flip phone with the cracked screen that the horse had stepped on.  It was astounding it worked at all.  Anyway, because she is out of town today, she wanted to upgrade the phone before she left and finally come into the smart phone age.  To do that, because the whole family is on one plan in my name, i'd have to meet with her to get it done.

Sweetie had work, and a deacon meeting at church for the evening.

As for me, i had work, and coordinating the A/C people and the plumbers, as well as getting to the bank to get cash for the plumbers and go to Sweetie's office to use his printer.  Our computers kill printers, we've never been able to get a computer in this house to accept and use a printer.  Each time we've tried, the printer prints out one page, then goes kablooey.  My theory is that our house wiring is allergic to printers.

The plan was for Sweetie to go to work as usual, me to take Little Girl to school, then come home and get a few chores done, then go to the bank, get up to his office, and get to work.

While i was at work, Sweetie would pick Little Girl up from school when he got off work  and get back to the house for the A/C people, who said it would be between 1-5pm, and i told them he would be home by 1:15 at the very outside, to which they agreed.

Then, after my work, i would call Bigger Girl and meet her at the phone store to upgrade her equipment.

Oh, and in all of this, i also fielded a call from the generator guy, who actually agreed to come today, although he offered an immediate appointment.  There wasn't a way to squeeze it all in!

It couldn't all go smoothly, of course, although it went as well as it could have.  

My errands took longer than i thought, and i didn't get to one of them.  Arriving at Sweetie's office, someone had messed with his computer that morning, and he wasn't there, so he had to talk me through getting it back up.  Then the first search engine wouldn't bring up what i wanted to print, so i had to use another.  Then the printer was out of paper, and i had to refill it for them.

The A/C people showed up an hour earlier than they said they would, and didn't call ahead as they said they would.  A panicked call to Sweetie sent him charging to the house.

Thank heaven Festus was here!  He was able to let them in, they called me and i told them what was happening, and they worked on it and Sweetie showed up to let them know it was fine for Festus to sign the invoice.  He then left to go get Little Girl.  The A/C work was under warranty, since it was the same problem as last month, so we didn't owe anything.

 When i got done with work, i called Bigger Girl to get her to meet me at the phone place.  She said she was on her way, so i got there and waited, and waited, and waited.  She had squeezed an errand in that i didn't know about.  Thank heaven the nice sales guy was patient.  He was the same one who had gotten #1 Son's phone working, and so i asked specifically for him since that earlier visit hadn't resulted in us buying anything, though he did try hard to sell us TV, or an alarm system for the house, or a tablet.  This time, he was satisfied with a good purchase for the time spent with us.

About the time Sweetie left for the deacon meeting, i noted the water was turned off.  That meant either i didn't pay the bill, which is auto drafted, or the plumbers were here.  Sure enough, they had arrived with the water heater Sweetie had purchased two weeks before but that we'd never been able to coordinate the borrowing of a truck to pick up. Bless them, they included pick up and carting away the old one in their deal.

The old one was a bear to remove, and it didn't want to drain, it was so badly clogged with sediment.  They finally wrestled it into the downstairs shower stall and tilted it and let it go.  Then there was the difficulty with the pipes in the wall.  To get to that, they had to punch a wider hole in the wall.  They were concerned i would be upset by a hole in the wall.  As i told them, it's a laundry room, what difference does it make.

They were good, though, just over two hours of fighting and fussing and pulling and tugging and soldering later, we had a good hot water heater hooked up and the water was back on.

The deacon meeting went well, too.  It was Sweetie's night to give his testimony, and he told about how he and his brother were blinded within a few hours of birth by the excess oxygen they used to use in incubators.  Lots of premie babies from that era were blinded, and no doctor can explain why, six months later, at the exact same moment, both of them went from being blind to suddenly following a pen light the doctor was waving in front of them.

With that kind of blessing to remember in our lives, i guess these everyday aggravations like surly water heaters and early arrivals and printers out of paper just don't matter much, do they?

Today is

Be Kind to Humankind Week:  Touch a Heart Tuesday

Birthday of Horus -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Day of Songun -- North Korea

Discovery of the Runes/Odin's Ordeal ends -- Ancient Norse Calendar (date approximate)

Independence Day -- Uruguay(1825)

Kiss and Make Up Day -- a day begun by Jacqueline V. Milgate to encourage people to make amends and repair relationships if they need to

National Banana Split Day -- some sites have it as Aug. 10

National Park Service Day -- US (legislation creating the National Park Service was signed this day in 1916 by President Wilson)

National Second-Hand Wardrobe Day -- pull out the hand-me-downs or thrift store purchases and wear them with pride!

Opiconsivia -- Ancient Roman Calendar, Vestal Virgin Festival in honor of Ops

Rumpleskunkskin's Bride Escapes to Heewigoland Anniversary -- Fairy Calendar (Fairy celebration, Goblins get grumpy)

Soldier's Day -- Brazil

St. Genesius of Arles' Day (Patron of notaries, secretaries; against chilblains, scurf)

St. Genesius of Rome's Day (Patron of actors, attorneys, barristers, clowns, comedians, comediennes, comics, converts, dancers, epileptics, lawyers, musicians, printers, stenographers and torture victims)

St. Louis, King of France's Day (King Louis IX; Patron of barbers, bridegrooms, builders, button makers, construction workers, Crusaders, difficult marriages, distillers, embroiderers, French monarchs, grooms, haberdashers, hairdressers, hair stylists, kings, masons, needle workers, parenthood, parents of large families, passementiers, prisoners, sculptors, sick people, soldiers, stone masons, stonecutters, tertiaries, trimming makers; Québec, Québec; Saint Louis, Missouri; Blois, France; Carthage, Tunisia; La Rochelle, France; New Orleans, Louisiana; Oran, Algeria; Saint-Louis, Haut-Rhin, France; Saint Louis, Missouri;`Versailles, France; Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Louis; against the death of children)

Tvimanuor -- Traditional Icelandic Calendar (the name means "Double Month", and the origin is uncertain; perhaps because winter is coming and it's time to double up on the preparations)

Umhlanga -- Swaziland (Reed Dance for the Zulu King; a fascinating week long ritual with beautiful costumes, dancing and singing, culminating as well as in a speech in which the King addresses the people, on Aug. 31)

Whiskey Sour Day



Birthdays Today

Blake Lively, 1987
Rachel Bilson, 1981
Alexander Skarsgard, 1976
Claudia Schiffer, 1970
Rachael Ray, 1968
Albert Belle, 1966
Cornelius O’Landa Bennett, 1966
Blair Underwood, 1964
Joanne Whalley, 1964
Ally Walker, 1961
Billy Ray Cyrus, 1961
Tim Burton, 1958
Elvis Costello, 1954
Gene Simmons, 1949
John Savage, 1949
Martin Amis, 1949
Anne Archer, 1947
Anthony Heald, 1944
Frederick Forsyth, 1938
Regis Philbin, 1933
Tom Skerritt, 1933
Wayne Shorter, 1933
Sean Connery, 1930
Althea Gibson, 1927
Monty Hall, 1923
Leonard Bernstein, 1918
Walt Kelly, 1913
Ruby Keeler, 1909
Clara Bow, 1905
Hans Adolf Krebs, 1900
Ludwig II, "Mad King" of Bavaria, 1845
Francis Bret Harte, 1836
Allan Pinkerton, 1819
Ivan the Terrible, 1530


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"42nd Street"(Musical), 1980
The Wizard of Oz(Film), 1939


Today in History

The Council of Nicaea ends with the adoption of the Nicene Creed, 325
The Children's Crusaders under Nicholas reach Genoa, 1212
The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior, is formed, 1537
Galileo demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers, 1609
Hundreds of French settlers arrive in New Orleans, which had been founded only a few months before, marking its true beginnings as a city, not just an outpost, 1718
James Cook begins his first voyage, 1768
Alice Meynell becomes the first female jockey, in England, 1804
British forces destroy the Library of Congress, which then contained about 3,000 books, 1814
The New York Times perpetrates the Great Moon Hoax, 1835
Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel unassisted, 1875
Kitasato Shibasaburo discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet, 1894
The United States National Park Service is created, 1916
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly nonstop across the US, 1932
US Army officer and missionary John Birch is killed by the armed supporters of the Communist Party of China, considered by some as the first victim of the Cold War, 1945
Zimbabwe joins the United Nations, 1980
Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn, 1981
Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist Prime Minister in Central and Eastern Europe, 1989
Mayumi Moriyama becomes Japan's first female cabinet secretary, 1989
The Tli Cho land claims agreement is signed between the Dogrib First Nations and the Canadian federal government in Rae-Edzo (now called Behchoko), 2003
Acting as a private citizen, former President Jimmy Carter travels to North Korea to negotiate the release of Aijalon Gomes, a U.S. citizen, 2010