At the shelter yesterday.

They had come back to the shelter for the second day in a row, and were still not quite sure.  There were so many cats and kittens, how do you chose the first feline companion you will have as a just starting out married couple?

As he stuck his fingers through the bars of a kitten cage, allowing a small tabby to sniff and lick him, she stopped in front of the cage with a four-month-old mostly black kitten.  He had about 1/3 of a tail, and white paws, and she said, "I've always kind of wanted a black or mostly black cat."

He walked over as she lifted the latch and took the kitten out of the cage.  The kitten pawed at her necklace, then turned his eyes to look at her husband and tried to pounce out of her arms and into his.

"Whoa!" she said, as he called out, "Hey!" and they laughed.

"With that tail he could be called Bob, or Bobbie," she said.

"But what about the white paws?" he asked.  "He looks like he's wearing sox!"

They looked at each other, grinned, and said "BobbieSox!"

About 30 minutes of paperwork later, BobbieSox was in a cardboard carrier headed to his new forever home.

Today is

Air Force Day -- US (declared by President Truman in 1947)

Andorra La Vella Festival -- Andorra (through Monday)

Anniversary of the Founding of Scouting -- first day of Brownsea Island Camp in 1907, where Robert Baden-Powell began Scouting

Armed Forces Day -- Lebanon

Battle of Bushy Run Reenactment -- Harrison City, PA, US (commemorates the decisive battle of Pontiac's War in 1763; through tomorrow)

Canmore Folk Music Festival -- Canmore, AB, Canada (bringing beautiful folk music and more to the area; through Monday)

Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival -- Coupeville, WA, US (one of the longest-running arts festivals in the Pacific Northwest, with only the best artisans, lots of entertainment, and proceeds donated to the community; through tomorrow)

Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru (The National Eisteddfod of Wales) -- Montgomeryshire and the Marches, Wales (preserving the Welsh language and heritage, with music, drama, literature, arts and crafts ;through Aug. 8) 

Emancipation Day -- Barbados; Guyana; Jamaica; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and Grenadines; Trinidad and Tobago; Turks and Caicos Islands

Fancy Farm Picnic -- Fancy Farm, KY, US (what a name for a town, and what a good time they have, Southern hospitality at its best!)

Fast in Honor of the Holy Mother of Jesus / Procession of the Cross and Dormition Fast -- Orthodox Christian

Feast of Kamal (Perfection) -- Baha'i

Fiesta de Santo Domingo -- Managua, Nicaragua (patron saint; through the 10th)

Girlfriends' Day -- a day to celebrate the women who enrich your life

Harriet Quimby Day -- first woman to earn a pilot's license, this date in 1911

Hirosaki Neputa Matsuri -- Hirosaki, Japan (through the 7th, parade and purification ritual to rid the the town of future illness and bad fortune)

Homowo -- Ghana (a festival of thanksgiving and remembrance, among various groups of Ga peoples, all through August and September.)

Imps Charity Scramble -- Fairy calendar (Do they scramble the imps, or do the imps scramble for something?)

Independence Day / National Day -- Benin(1960)

Kalends of August -- Ancient Roman Calendar; related observances
     Feast of Spes (personification of hope)
     Festival for Victoria (goddess of victory)

Lammas Day / Lammac Tide -- Christian, a Cross Quarter Day (called the Gule of August in Wales, and known as August Eve and Lady Day Eve)

League of N.H. Craftsmen Annual Craftsmen's Fair -- Newbury, NH, US ("America's oldest crafts fair," through next Sunday)

Liberation of Haile Selassie -- Rastafari

Loveladies Fine Art Festival -- Loveladies, NJ, US (juried arts and crafts show, entertainment, food and more; through tomorrow)

Lughnassad / Imbolc -- Wicca and Pagan (based in the Northern Hemisphere on the Celtic Feast of Bread, beginning of the harvest season)

Minden Day -- British Armed Forces

Miss Crustacean Usa Beauty Pageant and Ocean City Creep -- Ocean City, NJ, US (crowning the most beautiful and fastest tree crab on Earth)

Nagaoka Festival -- Nagaoka, Japan (through the 3rd, samuri procession, traditional music and dances, fireworks)

National Day -- Switzerland (where it is also called Swiss Confederation Day, when Switzerland became a single unit in 1291)

National Minority Donor Awareness Week -- US (bringing awareness to the fact that there are fewer minorities who are organ donors) 

National Mustard Day -- US, sponsored by the National Mustard Museum 

National Non-Parent Day -- sponsored by The National Organization for Non-Parents and No Kidding!

National Raspberry Cream Pie Day

Olathe Sweet Corn Festival -- Olathe, CO, US (lots of fun and all the "Olathe Sweet" corn you can eat)

Parents' Day -- Democratic Republic of the Congo

Plaza Latina Festival -- Nursery Row Park, East Street, London (the biennial Carnaval del Pueblo hosts this mini-festival between the big celebrations on three consecutive Saturdays, with traditional Latin American food, dance, arts and crafts, and kids activities)

Quilt Exhibition -- Billings Farm, Woodstock, VT, US (a juried show, demonstrations and other activities; through Sept. 20)

Respect For Parents Day -- with information here 

Rounds Resounding Day -- sponsored by Rounds Resounding Society (Grab your friends and sing a few songs that go in rounds, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Frere Jacques".)

Sagbraw: Schramm's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Wisconsin -- Wisconsin's oldest cross-state bicycle tour; through the 7th

Social Resistance Day -- North Cyprus

Spiderman Day -- he first appeared today in Amazing Fantasy #15, released Aug. 1, 1963

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori's Day (Founder of the Redemptorists, a/k/a Ligourians; Patron of confessors, final perseverence, moralists, scrupulous people, theologians, vocations; Pagani, Italy; Sant'Agata de' Goti, Italy; against arthritis, scrupulosity disorder)

"Tools of the Trade" Theme Month -- Jamestown Settlement, Williamsburg, VA, US & Yorktown Victory Center, Yorktown, VA, US (compare and contrast tools and technology used by 17th- and 18th century Virginians with hands on activites and programs all through the month of August)

World Breastfeeding Week begins -- International (the theme this year is "Let's Make It Work," encouraging workplaces to allow time and space for mothers to continue to nourish their babies and work outside the home if they want or need to) 

World Lung Cancer Day -- this one has a Facebook page

World Scout Scarf Day -- wear your Scout Scarf in public today 

World Wide Web Day -- what would become our current ability to waste time reading blogs and doing other fun stuff was begun as an idea at CERN during August back in 1990

Yorkshire Day -- Yorkshire, England


Anniversaries Today:

Colorado becomes the 38th US State, 1876


Birthdays Today:

Tempestt Bledsoe, 1973
Robert Cray, 1953
Giancarlo Giannini, 1942
Jerry Garcia, 1942
Yves Saint Laurent, 1942
Ronald Harmon "Ron" Brown, 1941
Dom DeLuise, 1933
Tom Wilson, 1931
James Hill, 1916
Herman Melville, 1819
Maria Mitchell, 1818
Francis Scott Key, 1779
William Clark, 1770


Debuting/Premiering Today:

M2(TV Network), 1996
"The Rush Limbaugh Show"(Radio), 1988
MTV(TV Network), 1981


Today in History:

The future Caesar Augustus, Octavian, enters Alexandria, Egypt, and brings it under the control of Rome, BC30
Japan sends Ono no Imoko to the Sui court in China as envoy, 607
The Swiss Confederation is formed with the signature of the Federal Charter, 1291
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile drive the Jews out of Spain, 1492
Henry Tudor, soon to be Henry VII, sails with his army to England, 1495
The first black Americans arrive in Jamestown, Virginia, 1619
Oxygen is "discovered" for the 3rd time, by Priestly, 1774
The Act of Union is passed in which merges the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1800
Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire, 1834
First coast to coast automobile trip, from San Francisco to New York, is completed, 1903
The first Jeep is produced, 1941
Anne Frank makes the last entry in her diary, 1944
The United States and Canada form the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), 1957
Israel annexes East Jerusalem, 1967
Peat cutters discover Lindow Man, Lindow Moss, Cheshire, England, 1984
CERN physicists begin discussing building what would eventually become the World Wide Web, 1990
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia join the European Environment Agency, 2001
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia dies and is succeeded by Prince Abdullah, 2005
Buddhist treasures buried during the Mongolian Communist Purge in the 1930's are rediscovered in the Gobi Desert, 2009
Russia grants NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden one year of temporary political asylum; Snowden leaves Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, 2013