Just Talk

"Where did my glass go?" Sweetie was searching high and low.  "I washed it, and I know I left it here, how could it disappear?" 

As we searched, i said, it's always something, isn't it?

To which Festus replied, "I have noted, in life, that it is always something.  In fact, it always tends to be something rather than nothing in life."

Laughing, i told him about Roseanne Rosannadanna and the line, "It's always something."

"Oh, I haven't watched Saturday Night Live in a long time," he said.  "And now I am bored with the search for the glass, so I shall go do something else."

Meanwhile, the search continued, until Sweetie remembered that he had put the glass in the freezer to get nice and frosty cold.  That man needs to go live on an iceberg while there still are some around.

One more crisis averted, i said, and Little Girl came in asking, "What about the impending crisis with that lady you know who has been such a, what do you call it?  Where she's just in it with the guy for the money?"

"Don't say it in front of your mother!" Festus said.

"Gold-digger!"  That's it!" she said, and he replied, "I can't believe you said such a word in front of your mother!  That's why I won't teach you any bad words!"

Laughing at both of them, i told them that the woman's day of reckoning was coming.  You don't play around with fire without getting burned.

"Just like you don't stand too close to a saw without the risk of getting cut, right?" Little Girl noted with a grin.  She had recently heard the story of how Grandpa wouldn't stand back far enough when warned many years earlier, and paid for it with a bad cut from a saw to his knee, which he proceeded to help sew up himself at the small town ER to which he was taken at the time.

That's right, i said.  Don't cross the IRS, and don't play chicken with the 5:15 train, either.

Today is:

Battle of Boqueron Day -- Paraguay

Constitution Day -- Brunei

Davidson Fellowship Scholarship Award Reception -- Washington, D.C., US (students under 18 who have completed prodigious works in science, mathematics, technology, music, literature, philosophy, or "outside the box" are made Davidson Fellows and given large scholarships for college)

Festival of Tezcatzonctl -- Ancient Aztec Calendar (chief god of intoxication; date approximate)

Gwynn ap Nudd's Fest -- Celtic Calendar (god of the underworld; date approximate)

International Coffee Day -- and i thought this was every day!  

Inventors Day -- Argentina

Make a List of the Top Ten Happiest Days in Your Life Day -- must have been started by an optimist

Mutation Day -- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

National Attend Your Grandchild's Birth Day -- attendingthebirth.com; a day to remind grandparents to be active in their grandchildre's lives (and if you need a reminder, i wonder about you; if you aren't allowed by bitter parents, i feel badly for you.) 

National Mocha Day

Quick Draw Day -- debut of Quick Draw McGraw and his side kick, Baba Looey, in 1959

Sts. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and All Angels' Day  (Michaelmas)
     Archangel Gabriel, Patron of broadcasters, clergy, communication workers, diplomats, messengers, philatelists/stamp collectors, post offices and postal workers, radio and radio workers, secular clergy, telecommunication workers, telgraphers, telephones, television and television workers; Argentinian ambassadors; Seattle, Washington
     Archangel Michael, Patron of artists, bakers, bankers and banking, barrel makers/coopers, battle, boatmen/mariners/sailors/watermen, dying people, emergency medical technicians/paramedics/ambulance drivers, fencers and fencing, grocers and greengrocers, haberdashers and hatmakers, knights, milleners, paratroopers, police officers, radiologists and radiotherapists, security guards, sick people, soldiers, swordsmiths; for a holy death and safety at sea; England, Germany, and over 25 cities around the world; against danger at sea and temptation
     Archangel Raphael, Patron of apothecaries/druggists/pharmacists, blind people, doctors/physicians, guardian angels, happy meetings, love and lovers, mentally ill people, nurses, shepherdesses/shepherds, sick people, travellers, young people; Dubuque, Iowa; MacKenzie-Fort Smith, Northwest Territories; Seattle, Washington; against bodily ills, eye diseases/eye problems, insanity/mental illness, nightmares, sickness
     related observances:
     National Day of Remembrance for Policemen Killed -- Australia (St. Michael, Patron of police officers)
     Payment of Quit Rent by London Royal Courts of Justice -- Michaelmas is a traditional English "Quarter Day", when rents come due

VFW Day -- US (The Veterans of Foreign Wars was established on this day in 1899)

World Dairy Expo -- Madison, WI, US ("Dairy in our DNA" is this year's theme; through Saturday)

World Heart Day -- International (to raise awareness of the signs and dangers of cardiovascular disease) 


Birthdays Today:

Emily Lloyd, 1970
John Paxton, 1960
Bryant Gumbel, 1948
Patricia Hodge, 1946
Lech Walesa, 1943
Dave Wilcox, 1942
Ian McShane, 1942
Madeline Kahn, 1942
Jerry Lee Lewis, 1935
Anita Ekberg, 1931
Lizabeth Scott, 1922
Trevor Howard, 1916
Stanley Kramer, 1913
Michelangelo Antonioni, 1912
Greer Garson, 1908
Gene Autry, 1907
Enrico Fermi, 1901
Horatio Nelson, 1758
Miguel de Cervantes, 1547
Pompey the Great, BC106


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Grace Under Fire"(TV), 1993
"Thirtysomething"(TV), 1987
"Designing Women"(TV), 1986
"MacGyver"(TV), 1985
"Houdini, A Circus Opera"(Opera), 1977
"The Judy Garland Show"(TV), 1963
"My Favorite Martian"(TV), 1963
"The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show"(TV), 1962
"My Three Sons"(TV), 1960
"Outlaws"(TV), 1960
"The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis"(TV), 1959
"Sergeant Preston of the Yukon"(TV), 1955
"A View from the Bridge"(Play), 1955
The Barefoot Contessa(Film), 1954 
A Star is Born(Film), 1954 
"Make Room for Daddy"(TV), 1953


Today in History:

Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumata, securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire, BC522
Battle of Salamis, at which the Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes I, BC480
Pompey the Great Celebrates ending the Mithridatic Wars on his 45th birthday, BC61
Saladin's army marches into Jerusalem, 1187
The First Congress of the US adjourns, 1789
"Scotland Yard", London's Metropolitan Police Force, goes on duty, 1829
The first practical public electric tramway ever opens in Blackpool, England, 1885
John D. Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire, 1916
The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed, 1954
Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite, is launched, 1962
WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world's first black-owned-and-operated television station, 1975
Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to set foot on Irish soil with his pastoral visit to the Republic of Ireland, 1979
The asteroid 4179 Toutatis passes within four lunar distances of Earth, 2004
The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history, 2008
An 8.0 magnitude earthquake near the Samoan Islands causes a tsunami, 2009
The Koreas agree, for the first time in two years, to hold working-level military talks, 2010