Several Thankful Things

My Saturday gratitude list:

Today i am grateful i was able to get all the medications at the shelter straight last night, and make sure every cat that needed medication got it.  Everyone else was at the shelter fundraiser, so i was on my own and a few of the cats had been moved to different rooms or cages, but i figured it all out (thanks in part to microchips -- do you have any idea how hard it can be to figure out which black and white cat in that room gets the medication when there are three black and white cats in there?).

Today i am grateful the drizzling rain did not start until well after Trick-or-Treat hours were over last night, and that the actual rain storms we are expecting will not be until late this afternoon and this evening.

Today i am grateful i got nosey and asked about Dr. Bea's kittens that i am fostering being accepted into the shelter to be adopted out.  It turned out the request Dr. Bea's staff put in never arrived, so they are resending it and Ms. Carol has said that she will take them in a few weeks after they've had their shots.  Without my asking, Ms. Carol would never have known they wanted the kittens in the program, and they would have thought the request was received and denied.  Considering how much work Dr. Bea has done for the shelter, that wouldn't have been a good thing.

Today i am grateful i have a day off work, so i can catch up on laundry and ironing and cleaning and cooking at my own house!

And today i am grateful Little Girl had fun decorating the porch:

Welcome, Halloween!

Today is: 

Admission Day -- Nevada, US

Allantide -- Cornwall, England

All Hallows Eve -- Christian

Apple and Candle Night -- Wales

Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival -- Banff, AB, Canada (39th annual; through next Sunday)

Books for Treats Day -- San Jose, CA, US (give gently used books to kids, not candy -- feed their brains, not their cavities!)

Chiang Kai-Shek Day -- Taiwan

Day of the Seven Billion -- day in 2011 the UN declared the world population to have reached 7,000,000,000 

Dias de los Muertos -- Mexico, esp. Michoacan and Oaxaca (through Nov. 2; ceremonies, sand sculptures, decorated altars, and parties through the nights in the cemeteries)

Dookie Apple Night -- Newcastle, England

Duck Apple Night -- Liverpool, England

Edgar Allan Poe Evermore -- Mount Hope Estate, Manheim, PA, US (nights of suspense with the stories from the master, acted by professionals; through Nov. 15)

Fall Back Night -- all areas that end Daylight Saving Time tomorrow; set your clock back one hour before you go to bed and change the batteries in your smoke alarms/carbon monoxide detectors

Feast of Sekhmet Bast Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Festival of Inner Worlds -- Pagan (fight between the old and new year)

Forgiveness Day -- a day to reconcile or forgive, for your own peace of mind; sponsored by Positive Peaceful Partners and the Center of Unconditional Love 

Founder's Day -- Girl Scouts of the USA (Juliette Gordon Low's birth anniversary)

Ghostwriter's Day

Hallowe'en or Beggar's Night

Haute Dog Howl'oween Parade -- Long Beach, CA, US (dress up your dog and have a howling good time)

Increase Your Psychic Powers Day -- originated in England in the 19th century, some celebrated on the 30th

King Father Nordom Sihanouk's Birthday -- Cambodia

National Candy Apple Day

National Knock-Knock Joke Day
     Knock, Knock
     Who's There?
     Police.
     Police who?
     Police stop telling knock-knock jokes!

National Magic Day -- Society of American Magicians www.magicsam.com (in honor of Harry Houdini, who died on this day in 1926, and who was president of the SoAM)

National UNICEF Day

Nut-Crack Night -- England; Scotland

Old Celtic New Year's Eve

Out of the Broom Closet Day -- Pagan, Heathen, and all earth-based and ethnic religions

Reformation Day -- Protestant Christian (trad.)
     Dia de las Iglesias Evangelicas y Protestantes -- Chile
     Official Holiday -- BB, MV, SN, ST, & TH, Germany; Slovenia

Samhain (northern hemisphere) / Beltane (southern hemisphere) -- Druids, Gaels, Welsh peoples, Neopagans, Wiccans (begins at sunset)

Scare a Friend Day -- just not so much that he/she isn't a friend any more

Senior Absurdity Day -- Horace Mann School, Bronx, NY, US (a day the kids look forward to each year)

Sneak Some of the Candy Yourself Before the Kids Start Knocking Day

St. Quentin's Day (Patron against coughs)

St. Wolfgang of Ratisbon's Day (Patron of apoplexics, carpenters, paralysed people, stroke victims; Regensburg, Germany; against apoplexy, paralysis, stomach diseases, strokes)

Thump-the-Door Night -- Isle of Mann

Trick or Treat Night

Vetmaetr -- Norse Calendar (Winter Nights; beginning of winter, the New Year, and the start of Odin leading the Wild Hunt)

Xterra Kapalua Trail Run -- Kapalua, Maui, HI, US (extreme trail runs of 5k and 10k; through tomorrow)

Youth Honor Day -- Iowa, US



Anniversaries Today:

Mt. Rushmore is completed, 1941
Nevada becomes the 36th US State, 1864


Birthdays Today:

Robert "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle, 1967
Adam Horovitz, 1966
Dermot Mulroney, 1963
Rob Schneider, 1963
Peter Jackson, 1961
Larry Mullen, Jr., 1961
John Candy, 1950
Jane Pauley, 1950
Deidre Hall, 1947
Stephen Rea, 1943
David Ogden Stiers, 1942
Ron Rifkin, 1939
Michael Landon, 1936
Dan Rather, 1931
Michael Collins, 1930
Barbara Bel Geddes, 1922
Dale Evans, 1912
Ethel Waters, 1896
Chaing Kai-shek, 1887
Juliette Gordon Low, 1860
John Keats, 1795
William Paca, 1740
Jan Vermeer, 1632


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Car Talk"(Radio), 1987 (national debut, ten years after their start as a local show in Boston)
"Jamaica"(Musical), 1957
"Capricio Espagnol"(Rimsky-Korsakov Op. 34), 1887
"Tamerlano"(Handel opera, HWV 18), 1724


Today in History:

Ezra reads the Book of the Law to the Israelites after their return to Jerusalem from exile, BC445
First All Hallows Eve observed to honor all the saints, 834
Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg church door, marks the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, 1517
Georg Ludwig van Hannover is crowned as the English King George I, 1714
Execution of Girondins at Paris during the Reign of Terror, 1793
Sir Humphrey Davy of London patents the miner's safety lamp, 1815
A standard uniform is approved for US Postal workers, 1868
A tropical cyclone hits Bengal, about 200,000 die, 1876
John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tire, 1888
Arthur Conan Doyle publishes "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", 1892
Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States, 1913
The Battle of Beersheba of WWI marks the last successful cavalry charge in history, 1917
The first of 160 consecutive days of 100°F + temps at Marble Bar, Australia, 1923
World Savings Day is announced in Milan, Italy by the Members of the Association at the 1st International Savings Bank Congress, 1924
Mt. Rushmore sculptures are completed, 1941
The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal, 1956
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two security guards, 1984
EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board, 1999
Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted, 1999
Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station, which has been continually crewed since, 2000
Surfer Bethany Hamilton loses her left arm and 3 liters of blood in a tiger shark attack; within a month she would be back on her board, and competing again within the year, 2003
The NYSE reopens after its first weather related shut down since the late 19th century; the two-day closure was due to Hurricane Sandy, 2012