Awww Monday: Hurry! I Have Places To Go!

Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee, of Comedy Plus.

Join us every Monday for Awww...Mondays.  Post a picture that makes you say Awww... and that it.

Make sure you get the code from Sandee's site, linked above, and leave a link to your post so we can visit you.  What better way to start the week than with a smile!

At our December, rEcess, Linda was sporting her new walk assist device.  She didn't stop all night!  The child whom doctors say shouldn't even be around and definitely shouldn't be able to do this had a grin a mile wide as she navigated through doors and down halls.  She's non-verbal, but her smile says it all.

"Can you keep up with me?" she seems to be asking.

Today is:

Ako Gishi sai -- Ako, Japan (traditional dances and warrior parades honoring the 47 Ronin)

Buy a Tree Day / Deck the Halls Day -- internet generated, and if you are going to decorate, why did you wait this long?

Christmas Bird Count begins -- sponsored by the National Audubon Society (through Jan. 5; since 1900, the longest-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations)

Halcyon Days begin -- a time of calm and tranquility (beginning seven days before the winter solstice, lasting until December 28, seven days after the solstice; named for an ancient fabled kingfisher bird [or halcyon], which hatches and raise her young during this time)

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Stufur -- Shorty, who is also known as Ponneskefill, the pan-scraper, who will scrape food scraps from the pans left out

Khoiak Ceremony for Ploughing the Earth -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Monkey Day -- unofficial, by animal groups, to draw attention to the plights of simians kept in labs and as pets 

National Bouillabaisse Day

National Energy Conservation Day -- India

National Tree Planting Day -- Malawi

Play An Old Song That You Didn't Like To See If You Still Don't Like It Day -- internet generated, and don't bother, bad songs don't improve with age

Precalentines Day -- an unofficial holiday for math lovers begun by a precalculus class at a Nova Scotia high school

South Pole Discovery Day -- thank you, Roald Amundsen

St. John of the Cross' Day (Patron of contemplative life, contemplatives, mystical theology, mystics, Spanish poets; Ta' Xbiex, Malta)

St. Spyridon's Day (Patron of Corfu, Greece, and potters)

 
Anniversaries Today:

Alabama becomes the 22nd US State, 1819
Princess Mary Stuart is crowned Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542


Birthdays Today:

Samantha Peszek, 1991
Vanessa Hudgens, 1988
Paul "Beakman" Zaloom, 1951
Bill Buckner, 1949
Dee Wallace Stone, 1948
Patty Duke, 1946
Jane Birkin, 1946
Ernie Davis, 1939
Leonardo Boff, 1938
Lee Remick, 1935
Charlie Rich, 1932
Don Hewitt, 1922
Shirley Jackson, 1919
Morey Amsterdam, 1914
Spike Jones, 1911
Margaret Madeline Chase Smith, 1897
James Harold Doolittle, 1896


Debuting/Premiering Today:

Saturday Night Fever(Film), 1977
Diamonds are Forever(Film), 1971
"Il Trittico"(Puccini opera), 1918


Today in History:

Osman ibn Affan is appointed the third kalief of Islam, 644
The Zuider Zee seawall collapses, 50,000 lives are lost in the floods that follow, 1287
The first artificial pearls, made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales, are manufactured by M Jacquin in Paris, 1656
The Montgolfier brothers' first balloon lifts off on its first test flight, 1782
David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patents a machine that cuts nuts and bolts, 1798
The American Academy of Political and Social Science is organized in Philadelphia, 1889
The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from Ocean Beach, San Francisco to Honolulu, Hawaii, 1902
Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first to reach the South Pole, 1911
Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sri Lanka join the United Nations, 1955
The United Republic of Tanzania joins the United Nations. 1961
NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus, 1962
Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations, 1999
The Millau viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, near Millau, France is officially opened, 2004
China's first lunar rover, the Yutu, lands successfully on the Moon, 2013