Feline Friday and Friendly Fill-Ins

 Feline Friday is hosted by Steve, The Burnt Food Dude, and i'm going to believe it's because he likes cats.

Feline Friday is simple to join. All you have to do is..

1) post a picture, drawing, cartoon or video of a cat (They may be silly or cute)
2) go to Steve's page, linked above, then on the menu bar click on the Feline Friday tab to get the code
3) paste the code under your cat picture
4) add your name and link

That’s all there is to it! Be sure to check back every so often and visit all the Feline Friday bloggers. Also, please leave a nice comment on their blogs. Nasty comments will be deleted!

Sweetie gets upset if he can't find one of his cats, and he gets very nervous when Tripod SissyCat goes outside.  She was an almost exclusively outdoor kitty for the first five years of her life, and we cannot break her of wanting to be out, but i have warned her she can't leave the yard and she never does.


He still worries, though, and sometimes sends me outdoors to ask her if she's ready to come inside.  If she is, she will get up and head for the door.  If she's not:

She ignores me and goes back to eating grass or chasing bugs!

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Friendly Fill-Ins are four fun and easy statements to complete. Ellen of 15andmeowing provides the first two statements and the final two are offered by McGuffy Ann Morris of McGuffy's Reader. They try to make sure they will be fun to both answer and share. On Friday, the linky will be posted at or about 12:00 AM. Please head to one of their sites, link up, and share your thoughts!


Here are this week's statements with my responses underlined:


1.  I never thought i would miss ________________, but i do.  Sorry, but i had to leave this one blank.  Right off hand, i can think of lots of things i don't miss, like changing diapers, and lots of things i do miss, like playing with my children when they were young.  Something i thought i'd be glad was gone, and now it turns out i'm not glad -- nope, i can't think of anything, sorry.  Maybe i'm just weird.


2.  Every 4th of July, lots of kids in the neighborhood buy fireworks and set them off in the field across the street.  As much as they are having fun, it always has me a bit concerned because they are so dangerous.


3.  If i knew that i would win, i would buy a lottery ticket!  If i'm not going to win for certain, i'm not going to waste my money.


4.  I have trouble keeping track of time, of how long it takes to do things, of how much time has passed since i started doing something, or of how long it has been since an event happened.  When i work, i make myself set the timer on my phone to go off every 15 minutes to remind me to keep focused, otherwise i lose track of how long i'm spending on certain jobs.



Today is:

Action Mesothelioma Day -- UK (bringing "meso" cancer into the spotlight)

Canada Day -- Canada

Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day -- a great way to start off Ice Cream Month; try a new one and you just might find a new favorite.

Day to Celebrate All the World's Creatures -- commemorates the day in 1975 that endangered species became internationally protected.

Distressed Elves Day -- Fairy Calendar

Doctors' Day -- India

Eastport Fourth of July and "Old Home Week" -- Eastport, ME, US (bounded on all sides by the Bay of Fundy and Canadian islands, the celebration runs through Monday)

Emancipation Day -- Sint Maarten

Fishermen's Day -- Marshall Islands

Halfway Point of the Year Day -- because 2016 is a Leap Year, at midnight tonight, exactly 1/2 of the year will be behind us: related observance
     Half-Year Day -- China

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day -- Hong Kong

Hug a Cowboy Day -- always on Canada Day

Independence Day -- Burundi(1962); Rwanda(1962)

Intact Day -- celebrating genital integrity, as far as possible from the Christian Feast of the Circumcision on Jan. 1

International Chicken Wing Day -- some sites say the 2nd, celebrate today or tomorrow or both, your choice!

International Joke Day -- as declared by many internet sites, but i can't find out why today; then again, why not?

International Reggae Day

International Tartan Day -- anniversary of the repeal, in 1782, of the Act of Proscription which banned the wearing of Tartans; celebrated especially by Scottish diaspora in Australia; New Zealand

July Morning -- Bulgaria (dates back to the '70s, young and old people hitchhike to the Black Sea in late June to greet the dawn of July 1 with Uriah Heep's hit song "July Morning;" began as a subtle anti-communist protest, now in memory of the fall of communism and to celebrate the start of summer vacation) 

Keti Koti -- Suriname (Emancipation Day)

Lailat al Kadr (Lailat al Qadr) -- Islam (Night of Destiny; began at sundown yesterday, through sundown tonight, although local observances may vary and governmental days off vary from country to country)

Madeira Day -- Madeira

Memorial Day -- Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Mescalero Apache Ceremonial and Rodeo -- Mescalero Apache Reservation, NM, US (a great way to learn about Native American culture, and including Apache Maidens' Puberty Rites; through Sunday)

Montreux Jazz Festival -- Montreaux, Switzerland (a premier jazz event for music lovers from around the world and one of the world's greatest music festivals; through the 16th)

Mount Fuji Official Climbing Season begins -- Japan (through Aug. 31)

Moving Day -- Quebec, Canada

National Boating Day -- US

National Ducks and Wetlands Day -- US (presidential designation in 1990)

National Financial Freedom Day -- can't find how this one started, but it's as good a day as any to take a good look at your finances, and start learning how to better manage them.

National Gingersnap Day

Old-Time Fiddlers' Jamboree and Crafts Festival -- Smithville, TN, US (through tomorrow; with 32 categories of old-time bluegrass music!)

Red White and Boom -- Columbus, OH, US (the Midwest's largest fireworks display and more!)

Republic Day -- Ghana; Somalia

Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo -- Halifax, NS, Canada (through the 8th)

Skiraphoria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival of cutting and threshing the grain; date approximate)

Sir Seretse Khama Day -- Botswana

St. Serf of Culross' Day (patron of the Orkney Islands)

Sts. Cosmas and Damian's Day -- Eastern Catholic Churches
     Holy Healers' Day -- Bulgaria (a special festival for the two saints/brothers who were healers; celebrated especially by all healers, fortune-tellers, witches, sorceresses and herbalists)

Territory Day -- British Virgin Islands

U.S. Postage Stamp Day -- first US postage stamp issued this day in 1847

Yukon Gold Panning Championships -- Dawson City, YT, Canada

Zip Code Day -- US (inaugural anniversary in 1963; when you mail that letter, zip it up! no zip, slow trip; wrong zip, long trip)


Anniversaries Today:

Prince Albert II of Monaco marries Charlene Whittstock, 2011
Haleakala National Park established, HI, US, 1961
Mammoth Cave National Park established, KY, US, 1941
Dwight D. Eisenhower marries Mamie Geneva Dowd, 1916


Birthdays Today:

Hilary Burton, 1982
Liv Tyler, 1977
Ruud Van Nistelrooy, 1976
Missy Elliott, 1971
Pamela Anderson, 1967
Andre Braugher, 1962
Princess Diana, 1961
Carl Lewis, 1961
Michelle Wright, 1961
Alan Ruck, 1956
Dan Aykroyd, 1952
Deborah Harry, 1945
Karen Black, 1942
Genevieve Bujold, 1942
Twyla Tharp, 1941
Jamie Farr, 1934
Jean Marsh, 1934
Leslie Caron, 1931
Farley Granger, 1925
Olivia DeHavilland, 1916
William James "Willie" Dixon, 1915
Estee Lauder, 1906
Charles Laughton, 1899
Thomas Andrew Dorsey, 1899
Louis Charles Joseph Blériot, 1872
Ignaz Semmelweis, 1818
George Sand, 1804


Debuting/Premiering Today:

CourtTV(Network, now TruTV), 1991
"Nick at Nite"(TV), 1985
"The Liberace Show"(TV), 1952
"Mama"(TV), 1949
NBC(Network, first scheduled TV broadcast ever), 1941


Today in History

Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor, 69
La Noche Triste: a joint Mexican Indian force led by the Aztec ruler Cuitláhuac defeat Spanish Conquistadores led by Hernán Cortés, 1520
Lexell's Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u., 1770
American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 1782
A system of the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales, 1837
U.S. Postage stamps went on sale for the first time, 1847
In the first instance of photojournalism, a French photographer's daguerreotypes of Paris riots were turned into woodcuts so as to be published in the weekly newspaper L'Illustration Journal Universel on this date in 1848
Keti Koti (Emancipation Day) in Suriname, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands, 1863
The British North America Act of 1867 takes effect as the Constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation and the federal dominion of Canada; Sir John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada, 1867
The Philadelphia Zoological Society, the first US zoo, opens; admission twenty-five cents for adults and ten cents for children, 1874
The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States, 1881
SOS is adopted as the international distress signal, 1908
Grant Park Music Festival begins its tradition of free summer symphonic music concert series in Chicago's Grant Park, which continues as the United States' only annual free outdoor classical music concert series, 1935
NBC makes the first scheduled television broadcast, 1941
Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved; since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city), 1943
The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin Royal Family, 1949
Zip Codes are introduced for the U.S.mail, 1963
The first color television transmission in Canada takes place from Toronto, 1966
The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission, 1967
Sony introduces the Walkman, 1979
O Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada, 1980
German re-unification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany, 1990
The People's Republic of China resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule, 1997
Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC, 2004
Smoking is banned in all indoor public spaces in England, 2007
The oldest European remains of a white man are discovered in Australia; the Manning River Skull may belong to a man born in 1650, predating the country's history that Captain James Cook was the first to land on Australia's east coast in 1770, 2013