All the News My Brain Can Think Of

"It's not raining any more," Sweetie came in and said around 6pm yesterday.

Good, i responded, to which he said, "It's sleeting."  Then he handed me the mail.

Oh, joy.  Sleet.

And a Christmas card, but i guess, since it was Little Christmas, i'll count it.  After all, the pastor who sent it is a rather busy guy.

Yesterday started with a terrible accident on the highway.  A big rig jackknifed and one person died, five others were seriously injured, and the highway was shut down for the whole day.

The wet weather, ending with sleet, did not help the situation.

Ms. S, my Monday client, came to Bible study and behaved really oddly.  First she talked about waking at 4am and it being daylight.  She couldn't remember that she called Ms. G twice that morning, and she thought Ms. G had left without her so she drove to Bible study herself.

Once there, the weirdness continued.  She was a magazine editor, very precise in her words and able to hold a conversation and read and do three other things at the same time.  Yesterday she couldn't follow a conversation and lost her place twice when she was praying.  You could tell she didn't remember what she had been saying a few minutes before.  Ms. G sent her son a text, and i'm still waiting for a follow up, but i suspect a TIA.

For only the second time since it opened, the cat shelter closed early due to weather.  They called me in the middle of the day and told me not to come for my evening shift, the paid staff were feeding all the cats, shutting the doors and calling it a day.

Today should be clear and very, very cold.  As long as the rain (and sleet) stops, i'll take it!

There was a housecleaning on the docket, but it has been moved to Tuesday, as the house will not be empty today as the owner originally planned.  The cold put the kibosh on that, the heat went out in her granddaughter's home and so the granddaughter and great-grandchildren are there until the landlord can get it fixed.  No way can those little ones stay in an apartment with no heat this weekend.

We had visitors in the field across the street from us yesterday.  Five Canadian geese were out there, in the cold and wet, and we gave them whole wheat pita bread, which they seemed to appreciate.  In my imagination i can hear them fussing, "We flew south to get warm!"  They will have to go a bit further south, as in, Mexico.  If they stay here, they will get below freezing temperatures for the next few nights.

The pet geranium is inside, as it has somehow managed to survive.  None of the other pets want to go out, either.  Even SissyCat isn't fighting to get to the door, and Pepe keeps his ventures brief, doing his business and getting back as fast as his little crooked legs can carry him (which is actually pretty fast).

That's about all the news for now.



Today is:

Celebration of the First Week of Moonhopper -- Fairy Calendar

Eagle Days -- Little Platte Park, Smithville Lake, MO, US (learning about bald eagles in the environmental learning center, as well as eagle viewing over the lake and children's activities; through tomorrow)

Fasching Carnival -- Munich, Germany (through Shrove Tuesday)

Festa del Tricolore -- Italy (Tricolour or Flag Day)

Harlem Globetrotters' Day -- anniversary of their first game in 192

I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore Day -- declared by Bob O'Brien, Consumer Advocate, who encourages us to fight back

Nanakusa no Sekku -- Japan (Festival of Seven Herbs, dates back to the 7th century and recalls the medicinal herbs that were traditionally served to the emper)

National Tempura Day

National Western Stock Show and Rodeo -- Denver, CO, US (107th edition of the Super Bowl of livestock shows; through the 22nd)

Nativity of Christ / Orthodox Christmas / Coptic Christmas -- Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians still using the Julian Calendar.

Old Rock Day -- a/k/a "St. Distaff's Day" or simply Distaff Day(the distaff, for spinning yarn, was also called a "rock"; today was the day women went back to spinning after the Christmas holidays)

Pennsylvania Farm Show -- Harrisburg, PA, US (the largest indoor agricultural show in the US, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Agriculture; through the 14th)

St. Raymond of Penyafort's Day (Patron of attornies, barristers, canonists, lawyers, and medical record librarians)

Ume Matsuri -- Atami, Japan (celebrating the ume -- plum -- at one of the most famous plum viewing spots in the country; through early to mid-March)

Usokae -- Kameido Tenmangu Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan (Bullfinch Exchange Day, Uso also means "lie" so when exchanging carved birds, it is considered a way of exchanging lies for the truth)

Victory Day over the Genocidal Regime -- Cambodia


Anniversary Today:

Princess Juliana of Netherlands weds Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, 1937


Birthdays Today:

Dustin Diamond, 1977
Jeremy Renner, 1971
Nick Cleg, 1967
Nicholas Cage, 1964
Katie Couric, 1957
David Caruso, 1956
Erin Gray, 1950
Kenny Loggins, 1948
Jann Wenner, 1947
Paul Revere, 1938
William Peter Blatty, 1928
Jean-Pierre Rampal, 1922
Vincent Gardenia, 1922
Charles Addams, 1912
Butterfly McQueen, 1911
Aristotle Onassis, 1906
Zora Neale Hurston, 1891
St Bernadette, 1844
Millard Fillmore, 1800
Jacques Etienne Montgolfier, 1745


Debuting/Premiering Today:

Video-Telephone, 1992 (US$1,499)
"Fame"(TV), 1982
"Flash Gordon"(comic strip), 1934
"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D."(comic strip), 1929
"Tarzan of the Apes"(comic strip), 1929
Transatlantic telephone service, 1927 (US$75 for 5 minutes)


Today in History:

Calais, the last English possession in France, is taken back by the French, 1558
Boris Godunov seizes the Russian throne upon the death of Feodore I, 1598
Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia, 1608
Galileo discovers the first 3 moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, and Ganymede), 1610
Francis Bacon becomes the English Lord Chancellor, 1618
A prototype typewriter is patented by Englishman Henry Mill, 1714
Battle at Panipat India: the Afghan army beats Mahratten, 1761
The Bank of North America opens in Philadelphia, the first US commercial bank, 1782
The first gas balloon flight across the English channel, by Blanchard and Jeffries, 1785
The modern Italian flag is first used, 1797
Liberia is colonized by Americans, 1822
The first railroad station in the US, in Baltimore, opens, 1830
Fanny Farmer publishes her first cookbook, 1896
The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS", 1904
The first steamboat passage through the Panama Canal, 1914
The Harlem Globetrotters play their first game, 1927
The first transatlantic telephone service is established – from New York City to London, 1927
"Buck Rogers", the first sci-fi comic strip, and "Tarzan," one of the first adventure comic strips, premier, 1929
Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast, 1931
The "Flash Gordon" comic strip (by Alex Raymond) debuts, 1934
President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed the hydrogen bomb, 1952
The first public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held in New York at the head office of IBM, 1954
Marian Anderson becomes the first black singer to perform at the Met (NYC), 1955
The Polaris missile is test launched, 1960
Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off, 1968
Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 1984
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union, 1985
The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public because of safety concerns, 1990
U.S. President Clinton goes on trial before the U.S. Senate for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, 1999
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics estimates at least 17 billion planets exist that are comparable to the size of the Earth, 2013