Looking Forward, a Tuesday Coffee Chat

Rory Bore at Ink Interrupted hosts the Tuesday Coffee Chat, and this week she asks the question,  Is there anything special you are looking forward to in 2017?






Looking forward is what i like to do, because backward doesn't get me anywhere, except bumped into by the people who are still going forward.

That works literally and figuratively, by the way.

Today i am looking forward to celebrating Belly Laugh Day, explained below.  Yes, i have my alarm set.  If you hear someone hysterically laughing at 1:24pm your local time, it's someone trying to make the world a better place with laughter.  The person might be a bit generally nuts, but is probably not clinically nuts.

In just over a month, i am looking forward to a mini Sanity-fest.  My friends and i get together every fall, but this year, a few of us can hardly wait, so we will be getting together in early March.  No, this won't take the place of the later meeting, at least, i'm not planning for that to happen.  So i'll have a bigger get together to look forward to in the autumn.

About two weeks after that mini S-fest, a friend is supposed to be in our area, about a two hour drive away.  Since she's from Canada, and i don't get to see her often enough, i will do everything i can to make it and visit with her when she's near.

Little Girl will be assigned to Germany for two months this summer, and then will start college in the fall, and i'm looking forward to her having both of those experiences.

#2 Son and Daughter-in-Law Becky and Red-headed Alec are planning to all move out.  They have an eye on a rental house.  As much as i love having my children here, i'm looking forward to watching them spread their own wings.

June will bring our usual summer vacation, a week in Grandma and Grandpa's condo at the beach.  Already i can almost smell the ocean breeze and imagine sitting under the waterfall by the swimming pool, checking the insides of my eyelids for cracks.

There are birthdays and holidays, work days and painting days (Grandma wants me to help her paint her living room!), helping a client move days, days doing the volunteer work that i'd spend all my time doing if i didn't have to earn money, days where things will work out, days where things won't work out (or won't work at all), the beautiful, bright, sad, exhausting, overwhelming, joyful days that make up everything in life, and i'm looking forward to them all.

Today is:

Alasitis Fair -- Aymara Indians, Bolivia (offerings to the god of prosperity, now celebrated in conjunction with the Roman Catholic Feast of Our Lady of Peace, for whom La Paz is named)

Beer Can Appreciation Day -- the first canned beer went on sale today in 1935

Belly Laugh Day -- at 1:24pm local time, join the Belly Laugh Bounce Around the World!  

Bocuse D'Or -- Lyon, France (dating back to 1985, this biennial celebration is France's answer to chef competitions on TV, with the best in the world pitted against each other in front of a jury of their peers; through tomorrow)

Economic Liberation Day -- Togo

Eskimo Pie Day -- patented this day in 1921

Fairy-Four Paganalia -- Fairy Calendar

Gold Rush Day -- US (gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, sparking the California Gold Rush, in 1848)

National Compliment Day -- begun by Debby Hoffman and Kathy Chamberlin, a day in which to compliment at least 5 people

National Peanut Butter Day

National Speak Up and Succeed Day -- become one of those people who aren't afraid of public speaking, practice! originally sponsored by Polished Presentations International, but they no longer have a website, but i'm sure Toastmasters International can help 

Opposite Day -- internet generated, and fun if you play it right

Paul Pitcher Day (So called because it is the eve of the Celebration of St. Paul's Conversion on the road to Damascus.  Cornish tin miners would traditionally set up a water pitcher in a public place and throw stones at it to destroy it.  A replacement pitcher was then bought and filled with beer, which was drunk and replenished through the day.  These miners were great inventors for reasons to celebrate, and they did this to rebel against the rule that only water was to be consumed during the work day.)

Sailing of Bast -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (people sailed the Nile to converge on Bubastis and celebrate the cat goddess; date approximate)

Sementivae, in honor of Ceres and Terra, begins -- Roman Empire (one of the few dating approximate items on the Roman Calendar, as each area of the Empire celebrated according to the timing of a local magistrate, but now through Feb. 2 was a typical time)

Sioux Empire Farm Show -- Sioux Falls, SD, US (great winter farm show, since you can't be planting, come out and have fun; through Saturday)

Social Sipping and Nibbling Rehearsal Day -- a day to practice cutting a piece of cake on a paper plate, using a plastic fork, and also balancing a napkin and punch in a paper cup; or practicing what clever thing you will say if you drop it all

St. Francis de Sales' Day (Patron of authors/journalists/writers, confessors, deaf people, educators/teachers; Champdepraz, Aosta, Italy; against deafness)

TV Game Show Day -- birth anniversary of Mark Goodson

Ziua Unirii -- Romania (Unification Day)


Anniversaries Today:

Popeye meets Olive Oyl, 1929 (in Elzie Segar's Thimble Theater comic strip)


Birthdays Today:

Mischa Barton, 1986
Tatyana Ali, 1979
Ed Helms, 1974
Matthew Lillard, 1970
Mary Lou Retton, 1968
Nastassia Kinski, 1960
Jools Holland, 1958
Yakov Smirnoff, 1951
John Belushi, 1949
Warren Zevon, 1947
Michael Ontkean, 1946
Sharon Tate, 1943
Neil Diamond, 1941
Aaron Neville, 1941
Ray Stevens, 1939
Maria Tallchief, 1925
Jerry Maren, 1920
Oral Roberts, 1918
Ernest Borgnine, 1917
Jack Brickhouse, 1916
Mark Goodson, 1915
Granny D, 1910 (formerly Granny Haddock, or Ethel Doris Haddock, political activist)
Edith Wharton, 1862


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"I, Puritani"(Bellini Opera), 1835


Today in History:

Caligula, known for his cruel despotism, is assassinated and succeeded by his uncle Claudius, 41
Connecticut colony organizes under Fundamental Orders, 1639
The first Jewish doctor in US, Jacob Lumbrozo, arrives in Maryland, 1656
Henry Knox arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts with the artillery that he has transported from Fort Ticonderoga, 1776
The University of Calcutta is formally founded as the first full-fledged university in south Asia,1857
The Romania principality arises under King Alexander Cuza, with Bucharest as the capital, 1862
General Baden-Powell's publication of Scouting for Boys starts the Boy Scouts movement, 1908
The Gregorian calendar introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective from February 14(NS), 1918
Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada, 1952
A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost, 1961
Jackie Robinson is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962
Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II, 1972
Soviet satellite Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered, 1978
The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale, 1984
Voyager 2 passes within 81,500 km (50,680 miles) of Uranus, 1986
Japan launches Hiten, the country's first lunar probe,and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States, 1990
Lara Giddings becomes the first female Premier of the Australian state of Tasmania , 2011