Calendar Collision (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, and Advice

(Because some people like Blogger and some like WordPress, i am putting the same content at both.  If you  would prefer to read this on the other site, it is linked here.)

The question has been raised about the meaning of the sign i posted for Wordless Wednesday. 

This year, there is a calendar collision, as i term it.  Valentine's Day is also Ash Wednesday.

For those of us who observe the Lenten Fast, this can pose a problem -- you don't go out for a big meal and have lots of chocolate and candy when you are observing the fast.

If you want to pitch woo with your Valentine Sweetheart in that case, make your plans now and celebrate on Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) instead.

Happy Mardi-Ash-Valentine's Day; enjoy life, be humble, show love.

Linking up with Zoe's Uncharted Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Pitch. 

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Gosia, of Looking for Identity, has taken over Good Fences, and it's now Good Fences Around The World.  Post a picture of a fence or gate, link back to her blog, and go visit others to see what interesting fences there are out in this big world.

This fence always makes me smile when i pass it, they have some very cute critters that hang around:

They are eye catching, and always there.

A close-up.  The pink flamingos are for Mardi Gras, the geese are year-round.

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While i will not be delivering flowers this year for Valentine's Day as a contract driver as i have in years past, my hints for how you can help your delivery driver still stand:

Valentine's Day hints

So, once again, from the point of view of the person who just might be delivering your flowers, a few hints for how to make my job easier and assure that you will get those flowers there.

1.  Order early.  Earlier than that.  Yes, that early.

     Here's the thing.  The florists order lots and lots of flowers, and some are going to be in better shape than others.  The nicest ones get used first.  By 3pm on Valentine's Day, they are using the ones they would have passed over earlier.  Ordering ahead, and ordering for early delivery, gets you the nicest selection.

     Get them delivered the day before, to get extra points with your sweetheart. It means you didn't dawdle, you have flowers today, dinner out and a gift tomorrow, you made a big thing of it.  It also means you get the nicest flowers, as noted above.  And, if we can't find your location or have trouble, we have time for a redelivery.

     Think about it. You have flowers or candy or cupcakes or whatever delivered a day before. You come home with a card. Then, on the big day, you still go out for dinner and all the trimmings. You have just let this person know you are not simply waiting for someone to slap you upside the head and tell you to get with it, the big day is tomorrow. You are plotting and planning and putting thought into a buildup. It goes a long way, baby.

2.  Mark your home well!  This is for your benefit as well as ours.  After all, if we can't find you, what makes you think the EMTs can find you in the middle of the night?

3.   Delivery drivers know the town in general, but not every single side street, business, nook and cranny.  Give us your whole, complete address.  This means include:

     Avenue, Street, Boulevard, Drive, Circle, Lane, or whatever is in the actual title of your street.

     Your apartment complex name and apartment number
     or the nursing home name and room number
     or the business name and office number/division of the business where your sweetheart works.

     You know where it is, but we don't, and it's no fun having to guess.

4.  If you live in a gated community, please tell us, and give us a way to get in.  It's frustrating not to be able to get to your home because we need a code.  Give us a gate code, or at least a phone number, and i'll talk more about that later.

5.  The same goes for if you are having flowers delivered to a limited access work place.  Make sure we can get in there to it.  More than once i've had to wait until someone was leaving the building to beg to be brought in, and had to register, and all of that. Again, a phone number helps.

6.  If you and your sweetheart are both at work all day, give us permission, when you place the order, to leave the flowers in a safe place by your back door, under a patio, or with a neighbor.

7.  Tell us what time your sweetheart gets off work, if you really want us to go there.  It's frustrating to get there a half hour after s/he got off for the day.

8.  About phone numbers:  tell your sweetheart to answer the phone!  Yes, you usually don't answer if you don't recognize the number.  Tell him/her to answer anyway, on this day, because there is a surprise coming.  Give us your number as well, and answer it.  If we can get in touch with you, or your sweetheart, we can work out most delivery complications easily.

9.  High school students, please do not ask us to deliver to the school.  The people in the carpool lane get very upset with us, as they think we are cutting in line, and your sweetheart doesn't need the aggravation of trying to bring a bouquet home on the bus.

10.  Remember your driver is paid only for completed deliveries.  Time is of the essence for us, we want to successfully deliver as many items as we can, for the joy it brings you and the money it brings us.  There's no shame in earning some extra cash by doing this service, so help us serve you better by following the tips above!

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Today is:

Boy Scout Day -- celebrates the birthday of Scouting in the US

Calgary Boat and Sportsmen's Show -- Calgary, AB, Canada (through Sunday)

Cowtown's Last Old West Gunfight -- White Elephant Saloon, Fort Worth, TX, US (annual reenactment of the last gunfight in what was then Cowtown, between White Elephant Saloon owner Luke Short and former marshal T.I. “Longhaired Jim” Courtright on this date in 1887)

Death of Kelp-Koli -- Fairy Calendar

Feast of the Incappucciati -- Gradoli, Italy (members of the Confraternity of Purgatory make the rounds of the town gathering food for the souls in Purgatory, which is served at a banquet next week on Ash Wednesday)

Fettiger Donnerstag  -- Swabia, Germany ("greasy Thursday", so called because of the greasy Kuchli cakes and pastries made today to use during carnival before the Lent fast)

Gold Rush Days -- Wickenburg, AZ, US (celebrating the Old West; through Sunday)

Hari Kuyo -- Sensouji Temple, Japan (Festival of Broken Needles, in which all of the worn or broken sewing needles from the previous year are put in a sacred resting place.)

Hold Onto Your Head Day -- invented by someone for people like me, because heaven knows i'm losing mine!

Laugh and Get Rich Day -- a day to recognize the power of laughter

Love May Make the World Go 'round, But Laughter Keeps US from Getting Dizzy Week -- anually, the week before and including Valentine's Day; dedicated to Victor Borge’s notion that “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people” and Joel Goodman’s notion that “Seven days without laughter makes one weak.”

National Molasses Bar Day

Nirvana Day -- Buddhist; Jain; Sikh

Preseren's Day -- Slovenia (Honors their national poet, France Preseren, often called Day of Slovenian Culture)

Rebel Day -- birth anniversary of James Dean

St. Jerome Emilani's Day (Patron of orphans; Taos Indian Pueblo)

Tako-ichi -- Kita-ku, Tokyo, Japan (kite fair dating back to the Edo period)

Weiberfastnach -- Cologne, Germany (Women's Carnival, the day the women run the pre-Lent celebration)

Anniversary Today:

Founding of Universiteit Leiden, with the motto Praesidium Libertatis, 1575

Birthdays Today:

Josh Keaton, 1979

David "Phoenix" Farrell, 1977

Seth Green, 1974

Alonzo Mourning, 1970

Gary Coleman, 1968

Claudette Pace, 1968

Vince Neil, 1961

John Grisham, 1955

Mary Steenburgen, 1953

Brooke Adams, 1949

Robert Klein, 1942

Nick Nolte, 1941

Ted Koppel, 1940

John Williams, 1932

James Dean, 1931

Jack Lemmon, 1925

Audrey Meadows, 1924

Freddie Blassie, 1921

Lana Turner, 1921

Elizabeth Bishop, 1911

Lyle Talbot, 1902

William Tecumseh Sherman, 1820

Jules Verne, 1828

Samuel Butler, 1612

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Good Times"(TV), 1974

"RCA Victor Show Starring Dennis Day"(TV), 1952

"Danses Concertantes"(Stravinsky Ballet), 1942

"Two for the Show"(Musical), 1940 

"The Plough and the Stars"(Play), 1926

The Stars and Stripes(US Armed Forces Newspaper), 1918

The Birth of a Nation(Film), 1915

"Boris Godunov"(Mussorgsky Opera), 1874

"Flora; or the Hob in the Well"(Cibber's Opera, first opera performed in the Colonies), 1735

Today in History:

Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, 1587

Isaac Newton reads his first optics paper before the Royal Society in London, 1672

French and Indian troops set Schenectady, NY, afire, 1690

A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony suggests that two girls in the family of the village minister may be suffering from bewitchment, leading to the Salem witch trials, 1692

The Supreme Privy Council is established in Russia, 1726

The first opera in the US, "Flora," opens in South Carolina, 1735

A minor earthquake shakes London, 1750

The strange phenomenon called the "Devil's Footprints" mysteriously appear in Devon, England, 1855

Martin Robinson Delany becomes the first black major in the US Army, 1865

The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce, 1910

D.W. Griffith's controversial film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles, 1915

The Stars and Stripes newspaper is published for the first time, 1918

Swiss men vote against women's suffrage, 1920

Radio arrives at the White House, 1922

Allende meteorite falls near Pueblito de Allende, Chihuahua, Mexico, 1969

The NASDAQ stock market index opens for the first time, 1971

After 84 days in space, the crew of the first American space station Skylab returns to Earth, 1974

The Melbourne dust storm hits Australia's second largest city. The result of the worst drought on record and a day of severe weather conditions, a 320 metres (1,050 ft) deep dust cloud envelops the city, turning day to night, 1983

The massive Internet collaboration "24 Hours in Cyberspace" takes place, 1996

A freak storm in the Hindukush mountains of Afghanistan triggers a series of at least 36 avalanches, 2010