(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.)
Welcome to Random Tuesday, hosted by Stacy Uncorked.
Happy Mardi Gras! Around here, we’ve had parades and there has been a king cake at every meeting of any sort.
The pink flamingo has become the official bird of Carnival.
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| We have some big ones around here. |
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| A trio of flamingos grace this home. |
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| Someone woke up and found they’d been flocked! |
Being “flocked” means you have to pay to get the flock removed, and you get to choose who gets flocked next. It’s done for fundraising.
If you like to keep your decorated tree up year ‘round, you can do it here with no trouble.
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| The Mardi Gras Tree at Ms. JAI’s house. |
Purrseidon won The Versatile Blogger Award and The Mystery Blogger Award!
Congratulations to Purrseidon and the whole crew. As part of her award, she nominated others, including me. The problem is i have a very difficult time figuring out how to put awards (or anything else) on my blog, and i have difficulty nominating others who have not already received almost every award out there. So i said i would link to her post and at least try to do the seven facts about me that you might not know. Those will go nicely with Random Tuesday, after all.
When i was growing up in NOLA, i marched in Carnival parades twirling a baton, and a couple of times i rode the floats. It was fun.
My first job was cleaning and sterilizIng medical equipment in Grandpa’s office — no wonder i grew up to be a janitor!
Our family has had more pets than you can shake a stick at — dogs, cats, fish, mice, hamsters, gerbils, fish, snakes, turtles, and birds as well as the crazy squirrel.
Back in 1983, i started bottle-raising orphaned kittens for various rescue organizations. No, i don’t know exactly how many we have raised, but i figure it’s north of 300 over the years.
We still love getting a newspaper every day. It’s fun to do the puzzles, and Sweetie likes to sit at the table with his coffee and read and yell at the headlines.
We do not have regular TV. Sweetie has a TV connected to a DVD player and watches his DVDs, but no cable or regular channels. It’s amazing how much time you can gain if you get rid of TV.
As much as i love coffee, i can only have one cup of regular coffee per day. More caffeine than that and i will have a caffeine induced panic attack.
That’s about it for today, i hope you all have a wonderful Fat Tuesday!
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Today is:
Break-Up Day -- if you are over him/her, don't go through tomorrow pledging love falsely, get out today
Dream of Your Sweetheart Day -- a reminder that if you aren't ready for Valentine's Day tomorrow, you'd better get cracking
Employee Legal Awareness Day -- Australia
Extraterrestrial Culture Day -- New Mexico, US ("to celebrate and honor all past, present, and future extraterrestrial visitors in ways to enhance relationships among all citizens of the cosmos, known and unknown.")
Get a Different Name Day -- for those who hate their name; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays
Ides of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also
Parentalia begins -- through the 21st (honoring divi parentes -- the deified ancestors)
Lupercalia begins -- through the 15th (to rid the city of evil spirits)
Orgiastic festival of Juno Februa begins -- through tomorrow
International Pancake Day
I Value Your Friendship Day -- because you don't want to neglect your friends while we are remembering love this week
Madly in Love With Me Day -- because you have to love "me" before you can love "we"
Mardi Gras -- Fat Tuesday, Carnival, the last day to feast before the Lenten fast begins tomorrow, greeted with revelry in many parts of the world; related observances and names:
Scotland, Fasten's E'en or Bannocky Day
Portuguese, Terça-feira Gorda
Italian, Martedì Grasso
Swedish, Fettisdagen
Danish, Fastelavn
Norwegian, Fastelavens
Estonian, Vastlapäev
Spanish, Martes de Carnaval
German, Faschingsdienstag
Hawaiian, Malasada Day
Lithuanian, Uzgavenes
Icelandic, Sprengidagur (literally, Bursting Day)
also Pancake Day or Bursting Day, the day to eat the last of the eggs and butter in the form of some kind of fried cakes, and to eat until bursting
National Sports Day -- Qatar
National Tortellini Day
Shrove Tuesday -- Christian
St. Catherine dei Ricci's Day (Patron of the ill)
Ta-asobi -- Akatsuka Suwa Shrine, Itabashi-ku, Japan (ceremony to pray for a good harvest)
Trndez or Tearnandarach -- Armenian Christian Church (fire celebration, begins in the evening and goes through tomorrow; originally a pagan sun worship celebration, it is now a Candlemas celebration by the OS Calendar)
World Ag Expo -- Tulare, CA, US (largest farm and equipment show in North America; through Thursday)
Birthdays Today:
Mena Suvari, 1979
Robbie Williams, 1974
Kelly Hu, 1968
David Naughton, 1951
Peter Gabriel, 1950
Stockard Channing, 1944
Jerry Springer, 1944
Carol Lynley, 1942
Peter Tork, 1942
Bo Svenson, 1941
George Segal, 1934
Kim Novak, 1933
Chuck Yeager, 1923
Eileen Farrell, 1920
Tennessee Ernie Ford, 1919
Eddie Robinson, 1919
Grant Wood, 1892
Alvin York, 1887
Elizabeth "Bess" Virginia Wallace Truman, 1885
Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill, 1849
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, 1754
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, 1682
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Merlin"(Musical), 1983
"Prince Valiant"(Comic strip), 1937
Today in History:
Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed, 1258
Jews are expelled from Burgsordf, Switzerland, 1349
The Disfida di Barletta (Challenge of Barletta); Frenchman Charles de la Motte accused Italians of cowardice, and thirteen Italians proceeded to rout 13 Frenchmen in a chivalrous horseback tourney, 1503
St. Augustine, Florida, is founded, becoming the oldest continuously occupied European established city, and the oldest port, in the continental United States, 1566
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for trial before the Inquisition for professing belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, 1633
Treaty of Lisbon: Spain recognizes Portugal, 1668
The Massacre of Glencoe: 78 members of the clan Macdonald are murdered for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange (William III), 1692
Cholera appears in London, 1832
Work begins on the covering of the Zenne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards, 1867
The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert, 1881
Painter Thomas Eakins resigns from Philadelphia Academy of Art after controversial over use of male nudes in a coed art class, 1886
Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector, 1894
English suffragettes storm British Parliament and 60 women are arrested, 1907
The Negro National League is formed, 1920
A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, 1935
France tests its first atomic bomb, 1960
Black Sabbath, arguably the very first heavy metal album, is released, 1970
A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky, 1981
An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany, 1990
The last original "Peanuts" comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies, 2000
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles’ song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", 2004
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations, 2008
At 23:31:30 UTC the Unix system time (time_t) number reaches 1234567890 seconds, 2009
For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, were able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855, 2011
Mimi,
ReplyDeleteI always forget when Mardi Gras takes places until someone reminds me. I guess that's because I'm not from the area and I' not a party person. I reckon I'm not missing out on too much. :) I definitely do VALUE MY FRIENDSHIP with you! Oh, I love that national day. lol Who knew it was INTERNATIONAL PANCAKE DAY?! No, me. I made pancakes over the weekend. Mmm, were they good,too! Congrats on being nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award. I always have a hard time picking bloggers, too. In recent years I just pass the award on to everyone. That fixes that problem. Have a good day!
Way to go on the award. I quit doing them years ago. They are a lot of work and learning more about you is always a fun thing. Today I learned even more about you.
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous day, my friend. ♥
When we lived in Kansas, our very small community had the Flamingo fund raiser. We only had one Flamingo to share and it did cost to have it removed when it was placed in your yard. You never knew which neighbor placed it there. It was fun.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your well deserved award from Purrseidon. Happy Mardi Gras! I will be having lots of chocolate today because I won't have it again until Easter.
ReplyDeleteFun flamingos and mardi gras photos!
ReplyDeleteHappy Week to you,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Oooh, I like the idea of Breakup Day!
ReplyDeleteNot that I want to see people break up, but I really hate seeing them live a lie...
Getting flocked...that is a hoot!
ReplyDeleteBaton twirling! Almost a forgotten art. I tried it, but I wasn't very good. I could do the dancing, not the baton, so I had to stick with dancing. I love that you started bottle feeding orphaned kittens. So sweet. Mardi Gras is celebrated by many here in Houston and especially in Galveston, but I always say the one in Galveston isn't real. I visited the Mardi Gras place where they make the floats. That was so fun!
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing quite like real cards and letters in your hand. I have a pile to mail today, myself!
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year I'll have to set up our fake Christmas tree so I can leave it up until the 4th of July decorating it for each holiday in between Christmas and the 4th. ;)
ReplyDeleteI've heard of people getting 'flocked' - as far as I know it doesn't happen here in the Pacific Northwest... ;) Although, I was tickled to find a giant stuffed pink flamingo I got for Princess Nagger for Valentine's Day - she loved it! :)