Dr. D is Random Enough for Tuesdays

(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.)

Tuesday means linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked.  

Monday night i got a text from Dr. D asking me to meet her at 7:30am at her favorite car repair shop.  When i got there Tuesday morning, she promptly handed me a sterling silver spaghetti stirring spoon, a Swiss army knife, a gallon jug of water, a note to herself about something she wanted to do, a pair of pants in a plastic bag, and a business card from someone who calls herself "The Pie Lady" (whom we later called to order pies -- chicken pot pies, to be specific).

After giving the key to her truck to the mechanic and a note about what she wanted done, we stopped at the cleaners, then went to the locally owned bookstore where she used to have a small office.  Five crates of papers from her former office overloaded into Lunceford the Land Yacht later and we were on our way to the donut shop for her pig-in-a-blanket.

Dr. D has now got me involved in stealth gardening.  Up the street from where she lives is the home of an elderly gentleman she knows who loves plants but cannot tend them much any more on his own.  She has secretly planted five tomato plants right at the servitude that adjoins his house, and on the way to her house we stopped and used the Swiss army knife to open the packet of fertilizer she left over there (under the bucket by the back window) and used the sterling silver spaghetti stirring spoon to mix the fertilizer into the dirt.  After all, what else do you use a sterling silver spaghetti stirring spoon for?  She showed me how to water the plants and gave me a schedule to keep while she is out of town.  Her ultimate plan is to surprise him with garden fresh tomatoes in a few months.

My spaghetti stirring spoon, most assuredly not silver but you can see how the business end would do well digging in the dirt.

Back at her house, most of the day was spent going through the papers from her former office and looking for one specific file which we never did find (after hours of looking everywhere, she has finally decided it is at the attorney's office).  She also sent me to make copies of a very rare book about Huey Long.

Near the end of the day, we loaded all the files into her storage building, went to the post office to mail the copies of the Huey Long book to her friend in France, then stopped at a fried chicken place to buy apple pies to take to the nice men who had fixed her truck.  Her van is still over there, by the way.  They found an engine for it, and will be installing it soon.

From the van we retrieved two canes (no, at age 80 she still does not use a cane, why would that matter?), two umbrellas, books, clothes, moon pies, boxes of crayons, her favorite hat, leg weights, and some glassware, along with other things i cannot remember.  Sometimes by the time i leave that house my brain is so full it is reeling.

She is leaving town soon to go visit her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters, and she is taking the cats with her.  There will be a list waiting for me next Monday of things i can take care of while she's gone.  Wish me luck.

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Today is:

Armed Forces Day -- Myanmar

Cherry Blossom (Sakura) Viewing and Celebrations begin -- Japan (the festivities get started around now, and vary by region depending on when the trees bloom in that area over the next 6 weeks)

Commemoration of Sen no Rikyu -- Omotesenke School of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Japan (remembering the influential master in The Way of Tea)

Corkscrew Day -- M.L. Byrn of New York patented "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" on this date in 1860

National "Joe" Day -- no, it isn't official, but today you can make everyone call you "Joe" if you want, and call them the same; probably started by someone who had no memory for names

National Spanish Paella Day

Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day -- after all, they do need their own day; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays    

St. John Damascene's Day (Patron of pharmacists, icon paiting, theology students)

St. Rupert of Salzburg's Day (Patron of Salzburg; celebrated on the 24th in the rest of the Church)

World Theatre Day

Anniversaries Today:

Mary Pickford marries Douglas Fairbanks, 1920

Birthdays Today:

Brenda Song, 1988

Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson, 1975

Nathan Fillion, 1971

Mariah Carey, 1970

Quentin Tarantino, 1963

Xuxa, 1963

Maria Schneider, 1952

Austin Pendleton, 1940

Michael York, 1942

David Janssen, 1931

Anthony Lewis, 1927

Mstislav Rostropovich, 1927

Sarah Vaughan, 1924

Harold Nicholas, 1921

Gloria Swanson, 1899

Thorne Smith, 1892

Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, 1886

Edward Steichen, 1879

Patty Smith Hill, 1868

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, 1845

Nathaniel Currier, 1813

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Starlight Express"(Rock musical), 1984

Funky Winkerbean(Comic strip), 1972

Singin' in the Rain(Film), 1952

"La Rondine/The Swallow"(Puccini Opera), 1917

"The Colleen Bawn"(Play), 1860

Today in History:

Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt, BC196

Pope Clement V excommunicates the entire population of Venice, 1309

Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida, 1513

The first English child born in Canada at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy, 1613

The dike at Hardinxveld breaks, causing the Alblasserwaard flood, 1709

Spain losses Menorca & Gibraltar, 1713

John Parker Paynard originates medicated adhesive plaster, precursor to the band-aid, 1848

First reported sighting of the Yosemite Valley by Europeans, 1851

M L Byrn patents "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" (corkscrew), 1860

The first international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, is played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place, 1871

Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars, 1886

The first Japanese cherry blossom trees planted in Washington, D.C., 1912

The first successful blood transfusion takes place in Brussels, 1914

Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine, , 1916

Charlie Chaplin receives France's distinguished Legion of Honor, 1931

Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union, 1958

The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage, 1964

The Concorde makes its first supersonic flight. 1970

Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins, 1975

The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212, 1980

The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours, 1981

The US FDA approves Viagra, 1998

HMS Scylla (F71), a decommissioned Leander class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe, 2004

The UN General Assembly condemns Russia's annexation of Crimea, 2014

Russia's Soyuz TMA-16M launches to deliver three crew members to the international space station to research the long-term effects of micro gravity, 2015