Unofficial and Thankful

(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.)

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Today is Thankful Day.  The Ten Things of Thankful blog hop is taking an official Christmas break, which Kristi our hostess really deserves.  Also i apologize to her that last week i forgot to include the links, i was home very late putting up my post and simply didn't think about it.  When we start up again, i will try to do better about remembering.

Meanwhile, i am still very thankful.  The week was very busy, today i am going to Grandma's to help cook everything that can be cooked ahead of time.

Dr. D is out of town (she took the cats).  She gave me a watch for Chistmas, which i am having a lot of fun wearing.  After all, i grew up wearing one and it has taken me no time to get used to one again.

Thursday i actually ventured to The Mall.  Yes, really.  It was time to get and deliver my Angel Tree gifts.  Angel Tree helps incarcerated parents stay in touch with their children, and the point is to give the child a gift that is from the parent.  The father wanted to give his two little girls purses and accessories, so i went to a mall store that specializes in things girls around age 12 would enjoy.  It didn't take long at all, and the nice sales lady pointed out some very nice items, not too pricey, and not too grown up or too childish.

The trip to their house was accomplished in an hour, which with the traffic around here was a minor miracle.

The shelter has been very busy, and while we were there last night there were several adoptions going on.  This included a friend of ours showing up to adopt.  We knew he was coming to help his girlfriend choose a cat, we didn't know he'd be bringing her the day we were there.

Because Dr. D is out of town, and my other Monday lady called to cancel (her daughter is coming to help her Monday), i should be able to have Monday off.  Dr. D wants me to vacuum and clean the tub and toilet while she is gone (i didn't get the chance before she left), and i am going to do it on Sunday so i can sleep late Monday morning and have nothing on the agenda except to go to the Christmas Eve service.  It will be my first full day off since summer!

Several of my clients have given me Christmas gifts, and i've got a new client, someone who only lives in this part of the country part time so it's only once a month in winter and early spring.  Every bit helps, though.

The cats and kids are healthy, we are working out sharing one car, and i will actually be in town this year for the Christmas Eve service.

That's about as good as it gets.

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Today is:

Beetle Banquet and Badger Ball -- Fairy Calendar

Chipmunks Day -- the date, in 1958, when Alvin, Simon, and Theodore hit #1 with "The Chipmunk Song"

Day Sacred to the Lares -- Ancient Roman Calendar (household gods)

Full Cold Moon or Full Long Nights Moon (also Black Moon or Death Crone Moon)

    Bitter Moon -- China

    Mangshir Dhanya Purnima -- Nepal (special harvest/farming festival that starts off the month of Mangshir)

    Nattaw Full Moon -- Myanmar

    Strawberry Moon, Honey Moon, or Rose Moon -- Southern Hemisphere

    Unduwap Full Moon Poya Day -- Sri Lanka (began sunset yesterday)

Hari Ibu -- Indonesia (Mother's Day)

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Gattapefur -- Sniffer, who uses his big nose on hlakkandi ("looking forward" day, when you begin to look forward to Christmas) to sniff out a cake or two to snatch

Khoiak Ceremony for Raising the Djed Pillar -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (Osiris festival, the pillar represented his spine, and so stability and strength; date approximate)

National Date Nut Bread Day

Santa Claus Flight Clearance Day -- US FAA (they make sure he's cleared to fly, with his de-icing system, Terrain Avoidance Warning System for low-altitude flight, and special seat belt extension in good working order)

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini's Day (Mother Cabrini, the first US citizen canonized; Patron saint of emigrants, hospital administrators, immigrants, orphans; against malaria)

Unity Day -- Zimbabwe

Birthdays Today:

Jordin Sparks, 1989

Ralph Fiennes, 1962

Maurice Gibb, 1949

Robin Gibb, 1949

Steve Garvey, 1948

Diane Sawyer, 1945

Steve Carlton, 1944

Hector Elizondo, 1936

Joe Pyne, 1925

Barbara Billingsley, 1922

Gene Rayburn, 1917

Claudia Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson, 1912

Dame Edith Margaret Emily "Peggy" Ashcroft, 1907

Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869

Giacomo Puccini, 1858

William Ellery, 1727

James Edward Oglethorpe, 1696

Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Graduate(Film), 1972

"Ding Dong School"(TV), 1952

Today in History:

A serious earthquake strikes Innsbruck, 1689

The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies, 1790

The first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India, 1851

Jules Janssen flies in a balloon in order to study a solar eclipse, 1870

The first string of Christmas tree lights is created by Thomas Edison, 1882

Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, becomes the first Prime Minister of Japan, 1885

French officer Alfred Dreyfus court-martialed for treason, triggers worldwide charges of anti-Semitism (Dreyfus later vindicated), 1894

Colo is born, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity, 1956

Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany, 1989

Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63, 2001

An important peer-reviewed study of the spatial memory of bumblebees is published in the Biology Letters journal of the Royal Society by a class of 25 8- to 10-year-old children at Blackawton Primary School, 2010

Ebola vaccine VSV-EBOV is found to be 70-100% effective in a study published in The Lancet, becoming the world's first proven vaccine against Ebola, 2016