We Are Family (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Nana (Poetry Monday)

(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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Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee at Comedy Plus.

Join us every Monday for Awww...Mondays.  Post a picture that makes you say Awww... and that's it.

Make sure you get the code from Sandee's site, linked above, and leave a link to your post so we can visit you.  What better way to start the week than with a smile!

Three boys and two girls in a family make for one precious cageful.

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Sparks, the brainchild of Annie of McGuffy's Reader, is on hiatus, so here's an Inspiring Quote of the Week in her honor.

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Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  She was unable to post for a while, so participants Delores and Jenny took turns providing a theme each week.  Now that Diane is back, i am guessing she will go back to providing all of the themes, but no matter who does it, i want to be in it as i've been bitten by the poetry bug.  This weeks theme is A Childhood Hero.                    

My Nana was my hero

When i was very young.

She sang with me and read to me

And we had lots of fun.

She bought me toys and goodies,

And my pretty jacket,

She let me play and run around

And make a nice loud racket.

When at her house she taught me

How to hand wash dishes,

Cook bacon in the broiler,

And even clean the fishes.

Yes, she and Papa took me fishing

Out on their little pond,

I got to play in the shop, too,

Of that i was very fond.

She sewed my princess costume

For Halloween one year

And i kept it 'til it fell apart

Because i held it dear.

Nana let me play with her makeup,

She even wrote a short play

And taught me and my brothers so

We performed for the family one day.

Yes, my Nana was my hero,

Though i didn't know it then,

How i would love to tell her

And live those days again.

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Today is:

Aloha Day -- unofficial celebration of the annexation of Hawai'i by the US

Anniversary of Snick-Snacker's Left Foot -- Fairy Calendar

Anvil Mountain 59 Minute 37 Second Challenge -- Nome, AK, US (starting gun sounds at 7 pm, and the course begins at the base of Anvil Mountain, goes uphill then back down via a gravel road, with the challenge being to do it in less than the time allotted)

Awa Odori Festival -- Tokushima, Japan (through the 15th; one of Japan's largest dance festivals, Awa-dance is said to be a "fool's dance", and the saying is "It's a fool who dances and a fool who watches, so if both are fools, you may as well dance!")

Carnival Monday -- Grenada

Festival for Hercules Invictus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (through tomorrow; based on an even older Greek celebration of Heracles at the same time of year)

Festival for Venus Vitrix -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Victorius Venus)

Grouse Day/Glorious Twelfth -- England; Scotland (opening of grouse hunting season; because the 12th is a Sunday in 2012, it will actually be celebrated tomorrow)

Her Majesty the Queen's Birthday and National Mother's Day -- Thailand

Heroes Day -- Zimbabwe

International Youth Day -- UN

Inter-State Fair and Rodeo -- Coffeyville, KS, US (rodeo, livestock shows, carnival, and more; through Saturday)

Julienne Fries Day

Lychnapsia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (celebration of the Birthday of Isis, instituted after the conquest of Egypt)

Middle Children's Day -- on some sites, listed as Aug. 14; either way, Middle Children deserve a special day!

National Toasted Almond Bar Day

Osirian Mysteries; Feast of the Lights of Isis -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate, but this is the date the Romans gave it, so who am i to quibble?)

PC Day -- no, not politically correct, personal computer; IBM introduced theirs this day in 1981

Perseid Meteor Showers -- in 2019, peak visibility is tonight and especially tomorrow night; the Celts believed these meteors were due to games being played by Lugh, their sun god

Put Peanuts in Your Coca Cola Day -- and no, i can't figure this one out, but they say don't shake it once you do it; if anyone else wants to experiment with why, let me know the results

Solar Alignment with Teotihuacan, City of the Gods -- ancient when the Aztecs found its ruins, this city's ritual cave aligns with the setting sun today and April 29, also the rising and setting dates of the Pleiades

St. Gracilian's Day (Patron of Bassano Romano, Italy)

St. Murtagh's Day (Patron of Killaria, Ireland)

Vinyl Record Day -- celebrating the tremendous cultural influence of records, on the anniversary of the day in 1877 that Edison invented the phonograph

World Elephant Day -- learn more here    

Zaraday a/k/a Zarathud's Day -- Discordianism

Birthdays Today:

Casey Affleck, 1975

Pete Sampras, 1971

Peter Krause, 1964

Ann M. Martin, 1955

Pat Metheny, 1954

Sam J. Jones, 1954

Skip Caray, 1939

George Hamilton, 1939

William Goldman, 1931

George Soros, 1930

Alvis Edgar “Buck” Owens, 1929

John Derek, 1926

Michael Kidd, 1915

Jane Wyatt, 1912

Cantinflas, 1911

Joe Besser, 1907

Alfred Lunt, 1892

Cecil B. DeMille, 1881

Christopher "Christy" Mathewson, 1880

Edith Hamilton, 1867

Katharine Lee Bates, 1859

"Diamond Jim" Brady, 1856

Robert Mills, 1781

Thomas Bewick, 1753

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Wings(Film, only silent film to win the Oscar for Best Picture), 1927

Today in History:

The last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic Dynasty, Cleopatra VII Philopater, allegedly commits suicide by asp bite, BC30

A conjunction of Venus and Jupiter occurs which may have been what the Bible calls the Star of Bethlehem, 3

Crusaders win the Battle of Ascalon, 1099

Juan Ponce de Leon arrives in Puerto Rico, 1508

Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War, 1676

Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine, the first one to be practical for home use, 1851

Asaph Hall discovers Deimos, 1877

The last quagga, a subspecies of zebra once plentiful in South Africa, dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, 1883

Hawai'i is annexed by the US, 1898

William Somerset Maugham published "Of Human Bondage", 1915

Alleged date of the first Philadelphia Experiment test on United States Navy ship USS Eldridge, 1943

The Soviet Union detonates its first thermonuclear weapon, 1953

Echo I, the first communications satellite, is launched, 1960

South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games because of its racist policies, 1964

The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise, 1977

The IBM Personal Computer is released, 1981

Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 1992

The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise, 2000

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launches, 2005

Director of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, announces plans to release remaining Afghan War Diary documents from War in Afghanistan, 2010

President Obama's health insurance mandate from his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is struck down by the U.S. court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 2011

The International Olympic Committee announces it will punish athletes who support Russian LGBT rights at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, 2013

NASA launches the Parker Space Probe, its first mission to the Sun and its outermost atmosphere, the corona, 2018