Cars and Coffee Pots and Watchamacallits, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

***********************************

Thankful Day this week includes yet another car saga.  It's been a while, so it was time.

Last Saturday morning, Little Girl showed up with Coda.  "They called me at 9 o'clock last night and told me to come in they were doing a PT test today!" she said.  "You want Coda to go with you to see Lulu?"

Of course i said yes, and they had a wonderful time.

Sunday is when the adventures started.

The church service was over and i was going to head out to see Ms. S when Sweetie came up to me and said, "The car won't start!"

A church friend stayed to help us jump start it, but that didn't work so he took the battery out and they ran to Auto Zone.

Auto Zone tested the battery and said it was good.

We're thankful for friends, and thankful i had GusGus so i could run Sweetie home.

Monday, Kevin and Lenny got the towing service to come get Lunceford from the church.  A few hours later, Lenny said, "The battery was bad after all, and you just bought a new one in December, so we put another one in at no charge.  You're good to go."

We were thankful, at least for a while, that the Auto Zone people were wrong.  Also, we were thankful that we didn't buy a new battery!

Then on Tuesday, Lunceford died again, this time in the grocery store parking lot.

Again, a tow truck came to the rescue.  A few hours later, another call from Lenny.

"Remember about a year ago, the wires to your batteries went bad?"

No, i did not remember, we have too many things that have gone wrong with cars for me to keep it all in my brain, but he has all the records to prove it.

"We replaced them again, you weren't getting a good connection.  It should be all right now."

So far, so good, and we are very thankful.

When Ms. RW heard the saga, she insisted on getting me a membership to AAA.  "Every woman has to have a membership!" she said.  "They are wonderful, and you won't have to worry about getting stranded any more."

Proving, yet again, as if i needed more proof, that i have the best clients ever.

Little Girl is taking a break from tearing up carpet and putting down self-stick tiles in parts of the house to do her two week summer training.  We are thankful to have Coda again, and i am thankful i remembered to buy dog treats.  Coda is thankful for that, too.

On Wednesday, Ms. G asked me how often Sweetie and i go out on a date night.  She was not encouraged by the answer.  (We don't, not since the one restaurant we liked that we could afford once every few months at happy hour went out of business.)

She took me to a late lunch after the house was clean, an Asian place that had vegetable sushi.  It's casual, but it's also nice to have a meal and someone else does the dishes.

That same evening, i noticed the coffee pot was still plugged in, making me thankful that this one has an auto shutoff feature.  Even when we forget to unplug it after use, it doesn't stay on and pose a fire risk.

Thursday i had time to take Coda for two walks in the field/woods.  She was a happy doggie.

While walking her, i noticed my next door neighbor, Mr. M was out with his grandson.  The little guy was in one of those Little Tykes cars, and Mr. M was carefully pushing it down the street.  It was so precious, i am thankful for good neighbors.

Bigger Girl made me laugh this week with a text message. asking me for someone's last name when she had included the last name in the message.  We both giggled over it, and i am so thankful we can laugh together.

Sweetie and i had cleaned Ms. SE's house on Thursday, and Friday morning she texted me to ask if i knew where her arm exerciser was.  It's an odd-looking contraption, and i remembered seeing it but had no idea where it was.

Figuring Sweetie had put it away while he was tidying, i tried to call him but he was still asleep.  Finally i told Ms. SE that he's probably thought it was a toy and put it with the kids' things.  Sure enough, she found it with the Nerf guns!

Not only am i thankful she found it, i am thankful i now know where to put it, and not in the kids' closet.

Finally, i am glad Sweetie was out walking Coda when he ran into another neighbor, a nice lady who like me is a bit height challenged.  She asked him if he could help her with a light bulb she couldn't reach to replace, and he did.  Among other things, i am thankful for the tall people in my family!

Please write up your own list and link up to Ten Things of Thankful, where Dyanne and her co-hosts always have a warm welcome waiting.   

***********************************

Today is:

Air Conditioner Day -- the first modern electrical air conditioning unit, invented by William Carrier, began working on this day in 1902

Canada's Parks Day -- Canada (showcasing Canada's beautiful parks and historic sites, it's worth traveling to a park near you!)

Constitution Day -- South Korea

Feast of St. Kenelm -- saint mentioned in "The Nun's Priest's Tale" of The Canterbury Takes

Feast of the Clockless NowEver -- can't find any confirmation on what this one is, but it sounds like fun if i don't have to bother with a clock or schedule

Festival for Victoria and Virtus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of victory and god of bravery in warfare)

Gion Matsuri -- Yakasa Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (one of the largest and best Gion festivals)

King Letsie III's Birthday -- Lesotho

National Peach Ice Cream Day

National Woodie Wagon Day -- paying homage today to this great American symbol of freedom and the casual lifestyle

Petal-Hopping for Hopeless Cases -- Fairy Calendar

St. Alexius Day (Patron of Alexians, beggars, belt makers, nurses, pilgrims, travellers)

Tisha B'Av -- Judaism (begins at sundown, through tomorrow; fast in remembrance of the destruction of the First Temple in 586BCE and the Second Temple in 79AD)

Toss Away the "Could Haves" and "Should Haves" Day -- write down all the "could have" and "should have" things in your life, then toss them in the trash! Resolve from this day to live in the present, not the past.

Wear Crazy Socks to Work Day -- at your own risk

World Day for International Justice

Wrong Way Corrigan Day -- anniversary of the flight of Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, who was supposedly heading for California from New York and ended up in Ireland instead

Yellow Pig Day -- mathmatics festivals at various universities, celebrating the number 17 and the yellow pig with 17 eyelashes, created by mathematicians Michael Spivak and David C. Kelly

Birthdays Today

Tash Hamilton, 1982

Alex Winter, 1965

Dawn Upshaw, 1960

Mark Burnett, 1960

Aaron Lansky, 1955

J. Michael Straczynski, 1954

David Hasselhoff, 1952

Phoebe Snow, 1952

Lucie Arnaz, 1951

Camilla Parker Bowles, 1947

Diahann Carroll, 1935

Donald Sutherland, 1934

Phyllis Diller, 1917

Art Linkletter, 1912

James Cagney, 1899

Berenice Abbott, 1898

Erle Stanley Gardner, 1889

John Jacob Astor, 1763

Elbridge Thomas Gerry, 1744

Isaac Watts, 1674

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Yellow Submarine(Animated film), 1968

Punch(Magazine, first publication), 1841

Today in History

Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians, the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world, 180

Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China, 1402

Catherine II (the Great) becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia, 1762

Londoner Thomas Saint patented the first sewing machine, 1790

The first issue of Punch magazine was published, England, 1841

The Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston as the first dental school in the U.S, 1867

On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia, 1918

The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; 5 lives are lost, 1918

An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain begins the Spanish Civil War, 1936

After being denied permission to make a transatlantic crossing, Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan, 1928

Disneyland televises its grand opening in Anaheim, California, 1955

An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations, 1975

The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team, 1976

The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business, 1997

A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless, 1998

A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, 1998

South Korea develops a long range cruise missile, 2010

Astronauts, Sunita Williams of the United States, Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Aki Hoshide of Japan, arrive at the International Space Station for a three-month long mission, 2012

In an effort to curb obesity rates, the United Arab Emirates offers its citizens one gram of gold for every kilogram of weight they lose, 2013

The discovery of the oldest evidence of bread, made from wild grains, is announced by archaeologists in a dig at a 14,000 year old site in the Black Desert, Jordan, 2018