Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Updates and Funnies, a Random and Happy Tuesday Post

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It's time once again for a random and happy Tuesday, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked and Sandee at Comedy Plus 


A big thank you to everyone who has been thinking of us down here in and near the swamps.  Sixteen years to the day after Katrina, we had Ida.


It’s been a crazy ride, as you can imagine.  In our immediate vicinity, we were most blessed indeed.


NOLA is without power, all eight major transmission lines to supply power are down, a transmission tower that spans the Mississippi River and withstood Katrina is now felled. 


They are working on finding ways to provide back-up power for water and sewer service.  My parents have the generator for electricity, but they cannot flush toilets and they are under a boil water order.


The city is using its own back-up generators to run the drainage system and try to help clear the floodwaters out.


Some areas are so flooded that entire neighborhoods are gone, every house with 9-10 feet of water in it.


In our area, about half of us have no power.  We are blessed with a generator, many people have them now.  When you step outside, you hear the roar from all the generators mixed with the cicadas. 


Our specific neighborhood lost only a couple of old trees, and none of them fell in or on houses.  Mostly we lost a few limbs or branches of trees, but where we are, we had more damage after the storm back in April.


Speaking of that storm, our vicinity flooded badly that time.  Two weeks ago, all of the storm drains in our area were cleaned out, including ours that was the most stopped up drain in the neighborhood.  That i can tell, no one here flooded this time.


Cell service is spotty.  In the immediate aftermath, sometimes you could get a text out, sometimes not.  It’s getting better bit by bit.  Our wifi worked great until noon yesterday, and has been out since.  The cellular data came back up finally so i was able to get back online.


 Enough updates, let’s have some fun.




















Have a blessed and beautiful day, everyone!








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Today is:


Be Kind to Humankind Week Touch a Heart Tuesday 


Day of Solidarity and Freedom -- Poland (Anniversary of the 1980 August Agreement)


Eat Outside Day -- as long as you won't pass out from the heat


Eleusinia Games -- Ancient Greek Calendar (date approximate; 3 days of games with grain as prizes)


Festal Day -- Order of the Eastern Star


Independence Day -- Kyrgyzstan(1991); Malaysia (Hari Kebangsaan/Freedom Day, 1957); Trinidad & Tobago(1962)


International Day of Blogs and Bloggers  


International Overdose Awareness Day -- prevention and remembrance     


Invent A New Sandwich Day -- spread around the internet like good mayo; go ahead, have fun with this


Limba Noastra -- Moldova (Day of Our Language)


Love Litigating Lawyers Day -- yes, G-d tells us to love everybody, even litigation attorneys but He never said doing it would be easy; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays


National Trail Mix Day


St. Raymond Nonnatus' Day (Patron of babies, childbirth, children, expectant mothers, falsely accused people, infants, midwives, newborn babies, obstetricians, and pregnant women; Baltoa, Dominican Republic; against fever)



Birthdays Today:


Jeff Hardy, 1977

Chris Tucker, 1972

Debbie Gibson, 1970

Glenn Tilbrook, 1957

Edwin Corley Moses, 1955

Richard Gere, 1949

Itzhak Perlman, 1945

Van Morrison, 1945

Jack Thompson, 1940

Marva Collins, 1936

Frank Robinson, 1935

James Coburn, 1928

Buddy Hackett, 1924

G.D. Spradlin, 1920

Alan Jay Lerner, 1918

William Saroyan, 1908

William Shawn, 1907

Arthur Godfrey, 1903

Maria Montessori, 1870



Debuting/Premiering Today:


"Alice"(TV), 1976

"The Great Gildersleeve"(Radio), 1941

"The Threepenny Opera/Die Dreigroschenoper"(Play), 1928



Today in History:


Traditional date upon which Ayonwentah (Haiwatha) and Deganawidah (The Great Peacemaker) assist the Iroquois tribes in establishing the Confederation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy, or League of Five Nations), 1142

Lewis and Clark begin their expedition, 1803

A nuts and bolts machine is patented by Micah Rugg, 1842

The first professional football game is played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, 1895

Edison patents the Kinetograph, 1897

Mrs. Adolph Landenburg, a horse rider, debuts the split skirt, 1902

Debut of Foghorn Leghorn, 1946

Solidarity Labor Union forms in Poland, 1980

Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris, 1997

Stolen on August 22, 2004, Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police, 2006

In Sudan, the People's Liberation Army announces it will demobilize its child soldiers by the end of the year, 2010

A 19-year-old Indonesian man is rescued after 49 days at sea on his floating fishing trap, 2018

Monday, August 30, 2021

More Babies (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Where the Real Monsters Are (Poetry Monday)

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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!


More kitten photos, because what else?














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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.     



Source



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Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey is on a blog break and is sorely missed.   Charlotte/Mother Owl participates, and now Karen at Baking in a Tornado is jumping in at least once a month, too.  


This week the theme is Monsters.          

              


Some people say there are monsters

Hiding underneath the bed,

Don't ask me about it,

Just quoting what they said.


But the only real life monsters,

To play with them's a treat,

Because they teach us lessons

And live on Sesame Street!


(When my children were little and asked if monsters were real, i told them of course, and they all live on Sesame Street.  They were never afraid of monsters after that.)



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Today is:


Araw ng mga Bayahi -- Philippines (National Heroes' Day)


August / Summer Bank Holiday -- UK


Be Kind to Humankind Week Motorist Consideration Monday 


Chatter Champion Announced -- Fairy Calendar


Constitution Day -- Kazakhstan


Day of Satisfying the Hearts of the Ennead (Nine Major Gods) -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)


Festival of Charisteria -- Ancient Roman Calendar (a day to give thanks)


Frankenstein Day -- in honor of Mary Shelley 


Huey P. Long Day -- Louisiana, US


International Day of the Disappeared -- Latin American Federation of Associations for Relatives of Detained-Disappeared


International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances -- UN


International Whale Shark Day -- WiseOceans has more information 


Liberation Day -- Hong Kong (from Japan in 1945; no longer an official holiday, but still acknowledged by many)


National Holistic Pet Day -- celebrating the growing interest in natural/holistic medicine for animals


National Toasted Marshmallow Day


Popular Consultation Day -- East Timor


Santa Rosa de Lima -- Peru


St. Fiacre's Day (Patron of box makers, cab drivers, costermongers, florists, gardeners, hosiers, pewterers, taxi drivers, tile makers; against barrenness, fistula, haemorrhoids, piles, sterility, syphilis, venereal disease)


Talk Intelligently Day -- holiday thought up by someone tired of non-intelligent conversations (maybe with co-workers?)


Umhlanga -- Swaziland (Reed Dance Public Holiday and final day, culmination of the Reed Dance Celebration begun last week and sponsored by the Royal Family)


Victory Day -- North Cyprus; Turkey

     Turkey's Hellespont Swim -- one of the world's busiest shipping lanes is closed so that over 300 participants can swim the Hellespont from Europe to Asia, a Victory Day commemoration of winning the Turkish War of Independence in 1922 against the Greeks



Anniversary Today:


Roman Polanski marries Emmanuelle Seigner, 1989



Birthdays Today:


Cameron Diaz, 1972

Michael Michele, 1966

Michael Chiklis, 1963

David Paymer, 1954

Timothy Bottoms, 1951

Lewis Black, 1948

Peggy Lipton, 1947

Frank "Tug" McGraw, 1944

Jean-Claude Killy, 1943

Elizabeth Ashley, 1939

Warren Buffett, 1930

Kitty Wells, 1919

Ted Williams, 1918

Fred MacMurray, 1908

Roy Wilkins, 1901

Shirley Booth, 1898

Huey P. Long, 1893

Claire Straith, M.D., 1891

Ernest Rutherford, 1871

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1797



Debuting/Premiering Today:


"Anna Lucasta"(Play), 1944



Today in History:


European leaders, in an attempt to end war "for all time", outlaw the crossbow, 1146

One of the largest naval battles in history, during the last decade of the ailing, Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty, begins between the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders, 1363

Capture of the entire Dutch fleet by British forces under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Sir Charles Mitchell, 1799

Founding of Melbourne, Australian, 1835

Founding of Houston, Texas, 1836

Hubert Cecil Booth patents the vacuum cleaner, 1901

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in south Louisiana, the longest bridge over water (continuous, not aggregate) that is not also a viaduct, opens, 1956

The Hotline between the leaders of the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union goes into operation, 1963

Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1967

Guion Bluford becomes the first African American astronaut in space, 1983

NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces, 1995

A commercial expedition to raise part of the sunken British luxury liner Titanic ended in failure, 1996

Harley-Davidson celebrates its 100th anniversary in Milwaukee with a parade of 10,000 motorcycles, 2003

India and Pakistan agree to release hundreds of fishermen and other civilians in each other's jails as part of their ongoing attempts to negotiate peace between their nations, 2005

Sumatra's Sinaburg volcano continues to erupt, two people are killed and 21,000 are evacuated from the vicinity, 2010

In Chile, 33 miners trapped half a mile beneath the surface make contact with their families for the first time in three weeks since the incident, 2010

Late author Terry Pratchett’s unfinished works are destroyed as per his request, 2017

For the second time, Ukrainian amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov discovers an interstellar comet, 2019