A New Sweet (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Change (Poetry Monday)

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

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!

Before i show you these very bad photos, i have to tell the story.  A few weeks ago, Ms. GA and Mr. BA spotted a new cat eating from the cat buffet in their back yard.  It was skittish, skinny and had a mangled back leg.  All attempts to befriend it were rebuffed, and it took a long time to trap it.

Finally they were successful, and a "Good Samaritan" organization took him in.  It turned out he was basically healthy although very undernourished.  What was left of his leg was removed, he was neutered and given all of his shots, and he's been officially adopted from the organization and is recovering from surgery in Ms. GA's bathroom.

Now that he can't run away, he's a sweet attention seeker, so his name is Sweet William.  It's hard to photograph this handsome tuxie because he wants pets!

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

 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

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

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, we hope she comes back soon.   Charlotte/Mother Owl participates, and now Karen at Baking in a Tornado is jumping in at least once a month, too.  Anyone else is welcome to join in the fun, just let Diane know!

This week the theme is Opposite Day.          

               

If someone's being nasty

What if you were kind?

If you act with understanding,

Could you help to change their mind?

We see a lot of ugly

In this world of toil and sin,

If we put out the opposite,

Could a change begin?

Even if you're not feeling like it's

The high road you want to take,

Please act the opposite of mean,

See what a difference your action can make!

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

Today is:

Alasitis Fair -- Aymara Indians, Bolivia (offerings to the god of prosperity, now celebrated in conjunction with the Roman Catholic Feast of Our Lady of Peace, for whom La Paz is named)

Beer Can Appreciation Day -- the first canned beer went on sale today in 1935

Belly Laugh Day -- at 1:24pm local time, join the Belly Laugh Bounce Around the World!

Bubble Wrap® Appreciation Day

Clean Out Your Email Inbox Week -- cure your email e-ddiction, get rid of the old stuff clogging up your inbox; see InboxDetox for details 

Economic Liberation Day -- Togo

Elementary School Teacher Day

Eskimo Pie Day -- patented this day in 1921

Fairy-Four Paganalia -- Fairy Calendar

Gold Rush Day -- US (gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, sparking the California Gold Rush, in 1848)

National Compliment Day -- begun by Debby Hoffman and Kathy Chamberlin, a day in which to compliment at least 5 people

National Heroes' Day -- Cayman Islands

National Peanut Butter Day

Opposite Day -- internet generated, and fun if you play it right

Paul Pitcher Day (So called because it is the eve of the Celebration of St. Paul's Conversion on the road to Damascus.  Cornish tin miners would traditionally set up a water pitcher in a public place and throw stones at it to destroy it.  A replacement pitcher was then bought and filled with beer, which was drunk and replenished through the day.  These miners were great inventors for reasons to celebrate, and they did this to rebel against the rule that only water was to be consumed during the work day.)

Sailing of Bast -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (people sailed the Nile to converge on Bubastis and celebrate the cat goddess; date approximate)

Sementivae, in honor of Ceres and Terra, begins -- Roman Empire (one of the few dating approximate items on the Roman Calendar, as each area of the Empire celebrated according to the timing of a local magistrate, but now through Feb. 2 was a typical time)

Social Sipping and Nibbling Rehearsal Day -- a day to practice cutting a piece of cake on a paper plate, using a plastic fork, and also balancing a napkin and punch in a paper cup; or practicing what clever thing you will say if you drop it all

St. Francis de Sales' Day (Patron of authors/journalists/writers, confessors, deaf people, educators/teachers; Champdepraz, Aosta, Italy; against deafness)

TV Game Show Day -- birth anniversary of Mark Goodson

Wellington Provincial Anniversary Day -- Wellington, New Zealand (obs.; trad. date 22nd)

Ziua Unirii -- Romania (Unification Day)

Anniversaries Today:

Popeye meets Olive Oyl, 1929 (in Elzie Segar's Thimble Theater comic strip)

Birthdays Today:

Mischa Barton, 1986

Tatyana Ali, 1979

Ed Helms, 1974

Matthew Lillard, 1970

Mary Lou Retton, 1968

Nastassia Kinski, 1960

Jools Holland, 1958

Yakov Smirnoff, 1951

John Belushi, 1949

Warren Zevon, 1947

Michael Ontkean, 1946

Sharon Tate, 1943

Neil Diamond, 1941

Aaron Neville, 1941

Ray Stevens, 1939

Maria Tallchief, 1925

Jerry Maren, 1920

Oral Roberts, 1918

Ernest Borgnine, 1917

Jack Brickhouse, 1916

Mark Goodson, 1915

Granny D, 1910 (formerly Granny Haddock, or Ethel Doris Haddock, political activist)

Edith Wharton, 1862

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"I, Puritani"(Bellini Opera), 1835

Today in History:

Caligula, known for his cruel despotism, is assassinated and succeeded by his uncle Claudius, 41

Connecticut colony organizes under Fundamental Orders, 1639

The first Jewish doctor in US, Jacob Lumbrozo, arrives in Maryland, 1656

Henry Knox arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts with the artillery that he has transported from Fort Ticonderoga, 1776

The University of Calcutta is formally founded as the first full-fledged university in south Asia,1857

The Romania principality arises under King Alexander Cuza, with Bucharest as the capital, 1862

General Baden-Powell's publication of Scouting for Boys starts the Boy Scouts movement, 1908

The Gregorian calendar introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective from February 14(NS), 1918

Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada, 1952

A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost, 1961

Jackie Robinson is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962

Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II, 1972

Soviet satellite Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered, 1978

The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale, 1984

Voyager 2 passes within 81,500 km (50,680 miles) of Uranus, 1986

Japan launches Hiten, the country's first lunar probe,and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States, 1990

Lara Giddings becomes the first female Premier of the Australian state of Tasmania , 2011

European Bioinformatics Institute scientists announce they have successfully stored audio and text on fragments of DNA, and retrieved them with 99.99% accuracy - the first time in history DNA has been used for data storage, 2013

On this 10th anniversary of the Opportunity rover landing on Mars, NASA announces the rover has discovered clay minerals indicating water flowed on Mars early in the planet's history, 2014

Officials at the World Health Organization state that the number of new Ebola cases is rapidly declining, signaling a reversal of the epidemic, 2015

Seventeen temperature records are broken in South Australia, including the highest ever recorded for the capital Adelaide at 46.6C, 2019