Tongs, Pins, Coins and More, 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.  

Carl has been worried about his financial situation.  (Please note that his parents have enough to care for him, and have a trust fund so his younger brother can care for him when they are gone, so he's in no danger of living on the streets or starving any time soon.)  He sent me an email last Friday:

Don't. Ome over Monday, I csnt afford ya.

Upon calling Ms. V, his mother, she laughed and told me to come anyway, of course, and i did.

When i got there, he got up from the chair in the living room where he was sleeping and came to his room.  He began snatching coins off the counter and saying, "Don't keep my money!"

Backstory:  when i first started working there, over 6 years ago, Ms. V told me it was her goal to get Carl to pick up all of his coins himself and put them in his coin sorter.  She told me to keep any coins i found that weren't in the sorter, and i told her i couldn't do that.  About 3 years ago, after numerous requests from her to do so, i started keeping any coins i found in his laundry.  Once he was no longer leaving coins in his dirty clothes, i got to keep anything that was on the floor.  Once he wasn't leaving them on the floor, i could keep anything that's not in his hat to take with him to work the next day, or in the coin sorter.  Mostly i split it with him, after all, he's trying.

He snatched several coins as i was telling him that any in his hat or the coin sorter were his, and that i always give him plenty of time to pick them all up.

He walked off and left the pennies behind, along with one quarter.  No, i didn't keep any of them.  He's desperate as well as forgetful and easily distracted from the task at hand.

There were the usual finds that puzzled me.  Tongs behind the TV?

"My trash tongs,"  he said.  "For work, so I don't have to touch the trash with my hands."

Does your mother know you have her good salad tongs for trash pick up at work?

"Well, she has two of them..." and he grinned like a two-year-old who knows he's getting away with something.  (Yes, they are now his, and labeled.)

As usual, there was the dirty item on a hanger.

And one clean shirt that seemed to have something on it that it shouldn't have.

He'd put the "Friendly Pin" award he'd won at work on the shirt to the inside instead of the outside, and had been looking for it for a while.  It's now where it should be, but for how long?

Then there was the refrigerator.  Anything he puts in there that's not covered i am supposed to throw away.  He had four cups of tea, all uncovered.  When i pointed that out to him, he consolidated them down to two cups, then put the empties back in the fridge.  None of them still had covers.  Yes, i took the empties out and got the lids.  Job security.

 Again i have to ask, have you ever been this tired?

Have a blessed and beautiful day, everyone!

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Today is:

Air Force Day -- Nicaragua

Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery -- Mauritius

Be An Encourager Day/Inspire Your Employees to Excellence Day -- begun by ecard companies; send someone an encouraging word today

Candlemas Eve

Cross-Quarter Day of Imbolc/Sughnassad -- various celebrations through the 2nd 

Dignity Action Day -- UK (aiming to ensure people who use care services are treated as individuals and are given choice, control, and a sense of purpose in their daily lives)

Federal Territory Day -- Kuala Lumpur, Labuan, and Putrajaya, Malaysia

Festival of the North -- Ketchikan, AK (month long celebration of the arts in Alaska, including a wearable art show, ballet performances, and more)

Freedom Day -- US (anniversary of the approval of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery)

G.I. Joe Day -- the action hero first went on sale this day in 1964

Heroes' Day -- Rwanda

Hula in The Coola Day -- sponsored by iparty.com; a day to laugh at winter doldrums and escape the cold for a bit -- warm up the house, put on your shorts and have a luau!

Independence Day -- Nauru

Kalends of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also

     Festival of Helernus (god of vegetables and the underworld)

Lunar New Year/Chinese New Year/Lhosar/Seol-Nal/Tet -- celebrations throughout Asia of the year of the Tiger, some before and some after this "official" Western date, some for up to a month; Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist celebrations

     Sonam Lhosar -- Nepal (Tamang New Year)

Mother's Day -- Israel (Shevat 30)

National Baked Alaska Day

Robinson Crusoe Day -- anniversary of the 1709 rescue of Alexander Selkirk, whose story inspired the novel Robinson Crusoe; a day to be adventurous and self-reliant

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Day -- the Dominion Police and the North-West Mounted Police officially merged on this day in 1920 to form the "Mounties"

Solo Diners' Eat Out Week -- sooner or later, everyone faces the challenge of eating out alone, so go enjoy doing so, celebrating this lifestyle skill; sponsored by SoloDining.com

Spunky Old Broads' Day (also the start of Spunky Old Broads' Month) -- a day for women over 50 to resolve to live a regret free life

St. Brigid's Day (aka St. Bridget or Saint Brighid of Kildare; Patron of babies, blacksmiths, boatmen/mariners/sailors, cattle, chicken farmers, children of unwed parents, dairy workers, fugitives, midwives, nuns, poets, printing presses, scholars, travellers; Douglas, Lanarkshire, Scotland; Ivrea, Turin, Italy; Kildare, Ireland; Leinster, Ireland)

     formerly celebrated on Feb. 2 as the Imbolc quarter day of the Irish pagan calendar

Tuppence's Birthday -- Fairy Calendar

Tupperware Sculpting Day -- internet generated; take an old, worn piece of Tupperware, melt it, and sculpt something

Working Naked Day -- dedicated to those who work from home without the support system an outside work environment provides   

Ya-Ya Matsuri -- Owase, Mie Prefecture, Japan (parades, street festivals, and boys diving into the sea for purification; through the 5th)

Birthdays Today:

Lauren Conrad, 1986

Michael C. Hall, 1971

Pauly Shore, 1970

Lisa Marie Presley, 1968

Pauly Shore, 1968

Sherilyn Fenn, 1965

Brandon Lee, 1965

Princess Stephanie of Monaco, 1965

Bill Mumy, 1954

Rick James, 1948

Bob Jamieson, 1943

Terry Jones, 1942

Sherman Helmsley, 1938

Don Everly, 1937

Garrett Morris, 1937

Boris Yeltsin, 1931

Stuart Whitman, 1929

S.J. Perelman, 1904

Langston Hughes, 1902

Clark Gable, 1901

John Ford, 1894

Louis Stephen St. Laurent, 1882

Hatty Wyatt Caraway, 1878

Victor Herbert, 1859

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Late Night with David Letterman"(TV), 1982

"Rich Man, Poor Man"(TV Miniseries), 1976

"The Secret Storm" (TV), 1954 (first TV soap opera)

"General Electric Theater"(TV), 1953

"You Are There"(TV), 1953

"La Boheme"(Puccini Opera), 1896

"The Corsair"(publication date), 1814

Today in History:

Teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Isabella of France and her lover Roger Mortimer, 1327

The Colony of Roanoke Island is established by the landing of Sir Walter Raleigh, 1587

Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, is rescued from the uninhabited archipelago of Juan Fernandez, 1709

The Ottoman sultan orders the capture of his unwelcome guest, King Charles XII, resulting in the Kalabalik i Bender (Tumult in Bender), 1713

The first US steamboat patent is issued, by Georgia, to Briggs & Longstreet, 1788

The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York, 1796

The American Insurance Company of Philadelphia opens, the first such company managed by blacks, 1810

Volcano Mayon on Luzon, Philippines erupts killing 1,200, 1814

Slavery is abolished in Mauritius, 1835

The first US dental school, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, is incorporated, 1840

Auburn University is chartered as the East Alabama Male College, 1856

Morris Raphall of NYC becomes the first rabbi to open the House of Representatives, 1860

Julia Howe publishes the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," 1862

Jefferson Long of Georgia is the first black to make an official speech in the House of Representatives (opposing leniency to former Confederates), 1871

The first volume of A New English Dictionary, A to Ant,later called the Oxford English Dictionary, A-Ant, is published, 1888

Thomas Edison completes the world's first movie studio, in West Orange, N.J., 1893

The first auto insurance policy is issued, by The Travelers Insurace Co., 1898

China's empress Tzu-hsi forbids binding woman's feet, 1902

The first US federal penitentiary is completed, at Leavenworth, Kansas, 1906

Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar, 1918

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police forms as Royal Northwest Mounted Police merge with Dominion Police, 1920 

The United States Army launches Explorer 1, 1958

Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, 1960

The Hamilton River in Labrador, Canada is renamed the Churchill River in honour of Winston Churchill, 1965

Canada's three military services, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, are unified into the Canadian Forces, 1968

Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl, 1978

The Ayatollah Khomeini is welcomed back to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile, 1979

Lillian E. Fishburne becomes the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral, 1998

Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard, 2003

Johanna Siguroardottir is elected as the first female Prime Minister of Iceland, 2009

Myanmar's first freely elected parliament in 50 years has its opening session in Nay Pyi Taw, 2016

Archaeologists announce that the discovery of thousands of previously undetected structures in Mayan lowland civilisation in Guatemala, using Lidar technology, which suggests there was a population of about 10 million, 2018

January 2019 was Australia's hottest month on record according to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, 2019

Locusts swarm across East Africa, leading Somalia to declare their largest national emergency in 25 years, 2020

Wisdom the Albatross, age 70, becomes the world's oldest known bird to hatch a chick at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, 2021