Having a Life, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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If you've got a life, you've got things for which to be thankful!

My list starts with how much fun we had last weekend with the dogs.  We're all thankful Lulu didn't try to eat Bart, just barked at him a bit.  She's not always good with small dogs.  Eventually he'll be big enough for it not to be a problem.  Plus, it was a fun weekend, i can't have dogs all the time because of work, but that doesn't mean i can't have them visit.

Taxes, no one likes them, but everyone needs to pay a share so we have drivable roads and a mostly working infrastructure.  Our state taxes are due a month after federal taxes, and i wanted to pay online.  At first i thought it wouldn't work, but i found the secret and got it done.  No need to send Sweetie to the Post Office and pay for certified delivery to make sure it arrived!

When packing up to come home last weekend, Grandpa said he'd grab the refrigerated stuff i was bringing home, including some almond milk for #1 Son (Grandpa insists on buying groceries, at least one item, for each of us when he and i go shopping).  He forgot the almond milk in grabbing the other items, and i knew #1 Son would be looking for it, so i ran to the store here and got some.  They had it and i got back with it just in time.

Once again, we are thankful for Kevin and Lenny.  While GusGus was having the tire repaired on Monday, i took Lunceford the Land Yacht to work, and i was thankful that it gave me no trouble at all.  Then Sweetie ran an errand that afternoon in it and it backfired twice and barely made it to the shop.  We're thankful it made it without having to be towed, thankful they knew it was the fuel pump, and thankful they take payments (as usual).

Years ago i had a client, Ms. B, now deceased, and i got to know and befriend her mentally ill son.  It's been a long time since i've been able to visit him, as his health is very frail and his brother and i both felt it best to delay any visit.  This week, we finally found a good time and i got to visit with Mr. N.  It was great to see him, i'm very thankful.

My blood pressure, as i've mentioned earlier in the week, has been, well, wonky.  Dr. BowTie was able to get me in, and decided on a treatment that seems to be working.  while i'm still not 100%, it's better than it has been.

#1 Son has his surgery scheduled for this coming Friday.  While i'm not thankful he needs surgery, i am thankful since he does, it's going to happen soon so he can recover and walk more easily again.

Mr. BA and Ms. GA are out of town, so that means extra work catsitting and watering the gardens.   This means extra income, always welcome.

Their Granddaughter brought the cats, Ruthless and Jude, to stay overnight while she flea-bombed her apartment.  It's nice to see Ruthless again, although Jude has stayed in hiding.

My fellow Friday evening shelter volunteer called, she has visitors, and they brought Covid with them, so i'm thankful i was able to cover feeding and watering at the shelter for both of us.  That place is moving, lots of adoptions.

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.   

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Today is:

American Red Cross Founder's Day -- established by Clara Barton on this date in 1881

Anastenarides Feast -- Greece (feast to St. Constantine and St. Helen)

Armed Forces Day -- US (honoring those currently serving in the US military)

Battle of Las Piedras Day -- Uruguay

Circassian Day of Mourning -- Circassians

Día de la Afrocolombianidad -- Columbia (Afro-Colombian Day; commemorates Columbia's abolition of slavery on this date in 1851)

Dia De Las Glorias Navales -- Chile (Navy Day)

Festival for Vevodus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (god of the dead, swamps, and volcanic movements, and sometimes regarded as the king of the Di Manes)

Honvédelem Napja -- Hungary (Day of Patriots and Military)

Independence Day -- Montenegro

"I Need A Patch For That" Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays, which notes that since everything else has a patch, why shouldn't you?

Lilies and Roses Day -- London, England (memorial of the death of Henry VI on this day in 1471; held at the Tower of London with representatives of Eton College and King's College, which he founded.)

National Learn To Swim Day -- US (with summer just around the corner, remember that drowning is the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages one to 14, so please, learn to swim and teach your kids!) 

National Memo Day -- an internet holiday with no known origin, just take a memo

National Strawberries and Cream Day

National Waitstaff Day 

Passion Play Day -- the first Oberammergau, Germany, Passion Play was staged this date in 1634

Sister Maria Hummel Day -- birth anniversary of the Franciscan nun and artist

Skerpla Month begins -- Traditional Icelandic Calendar (Sharpness)

St. Constantine's Day (Greek Orthodox Church; Patron of Greece)

St. Eugene de Mazenod's Day (Patron of dysfunctional families)

St. Helen's Day (Greek Orthodox Church; Patron of Greece)

     St. Helena Day -- St. Helena 

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development -- UN

Anniversary Today:

Humphrey Bogart marries Lauren Bacall, 1945

Birthdays Today:

Sarah Ramos, 1991

Ashlie Brillault, 1987

Lisa Edelstein, 1966

Judge Reinhold, 1957

Mr. T, 1952

Ian McEwan, 1948

Leo Sayer, 1948

Janet Dailey, 1944

Bobby Cox, 1941

Heinz Hollinger, 1939

Peggy Cass, 1924

Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov, 1921

Raymond Burr, 1917

Dennis Day, 1917

Harold Robbins, 1916

Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, 1909

Fats Waller, 1904

Armand Hammer, 1898

Glenn Hammond Curtiss, 1878

Elizabeth Gurney Fry, 1780

Alexander Pope, 1688

Albrecht Dürer, 1471

Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Empire Strikes Back(Film), 1980

"Gypsy"(Musical), 1959

"Le Fils prodigue / The Prodigal Son(Prokofiev ballet, Op. 46), 1929

"Pagliacci"(Opera), 1892

Today in History:

Syracuse, Italy is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily, 878

The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese navigator João da Nova, 1502

The nobility elect John Sobieski King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, 1674

The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia by the empress Catherine I; it would later be discontinued and then reinstated by the Soviet government in 1942 as the Order of Alexander Nevsky, 1725

Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War, 1758

Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America, 1851

Russia declares an end to the Russian-Circassian War and many Circassians are forced into exile, 1864

French troops invade the Paris Commune and engage its residents in street fighting, 1871

The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton, 1881

The Manchester Ship Canal in England is officially opened by Queen Victoria, 1894

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is founded in Paris, 1904

Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, 1927

Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, 1932

Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens, 1934

A Soviet station becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean, 1937

The National War Memorial in Canada is unveiled by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa, 1939

Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1946

The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition – a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively know as the New York School, 1951

Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, 1972

Democratic Republic of Yemen and North Yemen agree to a unity, merging into Republic of Yemen, 1990

The Ethiopian Civil War ends, 1991

Suharto, Indonesian president of 32 years, resigns, 1998

The clipper Cutty Sark is badly damaged by fire in London, England, 2007

JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launches the solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS aboard an H-IIA rocket, 2010

The most active volcano in Iceland, Grimsvotn, erupts and triggers 50 small earthquakes, 2011

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus performs for the last time at the Nassau Coliseum in NYC after 146 years, 2017

Nepalese Sherpa Kami Rita sets a new record for the number of climbs of Mt Everest, reaching the summit for the 24th time, 2019

Omani author Jokha Alharthi becomes the first Arabic writer to win the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Celestial Bodies along with her translator Marilyn Booth, 2019  

Scientists announce the oldest and most distant gravitational waves ever detected, from a collision of two black holes, with first intermediate-mass black hole ever discovered at 7 billion light years away, 2019