Experience (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Poetry Monday

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Happy Thanksgiving to all our Canadian friends!

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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!

Our rEcess program is blessed with volunteers from the local children's hospital.  Residents (doctors in training) come to spend time with patients outside the clinical setting, it's good for them and the special children they will see later in their careers.

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Sparks is the brainchild of Annie of McGuffy's Reader, who wanted us to post something positive and uplifting at the start of the week.  While she no longer blogs, i like to post an Inspiring Quote of the Week in her honor.     

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Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey is on a blog semi-break and her poetry 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 Octopus, or something squishy (in honor of Cephalopod Awareness Week).                         \

A wonderful creature, the octopus,

when you see one, don't you be a picklepuss,

he can squirt you with ink,

so you'd best stop and think,

before you call him names like sourpuss!

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What two special animals

that don't live on the lands

will say hello sixteen times?

Two octopi shaking hands.

When an octopus wants to be a knight

and impress a girl with his charms,

what kind of armor will he wear?

Or course, a coat of arms.

Octopus mom said to the children,

go off to bed, now scoots!

I'll get your dad to read a story,

Octopus in boots!

Two octopus kids were swimming home

when they saw fishers setting out trappers,

we gotta get out of here quick, said one,

these guys are just squidnappers!

The squid, a local sheriff, said,

I need help, there is trouble!

An outlaw octopus got away,

form an octoposse, on the double!

Now I've come to the end of my silly jokes

about the cephalopods squishy,

I really enjoy all these strange sea folk,

I don't find them at all fishy!

cephalopodday.org

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Today is:

Alex Kivi Day a/k/a Kivi Day -- Finland (The Day of Finnish Literature)

Anti-Columbus Day

Arbor Day -- Poland

Bonza Bottler Day

Boun Suang Heua -- on the Mekong River near Vientiane, Laos (second day of the Ok Phansa festival, the Boat Racing Festival)

Cephalopod Awareness Days:  Squid Day/Cuttlefish Day -- celebrating the most intelligent invertebrates in the world; today, celebrate the tentacular species

Columbus Day/Discovery Day/Two Worlds Day/Anti-Columbus Day/Native Americans Day/Pan America Day -- observed, several countries

     American Indian Heritage Day -- AL, US

     Columbus Day (obs.) -- Turks and Caicos Islands; US and Territories

     Dia del Respet a la Diversidad Cultural -- Argentina

     Fraternal Day -- AL, US

     Native Americans' Day -- much of the US formally; almost everywhere informally (a day to mourn Native American victims of conquest and oppression, make peace, and celebrate the empowerment of Native Americans)

Commonwealth Culture Day -- Northern Mariana Islands

Constitution Day -- Sint Maarten

Curacao Day -- Curacao

Double Tenth Day/National Day -- China; Taiwan (In remembrance of the revolution against the Imperial Manchu Dynasty.)

Festival for Juno Moneta -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Juno as goddess of money)

Fitness Day / Health-Sports Day -- Japan

Independence Day / Deed of Cession Day -- Fiji(1970)

Journee Nationale de la Femme Marocaine -- Morocco (National Women's Day)

Kruger Day -- South Africa

KWP Foundation Day -- North Korea (1945)

Lotu-a-Tamaiti -- Samoa; Tokelau (Day after White Sunday)

Maroons Day -- Suriname (celebration of indigenous peoples)

Moi Day -- Kenya

National Angel Food Cake Day

National Cake Decorating Day -- some websites say today, some say the 17th

National Handbag Day -- started by www.PurseBlog.com

National Heroes Day -- Bahamas

National Kick-Butt Day -- a day to kick yourself in the rump, jump start yourself to doing something you've been wanting to do and making excuses for not doing; begun by Sylvia Henderson 

Naval Academy Day -- US

Norfolk Island Agricultural Show Day -- Norfolk Island, Australia

St. Francis Borgia's Day (Patron of Portugal; Rota, Marianas; against earthquakes)

St. Paulinus of York's Day (Patron of Rochester, England)

Sukkot -- Judaism (begins at sundown, through sundown Oct. 17)

Tag der Volksabstimmung -- Austria (Referendum Day)

Takata-no-Baba Yabusame -- Toyama Park, Tokyo, Japan (demonstration of the ancient art of horseback archery)

Thanksgiving -- Canada (Interfaith)

Virgin Islands - Puerto Rico Friendship Day

War of Independence Anniversary -- Cuba

World Day Against the Death Penalty -- International

World Homeless Day -- no one should be homeless   

World Mental Health Day -- International

World Porridge Day -- celebrating Scotland's traditional national dish    

Anniversaries Today:

Edward M. Kennedy, Jr., marries Katherine Anne "Kiki" Gershman, 1993

Richard Burton marries Elizabeth Taylor, 1975 (second time)

The United States Naval Academy opened with 50 midshipmen and 7 professors, 1845

Birthdays Today:

Adrian Grenier, 1976

Bob Burnquist, 1976

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., 1974

Mario Lopez, 1973

Brett Favre, 1969

Daniel Pearl, 1963

Tanya Tucker, 1958

David Lee Roth, 1955

Nora Roberts, 1950

Jessica Harper, 1949

Charles Dance, 1946

Ben Vereen, 1946

Harold Pinter, 1930

Richard Jaeckel, 1926

Thelonious Monk, 1917

Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1924

Helen Hayes, 1900

Giuseppe Verdi, 1813

Henry Cavendish, 1731 (discovered hydrogen)

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Upstairs, Downstairs"(TV), 1971

"The Bob Newhart Show"(TV), 1962

"Milk and Honey"(Musical), 1961

"Porgy and Bess"(Folk opera), 1935

"Die Chinesische Mauer/The Great Wall of China"(Play), 1946

The Tuxedo, 1886 (introduced at The Tuxedo Club in New York)

Today in History:

The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000 to 30,000 in the Carribean, 1780

The first non-Native American settlement is founded in Oklahoma, 1802

William Lassell discovers Neptune's moon Triton, 1846

The first "Dinner Jacket" is worn to the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, NY, 1886

President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike thus ending construction on the Panama Canal, 1913

Ho Chi Minh enters Hanoi after the French pull out of the city, 1954

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant, 1957

The Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world's first major nuclear accident, 1957

The opening ceremony at The 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, is broadcast live in the first Olympic telecast relayed by geostationary communication satellite, 1964

The Outer Space Treaty, signed on January 27 by more than sixty nations, comes into force, 1967

In Montreal, Quebec, a national crisis hits Canada when Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte becomes the second statesman kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group, 1970

Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, 1971

After having closed borders for about two hundred years, Armenia and Turkey sign protocols in Zurich, Switzerland to open their borders, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI adds Arabic to the languages in which the weekly Vatican address is broadcast, 2012

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi for their work in advocating children's rights; 17-year-old Yousafzai, who was shot by Taliban in retaliation for her activism, is the youngest recipient in history, 2014

For the first time since the Islamic revolution, 3,500 women in Iran are allowed to attend a football match for a World Cup qualifier in Tehran, 2019