Silly Abigail (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and 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!

Ms. GA keeps a cardboard box on the floor near the sink in her kitchen, and after rinsing cans or flattening the boxes drops recyclables into it.

The other day a box destined to go in recycling fell to the floor before she could flatten it, and Abigail had to investigate.

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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.     

Wet Oatmeal Kisses

     The baby is teething:  the children are fighting.  My husband just called and said to eat dinner without him.  "Okay," one of these days you'll shout.  "Why don't you grow up and act your age!" and they will.

     "You guys get outside and find ourselves something to do...and don't slam the door!"  And they won't.

     You'll straighten up their rooms neat and tidy...bumper stickers discarded...spreads tucked and smooth...toys displayed on the shelf...hangers in the closet...animals caged and say out loud, "Now I want it to stay that way."  And it will.

     You'll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn't been picked to death and a cake with no finger traces in it and you'll say, "Now there's a meal for company."  And you'll eat it alone.

     You'll say, "I want complete privacy on the phone...no dancing around, no pantomime, no demolition crews.   Silence!  Do you hear!"  And you'll have it.

     No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti; no more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent; no more dandelion bouquets, no more iron-on patches, knotted shoestrings, tight boots.

     Imagine, a lipstick with a point, no babysitter for New Year's Eve; washing clothes only once a week, no P.T.A. meetings, carpools, blaring radios, Christmas presents out of tooth picks and paste.  No more wet oatmeal kisses.  No more tooth fairy, giggles in the dark or knees to heal.

     Only a voice crying, "Why don't you grow up?" and the silence echoing, "I did."

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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 Oatmeal.                         

oatmeal in the bowl?

be not quick to disparage

grab milk and sugar

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Some are quick to compare the taste

to something akin to wallpaper paste

but I don't write off oatmeal.

It's great when the tummy is out of sorts

and gets good grades in the health reports,

i don't thumb my nose at oatmeal.

Like rice, you don't just serve it plain,

it's meant to be a "carrier grain,"

get creative with your oatmeal.

Make it savory or make it sweet,

healthy as breakfast or a treat,

find your own speed with oatmeal.

Don't write it off as just a trend,

for your heart it's a very good friend,

now i'm going to make some oatmeal!

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Today is:

Bon Om Touk -- Cambodia (a/k/a The Water Festival, it is Cambodia's largest party, always held for two days around the time of the full moon in November)

Commemoration Day -- Tunisia

Day of Accord and Reconciliation -- Russia (formerly Great October Socialist Revolution Day, with the date determined by the Gregorian Calendar)

Feast of Blessed John Duns Scotus (the Subtle Doctor, known for merging the views from many philosophies)

     Dunce Day -- from the word Dunse, a name for the followers of the philosophy of John Duns Scotus

Feast of Stolen Fire -- find it listed on several sites, but none have any background; maybe celebrate that Prometheus stole fire for us?

International Tongue Twister Day -- internet generated

Job Action Day -- a day for workers and job seekers to put job or career in the forefront, make plans, and take action 

National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day

National Day -- Tonga(obs.)

National Stress Awareness Week -- UK (International Stress Management Association; through Friday) 

October Revolution Day -- Belarus; Kyrgyzstan (also called Days of History and Memory); Transdniestria

Recreation Day -- Tasmania, Australia

Stay Away from Anyone named Honest John Day -- internet generated; no comment

St. Florentius' Day (Patron against gall stones, ruptures)

St. Willibrord's Day (Patron of epileptics; Luxembourg; Netherlands; Utrecht, Netherlands; against convulsions, epilepsy)

Tazaungdaing Lights Festival -- Myanmar (multi-day celebration of the end of the rainy season)

Traffic Director's Day -- Traffic Directors Guild of America (those who are Traffic Managers, Inventory Control Specialists, Revenue Managers, or many other terms in the broadcasting and mobile industries, including radio and TV traffic directors, who always schedule your favorite shows when you just can't watch, and put more and more commercials in when they can; on the Monday nearest the anniversary of the first commercial radio broadcast in Pittsburgh in 1922)     

Wish Granting Championships -- Fairy Calendar (Fairies)

Anniversary Today:

The Old Stoughton Musical Society, the oldest choral society in the US, is founded, 1786

Birthdays Today:

Jeremy London, 1972

Keith Lockhart, 1959

Joni Mitchell, 1943

Johnny Rivers, 1942

Barry Newman, 1938

Joan Sutherland, 1926

Al Hirt, 1922

Billy Graham, 1918

Albert Camus, 1913

Dean Jagger, 1903

Leon Trotsky, 1879

Madame Marie Curie, 1867

Captain James Cook, 1728

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"America Hurrah"(van Itallie play), 1966

"Face the Nation"(TV), 1954

"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century"(Radio),1932

The Republican Elephant, as drawn by T. Nast in Harper's Weekly, 1874

"The Conscious Lovers"(Steele play), 1722

The Oxford Gazette(first edition), 1665 (Now The London Gazette)

Today in History:

The oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, the Ensisheim Meteorite, strikes around noon in a wheat field near the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France, 1492

Pierre Gassendi observes the transit of Mercury as predicted by Kepler, 1631

Anne Htchinson is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a heretic, 1637

The first edition of the "London Gazette", the oldest surviving journal, is published, 1665

Lewis and Clark first sight the Pacific Ocean, 1805

The first Thomas Nast cartoon depicting the Republican Party Elephant is published, 1874

Edward Bouchet becomes the first black to receive a PhD from a US college (Yale), 1876

Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote, 1893

The first air freight shipment is undertaken by the Wright brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse (from Dayton, Ohio to Columbus, Ohio), 1910

Mao Tse Tung proclaims the "Chinese People's Republic", 1931

Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City, 1933

Carl B. Stokes is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American mayor of a major American city, 1967

Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States, 1989

Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland, 1990

NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor, 1996

U.S. voters in the state of Massachusetts approve a referendum legalizing the use of medical marijuana; Colorado and Washington approve the legalization of recreational use of the drug, 2012

Sierra Leone is declared free of Ebola by the World Health Organization (death toll 4,000), 2015

Extreme smog in Delhi, India, leads Indian Medical Association to declare "a state of medical emergency", 2017

The world's oldest figurative painting of an animal, at least 40,000 years old, is identified in Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave, Borneo, 2018

Queen Elizabeth II confirms that she is no longer buying any clothing that contains real fur, 2019