Summer in Full Swing, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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I wish a blessed and beautiful Happy Canada Day to all our Canadian friends!  I am very thankful for you.

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It's a hot Thankful Day, and our first thankful here is for A/C.  My second is for those who work outdoors in this, maintaining lawns, trimming trees, construction and etc., i don't know how they stand it.

We get afternoon thunderstorms (or sometimes just rain) on many afternoons, and Grandpa is always worried about my getting home safely on Saturdays after i've been down there.  I'm thankful there was no rain on the drive home, it had spent itself out while i was at the house.

The cat shelter had a volunteer appreciation event.  I am thankful to be able to volunteer there and very happy i saw several people there i haven't seen in a while (they don't volunteer the same days i do any longer).

We had one of those cooling rain showers on Monday, and Ms. D and i were thankful because she wanted us to do some cleaning on the carport.  We were quite comfortable in the shade with the rain keeping the temperature down a bit.

Ms. JAI is doing a bit better, although she's still on the outs with her family.  One thing was bothering her, the stainless steel dishwasher looked really awful (those things can be a bear to clean).  She asked if i had anything to help and i was thankful to pull out the WD-40 and my special cloth and go to it.  She was thrilled and i was thrilled she liked it so much.

#1 Son came by Tuesday.  He'd dropped his car at Kevin and Lenny's to get the oil changed and they were so swamped they told him it would take two hours.  He walked to the house in the early morning when the heat wasn't too bad, but i was thankful to be able to drive him back because by then it was roasty.

He told me he had been without an air conditioner for several days and was going to go buy one of the kind with a hose you can attach to the dryer vent.  I was thankful we had one of those, we used it when Brother-in-Law lived in the upstairs room (the hose can also be adapted to a window), and since we're not using it now, it saved him from having to spend the money.

There has apparently been some kind of class action lawsuit against our insurance company, i have no clue over what, but i was sent a check and i was quite thankful for the bit of extra money.

Ms. G asked me to sweep the outdoor patio when i got there Wednesday while she was at the doctor.  It was awful out in the direct sun, thus my above thankful for those who work outdoors in this weather.  I am just thankful i didn't pass out.

It was a short workday as when she got back and we'd just gotten started on some things, she had to suddenly leave again.  I was thankful to get home a bit early.

Two weeks ago Ms. SE and Mr. DE were having so much trouble with their plumbing it was awful.  It had started with a plugged up A/C drip pan, and the clog from that got stuck in the roots growing into the drain to the sewer, and it snowballed from there.

The back toilet is still leaking a little bit, so he's going to replace the wax ring and hope that's that.

Then A/C started up again with trouble and Mr. DE turned off the bypass safety switch, which meant when the compressor ran out of coolant, it froze over so hard it burst.  (Shoemaker's wives go barefoot, doctor's wives die young, and contractors don't want to work on their own houses so they bypass stuff they shouldn't and break things worse...)

We were just thankful, when we got there Thursday, to find they'd replaced the whole HVAC system so the house was comfortable to work in.  Also, the boys were out of town so not nearly as much laundry to fold, my back was thankful for that.

When Ms. GA came home from work early last Friday, it turns out it was because she had Covid!  I'm thankful i wasn't exposed to her long enough to get it and she's well enough to be back at work already.

The cat shelter is busting out all over and we are thankful for each and every adoption.

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:

Build a Scarecrow Day -- keep the crows out of that field of freshly growing corn in the back 40!

Canada Day -- Canada

Green Corn Ceremonies -- among various Native Americans, honoring maize goddess with thanksgiving for the maize harvest; each area that celebrates has its own date, any time from now until late August, depending on when the corn begins to ripen

Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day -- a great way to start off Ice Cream Month; try a new one and you just might find a new favorite.

Day to Celebrate All the World's Creatures -- commemorates the day in 1975 that endangered species became internationally protected.

Doctors' Day -- India

Emancipation Day -- Sint Maarten

Halfway Point of the Year Day / Second Half of the Year Day

 -- related observance

     Half-Year Day -- China

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day -- Hong Kong

Hop A Park Day -- US (several years ago the Colleyville, Texas, Park and Recreation Commission started this celebration on the first Saturday of July, which is National Parks and Recreation Month; go visit a park today, or make plans to do it soon!)

Hug a Cowboy Day -- always on Canada Day

Independence Day -- Burundi(1962); Rwanda(1962)

Intact Day -- celebrating genital integrity, as far as possible from the Feast of the Circumcision on Jan. 1

International Chicken Wing Day -- some sites say the 2nd, celebrate today or tomorrow, your choice

International Day of Cooperatives -- U.N. (theme: Cooperatives for Climate Action)

International Joke Day -- as declared by many internet sites, but i can't find out why today; then again, why not?

International Reggae Day  

International Tartan Day -- anniversary of the repeal, in 1782, of the Act of Proscription which banned the wearing of Tartans; celebrated especially by Scottish diaspora in Australia; New Zealand

July Morning -- Bulgaria (dates back to the '70s, young and old people hitchhike to the Black Sea in late June to greet the dawn of July 1 with Uriah Heep's hit song July Morning; began as a subtle anti-communist protest, now in memory of the fall of communism and to celebrate the start of summer vacation)

Keti Koti -- Suriname (Emancipation Day)

Madeira Day -- Madeira

Memorial Day -- Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Mount Fuji Official Climbing Season begins -- Japan (through Aug. 31)

Moving Day -- Quebec, Canada

National Boating Day -- US

National Ducks and Wetlands Day -- US (presidential designation in 1990)

National Financial Freedom Day -- can't find how this one started, but it's as good a day as any to take a good look at your finances, and start learning how to better manage them.

National Gingersnap Day

Republic Day -- Ghana; Somalia

Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo -- Halifax, NS, Canada (through the 8th)

Sir Seretse Khama Day -- Botswana

Skiraphoria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival of cutting and threshing the grain)

St. Serf of Culross' Day (patron of the Orkney Islands)

Sts. Cosmas and Damian's Day -- Eastern Catholic Churches

     Holy Healers' Day -- Bulgaria (a special festival for the two saints/brothers who were healers; celebrated especially by all healers, fortune-tellers, witches, sorceresses and herbalists)

Territory Day -- British Virgin Islands

Tour de France -- through July 24

U.S. Postage Stamp Day -- first US postage stamp issued this day in 1847

Yukon Gold Panning Championships -- Dawson City, YT, Canada

Zip Code Day -- US (inaugural anniversary in 1963; when you mail that letter, zip it up! no zip, slow trip; wrong zip, long trip)

Anniversaries Today:

Prince Albert II of Monaco marries Charlene Whittstock, 2011

Haleakala National Park established, HI, US, 1961

Mammoth Cave National Park established, KY, US, 1941

Dwight D. Eisenhower marries Mamie Geneva Dowd, 1916

Birthdays Today:

Hilary Burton, 1982

Liv Tyler, 1977

Ruud Van Nistelrooy, 1976

Missy Elliott, 1971

Pamela Anderson, 1967

Andre Braugher, 1962

Princess Diana, 1961

Carl Lewis, 1961

Michelle Wright, 1961

Alan Ruck, 1956

Dan Aykroyd, 1952

Deborah Harry, 1945

Karen Black, 1942

Genevieve Bujold, 1942

Twyla Tharp, 1941

Jamie Farr, 1934

Jean Marsh, 1934

Leslie Caron, 1931

Farley Granger, 1925

Olivia DeHavilland, 1916

William James "Willie" Dixon, 1915

Estee Lauder, 1906

Charles Laughton, 1899

Thomas Andrew Dorsey, 1899

Louis Charles Joseph Blériot, 1872

Ignaz Semmelweis, 1818

George Sand, 1804

Debuting/Premiering Today:

CourtTV(Network, now TruTV), 1991

"Nick at Nite"(TV), 1985

"The Liberace Show"(TV), 1952

"Mama"(TV), 1949

NBC(Network, first scheduled TV broadcast ever), 1941

Today in History

Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor, 69

La Noche Triste: a joint Mexican Indian force led by the Aztec ruler Cuitláhuac defeat Spanish Conquistadores led by Hernán Cortés, 1520

Lexell's Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u., 1770

American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 1782

A system of the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales, 1837

U.S. Postage stamps went on sale for the first time, 1847

In the first instance of photojournalism, a French photographer's daguerrotypes of Paris riots were turned into woodcuts so as to be published in the weekly newspaper L'Illustration Journal Universel on this date in 1848

Keti Koti (Emancipation Day) in Suriname, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands, 1863

The British North America Act of 1867 takes effect as the Constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation and the federal dominion of Canada; Sir John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada, 1867

The Philadelphia Zoological Society, the first US zoo, opens; admission twenty-five cents for adults and ten cents for children, 1874

The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States, 1881

SOS is adopted as the international distress signal, 1908

Grant Park Music Festival begins its tradition of free summer symphonic music concert series in Chicago's Grant Park, which continues as the United States' only annual free outdoor classical music concert series, 1935

NBC makes the first scheduled television broadcast, 1941

Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved; since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city), 1943

The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin Royal Family, 1949

Zip Codes are introduced for the U.S.mail, 1963

The first color television transmission in Canada takes place from Toronto, 1966

The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission, 1967

Sony introduces the Walkman, 1979

O Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada, 1980

German re-unification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany, 1990

The People's Republic of China resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule, 1997

Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC, 2004

Smoking is banned in all indoor public spaces in England, 2007

The oldest European remains of a white man are discovered in Australia; the Manning River Skull may belong to a man born in 1650, predating the country's history that Captain James Cook was the first to land on Australia's east coast in 1770, 2013

Croatia becomes the twenty-eighth member of the European Union, 2013

Greece becomes the first developed country to default on loans from the International Monetary Fund, 2015

Tedros Adhanom takes office as first African Director-General of the World Health Organization, 2017

Colombia's Chiribiquete National Park is declared a world heritage site by the UN, 2018

Britain's Princes William and Harry unveil a statue of their mother, Princess Diana, on what would have been her 60th birthday, 2021

Germany and Nigeria sign an agreement to return ownership of more than 1,000 Benin Bronzes, looted during colonial times, back to Nigeria, 2022