Counting Through August, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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I'm always glad for Thankful Day, it reminds me of all the good stuff.

In an "it could only happen to me" situation, i was paid with a check late last week, which is normal.  I stopped to deposit said check at the ATM on Saturday, also normal.

The check did not feel normal, but i signed the back and put it in the machine.  It turned out it was not one check, but two stuck so closely together i had signed the back of a blank check!  The ATM returned that one to me, and i told the client and destroyed it, and i'm thankful when i called the bank on Monday they told me they'd stamp the back "For Deposit Only" and it would be fine.

I also received an email from our electric company telling me they'd scheduled my service request for an overhead installation.  The problem is i haven't made a service request.  My other Monday call to the electric company was most informative, it was a city something or other on the pole behind my house which needed connecting and because it was at my location, they were informing me they'd be doing the work.  Fine by me, i'm just thankful no one hacked my account and set up some kind of service for which i'd be charged.

I'm thankful both #1 Son and #2 Son came by this week to pick up mail and packages.  #2 Son informed me he and His Bride had been in a minor fender bender (other driver's fault), and we're thankful all is well, no injuries.

Mr. Cal the dog has been diagnosed with a touch of arthritis, that's why he has been limping.  He's on supplements and an arthritis medicine now.  Becca and i were thankful to be able to take him on a nice walk Sunday, and no limping.

At Carl's this week, i was so glad i had a bigger ice chest with me to sub out for his smaller one, especially as mine seals better.

For Ms. D, i was thankful to be able to make a quick run to the key shop to get copies of the key to her utility room.  She lost the main one and was using the back up, which is a recipe for ending up with no key.  She now has two spares.

Ms. JAI was wanting her curtains taken down, ironed, and rehung, and i was able to do the first two.  The rod needed to be moved before rehanging the curtains, though, and her handyman was coming the next day, i'm thankful he was able to help her finish the project.

When i got home from work one day this week, Sweetie's car was gone and the door was unlocked.  He'd totally forgotten to lock the front door.  I'm thankful no one came in and i was able to lock it before i left for my next job.

Last week, i was unable to work for Ms. G as she had no electricity, and most of what i do for her is vacuuming.  Then she tested positive for Covid over the weekend.

I was thankful i was able to go over there and do some outdoor work while it was still early enough in the day not to be so overwhelmingly hot.  Her birds and squirrels are happy to have fresh seed in the bin and she's happy the main clearing of the yard from the storm debris is now done.  I'm thankful not to miss a paycheck two weeks in a row.

Lots of the cats at the shelter are having a little "bowel trouble."  We're not sure what's up with that, but i'm thankful there is now plenty of litter (two weeks of skipped shipments, then 3 shipments in 5 days!) and i was able to get samples from the cats that are going to need medicine, noting which cages and in some cases which specific cat or kitten is having trouble.

When Sweetie and i got to Ms. SE's house Thursday, Mr. DE was still there with one of the boys (the other started school that day).  He'd had an awful morning of it with another toilet overflow.

We were thankful he'd already unstopped the toilet and cleaned the mess, i was willing to do an extra load of laundry to help out which is much easier than cleaning a flooded bathroom like the last time this happened.

Ms. M, my Friday evening partner at the shelter, was out because she took a work shift for a friend whose husband had surgery.  I was thankful to get my work and hers done by close, it gave me a chance to visit with all the cats, cages and rooms.

Although the Ten Things of Thankful hop is taking a short summer break, there are always too many reasons to be thankful for me to skip!

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Today is:

Aloha Day -- unofficial celebration of the annexation of Hawai'i by the US

Anniversary of Snick-Snacker's Left Foot -- Fairy Calendar

Awa Odori Festival -- Tokushima, Japan (through the 15th; one of Japan's largest dance festivals, Awa-dance is said to be a "fool's dance", and the saying is "It's a fool who dances and a fool who watches, so if both are fools, you may as well dance!")

Celebrate Your Lakes Day -- originally a senate resolution in the US state of New Hampshire to celebrate local lakes and ponds, now more widely observed; go enjoy some recreation at a pond, lake, or even river or stream near you!

Festival for Hercules Invictus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (through tomorrow; based on an even older Greek celebration of Heracles at the same time of year)

Festival for Venus Vitrix -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Victorius Venus)

Grouse Day/Glorious Twelfth -- England; Scotland (opening of grouse hunting season; because the 12th is a Sunday in 2012, it will actually be celebrated tomorrow)

Hartjesdagen -- Amsterdam and Haarlem, Holland ("Little Hearts Day"; the folklore is that this was the day non-nobles could hunt deer in the woods around Haarlem, and became a two-day cross dressing festival, all men dressed as women, and women as men, to see how the other half lived; revived in recent years on the 2nd or 3rd weekend of August, because the 3rd Monday was the original celebration, and is still the biggest day)

Her Majesty the Queen's Birthday and National Mother's Day -- Thailand

International Youth Day -- UN

Julienne Fries Day

Lychnapsia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (celebration of the Birthday of Isis, instituted after the conquest of Egypt)

Middle Children's Day -- on some sites, listed as Aug. 14; either way, Middle Children deserve a special day!

National Garage Sale Day -- US (the goal, according to C. Daniel Rhodes, is to turn the nation into a giant shopping mall on the second Saturday of August each year)

National Toasted Almond Bar Day

Osirian Mysteries; Feast of the Lights of Isis -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate, but this is the date the Romans gave it, so who am i to quibble?)

PC Day -- no, not politically correct, personal computer; IBM introduced theirs this day in 1981

Put Peanuts in Your Coca Cola Day -- and no, i can't figure this one out, but they say don't shake it once you do it; if anyone else wants to experiment with why, let me know the results

Solar Alignment with Teotihuacan, City of the Gods -- ancient when the Aztecs found its ruins, this city's ritual cave aligns with the setting sun today and April 29, also the rising and setting dates of the Pleiades

St. Gracilian's Day (Patron of Bassano Romano, Italy)

St. Murtagh's Day (Patron of Killaria, Ireland)

Vinyl Record Day -- celebrating the tremendous cultural influence of records, on the anniversary of the day in 1877 that Edison invented the phonograph

Wicket World of Croquet -- Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, Indianapolis, IN, US (Don your game whites and hit the court for a wicketly competitive day of historic elegance and modern indulgence)

World Elephant Day    

Zaraday a/k/a Zarathud's Day -- Discordianism

Birthdays Today:

Casey Affleck, 1975

Pete Sampras, 1971

Peter Krause, 1964

Ann M. Martin, 1955

Pat Metheny, 1954

Sam J. Jones, 1954

Skip Caray, 1939

George Hamilton, 1939

William Goldman, 1931

George Soros, 1930

Alvis Edgar “Buck” Owens, 1929

John Derek, 1926

Michael Kidd, 1915

Jane Wyatt, 1912

Cantinflas, 1911

Joe Besser, 1907

Alfred Lunt, 1892

Cecil B. DeMille, 1881

Christopher "Christy" Mathewson, 1880

Edith Hamilton, 1867

Katharine Lee Bates, 1859

"Diamond Jim" Brady, 1856

Robert Mills, 1781

Thomas Bewick, 1753

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Wings(Film, only silent film to win the Oscar for Best Picture), 1927

Today in History:

The last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic Dynasty, Cleopatra VII Philopater, allegedly commits suicide by asp bite, BC30

A conjunction of Venus and Jupiter occurs which may have been what the Bible calls the Star of Bethlehem, 3

Crusaders win the Battle of Ascalon, 1099

Juan Ponce de Leon arrives in Puerto Rico, 1508

Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War, 1676

Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine, the first one to be practical for home use, 1851

Asaph Hall discovers Deimos, 1877

The last quagga, a subspecies of zebra once plentiful in South Africa, dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, 1883

Hawai'i is annexed by the US, 1898

William Somerset Maugham published "Of Human Bondage", 1915

Alleged date of the first Philadelphia Experiment test on United States Navy ship USS Eldridge, 1943

The Soviet Union detonates its first thermonuclear weapon, 1953

Echo I, the first communications satellite, is launched, 1960

South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games because of its racist policies, 1964

The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise, 1977

The IBM Personal Computer is released, 1981

Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 1992

The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise, 2000

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launches, 2005

Director of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, announces plans to release remaining Afghan War Diary documents from War in Afghanistan, 2010

President Obama's health insurance mandate from his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is struck down by the U.S. court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 2011

The International Olympic Committee announces it will punish athletes who support Russian LGBT rights at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, 2013

NASA launches the Parker Space Probe, its first mission to the Sun and its outermost atmosphere, the corona, 2018

Scientists say they are close to an effective treatment for Ebola after a new drug trial has a 90% success rate in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2019

Bennu Asteroid, about the size of the Empire State Building, now has 1-in-1,750 chance of hitting Earth in 2182, according to data from NASA's OSIRIS-REX spacecraft, 2021