Dog Tripping (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!

If you go to Grandma and Grandpa's house, where there are 3 dogs, don't expect to be "day tripping," expect to be "dog tripping" everywhere you walk.

Here comes Grandma with the walker, dogs ready to get in her way.

How am i to get to the door to open it?
The dogs never tell you.

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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.  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 At the Beauty Parlour/Parlor.                        

Her parents were two brainiacs,

she was the middle child,

two older and two younger, 

and things could get quite wild.

Her parents with their science PhDs

had four children math book smart,

then they had little Sarah Jane,

whose love was a different art.

Sarah Jane could see things

the others couldn't see,

patterns and colors and beauty,

and how your hair should be.

When anyone in the family

to the barber or beautician would go,

Sarah Jane begged to go along,

and she'd stare as if watching a show.

With dad and her two brothers,

the barber's every clip

would so fascinate her

she'd say it was worth the trip.

If she or her mom or sisters

needed cut or style or trim,

she'd go to the beauty parlor,

her happiness full to the brim.

She'd take it all in with wide eyes,

each snip and curl and then,

she'd sometimes ask the stylist,

"Could you show me that again!"

Once at home she wanted to

play beauty parlor in season and out,

sometimes family and friends would,

other times dolls sat without a pout.

As they all entered high school,

her brainiac sisters and bothers

earned straight As quite easily

just like their father and mother.

They all couldn't wait for college

and some kind of brainy career,

counting days until university

sometimes made them feel drear.

But Sarah Jane was different,

although she really tried,

she studied and made mostly Bs,

but her parents watched her with pride.

"Our Sarah Jane is different,

not a cookie cutter child,

gives others make-up lessons

and makes sure our hair's well styled."

Her brothers and sisters tutored

other kids to make spending cash,

while Sarah Jane at the beauty parlor,

washed hair, swept, emptied the trash.

She simply loved to be there,

the smells, the sights, the sounds,

she really liked the people,

the gossip making the rounds.

One day her parents came to her

and told her to sit down,

they knew this child was different,

they didn't wear a frown.

They told her college wasn't her thing

and that was quite okay,

they wanted to send her to beauty school

so she could be a beautician someday.

Now Sarah Jane has her own place,

a beauty parlor and a team

thanks to her very wise parents,

she'd now living her dream.

(based on someone i knew whose parents were more than just book smart)

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Today is:

Araw ng mga Bayahi -- Philippines (National Heroes' Day)

August / Summer Bank Holiday -- UK

Be Kind to Humankind Week:  Motorist Consideration Monday 

Birthday of Nephthys -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Crackers Over the Keyboard Day -- internet generated: are we supposed to go crackers over our keyboard, or tempt fate by eating crackers over our keyboard?

Festival for Luna -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Festival for Sol -- Ancient Roman Calendar

International Birman Day -- celebrating the "sacred cat of Burma" (not to be confused with teh Burmese breed)

Liberation Day -- Hong Kong (from Japan in 1945; no longer an official holiday, but still acknowledged by many)

Mariamoba -- Georgia (Assumption of the Virgin, celebrated based on the Julian Calendar followed by many Orthodox Churches)

National Bow Tie Day -- US, as per Bow Tie Aficionado (may i suggest bow tie pasta for dinner?)

National Cheese Sacrifice Day (Now you know why you purchased the cheese for the sacrifice! To let it age properly before the actual sacrifice. Still doesn't answer why we sacrifice it, anyway, or to whom.)

National Cherry Turnover Day

Onam -- Hindu (start of a 14 day Hindu harvest festival observed by Malayali Hindus celebrating the legendary King Maveli/Mahabali)

Race Your Mouse Around the Icons Day -- Wellcat Holidays suggests this to pep yourself up as you wait for things to come up on the screen

Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day -- taking time out to remember the pets that are gone but not forgotten

Radio Commercials Day -- the first paid radio commercial was broadcast over WEAF of New York on this day in 1921

St. Augustine of Hippo's Day (Patron of brewers, printers, theologians; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Cagayan de Oro, Philippines; Carpineto Romano, Italy; Ida, Philippines; Isleta Indian Pueblo; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Ponte Nizza, Italy; Saint Augustine, Florida; Superior, Wisconsin; Tucson, Arizona; Valletta, Malta; against sore eyes)

St. Hermes of Rome's Day (Patron of Acquapendente, Italy; Forte dei Marmi, Lucca, Italy)

Subway Day -- this date in 1965, 17-year-old Fred DeLuca opened what became the first Subway Sandwich Shop

Umhlanga -- Eswatini(Swaziland) (Reed Dance for the Zulu King; a fascinating week-long ritual with beautiful costumes, dancing and singing, culminating with the final dance and a speech in which the King addresses the people, on Sept. 4)

Birthdays Today

LeAnn Rimes, 1982

Jack Black, 1969

Jason Priestley, 1969

Shania Twain, 1965

Emma Samms, 1960

Scott Hamilton, 1958

Daniel Stern, 1957

Rick Rossovich, 1957

David Soul, 1946

Lou Piniella, 1943

Paul Martin, 1938

Donald O'Connor, 1925

Ben Gazzara, 1930

Roger Tory Peterson, 1908

Charles Boyer, 1899

Leo Tolstoy, 1828

Elizabeth Ann Seton, 1774

Johann von Goethe, 1749

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Lohengrin"(Opera), 1850

Today in History

The Third Crusade begins with the seige of Acre, 1189

6,000 Jews are killed in Mainz, accused of being the cause of the plague, 1349

St. Augustine, FL, founded, making it the oldest continuously occupied European city and port in the US, 1565

Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay, 1609

William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn, 1789

The first steam locomotive in the US, the "Tom Thumb", runs from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mill, 1830

The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published, 1845

The United States takes possession of the, at this point unoccupied, Midway Atoll, 1867

Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink "Pepsi-Cola", 1898

James E. Casey begins the United Parcel Service in Seattle, WA, 1907

WEAF in NYC airs the very first radio commercial, for Queensboro Realty, at a cost of $100 for ten minutes, 1922

Toyota Motors becomes an independent company, 1937

Nippon Television broadcasts Japan's first tv show and ad, 1953

Motown releases what would be its first #1 hit, "Please Mr. Postman" by The Marvelettes, 1961

Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech; Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie are murdered in their Manhattan flat, prompting the events that would lead to the passing of the Miranda Rights, 1963

The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma in gay men; these will soon be recognized as symptoms of an immune disorder, which will be called AIDS, 1981

Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province, 1990

Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales divorce, 1996

An electric blackout leaves 500,000 + without power and shuts down 60% of London's Underground, 2003

Hurricane Katrina begins to make landfall on the Gulf of Mexico, 2005

Lakhdar Brahimi, UN Special Envoy to Syria, says international law states that any action in response to Syria's use of chemical weapons must be decided by the UN Security Council, 2013

Kenya institutes the world's toughest ban on plastic bags with a possible US$38,000 fine or up to four years in jail, 2017

Japanese tech company SkyDrive says it has completed the first manned test flight of a flying car, 2020

A 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card becomes the world's most expensive piece of sports memorabilia, selling for $12.6 million at auction, 2022