Rainy Day Joys (Awwww 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!

Our neighbor was out playing in the rain with his grandchildren.  It was the first rain we'd had in a while and he couldn't keep them out of it and didn't even try.

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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 Dictionary.                       

The inimitable Samuel Johnson

along with his helpers six,

in 1755 did publish his dictionary,

the first good one in English and quite a mix.

He had a sense of humor

and used it liberally throughout

some of his definitions would

today make people shout.

Not liking French words brought in

to his mother tongue was his excuse

to say, "a French word neither elegant nor necessary"

was the definition of "ruse."

His Anglophilia showed when he defined "oats" as

"a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, 

but in Scotland supports the people,"

when you read it, consider your sources.

Like many men of his day

he had an misogynist streak,

"gynocracy" or women-led government

to "petticoat government" he did tweak.

For his own job as dictionary writer

he seemed to bear a bit of a grudge

and define "lexicographer" as not 

much more than "a harmless drudge."

If you've ever had a giant midday meal

you won't think this definition grand,

he defined a "lunch" as being

"as much food as you can hold in your hand."

For his definition of "politician"

he might have been ahead of his day,

“a man of artifice; one of deep contrivance,"

is what he had to say.

And to the "patron" who paid him to write it

he gave this descriptive nattery,*

“a wretch who supports with insolence, 

and is paid with flattery.”

Johnson made quite a stir

though his writing to day would be a gaffe,

go read through some of his definitions

and have yourself a laugh.

*nattery is an old word for peevish or irritable, and the only word that i could find to fit the meaning and rhyme

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Today is:

Boss's Day -- either celebrate, or roll your eyes, both are acceptable responses (begun by Patricia Bays Haroski in 1958 in honor of her boss, who was also her father; this date was his birthday)\

Chrysanthemum Festival -- Japan ("The Festival of Happiness", various shrines; through Nov. 15)

Clean Your Bug Zapper Day -- internet generated, and we're getting a bit overboard here, aren't we?

Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day -- actually a good idea

Day of Pope John Paul II -- Poland

Dictionary Day / Learn a Word Day -- Noah Webster's birth anniversary

Dress Like A Dork Day -- does someone have it out for us with these?

Elephantine Festival -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (several such celebrations of elephants were held around this time of year in Egypt)

Ether Day (first demonstrated use, see History)

Feast of 'Ilm (Knowledge) -- Baha'i

Hurricane Thanksgiving Day -- US Virgin Islands (only celebrated if no major storms have come through that year)

International Adjust Your Chair Day -- because you need to check at least once a year to make sure your chair has you in an ergonomically correct position

National Feral Cat Day -- US (sponsored by Alley Cat Allies)     

National Heroes Day -- Jamaica

National Liqueur Day

Niihama Drum Festival -- Niihama, Japan (three day festival with two ton drum floats)

Sennin Musha Gyoretsu -- Tochigi, Japan (procession of 1,000 warriors; through tomorrow)

St. Hedwig's Day (Patron of brides, duchesses, difficult marriages, widows; Bavaria; Berlin, Germany; Gorlitz, Germany; Silesia; against the death of children, jealousy)

Teachers' Day -- Chile

World Food Day -- UN

Anniversaries Today:

The first birth control clinic in the US is opened, 1916

Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah, 1875

Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England's first residential college for women, 1869

Zion's Co-Operative Mercantile Institution, America's first department store, opens, 1868

The Collegiate School is established(forerunner of Yale University), 1701, Old Style Date

Birthdays Today:

John Mayer, 1977

Kellie Martin, 1975

Flea, 1962

Tim Robbins, 1958

Melissa Louise Belote, 1956

Barry Corbin, 1940

Bob Weir, 1947

Suzanne Somers, 1946

Gunter Grass, 1927

Angela Lansbury, 1925

William Orville Douglas, 1898

Eugene O'Neill, 1888

David Ben-Gurion, 1886

Oscar Wilde, 1854

Noah Webster, 1758

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Red Mill"(Musical), 1945

"The Man Who Came too Dinner"(Play), 1939

"Billy the Kid"(Ballet), 1938

Jane Eyre(Publication date), 1847

Today in History:

Jadwiga (yes, a she) is crowned King of Poland, 1384

Olivier van Noorts' ships reach the Philippines, 1600

George Washington takes Yorktown, 1781

Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, is guillotined, 1793

Sir William Rowan Hamilton comes up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers, 1843

Dentist William T. Morton demonstrates the effectiveness of ether, 1846

Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" is published, 1847

John Brown leads a raid on Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, 1859

The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is "discovered", 1869

John Harwood takes out a patent on a self-winding watch, 1923

The Disney Company is founded, 1923

Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army, 1940

Fidel Castro is sentenced in Havana to 15 years in prison, 1953

The People's Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon, 1964

In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada invokes the War Measures Act, 1970

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 1973

Pope John Paul II is elected after the October 1978 Papal conclave, 1978

Wanda Rutkiewicz is the first Pole and the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, 1978

Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 1984

Reinhold Messner becomes the first person to summit all 14 Eight-thousanders, 1986

Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated, 2002

A 1,255lb. portion of the Chelyabinsk meteor is recovered by divers in Russia, 2013

New Zealand, Malaysia, Angola, Spain and Venezuela are elected to the United Nations Security Council, 2014

Ed Whitlock, 85, becomes the oldest person to ever finish a marathon in under 4 hours, completing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 3 hours 56 minutes, 2016

In an experiment on microbial fuel cells, Pete the Fern at the London Zoo becomes the first plant to take a selfie, 2019

Egyptian archaeologists announce the discovery of more than 20 painted wooden coffins from the Theban necropolis of Asasif, 2019

NASA launches the Lucy probe on a 12-year, four-billion-mile trek to explore 8 of the so-called Trojan asteroids, 2021