Dingy Duck (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!

The dingy duck was walking in the street, and sometimes people drive through here as if it's a race track, not a neighborhood.  We gently encouraged it to get up on the grass.

What a ducky day!

What?  Out of the street?  Why?

Must I?

Humph!

Really?

Oh, all right, I'll stay here.

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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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Our dear friend Diane is taking a break

accommodations we must make

we miss her poetry and wit

so carry on as Poetry Monday's a hit!

Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  Charlotte/Mother Owl and i are keeping it going while she takes a blog break, we hope temporarily.  Anyone else is welcome to join in the fun, just let us know!

This week the theme is Honey.                       

Let me tell you, honey,

there's nothing really funny

about the stuff the bees work hard to make.

It just might get all runny

on a day that's hot and sunny,

but its purity and goodness you can't fake!

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My kids think M-O-M

stands for Made of Money,

and I think I can find some bees

and "cell" off all their honey.

*******

They entered Tutankhamen's tomb

for fame and glory and money,

and found, along with scads of gold

pots filled with still good honey!

*******

Future themes are:

Aug. 5 honey (Today!)

Aug. 12 cabinet

Aug. 22 market

Aug. 29 instrument

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Today is:

August Bank Holiday -- ACT, NSW, Australia; Ireland; UK

August Monday/Culturama -- Saint Kitts and Nevis 

Barsi Bhagat Puran Singh -- Sikhism

Bogota Carnival -- Bogota, Colombia (celebrating the city's Hispanic founding; through tomorrow)

British Columbia Day -- British Columbia, Canada

Carnival Monday -- Anguilla (August Monday); Antigua and Barbuda (J'ouvert); British Virgin Islands (Festival/Emancipation Monday)

Celtic Tree Month Coll (Hazel) commences

Civic Holiday -- Canada

Constitution Day -- Cook Islands

Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead Day -- uttered this day by Admiral Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864

Emancipation Day --  Bahamas; Dominica; Granada; Montserrat; Turks and Caicos Islands (Obs.)

Farmer's Day -- Zambia

Frídagur verslunarmanna -- Iceland (Commerce Day)

Hanakasa Matsuri -- Yamagata City, Japan (10,000 costumed dancers perform; through the 7th)

Independence Day / Republic Day -- Burkina Faso (former Upper Volta)(1960)

Kadooment Day -- Barbados (huge carnival celebration of the end of the Crop Over festival, celebrating the end of the sugar cane harvest)

National Blackmail Day -- according to mostly ecard sites, with suggestions to send a card to the friend who has told you his/her secrets, with the notice that you plan on celebrating this date!

National Children's Day -- Tuvalu

National Underwear Day -- sponsored by www.freshpair.com, which encourages people to rethink their underwear style, make sure they have the right fit 

National Waffle Day

New Brunswick Day -- New Brunswick, Canada

NOMS (Not of My Species) Day -- celebrating animal friendships between animals of differing species

Nuestra Senora de Africa -- CE, Spain (Day of Our Lady of Africa, also called Fiestas Patronales)

Oyster Day

Picnic Day -- NT, Australia

Sacrifice to Salus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of health, associated with Greek Hygeia)

St. Afra of Augsburg's Day (Patron of converts, martyrs, penitent women; Augsburg, Germany)

St. Oswald of Northumbria's Day (Patron of Zug, Switzerland)

Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and the Day of Croatian defenders -- Croatia

Work Like a Dog Day -- different from work-a-holics, people who work like a dog work hard while they are at it, and rest when they aren't

Youth and Children's Day -- Kiribati

Birthdays Today:

Jonathan Silverman, 1966

Patrick Aloysius Ewing, 1962

Maureen McCormick, 1956

Erika Slezak, 1946

Loni Anderson, 1946

Ja’net DuBois, 1938

John Saxon, 1936

Neil Armstrong, 1930

Sydney Omarr, 1926

Raoul Wallenberg, 1912

John Huston, 1906

Conrad Potter Aiken, 1889

Joseph Merrick, 1862

Guy de Maupassant, 1850

Thomas Lynch, Jr., 1749

John Eliot, 1604

Joseph Justus Scaliger, 1540

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Revolver"(Beatles Album, release date), 1966

"Eleanor Rigby" & "Yellow Submarine"(Beatles singles, A & B side respectively, release date), 1966

"American Bandstand"(TV, national premiere), 1957

"Andy Capp"(Comic strip), 1957

"Little Orphan Annie"(Comic strip), 1924

Today in History

The last outpost of Bar Kockba, Betar, falls to Rome, 135

Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Northumbria at the Battle of Maserfield, 642

King Edward and Earl Aetherlred, leading the allied forces of Mercia and Wessex, defeat the last major Viking army to raid England at the Battle of Tettenhall, 910

Anti-Jewish riots in Arnstadt, Germany, 1264

Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes first English colony in North America, at what is now St John's, Newfoundland, 1583

The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England on its first attempt to reach North America, 1620

New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true, 1735

US Army abolishes flogging, 1861

Standard Oil of New Jersey is established, 1882

The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor, 1884

Bertha Benz drives from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the first long distance automobile trip made in her husbands invention, the first patented automobile; her journey was to publicize the invention, and she garnered attention and sales, 1888

The first electric traffic light is installed, in Cleveland, Ohio, 1914

Debut of the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie", by Harold Gray, 1924

Debut of the comic strip "Andy Capp", by Smythe, 1957

Nelson Mandela is jailed, 1962*

The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty, 1963

The city of Knin, a significant Serb stronghold, is captured by Croatian forces during Operation Storm, 1995

The Copiapo mining accident traps 33 Chilean miners about 2,300ft below the ground, 2010

NASA launches the Juno Space Probe to study Jupiter, 2011

The world's first bovine stem cell lab-grown burger is eaten in London, 2013

The UN Security Council votes to impose sanctions on North Korea for its continued missile program, 2017

New Zealand canoeist Lisa Carrington wins her third Olympic gold medal of the Tokyo Games and the 5th gold of her career, 2021

Volkswagen launches a prototype of its first flying car, an automated electric passenger vehicle nicknamed the "Flying Tiger", 2022

*Released in 1990