Miracles and Bodilly Functions, a Random and Happy Tuesday Post

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It's time once again for a random and happy Tuesday, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked and Sandee at Comedy Plus.  

Yesterday was Labor Day here, so as always, i labored.

I had figured, however, Carl would not.  He almost always asks for every holiday off.  Yes, MallMart is open.  Yes, some of his co-workers have to work.  Why, then, does he ask for a day off?

He has told me simply because it's a holiday, of course he should have a day off.

Just go with it, people, the rest of us have to.

I arrived to find this scene in the laundry room.

Carl had just had a birthday and they'd celebrated over the weekend.  The bags were dutifully gathered after the gift giving to be carefully put away for the next time.

After all, we are frugal in that house and there's no need to buy more, just carefully use the ones you have.

He did wake up while i was tending to the laundry room and i told him i figured he had a day off.

"No, I work today," he said, which surprised me.  Then, "I took tomorrow and Wednesday!"

That's it, then, he worked on a holiday in exchange for two days off.  The math works for him.

Then i asked to see his schedule, just to make sure.

"Um, it's around here somewhere...I think..."

Never mind, we'll just go with it and send him to work.  Tomorrow is his lookout.  

"Comb?" he asked, and i told him, bathroom cabinet, upper right shelf, where they always are.

isn't it amazing, if you put things where they belong, you find them there later.  The irony of this is lost on Carl.  Later, i found two combs on the bathroom counter, probably because he went back later to comb his hair again and of course, he has to get another comb.

Then he wanted to nap a bit longer in his sleep chair which is cool by me and he took his pillow, blanket and bathrobe.

Leaving him to it, i went in the room to straighten.

Not what you want to see in his ice chest, it hadn't been emptied since Friday.

Then while gathering laundry and sheets and getting everything off of his bed, i found hangers as always and some were under the bed.  These, for some reason, did not give and come out into the light of day to a gentle tug.

How he tangled them under the bed is another of the mysteries for the ages, but they were good and wedged, each hooked somewhere around the next one.

I gathered shoes and two were missing, a work shoe and a bedroom slipper.  I also tripped (almost literally) across the shoe cleaner spray bottle and took it to the cabinet to put it away.

There's the missing work shoe, naturally, he pulled it and the cleaner out to clean it, leaving the shoe in the cabinet and the shoe cleaning solution out of the cabinet.

No, i never did find the missing slipper.  It's okay, he has 3 pair.

Although he set the kitchen timer, he ignored it when it went off and almost overslept, i had to go wake him and steer him to the shower.

It's not easy to jumpstart a Carl, but sending him to the showers, where you have already put everything he needs to dress from head to toe, helps.  In this case, though, he was out in a flash looking for shorts.

I put shorts in there, i told him.

"That's not, um...I use those as swim trunks," he said.

Then why, i asked, do you keep hanging them up with your work shorts?  Handing him another pair, i shooed him in and continued to work. and put the "swim trunks" in another part of the closet, away from the work clothes.

He popped out mostly dressed and i reminded him he had shoes in there and to put them on, then i asked how his birthday went.

"Fun!" he said.  "Yeah, we uh, played laser tag, and I uh, got to go to the movie, and my brother came to celebrate with us..."

Carl's birthday, his brother's birthday, and his parent's wedding anniversary are all within 5 calendar days of each other, so they generally lump it all together.

He also talked about the sermon at church, a frequent topic with Carl as he thinks about these things deeply.  It seems the pastor at his church is adopting a foster child and was reminding the congregation about doing what you can to make the world better, even if only for one person.

As we passed each other and i was packing his ice vest and lunch, i also asked about his blood work.

"I lost ten pounds!" he said proudly, and then muttered something about a finger stick and waiting for results.  I forgot to ask Ms. V later, but i'm sure if there's something serious wrong, she'll share it and ask for prayer.

Don't forget to put an apron on while you eat, i told him, and he responded, "I already ate!"

It was quite amazing, he had eaten, and his shirt was clean.  Whether he had an apron in the kitchen or not is questionable, but i'll take a good outcome no matter how it occurred.

As he was inspecting his lunch, he asked for tea and i told him he didn't have any in the fridge.

"Other fridge," he said, so i went to look and when i came back, miracle of miracles he had gone and gotten his apron and was wearing it, correctly, while brushing his teeth.

Glory be!

I also pointed out to him, if he's getting a bit short of cash, he has $28 in rolled coins he could take to the bank on his day off.

"I think it can wait a little longer," he said, proving with Carl, why do today what you can put off until next month, or longer?

He wanted gloves and glasses, and i was able to come up with glasses and their lanyard, which he hung around his neck, but there are no gloves.  He took the ice chest outside and took the glasses off out there, leaving them on the hood of the car, then came back and said, "Gloves.  And where are my glasses?"

I just told you i cannot find any gloves, and i gave you the glasses, what did you do with them?

"Oh, you did?  You gave me some?"

I ducked out to find them and there they were, on the car.  Carl followed me out, went around me to the car, picked up the glasses, walked back toward the door, then stopped right in front of me and bent over as if he was looking for something.

What are you looking for? i asked.

"Um...(insert rude noise here)...gas!" he said with a grin.

I walked back in the house and he followed, saying, "Gloves?"

You are out of gloves, i told him, you have to buy more.

"Shoot!" he responded, and then left.

Time for funnies, right?

Have a blessed and beautiful Tuesday, everyone!

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Today is:

Another Look Unlimited Day -- sponsored by Envira Myntyl, a day to look around and see what you don't need and can donate to charity, to lessen the flow to landfills

Armed Forces Day -- Taiwan

Cromwell's Day -- The Cromwell Association holds a service at his statue on his death date

Day to Mourn All Manifestations of Sexism -- in honor of passage of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Feast of San Marino and the Republic -- San Marino (A/K/A National Day)

Flag Day -- Australia

Macchina di Santa Rosa -- Viterbo, Italy (St. Rose, patron of the city, celebration begins this evening at 9pm sharp)

Merchant Navy Remembrance Day -- Canada

National Boss/Employee Exchange Day -- US (or anyone else who wants to foster understanding between bosses and employees, trade places for a day and see how the other half lives!)

National Welsh Rarebit Day

National Wilderness Day -- US (commemorates passage of The Wilderness Act in 1964)

Play Days -- sponsored by the HUMOR Project, add humor to your life; through Saturday  

Skyscraper Day -- birth anniversary of Louis H. Sullivan in 1856, architect credited with some of the first skyscrapers

St. Gregory the Great's Day (Inventor of Gregorian Chant; Patron of choir boys, educators, masons, musicians, papacy, Popes, schoolchildren, singers, stone masons, stonecutters, students, teachers; England; Kercem, Malta; Legazpi, Philippines; Montone, Italy; San Gregorio nelle Alpi, Italy; West Indes; against gout and plague)

St. Marinus' Day (Patron and founder of San Marino; also Patron of bachelors, deacons, and falsely accused people)

Tokehega Day -- Tokalau (remembrance of the Treaty of Tokehega)

Birthdays Today:

Shaun White, 1986

Kiran Desai, 1971

Charlie Sheen, 1965

Valerie Perrine, 1943

Pauline Collins, 1940

Eileen Brennan, 1937

Alison Lurie, 1926

Anne Jackson, 1926

Mort Walker, 1923

Kitty Carlisle Hart, 1914

Alan Ladd, 1913

Edward Albert Filene, 1860

Louis Henry Sullivan, 1856

John Humphrey Noyes, 1811

Prudence Crandall, 1803

Anna, Duchess of Bedford, 1783 (in 1840, she began the tradition of afternoon tea)

Nicolo Amati, 1596

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Search for Tomorrow"(TV), 1951

"Poppy"(Musical), 1923

"Funf Orchestrerstucke/Five Pieces for Orchestra"(Schoenberg Op. 16), 1913

"What Every Woman Knows"(Play), 1908

The New York Sun(Newspaper, first of what was to become the Penny Press newspapers), 1833

"Uncle Sam"(Image first used), 1813

Today in History:

Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey, is defeated in the Battle of Naulochus by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, admiral of Octavian, which ends the resistance to the Second Triumvirate, BC36

Saint Marinus founds San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, 301

Consecration of Pope Gregory the Great, 590

King Richard I (the Lionheart) crowned, and 30 Jews are massacred as part of the celebration, 1189

Richard Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England, 1658

The first large group of Swiss and German colonists reach the shores of North and South Carolina areas, 1709

The Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time, 1777

Signing of the Treaty of Paris, end of the US Revolutionary War, 1783

John Dalton, English scientist begins using symbols to represent different atomic elements, 1803

The first daily newspaper, a "penny paper", that actually succeeded, The Sun (New York), begins publication, as well as employing the first paper boys, 1833

Outbreak of the Greek revolution against the autocratic rule of King Otto, 1843

William, Prince of Albania, leaves the country after six months because of opposition to his rule, 1914

Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph, 1935

68th and final transport of Dutch Jews, including Anne Frank and her family/friends, leaves for Auschwitz, 1944

Wally Gator premiers, 1962

Dagen H in Sweden: traffic changes from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight, 1967

The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars, 1976

Russia and the People's Republic of China agree not to target each other with nuclear weapons, 1994

An 87-automobile pile-up happens on Highway 401 freeway just East of Windsor, Ontario, Canada after an unusually thick fog from Lake St. Clair, 1999

Iran's Parliament approves the first woman minister in 30 years, confirming the appointment of Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi as Minister of Health, 2009

The mobile division of Nokia is purchased by Microsoft for $7.2billion, 2013

Chris the sheep breaks the world record for biggest shorn fleece (40kg / 88lb) near Canberra, Australia, 2015

A 1.4 ton WWII bomb is defused in Frankfurt, Germany with 60,000 people evacuated beforehand as a precaution, 2017

Curators at St. John's College, Annapolis, announce the discovery of a previously unknown text by John Locke, "Reasons for tolerating Papists equally with others," an argument for religious tolerance, 2019

Mackenzie Scott, philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, becomes world's richest woman worth $68 billion, 2020

Typhoon Haikui makes landfall in eastern Taiwan, forcing the evacuation of 400,000 people, 2023