His Proud Moment (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day and Brian's Thankful Thursday

 ***********************************

She opened his gift Christmas morning to find, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, a lovely model of a lighthouse.

Smiling at him, she asked, "Sweetheart, what made you think of getting me this?"

"I overheard you talking to Ellen a few weeks ago and you said something about liking model lighthouses, so I got you one, it can go on the mantle over the fireplace, this is one of the famous lighthouses in Maine -- do you like it?"

Her smile grew bigger, and he smiled back, proud he'd been paying attention when he overheard what she said and acted on it; he was trying so hard to be a good husband who listened and didn't realize her smile was because she was trying not to laugh.

It was such a sweet gesture on his part, and he was trying so hard to get her something he thought she'd like, she didnt tell him the rest of the story; she'd actually been talking about light-up Christmas houses to make a Christmas village, telling her friend she was thinking of starting such a collection, getting a new piece or two each year.

She never disabused him of the notion, and he got her many such model lighthouses over the years until she had quite a few on the mantle and elsewhere, and they rather grew on her, although she did start her Christmas village collection the next year.

Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Gesture.      

(Based on a true story.  He still doesn't know she wasn't originally talking about lighthouses and they've been married almost 45 years.)

***********************************

While Good Fences Around the World seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, i still enjoy looking for and posting interesting fences, so i will!

***********************************

It's Angel Sammy's Poetry Day!  This week's image and my poem:    

I know my workshop looks odd

but I'm a multi-talented cat,

depending on what you need,

I can wear more than one hat.

I've always enjoyed repairing things

so I've got every mechanics tool,

and I picked up a veterinary degree,

being on this side o'the needle's cool.

Then too, I like my mouse burgers fresh

so I'm a butcher and sell the meat,

while your kitty is here being doctored

I'll sell you his after visit treat!

(This picture looks like it has medical paraphernalia and mechanics tools, and the cat is wearing what looks like part scrubs and part butcher apron, and a chef's toque, thus the weird poem.)

***********************************

Angel Brian's Family of Brian's Home - Forever hosts the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.   It's time to share something for which i am thankful.  

Today i am thankful Ms. G was able to get to her doctor appointment, even if it cut our workday short yesterday. 

***********************************

Today is:

Assyrian Martyrs Day -- various Assyrian communities

Battle of Boyaca Day -- Colombia

Harvest Holiday -- Slavic Pagan Calendar (reaping ceases for a few hours in honor of Volos' beard; bread is eaten and offerings given to Mother Earth and Volos for a bountiful harvest)

Independence Day / National Day -- Cote d'Ivoire(1960)

National Hobo Convention -- Britt, IA (held each year since 1900, gathering for migrant workers who are proud to call themselves "hobos" and make a living through working where they choose and travelling where they want; through Sunday)

National Lighthouse Day -- US (American Lighthouse Foundation) 

National Raspberries in Cream Day

Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays, and especially the kind no one can open without a machete, what's with that!

Professional Speaker's Day  

Purple Heart Day -- US (originally instituted this day in 1782 by George Washington)

Say "Cheese" Day -- begun by ecard companies looking for something to celebrate; in my family, we do not say "Cheese", we say "Chicken Lips!" Try it some time when walking past tourists who are trying to get a good photo, and watch them smile genuine smiles and come up with a good picture.

Sea Serpent Day -- no one knows why today, just enjoy

St. Albert of Trapani's Day (Patron of Carmelite schools; Messina, Italy; Trapani, Italy)

St. Cajetan's Day (Patron of job seekers and the unemployed)

Take Last Winter's Snowballs Out of the Freezer and Have a Fight Day -- in the northern hemisphere, it's certainly hot enough

Birthdays Today:

Charlize Theron, 1975

Harold Parrineau, 1963

DeLane Matthews, 1961

David Duchovny, 1960

Alberto Salazar, 1957

John Glover, 1944

Garrison Keillor, 1942

B.J. Thomas, 1942

Abebe Bikila, 1932

"The Amazing" James Randi, 1928

Carl "Alfalfa" Switser, 1927

Stan Freberg, 1926

Ralph Johnson Bunche, 1903

Rudolf C. Ising, 1903

William Boyd McKechnie, 1886

Billie Burke, 1884

Mata Hari, 1876

Nathanael Greene, 1742

Today in History:

Battle of Crannon between Athens and Macedon, following the death of Alexander the Great, BC322

Construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore begins in Florence, 1420

Coup again the Tianshun Emperor by the Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin, 1461

Francis Drake's fleet returns to Plymouth, 1573

The first documented performance of Macbeth, at the Great Hall at Hampton Court, 1606

Sieur de La Salle's brigantine Le Griffon becomes the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes, 1679

Cherokee Indians take Ft. Loudon, Tennessee, 1760

George Washington creates the Order of the Purple Heart, 1782

Simon Bolivar triumphs over the Spanish at the Battle of Boyaca, 1819

The long simmering tension between the Hatfields and the McCoys on the Kentucky/West Virginia border erupts into full scale violence on election day, 1882

The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, 1927

IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I), 1944

Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America, 1947

Explorer 6 transmits the first TV photo of Earth from space, 1959

The "artistic crime of the century" occurs when Philippe Petit of France, after months of planning and smuggling in materials, makes an illegal tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, 1974

Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars, 1976

The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication, 1981

Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts, 1985

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 756th home run, 2007

Australia's Sally Pearson sets a new Olympic record when she wins the 100 metres hurdles in 12.35 seconds at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2012

The Mendocino Fire becomes the largest recorded fire in California's history, at 290,600 acres, overtaking The 2017 Thomas Fire, 2018

The US Senate passes an Inflation Reduction Act in an attempt to help stabilize the economy, 2022

Thousands of peaceful counter-protesters hold rallies around England in response to the previous week's violent anti-immigrant protests, 2024