There Will Be Candy. 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.  

The only thing one can say for certain when arriving at Carl's right after Halloween is, there will be candy and other signs of Halloween.

Well, no, he can't eat the whole sucker at once, and you don't throw the rest away, it's still good!

Even his coffee sounds more like candy.

Including the candy piece on the floor, already attracting the kind of attention he doesn't like, meaning the buggy kind.  It was taken care of pronto.

His Poke-ball costume was once again wrangled into the package and is stowed at the back of the closet, hopefully to remain there for the rest of the year.

There will also be laundry, and in this case, a sleepy Carl who only works two afternoons this week.

Here's a hint, Monday isn't one of them, and the messes are compounding.

On the plus side, he only got up and came in his room while i was cleaning twice.  Once to interrupt while i was using the sink to rinse his recyclables because he needed the sink to brush his teeth since his tongue felt funny, and once to use his bathroom and then tell me he's having trouble getting into iCloud.

The latter, as i always remind him, is above my pay grade.  Not that i wouldn't help him with the problem if i could, but even close friends don't need your passwords unless they are also going to be your trusted power of attorney should something happen to you.

Another thing on the plus side, i did manage to find his phone, wallet, and keys, and get all of them into a hat so he would know where everything is.

Then, too, he has proven in the past his ability to correctly use dental floss when someone is watching him.  When no one is watching, all bets are off.

He did wake one other time to go into the kitchen, which his mother had left clean the night before.  He had breakfast.  The kitchen was no longer clean when i took the dishes he'd left in his fridge to the big kitchen sink.

As happens on rare occasion, i managed to finish all the work of cleaning before the third load of laundry was dry.  In this case, because my second job is across the street, and because i was going to have to come back anyway to get paid because Ms. V forgot to leave a check again, i left the towels in the dryer to finish up and went to Ms. S's house.

Mr. D was gone for his weekly trip to the casino.  He usually goes on Tuesday because they give him free pastry, but he had a Tuesday doctor appointment this week so Monday it was.

They really are a sweet couple, Ms. S and Mr. D.  Between them they have enough saved for their golden years, and they also each get a Social Security check, which Ms. S says is for their "sin money."  Ms. S spends hers on her hobbies of making greeting cards and other fun things she enjoys.  Mr. D spends his on cigars and a budgeted trip to the casino once a week.

He plays until he either loses the money he came with, or if he's winning, until he breaks even or gets a little ahead, at which point he comes home in very high spirits, stopping on the way at his favorite pizza place to bring home a pizza for lunch.  He came home in high spirits yesterday, with pizza, so it was a good day.

Anyway, i did the work for Ms. S and we talked and laughed and when i was done there i went back across the street to talk to Ms. V and to fold Carl's towels.

While folding and putting away his towels and reminding him to please pick up his clothes off the floor which had just been cleaned a few hours before, he told me, "I'm stressed, they've changed my hours, I can't work only afternoons.  Do you think I need to find another job?"

This is one he discusses frequently, and i have no ready answer.  It's hard working for a huge company where you are mostly just a number but his other options are few, as he needs a simple, repetitive job, like rounding up the buggies from the parking lot.

He changed the topic and started talking about the party he went to for Halloween, and he got positively giddy when talking about the games they played.  He even won some of them, and at the Sunday school class for special adults the day before, he'd gotten some fun stuff.

Including this cool temporary tattoo.  He's saving it.  I'm not sure what for, but it will probably be special.

Meanwhile, he has candy, so maybe we should have some candy funnies.

Have a blessed and beautiful Tuesday, everyone!

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Today is the BlogBlast for Peace, hosted by Mimi Writes, and i am joining and praying for peace, as well as committing to work for peace right where i am.  Much of this is the same as what i posted last year.   

Grandpa taught me to Speak Love through action.  (Note:  He's called "Grandpa" on my blog for simplicity, he is my father, my children's grandfather.)

He grew up poor and, starting at age 11, went to work while still attending school.  He loved his mom and his sister, his dad had left, and his way to speak love to them was to deliver papers before and after school, and work each summer, to help the family.

His goal was to be a doctor and to someday do two things.  The first was give women a voice in their care and change the way medicine was practiced on women.  The second was to be well off enough to practice medicine for free.  He spoke love by taking care of people in a very physical, hands on way.

He pitched battles with the medical establishment and almost got his license yanked and managed to drag them, kicking and screaming, up to the modern standard of care and now they call him a hero.  He continued to speak love through action by not allowing his colleagues to stay behind the times in the way they rendered care.

He spent a good chunk of his retirement doing medical missions in Nicaragua and established what is still the only free medical clinic for women and children in Central America, run on endowments he both fundraised for and heavily funded himself.  He spoke love through action to hundreds of women and children by going to them and taking care of them when they needed it most.

To this day, he calls the local Wal-Mart every year at Christmas and pays off the lay-away for at least five families.  He speaks love in action every year.

Today, speak love in action to those around you, there is always a way, and it doesn't have to cost more than time and a little effort.

Together we can make the world a more peaceful place.

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Romans 12:18

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Today is:

Bon Om Touk -- Cambodia (a/k/a The Water Festival, it is Cambodia's largest party, always held for two days around the time of the full moon in November)

Chicken Lady Day -- Miami, FL, US (in honor of The Chicken Lady, whose nonprofit organization helps people get over being "chicken" about public speaking)

Citizenship Day -- Northern Mariana Islands

Community Service Day -- Dominica

Constitution Day/National Day -- Tonga

Feast of Qudrat (Power) -- Baha'i

Flag Day -- Panama

Giorno dell'Unita Nazionale e Festa delle Forze Armate and Victory Day -- Italy (National Unity and Armed Forces Day; celebration of the 1918 Treaty with Austria)

Guy Fawkes Eve -- sometimes called Mischief Night in some parts of Australia, UK, and New Zealand, although that is more appropriate to April 30/October 30

Honeymoon Day -- reminisce about your own special trip, on the birth anniversary of Art Carney

King Tut Day -- his tomb was opened this day in 1922

Ludi Plebeii -- Ancient Roman Calendar (public games, through the 17th)

Melbourne Cup Day -- Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia (155th running)

National Candy Day -- guess they're thinking you still have some left over from Hallowe'en

St. Charles Borromeo's Day (Patron of apple orchards, bishops, catechists, seminarians, spiritual directors/leaders, starch makers; Joliette, Quebec; Lombardy, Italy; Monterey, CA; Rocca di Papa, Italy; against abdominal pain, colic, intestinal disorders, stomach diseases, ulcers)

     a Bank Holiday in Andorra

Unity Day -- Russia

Will Roger's Day -- especially in OK, US; related observance

     Use Your Common Sense Day -- because "Common sense ain't all that common."

Waiting for the Barbarians Day -- internet generated, and i thought they came and took over a long time ago!

Anniversaries Today:

Taking of the US Embassy in Teheran, Iran -- 1979

Discovery of King Tut's Tomb -- 1922

Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd, 1842

Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange, 1677 (ruled jointly as William and Mary)

Birthdays Today:

Sean "Diddy" Combs, 1970

Matthew McConaughey, 1969

Andrea McArdle, 1963

Ralph Macchio, 1962

Jeff Probst, 1962

Kathy Griffin, 1960

Markie Post, 1950

Laura W. Bush, 1946

Robert Mapplethorpe, 1946

Loretta Swit, 1937

Doris Roberts, 1930

Martin Balsam, 1919

Art Carney, 1918

Walter Cronkite, 1916

Will Rogers, 1879

Augustus Montague Toplady, 1740 (wrote the hymn "Rock of Ages")

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Crimes of the Heart"(Henley play), 1981

"One Man's Family"(TV), 1949

"Prince Igor"(Borodin opera), 1890

Symphony No. 1 in C minor(Brahms Op. 68), 1876

Today in History:

The Flood of the Arno River causes massive damage in Florence, Italy, 1333

Joan of Arc liberates Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, 1429

Thomas Wolsey, English cardinal, arrested, 1529

Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is performed for the first time in Linz, Austria, 1783

The Erie Canal is completed with Governor DeWitt Clinton performing the Wedding of The Waters ceremony in New York Harbour, 1825

Benjamin Palmer patents an artificial leg, 1846

Dentist John Beers of San Francisco patents the gold crown, 1873

Tonga adopts a constitution, 1875

James Ritty patents the cash register, to combat the pilfering of the till by the bartenders in his Ohio saloon, 1879

London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell, 1890

The Italian unknown soldier is buried in the Altare della Patria (Fatherland Altar) in Rome, 1921

Nellie Tayloe Ross is elected the first female US State governor, in Wyoming, 1924

The rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, 1955

Two-thirds of Florence, Italy is submerged as the River Arno floods; together with the contemporaneous flood of the Po River in northern Italy, this leads to 113 deaths, 30,000 made homeless, and the destruction of numerous Renaissance artworks and books, 1966

Genie, a 13-year-old feral child is found in Los Angeles, California having been locked in her bedroom for most of her life, 1970

The Netherlands experiences the first Car Free Sunday caused by the oil crisis, as the highways are deserted and are used only by cyclists and roller skaters, 1973

First conference that focuses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web, in San Francisco, 1994

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an extremist Orthodox Israeli, 1995

Chinese authorities arrest cyber-dissident He Depu for signing a pro-democracy letter to the 16th Communist Party Congress, 2002

Barak Obama is elected President of the United States, 2008

In Australia's Northern Territory in the lands of the Jawoyn people, archaeologists discover what is believed to be the world's oldest example of a stone ax, estimated at 35,500 years old, 2010

The body of the last missing victim is found on board the wrecked Costa Concordia, during its dismantling in Genoa, 2014

Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, becomes the first African-American Senator from the south since the Reconstruction, 2014

Justin Trudeau is sworn in as Canadian Prime Minister with a cabinet split equally between men and women, 2015

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigns in a shock TV broadcast from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, amid concerns he is being forcibly detained, 2017

According to the International Energy Agency, the COP26 climate pledges, if kept, could help limit the global average increase in temperature to 1.8 °C above pre-industrial averages, 2021

Astronomers announce the discovery of what they now believe is the closest known black hole to Earth, just 1,600 light-years away and 10x more massive that our sun, 2022