Ballet Cat (Feline Friday), Friendly Fill-Ins and Nature Friday

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Feline Friday was originally started by Steve, The Burnt Food Dude (may he rest in peace), and i'm going to believe it's because he liked cats.

He handed hosting duties off to Sandee at Comedy Plus, and now she has entrusted it to me.

Feline Friday is simple to join.  All you have to do is: Post a picture, drawing, cartoon or video of a cat (they may be silly or cute).  Then add your link!

One thing for sure is this is a fun and easy meme to do.  So come and join us in Feline Friday.

What better way to start the weekend than with a feline!

Link Linker the Stinker, we've noticed, stands like a ballet dancer with his toes pointed out.

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Friendly Fill-Ins are easy to do. There are four statements: the first two statements are provided by Ellen of 15AndMeowing, and the final two are offered by Lorianne The Menagerie Mom of Four-Legged Furballs. They try to make sure the statements will be fun to both answer and share. The linky will be posted at or about 12:00 AM on Friday. Please head over to one of their sites, link up, and share your thoughts!      

Here are this week's statements with my responses underlined:

1. A Ted Talk that I found helpful was done by ______________________.

2. If I could make my own candy heart it would say ___________________.

3. I _________ early in the morning, but I _________ late at night.

4. _________ is what I love most about myself.

1. A Ted Talk that I found helpful was done by ______________________.  I've never listened to one.

2. If I could make my own candy heart it would say   Get Some Sleep (because i need to).

3. I   can concentrate rather well even on complex material  early in the morning, but I   am too sleepy and groggy to do so  late at night.

4. _________ is what I love most about myself.   While love is too strong a word, i do like my hair.

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Nature Friday is hosted by LLB in Our Backyard.  Simply post a picture of the natural world, and link up!   

Mardi Gras is next week, so the "seasonal trees" will be disappearing soon.

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Today is:

Blame Someone Else Day -- the first Friday the 13th of the year is a day you get a free pass to blame someone else; begun in 1982 by Anne Moeller, of Clio, Michigan, on the Friday the 13th on which her alarm clock failed to go off leading to a cascade of increasingly bad luck events throughout the day

Break-Up Day -- if you are over him/her, don't go through tomorrow pledging love falsely, get out today

Dream of Your Sweetheart Day -- a reminder that if ,you aren't ready for Valentine's Day tomorrow, you'd better get cracking

Employee Legal Awareness Day -- Australia

Get a Different Name Day -- for those who hate their name; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Great Back Yard Bird Count begins -- a four day project for anyone from across North America; count birds for a few minutes a day today, or every day for the next four days, and report in, thus giving a real time idea of where the birds are now     

Ides of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also

    Parentalia begins -- through the 21st (honoring divi parentes -- the deified ancestors)

    Lupercalia begins -- through the 15th (to rid the city of evil spirits)

    Orgiastic festival of Juno Februa begins -- through tomorrow

I Value Your Friendship Day -- because you don't want to neglect your friends while we are remembering love this week

Madly in Love With Me Day -- because you have to love "me" before you can love "we"

National Tortellini Day

St. Catherine dei Ricci's Day (Patron of the ill)

Ta-asobi -- Akatsuka Suwa Shrine, Itabashi-ku, Japan (ceremony to pray for a good harvest)

Trndez or Tearnandarach -- Armenian Christian Church (fire celebration, begins in the evening and goes through tomorrow; originally a pagan sun worship celebration, it is now a Candlemas celebration by the OS Calendar)

Birthdays Today:

Mena Suvari, 1979

Robbie Williams, 1974

Kelly Hu, 1968

David Naughton, 1951

Peter Gabriel, 1950

Stockard Channing, 1944

Jerry Springer, 1944

Carol Lynley, 1942

Peter Tork, 1942

Bo Svenson, 1941

George Segal, 1934

Kim Novak, 1933

Chuck Yeager, 1923

Eileen Farrell, 1920

Tennessee Ernie Ford, 1919

Eddie Robinson, 1919

Grant Wood, 1892

Alvin York, 1887

Elizabeth "Bess" Virginia Wallace Truman, 1885

Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill, 1849

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, 1754

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, 1682

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Merlin"(Musical), 1983

"Prince Valiant"(Comic strip), 1937

Today in History:

Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed, 1258

Jews are expelled from Burgsordf, Switzerland, 1349

The Disfida di Barletta (Challenge of Barletta); Frenchman Charles de la Motte accused Italians of cowardice, and thirteen Italians proceeded to rout 13 Frenchmen in a chivalrous horseback tourney, 1503

St. Augustine, Florida, is founded, becoming the oldest continuously occupied European established city, and the oldest port, in the continental United States, 1566

Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for trial before the Inquisition for professing belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, 1633

Treaty of Lisbon:  Spain recognizes Portugal, 1668

The Massacre of Glencoe: 78 members of the clan Macdonald are murdered for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange (William III), 1692

Cholera appears in London, 1832

Work begins on the covering of the Zenne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards, 1867

The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert, 1881

Painter Thomas Eakins resigns from Philadelphia Academy of Art after controversial over use of male nudes in a coed art class, 1886

Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector, 1894

English suffragettes storm British Parliament and 60 women are arrested, 1907

The Negro National League is formed, 1920

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, 1935

France tests its first atomic bomb, 1960

Black Sabbath, arguably the very first heavy metal album, is released, 1970

A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky, 1981

An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany, 1990

The last original "Peanuts" comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies, 2000

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", 2004

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations, 2008

At 23:31:30 UTC the Unix system time (time\_t) number reaches 1234567890 seconds, 2009

For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, were able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855, 2011

NASA confirms Mars Opportunity rover's mission, originally set to be 90 days, has ended after 15 years due to a sandstorm damaging communications, 2019

A study published in the journal Science of Arrokoth 2014 MU69 in the Kuiper Belt shows scientists are rethinking how planets are formed, not by violent collisions but by a more gentle clumping, 2020

Archaeologists announce the discovery of oldest known beer factory in Abydos, Egypt, from early Dynastic period 3150 B.C.- 2613 B.C, 2021

A humpback whale is filmed briefly swallowing a man on a kayak off Chilean Patagonia, before releasing him unharmed, 2025