Splashing With Boots (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Poetry Monday, Meeting a Friend

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

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!

Someone loves her rain boots.  Annie wakes in the morning and the first word she says is, "Boots!" because she wants them on before breakfast!

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

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.     

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

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 Meeting a Friend.

Two men had been great friends

most of their 90 years,

and as one was near the end,

the other asked through tears,

"My friend, I have a small request,

please help me if you can,

somehow, send me a message

from heaven's glory land.

"We love the game of baseball,

please come back and tell me, bro,

if there's baseball in heaven,

I'd really like to know."   

His good friend did promise to try

and died the very next day,

and two days after came back in a dream

and here's what he had to say:

"My friend I have some news for you,

some is good and some is great,

there is baseball in heaven,

and we'll meet tomorrow, you pitch at eight!"

Future themes are:

March 9 Meeting a Friend (Today!)

March 16 Obsidian

March 23 Croissant

Mar. 30 The Moon Tonight

(All themes are from the 365 Days of Drawing Prompts and Other Arts Facebook group.)

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

Today is:

Armored Warships Day -- the first battle between armored warships, the Monitor and the Merrimac, was this day in 1862

Australia Celebrations:

     Adelaide Cup Day -- SA

     Labour Day -- VIC

     Canberra Day -- ACT

     Eight Hours Day -- Tas (a/k/a Labour Day)

Baron Bliss Day -- Belize

Commonwealth Day -- Commonwealth of Nations (the 54 Countries which today celebrate their ties to one another; His Majesty the King will issue a special message to all Commonwealth Nations citizens through their respective Presidents and Prime Ministers)

Day to Mourn Slavery -- commemorates the day slavery was outlawed worldwide in 1927, and to mourn that it still exists

Eid Al Moalim -- Lebanon (Teacher's Day)

Get Over It Day™ -- halfway between Valentines and April Fools, a day to just get over something or someone that is bugging you 

National Crabmeat Day

National Heroes and Benefactors Day -- Belize

National Meatball Day

Panic Day -- a day in which to run around in a panic and tell everyone you can't take it any more, to get it all out of your system, i guess; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Saitousai -- Kashima-shi, Ibaraki-ken, Japan (festival to pray for good harvest that dates back to the Nara period of 710-794, and still includes traditional dress)

St. Catherine of Bologna's Day (Patron of art, artists, Bologna Academy of Art, liberal arts, painters; against temptation)

St. Dominic Savio's Day (Patron of boys, children's choirs, choir boys, choirs, falsely accused people, juvenile delinquents, and Pueri Cantores)

St. Frances of Rome's Day (Patron of automobile drivers/motorists, cabbies/taxi drivers, lay people, people ridiculed for their piety, Roman housewives, widows)

Strinennia -- Slavic Pagan Calendar (festival to call birds and spring to come back)

Takaosan Hiwatari Matsuri -- Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan  (fire walking festival, usually on this date but can vary)

Taranaki Provincial Anniversary Day -- Taranaki, New Zealand

Workplace Napping Day -- on this, the Monday after DST begins, show your boss the studies that highlight the benefit of power naps

    some sites call it National Napping Day; either way, lie down and be counted!

Anniversaries Today:

Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, 1796

Gustav Mahler marries Alma Schindler, 1902

Birthdays Today:

Emmanuel Lewis, 1971

Juliette Binoche, 1964

Terence John "Terry" Mulholland, 1963

Linda Fiorentino, 1960

Jeffrey Osborne, 1948

David Hume Kennerly, 1947

Bobby Fischer, 1943

Trish Van Devere, 1943

Raul Julia, 1940

Marty Ingels, 1936

Mickey Gilley, 1936

Joyce Van Patten, 1934

Yuri Gagarin, 1934

Keely Smith, 1932

Ornette Coleman, 1930

Wally Bronner, 1927

Irene Papas, 1926

Mickey Spillane, 1918

Samuel Barber, 1910

Will Greer, 1902

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, 1890

Amerigo Vespucci, 1454

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Family"(TV), 1976

"Rising of the Moon"(Play), 1907

"Hamlet"(Opera), 1868

"Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor/The Merry Wives of Windsor"(Opera), 1849 

"Ernani"(Opera), 1844

"Nabucco"(Opera), 1842

"Horace"(Play), 1640

Today in History:

Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han Dynasty of China, BC141

First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg, 1009

Jews are expelled from Carintha Austria, 1496

Nicolaus Copernicus makes his first recorded astronomical observation, 1497

Marten Luther preaches his first Invocavit sermon, 1522

Kissing in public is banned in Naples, punishable by death, 1562

Publication of the economics book The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, 1776

Prussian government limits work week for children to 51 hours, 1839

The Amistad Ruling:  The US Supreme Court rules that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally, and were to be set free, 1841

The first documented discovery of gold in California occurred at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush, 1842

Albert Potts of Philadelphia patents the street mailbox, 1858

The Westmoreland County Coal Strike, involving 15,000 coal miners 

represented by the United Mine Workers, begins, 1910

Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, 1916

Pink's War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navy begins, 1925

President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to the Congress, the first of his New Deal policies, 1932

CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly, in which Edward R. Murrow criticizes the senator, 1954

The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York, 1959

Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in that position, 1990

Observers in China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia are treated to a rare double feature as an eclipse permits Comet Hale-Bopp to be seen during the day, 1997

Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights, 2011

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft transmits images that for the very first time, allow scientists to create a 3D reconstruction of ancient water channels below the surface of Mars, 2013

Italy announces it is locking down the whole country due to a spike in Covid19 cases, 2020

China and Russia announce plans to collaborate in building a research station on the Moon, 2021

Notebooks and sketches by naturalist Charles Darwin are mysteriously returned to the Cambridge University Library from which they were stolen 22 years earlier, 2023

The Recording Industry Association of America publishes it's annual report for 2022, noting vinyl album sales topped CD sales for the first time since 1983, 2023

The Colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), a species identified in 1925, is filmed for the first time by scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute, 2025