Up, Down, and Sideways , a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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As with most weeks, when i get to Thankful Day, i feel like things have been up, down and even sideways, but there are always good things for which to give thanks.

First, about Lawrence the Honda.  It's the model of Honda known for burning oil, something the makers could never figure out why or how, but they tend to need topping off.

Lawrence, i was thankful to find out, needs topping off much more often now i'm going to NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana, for those who may not know) twice a week (sometimes more).  #2 Son is recommending a half quart per two trips plus the driving i do around town.  After all, this is one thing you need to know before it gets critically low.

Saturday was a good drive to and from NOLA, and i'm always thankful for a good drive.

Sunday morning, Mr. Cal the dog was very thankful for his walk.  I am thankful as i pulled out of the parking space to take me and Becca to church, it felt as if the Good Lord turned my head and made me look down just in time to see this.

It's Mr. J's Very Important Work Bag.  He was going to take Ms. A's car while she's out of town, but when he pulled it out of the garage, it had a flat tire!  He took his bag and a few other items and went to his truck, setting the bag by the wheel and meaning to put it in after the other items, and then drove off without it.

He's thankful i saw it and brought it to him at church, and i'm thankful, too, as i know how awful it feels to lose something very important.

Annie and i were thankful to visit Ms. D in the evening, and the rest of the family came by, too.

Monday morning, i was thankful Ms. S let me come at 9am and i was done by noon.  This gave me plenty of time to run an errand and then get back to NOLA, and i was thankful to again get there safely.

Grandma was thankful for a bath.

We're thankful she may qualify for some hospice care at home, and i'm thankful i was there when the pharmacy delivered the oxygen machine (like the kind i used to help Ms. SH with before she died), the nebulizer (same), and the suction machine, which the nice person who brought it showed me how to use, and it's all set up for when needed.

Uncle J is thankful i was there to show him how it all works, too.

I got home Tuesday morning and was thankful to spend another lovely day with our Annie.

Once my morning shift at the cat shelter was done, thankfully with no problems, i headed to Ms. G.  As i arrived, she called and asked me to please come to the street behind hers, which i did.

When i got out of the car i heard it, the unmistakable sound of a cat crying from up in a tree.  Ms. G was in the process of cutting down a crepe myrtle tree next to the oak the cat was in.

The cat rescue guy had come the day before and hadn't been able to get his equipment into the oak because it kept getting tangled in the crepe myrtle.  I was thankful to help cut down the tree and get it out of the way, and also get to deliver snacks to Ms. Fiona, who was getting ready to go to a birthday party.

The photo is awful, but you can see how close the poor cat came to falling.  We're thankful once the crepe was gone, the cat rescue guy got into the tree in time and got the friendly little guy down safely.

It's hard to get a picture, he's moving so much.

We're all thankful he's now neutered and up for adoption, and i'm sure he's thankful, too.

Wednesday evening (yes, same day), #2 Son and Daughter-in-Law had plans to go to a concert so this GG (GranGran) was babysitting.

I'm thankful for a fun but tiring evening with them during which Little Ben fussed, ate, urped up almost all of his meal, fussed, ate again, and finally fell asleep, and our Annie fought sleep from 9pm until well after 11pm.  They're a beautiful handful, and i'm thankful i'd have them no other way.

I'm also thankful even though i had to miss Bible study, the teacher does a second class on Zoom which they film and post on the church website, so i can catch up.

The parents came home thankful for a very enjoyable evening out, something they don't get often.

The plan for Thursday was to do Ms. V's place and then go to Kevin and Lenny's shop.

I'm thankful Ms. V's place is going like clockwork most of the time now, and thankful i take an extra half hour to do Carl's room a bit at a time so it will be back in order by the time he comes for his next visit.

When i called to confirm going to the shop to clean, Mr. Kevin told me it wouldn't be needed, he and Mr. Lenny are retiring and selling the business!  It seems the new guy wants to hire employees who will have do the cleaning themselves.

I'm thankful we had the work as long as we did, and very thankful for all the work they've done on our cars over the years.

Friday morning i was thankful to get to prayer group, then run errands, go to the house to take care of Annie, run one more errand with her, and then get to the cat shelter for an evening shift.

We're very thankful there were a lot of people looking and three adoptions, a stellar night.

Please write up your own list and link up to Ten Things of Thankful, where Clark and his co-hosts always have a warm welcome waiting.

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Click here to enter

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Today is:

Bureflux -- Discordian Calendar

Dia de la Bandera Nacional -- Ecuador (Day of the National Flag)

Dominion Day -- New Zealand (trad.)

European Day of Languages -- European Union

Family Health and Fitness Day USA  

Fish Amnesty Day (same as National Hunting and Fishing Day in the US, because it hurts fish to be caught!)

Festival of Venus Genetrix -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Full Harvest Moon a/k/a Full Corn Moon/Indigo Moon/Wise-Crone Moon (with so much food ripe for gathering, harvesting can go on well into the night by the light of the hugely full Harvest Moon)

     Binara Full Moon Poya Day -- Sri Lanka (began yesterday evening)

     Chusok -- South Korea (Harvest Moon Festival; began yesterday, through the 20th; a harvest festival and day to give homage to the ancestors and celebrate family)

     Han'gawi -- North Korea (Harvest Moon Festival; through the 21st; a harvest festival and day to give homage to the ancestors and celebrate family)

     Navajo Sing Festival -- Navajo Native Americans festival in thanksgiving for the harvest, begins at the full moon and goes on for one week 

     Taw Thalin Full Moon -- Myanmar

     Zhongqiu Jie / Chong Chao -- China; Macau; Taiwan (Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival, the birthday of the earth god T'u-ti Kung, celebrating the harvests, family, and eating moon cakes, matchmaking, sky lanterns, Fire Dragon Dances, and more)

International Rabbit Day -- learn to care for these wonderful pets and promote responsible rabbit ownership   

International Tool Day -- internet generated, now gladly embraced by toolmakers

Johnny Appleseed Day -- birth anniversary of John Chapman

Kiwanis Kids' Day -- local clubs sponsor events for kids on the fourth Saturday of September

Mesothelioma Awareness Day -- bringing to light this cancer caused by asbestos exposure 

Monkey King Festival -- China (a celebration of this popular character in East Asian stories, with the best place to see the rituals being the Monkey God Temple at Po Tat Estate in Sau Mau Ping, Kowloon)

National Hunting and Fishing Day -- US   

National Pancake Day

National Public Lands Day -- US (Helping Hands for America's Lands -- a day to volunteer on America's Public Lands; note that entrance fees are waived for this event!) 

National Seat Check Saturday -- US (make sure your child's car seats are secured properly)   

Old Holy Rood Day -- OS calendar (the day blackberries become unsafe for picking) related observance

     Mid-Autumn Day -- Scottish Highlands (traditional; considered the day harts begin to mate and a weather prognostication day)

Search for Your Baseball Cards Again Day -- on lots of trivia sites; recommended because you never know

September Revolution Day -- Yemen (a/k/a First Revolution Day)

Stanislav Petrov Day -- remembering the day in 1983 when Comrade Petrov was given the order to return nuclear fire due to a faulty alarm system; he defied the order for hours, refusing to return fire believing it was a false alarm, which indeed was correct, and his disobedience saved the world!

Sts. Cosmas and Damian's Day (Patrons of apothecaries/druggists/pharmacists, barbers, blind people, chemical industry/manufacturers, doctors/physicians/surgeons, hairdressers, midwives, people with hernias; Alberobello, Italy; Ossimo, Italy; against blindness and pestilence) related observance:

     Begin now to lay in supplies for your Michaelmas supper on the 29th

Sukkot -- Judaism (began at sunset yesterday, through nightfall on Oct. 2)

United States Postal Service Day -- US (the first postmaster general under the current constitution, Samuel Osgood, was appointed this day in 1789)

World Contraception Day -- International

Birthdays Today:

Serena Williams, 1981

Lawrence Leritz, 1962

Melissa Sue Anderson, 1962

Linda Hamilton, 1956

Jane Smiley, 1949

Mary Beth Hurt, 1948

Olivia Newton-John, 1948

Lynn Anderson, 1947

Brian Ferry, 1945

Anne Robinson, 1944

Kent McCord, 1942

Julie London, 1926

Jack LaLanne, 1914

George Gershwin, 1898

T.S. Eliot, 1888

Edmund Gwenn, 1877

John "Johnny Appleseed" Chapman, 1774

St. Francis of Assisi, 1181

Debuting/Premiering Today:

George(Magazine), 1995

"Knight Rider"(TV), 1982

"The Brady Bunch"(TV), 1969

"Hawaii Five-O"(TV), 1968

"Gilligan's Island"(TV), 1964

"The Beverly Hillbillies"(TV), 1962

"West Side Story"(Musical), 1957

"Lucia di Lammermoor"(Opera), 1835

"The Gladiator"(Play), 1831

Today in History:

In keeping a vow he made at the Battle of Pharsalus, Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix, BC 46

Sir Francis Drake returns to England with Spanish treasure, 1580

In a battle between Venetians and Turks in Athens, the Parthenon and Acropolis are seriously damaged, 1687

New Jersey passes a bill requiring a license to practice medicine, 1772

Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first Secretary of State of the US, 1789

Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson proved tomatoes weren't poisonous by eating several on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey, 1820

The Diamond Match Company patents book matches, 1892

New Zealand and Newfoundland each become dominions within the British Empire, 1907

Indonesia is admitted to the United Nations, 1950

Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time, 1973

The United Kingdom agrees to the handover of Hong Kong, 1984

An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse, 1997

Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel, 2008

Georgia changes its second language from Russian to English, 2010

Saudi Arabia announces it is overturning its ban on women driving, the last country in the world to do so, 2017

108 pilot whales survive out of a total of 458 in Australia's largest mass stranding at Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania, 2020

In the first test of the planetary defense system, NASA's DART mission successfully crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos, 2022

World's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamata, aged 88, has his name cleared by a Japanese court after 56 years, 2024