Doesn’t Play Nice (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy’s Poetry Day and Brian’s Thankful Thursday

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Although in my better moments i know it is not true, sometimes i wonder if no good deed goes unpunished.

On Tuesday, a fine autumn day, i decided to walk across the street to our polling place and do my civic duty by casting a ballot.  I had done my due diligence by studying the slate of candidates for each office and thoroughly familiarizing myself with the amendments and propositions, as i figure if i'm going to vote i might as well be an informed and conscientious voter.

All was going well, the line was not long, the bit of time spent in line was passed talking to a neighborhood friend i haven't seen in a while, i had my ID at hand and then i bent over to sign the book and felt a "pop" in my back and the pain started.

Fighting for control, i signed, got in the booth and used my cheat sheet i always take with me to quickly make my selections, thanked the poll workers and got my "I voted" sicker, then got a ride home from that neighborhood friend as there was no way i'd have been able to walk back.

Be careful out there, people, back pain doesn't play nice.

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

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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!

Some people like these horizontal style fences, and while they're okay, all i can think of is that if we'd had such a fence when the kids were growing up, they'd have used it as a ladder and been out of the back yard in a heartbeat!

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

they say, "grow up!" but we refuse

to get stale and old we do not choose

we'll splash in the puddles on a rainy day

have fun in life along our way

they say, "grow up!" but we already did

and now we're going to throw off the lid

enjoy the times that now remain

splashing the puddles here in the rain

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

Today i am thankful for ice packs and being able to use my work apron to hold one tight against my back as i work.

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Today is:

Area Code Day -- US (went into effect this day in 1951)

Ashi Vanguhi -- Ancient Persian Calendar/Zoroastrian (celebration of Ashi Vanguhi, or Holy Blessing; date approximate, but always two days after a full moon around this time of year)

Day of Russian Militsiya -- Russia

Dia de la Tradicion -- Argentina (birth anniversary of Jose Hernandez)

Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Beacon Lighting -- Split Rock Lighthouse, Two Harbors, MN, US (memorial for the Edmund Fitzgerald and all who have lost their lives in Great Lakes shipwrecks)

First Cry of Independence Day / Los Santos Uprising Day -- Panama (an official flag day)

Forget-Me-Not Day -- informal day to spend a bit of time with relatives you don't see often

Goddess of Reason's Day (Revolutionary France)

Guinness World Records' Day -- celebrating ordinary people who do extraordinary things, go try for a record! anniversary of the day in 1951 that Sir Hugh Beaver got the idea to create a book supplying answers to much debated questions, such as which game birds are the fastest fliers

     The Guinness World Records Book now holds the title of the best-selling copyrighted book of all time, and is one of the most frequently stolen books from US libraries!

Hari Pahlawan -- Indonesia (Heroes' Day/Warrior's Day)

Martini -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (beginning of winter festival that starts on Martinmas Eve)

Maputo Day -- Maputo, Mozambique

National Toothpaste Appreciation Day -- not official, but i'm sure the dentifrice industry loves this one

National Vanilla Cupcake Day

Sleep Dangerously Night -- internet generated, a night to switch sides of the bed with your spouse and see who falls out of bed first

St. Andrew Avellino's Day (Patron of apoplexics, for a holy death, stroke victims; Badlato, Naples, and Sicily, Italy; stroke victims; for a holy death; against apoplexy, strokes, and sudden death)

St. Martin's Eve -- Germany; Portugal (Martimas Eve)

USMC Day -- US (anniversary of founding in 1775, includes the Marine Corps Birthday Ball)

Wish-Spoiling Sports Day -- Fairy Calendar (Imps, Gremlins, and grumpy Goblins) 

World Science Day for Peace and Development -- UN

Anniversaries Today:

Establishment of Badlands National Park, SD, US, 1978

Establishment of the United States Marine Corps, 1775

Birthdays Today:

Ellen Pompeo, 1969

Vanessa Angel, 1963

Neil Gaiman, 1960

MacKenzie Phillips, 1959

Sinbad, 1956

Roland Emmerich, 1955

Ann Reinking, 1949

Donna Fargo, 1949

Tim Rice, 1944

Russel Charles Means, 1940

Russel Means, 1939

Roy Scheider, 1932

Richard Burton, 1925

Jane Froman, 1907

Claude Rains, 1889

Friedrick Voon Schiller, 1759

Oliver Goldsmith, 1728

William Hogarth, 1697

Martin Luther, 1483

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Microsoft Windows, 1983 (sometimes so slow, it's called "win-doze")

"Sesame Street", 1969

Today in History:

Rene Descartes has the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy, 1619

The Dutch formally cede New Netherlands to the English; it is renamed New York, 1674

France ends forced worship of God, substitute the Goddess of Reason, 1793

The US state of Kentucky outlaws dueling, 1801

Stanley presumes that he has met Livingston in Ujiji, Central Africa, 1871

The first Woman's Christian Temperance Union meeting is held in Boston, 1891

The first Gideon Bible is put in a hotel room, 1908

Hirohito ascends the throne as Emperor of Japan, 1928

The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston, 1958

The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board, 1975

A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, Canada derails in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history, 1979

The communist regime of Bulgaria falls, 1989

The "Codex Leicester", the only Leonardo da Vinci manuscript owned in the United States and the only one in the world still in private hands, was sold at auction to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who paid $30.8 million, 1994

Thousands of people people march toward the royal palace of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur to hand over a memorandum to the King demanding electoral reform, 2007

Vietnam evacuates about 600,000 citizens under the threat of Typhoon Haiyan, 2013

The Collins English Dictionary chooses "Lockdown" as the word of the year, 2020

China and the US announce plans to work together on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, 2021

Lemonade Central, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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In this week’s episode of “life is handing out so many lemons there has to be lemonade here somewhere,” also known as Thankful Day, let’s see how many thankful things there are in spite of the sour stuff.

Sweetie wears glasses.  He has always, since he was 6 months of age, worn glasses.  After many ups and downs, he is legally blind in his right eye, and his left eye sees 20/20 with correction.

He’s a bit of a diva (musician), so his glasses need to be frames we can afford and that he can live with design-wise.  He found a pair and ordered them, and the shop was going to reshape his still good glass lenses to fit.

Of course, the nice man doing the work chipped his left lens.  The one for his good eye.

We’re thankful he can still see at all in spite of everything that has happened to his vision over the years, thankful he found a pair of frames he likes that we could reasonably afford, thankful the chip is bad enough that the lens has to be replaced but not so bad as to be unusable meanwhile, and glad the shop admitted the chip was their fault and let him order two more pairs of the frames with the new poly-special-whatever lenses instead of glass for their cost.  What could have ended up being a $700+ problem (his glass lenses cost a lot) wound up being two pair of really good glasses for under $200.  They’ll be in soon, too, they covered for express service.

My good friend DiDreaming has not been feeling very well and received a serious diagnosis.  She’s finally home from the hospital, and i’m thankful i’ve been able to set up my work next week so that i can drive down to the coast and visit her for a day.  She and i both need it.

Many of you read the Six Sentence Story from Thursday and know about The Baby.  There's another thankful, that Baby actually learned, after i'd been going over there for a couple of years, to like me.  While she'll be missed, i am thankful she's not suffering any longer.

 This brings us to our cat, Horizon the Hider, so called because of his feral and timid nature.  He'd been getting thinner and weaker despite all we could do, and Sweetie was especially heartbroken to face it.  Horizon was his special cat, but when Horizon was staggering trying to get to the food bowl the other day, even he agreed it was time.

Horizon, giving his opinion of the photographer.

The thankful things are that Sweetie recognized it was time, the vet had a time slot available that i could get to after work, and that Horizon was kept comfortable throughout.  The fact that Dr. Bea is going to bury him out on the farm with Badlands Blackie and a few of our other cats is a bonus.  Sweetie loves the idea of our cats being where there is grass and a pond and plenty of space.

Yesterday morning, standing by the table getting ready to leave for work, my back "went out," as we say.  Suddenly it felt like someone was stabbing an ice pick into my lower back, and i couldn't move.  The thankful things are that Sweetie grabbed me a naproxen right away, we had some cold packs in the freezer so i could use one and take some with me to work, and the naproxen and cold packs between them kept me numb enough to do what i needed to do.

A final thankful thing, we've had good weather, which is always icing on the cake.

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

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Today is:

Abolition Day -- Saint Barthelemy

Cephalopod Awareness Days:  Nautilus Night -- celebrating the most intelligent invertebrates in the world; today, celebrate all of the lesser-known extant cephalopods

Community Day -- Valencia, Spain

Curious Events Holiday -- Fairy Calendar

Establishment of the Samitinget in Norway -- Sami People's Parliament

Fall Astronomy Day -- Bringing Astronomy to the People (local astronomical societies, planetariums, museums and observatories sponsor public viewings, presentation, workshops, etc., to increase public awareness of astronomy and our amazing universe) 

Saturday at or before the first quarter moon between mid-September and mid-October 

     sponsored by The Astronomical League; find out what your local astronomy society is doing today, and go enjoy

Feast of Abraham the Patriarch -- Christian

Festival for Fausta Felicitas -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of good luck and joy)

Festival for Venus -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Give Peace a Chance Day / Instant Karma Day -- in honor of the birth of John Lennon

Guayaquil Independence Day -- Ecuador

Independence Day -- Uganda(1962)

Korean Alphabet Day -- Korea (Hangul Nal)

Leif Erickson Day -- Iceland; Norway; Minnesota and Wisconsin, US

Messenger Appreciation Day -- 10/9 in radio talk is a request to repeat information

Moldy Cheese Day (sorry, but i do not like the stinky, moldy cheeses, at least not the heavier ones; if you enjoy them, then by all means you may have my share!)

National Chess Day -- US (declared by President Ford in 1976) 

National Day of Honor -- Peru (sometimes translated as Day of Dignity; commemorates the nationalization of the countries' oil fields)

National Submarine/Grinder/Hoagie/Hero/PoBoy/Pierogi Day -- each of these has its own special day, but today you get to pick which one you want

Ruler's Birthday Holiday -- SRW, Malaysia 

Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word -- Nashville, TN, US (through Sunday)

St. Denis' Day (Patron of possessed people; France; Paris, France; against frenzy, headaches, rabies, and strife)

St. Dionysius the Areopagite's Day (considered the first Bishop of Athens, mentioned in Acts 17; Patron of Zakynthos Island, Greece; against headaches and the devil)

St. Louis Bertrand's Day (Patron of Caribbean vicariates; Columbia; Dominican novices)

Takayama Matsuri Autumn Festival -- Takayama, Japan (ancient, elaborate floats parade through the old city; through tomorrow)

Universal Music Day -- celebrate music as our universal language

World Post Day / Universal Postal Union Day -- UN

Ziua Nationala de Comemorare a Holocaustului -- Romania (National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust)

Anniversaries Today:

Mission San Francisco de Asis, the oldest building in the city of San Francisco and now called Mission Delores, is founded, 1776

King Louis XII of France marries Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII of England, 1514

Birthdays Today:

Zachary Ty Bryan, 1981

Brandon Routh, 1979

Eddie Guerrero, 1967

David Cameron, 1966

Michael Pare, 1959

Mike Singletary, 1958

Tony Shalhoub, 1953

Scott Bakula, 1954

Sharon Osbourne, 1952

Robert Wuhl, 1951

Jackson Browne, 1948

John Entwistle, 1944

Brian Lamb, 1941

Joe Pepitone, 1940

John Lennon, 1940

Russell Myers, 1938

Donald Sinden, 1923

Jacques Tati, 1908

Bruce, Catton, 1899

Alfred Dreyfus, 1859

Camille Saint-Saens, 1835

Mary Ann Shadd Cary, 1823 (with her husband, the first black newspaper publishers in the US)

Robert de Sorbon, 1201 (founded Sorbonne University, Paris)

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"High Button Shoes"(Musical), 1949

"The Iceman Cometh"(Play), 1946

"June Moon"(Play), 1929

"Topaz"(Play)1928

Today in History:

Leif Ericson discovers "Vinland" (somewhere in New England or Nova Scotia, possibly?), 1000

Leif Ericson lands in L'Anse aux Meadows, Canada, a definitive European landing in the "New World", 1003

The Korean Hangual alphabet is devised, 1446

Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land, 1635

Collegiate School of CT (Yale University) is chartered in New Haven, 1701

Father Francisco Palou founds Mission San Francisco de Asis in what is now San Francisco, California, 1776

City of Hobart, Tasmania, founded, 1804

Official opening of the University of Ghent, 1817

Isaac Singer patents the sewing machine motor, 1855

Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass., patents the first Calliope, 1855

The first US underground pipeline for carrying oil is laid in Pennsylvania, 1865

Aaron Montgomery starts the mail order business that will later become Montgomery Ward, 1872

The Universal Postal Union is created as part of the Treaty of Berne, 1874

The first 2-way telephone conversation over outdoor wires occurs, 1876

Washington Monument opens to the public, 1888

Woodrow Wilson becomes the first US president to attend a World Series Game, 1915

National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) forms, 1926

Hoover Dam begins transmitting electricity to L.A., 1936

A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia, 1967

The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia, 1970

Abolition of capital punishment in France, 1981

A 13 kilogram (est.) fragment of the Peekskill meteorite lands in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family's 1980 Chevrolet Malibu, 1992

North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device, 2006

First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecrafts as part of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, 2009

Women's rights and education activist Malala Yousafzai is shot three times by a Taliban gunman as she tried to board her school bus in Swat district of northwest Pakistan, 2012

Producer Harvey Weinstein is fired from The Weinstein Company after allegations of sexual abuse, 2017

The Nobel Prize for Chemistry is awarded to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their work with lithium-ion batteries, Goodenough  becoming the oldest-ever Laureate at the age of 97, 2019