Plenty of Kittens (Feline Friday) and Friendly Fill-Ins

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

    

Feline Friday was started by Steve, The Burnt Food Dude, and i'm going to believe it's because he likes cats.

He has handed hosting duties off to Sandee, of Comedy Plus, and it's simple to join, just follow the link to Sandee's page for the rules and the code.

It is kitten season, and the shelter is now open for adoptions again, as long as you don't mind waiting your turn to come in and wearing a mask.

We have plenty of kittens, too:

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

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. __________________ is like trying to nail jello to a wall.

2. _______________never _______________________.

3. If I had a dollar for every time _________, I would be rich.

4. I wish _________ grew on trees.

1. Getting a message across to people who do not want to hear it  is like trying to nail jello to a wall.

2. Can't  never  could do anything.

3. If I had a dollar for every time   i have changed a diaper in my life, or wiped a bottle-baby kitten's bottom,  I would be rich.

4. I wish  a fruit that could impart common sense to the eater  grew on trees.

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

Today is:

15th Khordad National Uprising -- Iran (1963)

Apple II Day -- the Apple II first went on sale today in 1977

    note that some historians say it went on sale June 10, others say the first models were shipped out that day

Arbor Day -- New Zealand

Festival of Popular Delusions Day -- begun as this was the last day before D-Day that the Germans could delude themselves that they could win; thus a day to question your own assumptions and try to align your beliefs with facts and reality

Full Strawberry Moon / Rose Moon; related observances

    Ancient Celtic month Equos (horse-time) begins

    Nayon Full Moon -- Mayanmar

    Poson Full Moon Poya Day -- Sri Lanka

Grundlovsdag -- Denmark and the Faroe Island (Constitution Day)

Indian Arrival Day -- Suriname (marking the arrival of indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent)

Judgement Day -- Fairy Calendar (Nosegays)

Labour Day / Sir Randol Fawkes Day -- Bahamas

Liberation Day -- Seychelles

Lord Buddha's Parinirvana -- Bhutan

Natalicio de Oblang Nguema Mbasogo -- Equatorial Guinea (President's Day)

National Attitude Day -- if this is really a day to celebrate, try to have a positive one

National Donut Day -- US (successor to the original Donut Day begun by the Salvation Army in 1938 to honor the women who served doughnuts to soldiers during WWI and as a fundraiser in Chicago, and it is still used as a fundraiser there for Salvation Army projects; look for a doughnut shop to give out freebies near you)

National Gingerbread Day

National Moonshine Day -- with its own sponsor   

Nones of June -- Ancient Roman Calendar; related observance

    Festival of Semo Sancus -- god of loyalty, honesty and oaths (one of the oldest Roman cults, probably Etruscan or Oscan originally)

St. Boniface's Day (Patron of brewers, file cutters, tailors; Fulda, Germany; Germamy; Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, Canada)

World Environment Day -- UN (this year's theme, "Time for Nature")  

Birthdays Today:

Chad Allen, 1974

Mark Wahlberg, 1971

Brian McKnight, 1969

Kenny G, 1956

Jill Biden, 1951

Suze Orman, 1951

Ken Follett, 1949

Spalding Gray, 1941

Margaret Drabble, 1939

Bill Moyers, 1934

Tony Richardson, 1928

Richard Mcclure Scarry, 1919

William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd, 1895

Panco Villa, 1878

Adam Smith, 1723 (O.S. Date)

Thomas Chippendale, 1718

Pu Songling, 1640

Today in History:

Traditional date for the sinking of Atlantis, 8498BC

Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem  in the Siege of Jerusalem, 70

Kraków, Poland  receives city  rights, 1257

The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched, 1817

Houston, Texas is incorporated by the Republic of Texas, 1837

Denmark  becomes a constitutional monarchy, 1849

Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper, 1851

Denmark  amends its constitution to allow women's suffrage, 1915

Elvis Presley introduces his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements, 1956

The first government of the State of Singapore is sworn in, 1959

The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale, 1977

Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikh religion, 1984

A severe heat wave across Pakistan  and India  reaches its peak, as temperatures exceed 50°C (122°F) in the region, 2003

The planet Venus makes its last transit of the 21st century beginning at 22:09 UTC June 5, and ending 4:49 UTC June 6, 2012

The Swiss vote to reject the referendum to give each citizen a guaranteed income of $2,500 Swiss francs per month, 2015

Puerto Rico declares its Zika virus outbreak to be over, 2017

Montenegro joins NATO, becoming its 29th member, 2017

Verbal Land Mine (Six Sentence Story), A Favorite (Good Fences), Lullaby (Sammy's Poetry Day), and Peace (Brian's Thankful Thursday)

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

    

"This fruit salad is so good, what's this I'm tasting?"

"It's passion fruit, I've never had it before, either, and it's so good!"

"Can we get that back home?"

"I don't know, but I hope so; travel is so broadening, it makes me see there's so much more than just what's in our part of the world."

"Speaking of broadening, you have been trying a lot of new things, you might want to watch out and make sure it doesn't broaden your waist along with your mind."

"Watch it yourself, bub, or tropical vacation notwithstanding, the only passion you're going to get today will be that salad!"

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

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

Gosia at Looking for Identity has taken over Good Fences, and it's now Good Fences Around The World.  Post a picture of a fence or gate, link back to her blog, and go visit other blogs to see what interesting fences there are out in this big world.    

It's been a minute since i posted a white picket, my favorite.

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

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

Close your eyes,

Sleepy child,

Gently rock,

Meek and mild,

Dreamboat carries

Cares away,

Holds you 'til

Break of day.

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

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

My thankful today is that protests here have stayed peaceful, and i pray they continue to stay that way if more are planned.  My heart aches for those for whom this has not been the case, and i pray peace over those places.

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

Today is:

Audacity to Hope Day -- to encourage all to have the audacity to keep hope

Emancipation Day -- Tonga (trad.)

Fardagar -- Traditional Icelandic Calendar (time when farm workers moved from one farm to another, the time to settle debts, and until the 20th-Century, the day to start the fiscal year)

Festival for Hercules Custos -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Hercules the Custodian)

Flag Day -- Estonia

Flag Day -- Finland (Armed Forces observe the birth anniversary of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim)

Hug Your Cat Day -- yet another date for this noted on many sites; if you celebrate all of them, your cat will be well hugged!    

International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression -- UN

Jarila's Day -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan Calendar (Festival of Jarila, god of the sun and fertility)

Lassie Day -- the first dog to play the role of Lassie, in the movie Lassie, Come Home, was born this day in 1940

National Cheese Day -- not to be confused with Cheese Lover's Day earlier in the year

National Cognac Day

National Frozen Yogurt Day -- not to be confused with the Frozen Yogurt Day celebrated on Feb. 6 in Los Angeles, where the temperatures make such a thing possible

National Unity Day -- Hungary

Old Maid's Day -- supposedly established after WWII, when there were so many eligible young ladies who wanted to start families now that the boys were coming home

Plynteria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival in Athens in honor of Athena; date approximate)

St. Petroc's Day (Patron of Cornwall and Wales, as well as many locations in Cornwall, Wales, and England, and Saint-Meen, France)

Birthdays Today:

Evan Lysacek, 1985

Russell Brand, 1975

Angelina Jolie, 1975

Noah Wyle, 1971

James Callis, 1971

Scott Wolf, 1968

Cecilia Bartoli, 1966

Sam Harris, 1961

Eldra DeBarge, 1961

Keith David, 1956

Parker Stevenson, 1953

George Noory, 1950

Bettina Gregory, 1946

Michelle Phillips, 1944

Joyce Meyer, 1943

Freddy Fender, 1937

Bruce Dern, 1936

John Drew Barrymore, 1932

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, 1928

Dennis Weaver, 1924

Robert Merrill, 1919

Rosalind Russell, 1907

George III, 1738

Aesop, BCE620 (not certain, but close enough)

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Born in the USA"(Album release), 1984

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan(Film), 1982

"Cavalcade of Stars"(TV), 1949

Today in History:

Chinese astronomers make the first recording of a solar eclipse, BC781

Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the first English colony on Roanoke Island, old Virginia (now North Carolina), 1584

Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan, 1615

New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada taken from the Acadians, 1760

A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in history, 1769

The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon), 1783

Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain, 1792

The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title, 1878

Henry Ford test drives his first prototype automobile, the Ford Quadricycle, 1896

Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage, 1912

A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain, 1973

The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, 1989

Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, 1989

Falcon 9 Flight 1 was the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket,2010

Negotiations break down between Greece's leftist Syriza government and the European Union regarding issuance of additional bailout funding, 2015

Talk About Great Branding (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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

  

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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

Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, i am providing the prompts.  You can write your story on your blog and leave a link here, or write your story in the comments, your choice.

Pick words from one list, or both, use them all, or use none.  The whole point is to get us writing, so please have fun with it!

The words for this week:

union

holiday

rational

recover

collect

headline

and/or

global

perception

sin

wrong

finance

gaffe

When i am asked to provide the Words for Wednesday prompts, which i found out last year i really enjoy doing, i sometimes turn to an internet random word generator.  That’s what i did this week, and the resulting list up there has me wondering just how random it is, but that’s a discussion for another time.

With the word HEADLINE and the others in the mix, this is something i just cannot avoid.  It’s a topic i addressed once before, in a different way, and my opinion has not changed.      

Racism is, pure and simple, WRONG.  It’s not a minor problem, not a social GAFFE, not acceptable in any way, shape or form.

It is, to use an old time word a lot of people do not like any more, a SIN.

Science tells us that every single one of us, when we look at a person for the very first time, make a snap decision about that person based on what we see.  The mind does this in less than one second, before RATIONAL thought can kick in.  In a case where our lives might be in danger, this can be a good thing.

In a case where we are more than likely not in immediate danger, this PERCEPTION needs to be grabbed and consciously suspended until we can RECOVER our higher thinking selves and actually COLLECT pertinent information about the person.

It is a GLOBAL and universal reaction we can’t help to form a snap judgment based on what we see.  It is the right and good and proper thing to realize what this reaction is, a fight or flight programmed brain making sure there is no danger.

Then unless the person is brandishing a weapon at us or threatening in some other way, throw that preprogrammed response out and make the intelligent choice to learn more about the person.

For the sake of this country remaining a UNION, something has to change.  We have to learn to nip every thought of discrimination of every kind in the bud and bring our higher thinking selves to the front.

To put it in Bible words, it’s called taking every thought captive to obedience to the law of love.

In a couple of weeks, we will go on HOLIDAY as people used to call going on vacation.  Grandpa will FINANCE it, as he does each year for the whole family.  We were not sure it would happen at all this year, with the quarantines.  For the most part, that is no longer a concern.  We will be careful and stay safe distances from others and i go mostly to nap in the ocean breezes anyway, something best done alone.

The pandemic may not stop our vacation, but now i have to worry that the problem that should have been licked a generation or more ago, racism, might.

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

Today is:

Broken Dolls Day -- Japan (all broken dolls are taken by their children to monks for burial)

Callynteria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (a service of atonement and cleaning Athena's temple; date approximate)

Chimborazo Day -- to publicize that while Mt. Everest may be the highest, the top of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest from the center of the earth

Clean Air Day -- Canada

Dr. Charles Drew Day -- honoring the man who made blood transfusions possible

Festival to Bellona -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of war)

Global Running Day  

Impersonate Authority Day -- at your own risk, i will not bail you out just because i noted an internet holiday and you decided to celebrate it ;)

Jack Jouett Day -- Virginia (the "Paul Revere" of his day and place, rode to warn Governor Thomas Jefferson that the British were coming, 1781)

Mabo Day -- Australia

Martyr's Day -- Uganda

National Chocolate Macaroon Day

National Egg Day

Opium Suppression Movement Day -- Taiwan

Pull Your Pants Up Day -- internet generated, various dates given, and some are trying to make it a national movement; to encourage young men to pull up their pants for 24 hours and see if they enjoy having both hands free

Repeat Day -- i said, "repeat day" (no, i don't know who comes up with this stuff, sometimes; if i do, i try to place the blame appropriately)

St. Clotilde's Day (Patron of adopted children, brides, disappointing children, exiles, parenthood, parents of large families, queens, widows; against the death of children)

St. Kevin of Glendaulough's Day (Patron of blackbirds; Dublin, Ireland; Glendaulough, Ireland; Ireland)

Tailor's Day -- the first Wednesday of June is noted on many sites as the day to thank your tailor

Worst Day in the Fairy Year -- Fairy Calendar (must be nice to know when your worst day will be)

Anniversaries Today:

U.S. Air Force Academy first graduating class, 1959

The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson, 1937

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo founded, 17

Birthdays Today:

Lalaine, 1987

Rafael Nadal, 1986

Anderson Cooper, 1967

Charles Hart, 1961

Scott Valentine, 1958

Deniece Williams, 1951

Suzi Quatro, 1950

Curtis Mayfield, 1942

Larry McMurtry, 1936

Norman Brinker, 1931

Raul Castro, 1931

Chuck Barris, 1929

Colleen Dewhurst, 1926

Allen Ginsberg, 1926

Tony Curtis, 1925

Leo Gorcey, 1917

Josephine Baker, 1906

Dr. Charles Drew, 1904

Ransom E. Olds, 1864

Jefferson Davis, 1808

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Dragnet"(Radio), 1951

“Casey at the Bat”(Publication date), 1888

Today in History:

French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy, 1140

Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain, 1539 

Construction of the oldest stone church in French North America, Notre-Dame-des-Anges, begins at Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, 1620

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo is founded in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, 1770

President John Adams moves to Washington, D.C., to live in a tavern (the White House wasn't ready), 1800

In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, which prompts the First Opium War, 1839

In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, Cree leader Big Bear escapes the North West Mounted Police, 1885

The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in the San Francisco Examiner, 1888

The coast to coast Canadian Pacific Railway is completed, 1889

One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, British Columbia, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa, Ontario, 1935

Launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew, which included the first space walk by an American, 1965

A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels of oil to be spilled into the waters, the worst oil spill ever recorded, 1979

SkyDome is officially opened in Toronto, Ontario, 1989

Aboriginal Land Rights are granted in Australia in Mabo v Queensland (1988), a case brought by Eddie Mabo, 1992

USS Carter Hall engages pirates after they board the Danish ship Danica White off the coast of Somalia, 2007

A pageant on London's River Thames marks the highpoint of a series of events celebrating The Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, 2012

Three of the most extremely well-preserved and most complete triceratops specimens ever found are unearthed in Wyoming, 2013

The Amazing world of Dr Seuss Museum opens in Springfield, Massachusetts, 2017

Guatemala's Fuego volcano erupts, causing widespread death and destruction, 2018