Thursday, July 2, 2020

Line of Work (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Life Is More (Sammy’s Poetry Day) and More Cat Food Wars (Brian’s Thankful Thursday)

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“Are you watching reruns of that game show again, what’s it called, ‘What’s My Line?’” he asked.

“Close, this one is ‘I’ve Got A Secret,’ same idea, the panelists try to guess what people did or who they were,” she responded.

“Well, who was that guy?”

“‘That guy’ was Philo T. Farnsworth, the man who invented television,” at his raised eyebrows, she continued, “yes, really, his life was kind of fascinating in many ways, he even got raided by the Feds during Prohibition when they thought his lab was a cover for a bootlegger operation.”

“So did the panel guess who he was?”

“No, and he won $80 and a carton of the show sponsor’s cigarettes for stumping them — poor guy, his name should be on everyone’s lips as much TV as we all watch, and instead he’s mostly reduced to an answer in trivia contests.”


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


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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.    

While on vacation, i got some photos of a lovely fence, at a cemetery.






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



And can it be
That life clings
Stays stubborn rooted
Fragile yet strong
When light and water get 
Through the cracks
It will spring up
Always with the beauty 
That reminds us all
Life is more than
Mere survival


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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 that i finally thought of using the mini food processor to grind up the canned cat food that comes in chunks.  We have our very skinny elderly cats on canned food once a day to keep their weight up, and it seems to work.  They don’t have a preference for one kind of food, so when we are given free cans of any major brand we use it.

The problem is that if it is anything but pâté food, all Tripod SissyCat does is lick off the gravy and it rather defeats the purpose, she’s not getting enough calories from it that way.  Thus the food processor, which grinds it all up and more of it gets consumed.




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Today is:

Adonia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (date approximate, but always in July, a ritual to honor Adonis)

Distressed Elves' Creditors' Day -- Fairy Calendar

Flag & Anthem Day -- Curacao

Freedom From Fear of Public Speaking Day -- as proposed by Beverly Beuermann-King, because you don't want to blow it when your big opportunity comes by being afraid to speak out!

I Forgot Day (the day to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, or other special days that you forgot during the first half of the year)

National Anisette Day

Remember to Feed the Hummingbirds Day -- internet reminder to be nice to these beautiful creatures

Second Half of the Year Day -- because 2020 is a Leap Year, the second half of the year started at midnight 

St. Swithin's Day (Patron against drought; of Stavenger, England; Winchester, England)

Try to Find Your Slinky Day -- the weird holiday of the day!

Violin Lovers' Day

World UFO Day -- unfortunately, a real day observed by many around the world (on the "anniversary" of the UFO crash in Roswell, if such a thing even happened, which i doubt*) 

*i believe that if there's life elsewhere, it shows its intelligence by staying away from us!


Anniversary Today:

Prince Albert of Belgium marries Paola Ruffo di Calabria, 1959


Birthdays Today:

Lindsay Lohan, 1986
Ashley Tisdale, 1985
Johnny Weir, 1984
Jose, Jr., and Ozzie Canseco, 1964
Jimmy McNichol, 1961
Ron Silver, 1946
Vicente Fox Quesada, 1942
Richard Petty, 1937
Polly Holiday, 1937
Dave Thomas, 1932
Medgar Evers, 1925
Dan Rowan, 1922
Ken Curtis, 1916
Thurgood Marshall, 1908
Jean René Lacoste, 1904
Hermann Hesse, 1877
Thomas Cranmer, 1489


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Andy Williams Show"(TV), 1957
"The Lawrence Welk Show"(TV), 1955
"Finlandia"(Sibelius' Op. 26), 1900


Today in History:

Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine, 1698
Vermont  becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery, 1777
Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection on September 19, 1881
Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque take over the slave ship Amistad, 1893
Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains patent for radio in London, 1897
The first zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany, 1900
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight 1937
The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas, 1962
North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunite to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 1976
The AbioCor  self contained artificial heart is first implanted, 2001
Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon, 2002
Planetoid Pluto's fourth and fifth moons officially receive the names Kerberos and Styx from the International Astronomical Union, 2013
British Petroleum agrees to compensate the US government and states bordering the Gulf of Mexico $18.7 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 2015
British divers discover 12 boys and their coach alive in Tham Luang Nang Non cave, Thailand, after being trapped for 9 days by monsoon flooding, 2018

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

The Monster Sago Palm and the Minuscule Cat (Wordless Wednesday), A Special Message, and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     





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A special message to those from the top of the Northern and Western Hemisphere:  Happy Canada Day!

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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, the prompts are being provided by Cindi and are being posted by Elephant’s Child.          

This week's prompts are:


  • In 60 words or less, write the happiest scene you can.


Have fun.

“Grandma, how much longer ‘til the cookies come out of the oven?”

Laughter.  “We just put them in, child!  Let them get warm, and we will watch them puff up, then settle, and then...”

“We eat!”

“Well, when they cool enough to touch.”

“That’s what dunking in cold milk is for!”

“Then by all means, get the milk, they’re done!”


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Today is:

Canada Day -- Canada

Cherokee Green Corn Ceremony -- honoring maize goddess Selu with thanksgiving for the maize harvest; date approximate, as many towns set their own times to celebrate

Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day -- a great way to start off Ice Cream Month; try a new one and you just might find a new favorite.

Day to Celebrate All the World's Creatures -- commemorates the day in 1975 that endangered species became internationally protected.

Distressed Elves Day -- Fairy Calendar

Doctors' Day -- India

Emancipation Day -- Sint Maarten

Halfway Point of the Year Day -- related observance
     Half-Year Day -- China

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day -- Hong Kong

Hug a Cowboy Day -- always on Canada Day

Independence Day -- Burundi(1962); Rwanda(1962)

Intact Day -- celebrating genital integrity, as far as possible on the calendar from the Feast of the Circumcision on Jan. 1 

International Chicken Wing Day -- some sites say the 2nd, celebrate today or tomorrow, your choice

International Joke Day -- as declared by many internet sites, but i can't find out why today; then again, why not?


International Tartan Day -- anniversary of the repeal, in 1782, of the Act of Proscription which banned the wearing of Tartans; celebrated especially by Scottish diaspora in Australia; New Zealand

July Morning -- Bulgaria (dates back to the '70s, young and old people hitchhike to the Black Sea in late June to greet the dawn of July 1 with Uriah Heep's hit song July Morning; began as a suble anti-communist protest, now in memory of the fall of communism and to celebrate the start of summer vacation)

Keti Koti -- Suriname (Emancipation Day)

Madeira Day -- Madeira

Memorial Day -- Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Mount Fuji Official Climbing Season begins -- Japan (through Aug. 31) 

Moving Day -- Quebec, Canada

National Boating Day -- US

National Ducks and Wetlands Day -- US (presidential designation in 1990)

National Financial Freedom Day -- can't find how this one started, but it's as good a day as any to take a good look at your finances, and start learning how to better manage them.

National Gingersnap Day

Republic Day -- Ghana; Somalia

Sir Seretse Khama Day -- Botswana

Skiraphoria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival of cutting and threshing the grain)

St. Serf of Culross' Day (patron of the Orkney Islands)

Sts. Cosmas and Damian's Day -- Eastern Catholic Churches
     Holy Healers' Day -- Bulgaria (a special festival for the two saints/brothers who were healers; celebrated especially by all healers, fortune-tellers, witches, sorceresses and herbalists)

Territory Day -- British Virgin Islands

U.S. Postage Stamp Day -- first US postage stamp issued this day in 1847

Zip Code Day -- US (inaugural anniversary in 1963; when you mail that letter, zip it up! no zip, slow trip; wrong zip, long trip)


Anniversaries Today:

Prince Albert II of Monaco marries Charlene Whittstock, 2011
Haleakala National Park established, HI, US, 1961
Mammoth Cave National Park established, KY, US, 1941
Dwight D. Eisenhower marries Mamie Geneva Dowd, 1916


Birthdays Today:

Hilary Burton, 1982
Liv Tyler, 1977
Ruud Van Nistelrooy, 1976
Missy Elliott, 1971
Pamela Anderson, 1967
Andre Braugher, 1962
Princess Diana, 1961
Carl Lewis, 1961
Michelle Wright, 1961
Alan Ruck, 1956
Dan Aykroyd, 1952
Deborah Harry, 1945
Karen Black, 1942
Genevieve Bujold, 1942
Twyla Tharp, 1941
Jamie Farr, 1934
Jean Marsh, 1934
Leslie Caron, 1931
Farley Granger, 1925
Olivia DeHavilland, 1916
William James "Willie" Dixon, 1915
Estee Lauder, 1906
Charles Laughton, 1899
Thomas Andrew Dorsey, 1899
Louis Charles Joseph Blériot, 1872
Ignaz Semmelweis, 1818
George Sand, 1804


Debuting/Premiering Today:

CourtTV(Network, now TruTV), 1991
"Nick at Nite"(TV), 1985
"The Liberace Show"(TV), 1952
"Mama"(TV), 1949
NBC(Network, first scheduled TV broadcast ever), 1941


Today in History

Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor, 69
La Noche Triste: a joint Mexican Indian force led by the Aztec ruler Cuitláhuac defeat Spanish Conquistadores led by Hernán Cortés, 1520
Lexell's Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u., 1770
American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 1782
A system of the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales, 1837
U.S. Postage stamps went on sale for the first time, 1847
In the first instance of photojournalism, a French photographer's daguerrotypes of Paris riots were turned into woodcuts so as to be published in the weekly newspaper L'Illustration Journal Universel on this date in 1848
Keti Koti (Emancipation Day) in Suriname, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands, 1863
The British North America Act of 1867 takes effect as the Constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation and the federal dominion of Canada; Sir John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada, 1867
The Philadelphia Zoological Society, the first US zoo, opens; admission twenty-five cents for adults and ten cents for children, 1874
The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States, 1881
SOS is adopted as the international distress signal, 1908
Grant Park Music Festival begins its tradition of free summer symphonic music concert series in Chicago's Grant Park, which continues as the United States' only annual free outdoor classical music concert series, 1935
NBC makes the first scheduled television broadcast, 1941
Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved; since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city), 1943
The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin Royal Family, 1949
Zip Codes are introduced for the U.S.mail, 1963
The first color television transmission in Canada takes place from Toronto, 1966
The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission, 1967
Sony introduces the Walkman, 1979
O Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada, 1980
German re-unification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany, 1990
The People's Republic of China resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule, 1997
Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:28 UTC, 2004
Smoking is banned in all indoor public spaces in England, 2007
The oldest European remains of a white man are discovered in Australia; the Manning River Skull may belong to a man born in 1650, predating the country's history that Captain James Cook was the first to land on Australia's east coast in 1770, 2013
Croatia becomes the twenty-eighth member of the European Union, 2013
Greece becomes the first developed country to default on loans from the International Monetary Fund, 2015
Tedros Adhanom takes office as first African Director-General of the World Health Organization, 2017