Too Complicated (Cajun Joke), Sunday Selections and Sunday Selfie

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Just because Sandee of Comedy Plus is no longer hosting a Silly Sunday blog hop, do not expect me to quit telling Cajun jokes, especially as it has now become a habit.

Grandpa and Uncle J have completely different ideas about how long food is "good," with Grandpa saying, "Ah, it's still fine," and Uncle J already ready to have thrown it out two days ago.

Boudreaux be hangin' in de kitchen sayin' he be hungry, he wants him a snack befo' supper be ready.

Clothile say, "You kin have dem noodles and sauce dat be lef' in dere."

An' Boudreaux say, "Do dat still be good from las' week?  Or do you be tryin' to kill me?"

An' Clothile say, "Mias!  If'n I be's wantin' you dead, food poison takes too long, dere be easier ways!"

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Sunday Selections was started as a way for bloggers to use photos that might otherwise just languish in their files.  The rules have been relaxed, and it is now simply a showcase for your photos, new or old, good or bad, although nothing rude, please.  It was hosted by River, who still participates, and is now hosted by Elephant's Child.     http://river-driftingthroughlife.blogspot.com  https://myjustsostory.blogspot.com/ 

Last week, i had to feature the snow.  This week, it's things my camera caught before and after.  

Just a few days before, it still looked like autumn here.  

Just a few days after, on our walk with Mr. Cal, you'd never have known it was a winter wonderland not long before.

These are from the church missions conference.

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This week, i  had to ask who wanted to join the Kitties Blue at The Cat On My Head for their Sunday Selfies Blog Hop.   

First i asked Jack, but he's scared of the cone he has to wear for his slight foot injury and his answer was to back away.

Then i called Abby, and she answered by jumping on the couch and smiling.

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It's Groundhog Day/Hedgehog Day/Badger Day -- what animal you looked to in order to predict the weather depended on where you lived.  It's also called Hromnice in the Czech Republic (hrom = thunder, a weather forecasting day).

This year, what will it be?  If you have dark, dreary, wintry weather today and not a shadow cast anywhere, winter is "spending itself out" and things will start to improve in a gradual rise toward spring in just over six weeks.  If you have a beautiful, sunny day today and see your shadow and everything else's shadow, too, wintry weather is going to come roaring back and you will have six more weeks of cold and bluster and storm until spring commences.

At least, that's the theory.

Thanks to Barb Kowalik and The Cat Blogosphere for the event badge.         

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Today is:

Anniversary of Treaty of Tartu -- Estonia

Bonza Bottler Day™

British Yorkshire Pudding Day -- UK (celebrating this delicious traditional dish, and here's how to make it right)   

Candlemas -- Christian -- or Presentation of Our Lord (f/k/a the Purification of the Virgin Mary) - commemorates the presentation of Jesus in the Temple and purification of Mary on the 40th day after the birth of Jesus. Candles have been blessed on this day since the 11th century, and this was the original forecaster, “If Candlemas is fair and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.”

     Bank Holiday -- Liechtenstein

     Candelaria Festival -- Puno, Peru (Virgen de la Candelaria, through the 16th)

     Dia de la Candelaria/Virgin of Candelaria -- Mexico; Spain

     La Fete de la Chandeleur -- Canada; France

     Matka Boska Gromniczna (Mother of God of the Blessed Thunder Candle) -- Poland

Dump Your Significant Jerk Day -- beginning of Dump Your Significant Jerk Week; make a resolve and do it now, before Valentine's Day

Festival of Juno Februa -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Juno as goddess of motherly and matrimonial love)

Four Chaplains Sunday -- Interfaith 

Igbi -- Shaitli and Kituri among the Avar ethnic group, Dagestan, Russia (midwinter celebration, through the 5th, which is the first day the sun is expected to return to shine on the towns here)

Imbolc/Sughnassad -- Pagan/Wiccan (Northern Hemisphere/Southern Hemisphere)

     Brigmid -- Druid Calendar, also called Feast of Imbolc, celebrated later as St. Bridget's Day, but originally a festival for Brigid, (also known as Brighid, Bríde, Brigit, Brìd) goddess of poetry, healing, and smithcraft.  It is always halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, so some years it is on Feb. 1 with St. Brigid's Day

     Disting/Charming of the Plough -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan (a feast of new beginnings and spring)

     Serpent Day -- Celtic (The tradition was that on this day, the Brigmid, snakes or badgers would come out of their winter dens and predict the weather; perhaps a precursor to North America's Groundhog Day.)

     Wives' Feast Day -- Northern England (ancient celebration in association with Imbolc)

Inventors' Day -- Thailand

Le Jour des Crepes -- France (Crepes Day, as crepes are traditionally served on Candlemas; if you can flip the crepe pan and catch the crepe in it with your right hand, while holding a gold coin in your left, you will become rich this year!)

National Heavenly Hash Day

Presentation of Christ in the Temple -- Anglican Catholic Christian

Sled Dog Day -- anniversary of the arrival, in 1925, of diphtheria antitoxin in Nome, Alaska; in memory of the sled dogs, especially lead dogs Togo and Balto, who made it possible

St. Cornelius the Centurion's Day (the Cornelius converted by St. Paul in the Book of Acts)

Veja Diena -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (day of wind, with rituals performed to assure no wind damage next summer)

World Wetlands Day -- UN (the 2025 theme is "Wetlands for our Future: Sustainable Livelihoods"

Zacchaeus Sunday -- Orthodox Christian

Anniversaries Today:

Marina Ogilvy (daughter of Princess Alexandra) weds Paull Mowatt, 1990

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) marries Olivia Langdon in Elmira, NY, 1870

Birthdays Today:

Shakira, 1977

Michael T. Weiss, 1962

Christie Brinkley, 1954

Ina Garten, 1948

Farah Fawcett, 1947

Graham Nash, 1942

David Jason, 1940

Tom Smothers, 1937

Les Dawson, 1934

Stan Getz, 1927

Elaine Stritch, 1925

James Dickey, 1923

Liz Smith, 1923

Ayn Rand, 1905

George “Papa Bear” Halas, 1895

William Rose Benét, 1886

James Joyce, 1882

Solomon R. Guggenheim,1861

Toyotomi Hideyoshi,1536 (Japan's second "great unifier")

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Rich Little Show"(TV), 1975

"The Midnight Special"(TV), 1973

"And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little"(Play), 1971

"What's My Line?"(TV), 1950

"Le Dame aux Camelias"(Play, Dumas, fils), 1848

"Artaxerxes"(Opera, Thomas Arnes), 1762

Today in History:

Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths promulgates The Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum) a collection of Roman law, 506

Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1536

New Amsterdam (later New York) is incorporated as a city, 1653

The first leopard is exhibited in the US, in Boston (admission 25 cents), 1802

Russian settlers establish the Ft. Ross trading post north of San Francisco, 1811

Jonathan Martin sets York Cathedral afire, does £60,000 damage, 1829

The first Chinese workers arrive in San Francisco, 1848

The first public men's toilet in Britain opens, on Fleet Street in London, 1852

Samuel Clemens uses the pen name Mark Twain for the first time, 1863

James Oliver invents the removable tempered steel plow blade, 1869

The SS Strathleven arrives in London with the first frozen mutton imported from Australia, 1880

The Knights of Columbus forms in New Haven, Connecticut, 1882

The first official Groundhog Day is observed in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, 1887

The bottle cap with cork seal is patented by William Painter of Baltimore, 1892

The longest boxing match under modern rules takes place in Nameoki, Illinois; 77 rounds between Harry Sharpe and Frank Crosby, 1892

The first movie close-up, of a man sneezing, is made at the Edison Studio in West Orange, NJ, 1893

The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia's capital, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne, 1899

Queen Victoria's funeral takes place, 1901

Musher Gunner Kaasan and his sled team, led by Balto, finish the serum run from Nenana to Nome, Alaska, delivering the much needed diphtheria medication (inspiration for the Iditarod), 1925

Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine, 1935

The Groundhog Day gale hits the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada, 1976

F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to function legally and promises to release Nelson Mandela, 1990

Iran launches its first domestically made satellite, Omid, into orbit, 2009

All 955 miners are rescued from the Beatrix gold mine in Welkom town, South Africa, after 2 days underground, 2018

More than 40 mummies from around 323-30 BC are found at a burial site at the Tuna el-Gebel archaeological site south of Cairo, Egypt, 2019

Palindrome Day:  today's date, 02/02/2020, reads the same forward and backward, whether you are putting the order as month/day or day/month; the last time this happened was 11/11/1111, 2020

Baby Steps Toward Seeing Clearly, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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It's Thankful Day and there's plenty, as always, starting with last weekend.

Thanks to the mouse eating the dishwasher line and flooding Grandma and Grandpa's kitchen and more, the negotiations with the insurance over what will and won't be covered are ongoing, but we're thankful Uncle J was able to go ahead and order a new fridge, oven/range, and dishwasher, the latter of which he will temporarily install himself so they won't be without one.

Because of plans for Monday, when i got back from NOLA i went and took care of my Monday afternoon client's house.  I was thankful Ms. S allowed me to do it and thankful i was able to still do an extra long work day.

There was only one church service Sunday, Mr. Cal hereby registers his thankfulness for the extra long walk he gets when this happens.

After the service, again because Monday would be otherwise occupied, i went and took care of Carl's place.

I was most thankful to not miss the work, as we had enough of that with the snow the week prior.

Monday morning i was thankful i did as my doctor had instructed and took my blood pressure medication early.

The big day, cataract surgery day, had finally arrived, and i was thankful it would soon be over.

I am thankful for a good doctor who is very experienced, as not only did i feel what was going on, i had a feeling something was wrong.  Indeed, the next day he told me it was a very, very tough cataract to get out.

When the bandages came off Tuesday, i'm thankful i was able to see some and i'm thankful it's been a bit better each day.

I was also thankful to get to go be with my little Annie that day, wearing an eye shield just to protect it.

I'm thankful the pain is less now and the eye shield hides how bruised and awful it looks.

Back to work Wednesday went pretty well, and i'm thankful Ms. G had me only lift the rug edges to clean under them instead of having to roll them up and remove them as i'm not supposed to lift that much.

Ms. V was up early on Thursday, for which i am thankful because it meant i got done a bit early for the day.  Also, she was okay with me simply mopping the kitchen instead of getting on hands and knees and scrubbing and i'm thankful because i think it would have been too much, too soon.

While at Ms. V's, i got a call from Ms. JAI.  She had an accident, drove her car through her garage wall and into her closet.  I'm thankful i was able to call Mr. DE and give him her name and number so she could have a contractor she could trust to take care of this situation.

Sweetie helped me Friday at Ms. GA's place and i was thankful as there was a church ladies' gathering and i was able to go for a while after work.

The shelter had lots of people looking at cats and a couple of adoptions and we were very thankful all the cats which tried to escape their rooms were caught without much trouble and put back where they belonged.

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.   

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

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Today is:

Air Force Day -- Nicaragua

Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery -- Mauritius

Be An Encourager Day/Inspire Your Employees to Excellence Day -- begun by ecard companies; send someone an encouraging word today

Candlemas Eve

Cross-Quarter Day of Imbolc/Sughnassad -- various celebrations through the 2nd

Dignity Action Day -- UK (aiming to ensure people who use care services are treated as individuals and are given choice, control, and a sense of purpose in their daily lives)

Federal Territory Day -- Kuala Lumpur, Labuan, and Putrajaya, Malaysia

Festival of the North -- Ketchikan, AK (month long celebration of the arts in Alaska, including a wearable art show, ballet performances, and more)

Freedom Day -- US (anniversary of the approval of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery)

G.I. Joe Day -- the action hero first went on sale this day in 1964

Heroes' Day -- Rwanda

Hula in The Coola Day -- sponsored by iparty.com; a day to laugh at winter doldrums and escape the cold for a bit -- warm up the house, put on your shorts and have a luau!

Independence Day -- Nauru

Kalends of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also

     Festival of Helernus (god of vegetables and the underworld)

National Baked Alaska Day

National Storytelling Week -- UK (the Society for Storytelling encourages you to celebrate one of the most ancient art forms; through Feb. 9)  

Robinson Crusoe Day -- anniversary of the 1709 rescue of Alexander Selkirk, whose story inspired the novel Robinson Crusoe; a day to be adventurous and self-reliant

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Day -- the Dominion Police and the North-West Mounted Police officially merged on this day in 1920 to form the "Mounties"

Solo Diners' Eat Out Week -- sooner or later, everyone faces the challenge of eating out alone, so go enjoy doing so, celebrating this lifestyle skill; sponsored by SoloDining.com

Spunky Old Broads' Day (also the start of Spunky Old Broads' Month) -- a day for women over 50 to resolve to live a regret free life

St. Brigid's Day (aka St. Bridget or Saint Brighid of Kildare; Patron of babies, blacksmiths, boatmen/mariners/sailors, cattle, chicken farmers, children of unwed parents, dairy workers, fugitives, midwives, nuns, poets, printing presses, scholars, travelers; Douglas, Lanarkshire, Scotland; Ivrea, Turin, Italy; Kildare, Ireland; Leinster, Ireland)

     formerly celebrated on Feb. 2 as the Imbolc quarter day of the Irish pagan calendar

Tupperware Sculpting Day -- internet generated; take an old, worn piece of Tupperware, melt it, and sculpt something

Working Naked Day -- dedicated to those who work from home without the support system an outside work environment provides

Ya-Ya Matsuri -- Owase, Mie Prefecture, Japan (parades, street festivals, and boys diving into the sea for purification; through the 5th)

Birthdays Today:

Lauren Conrad, 1986

Michael C. Hall, 1971

Pauly Shore, 1970

Lisa Marie Presley, 1968

Pauly Shore, 1968

Sherilyn Fenn, 1965

Brandon Lee, 1965

Princess Stephanie of Monaco, 1965

Bill Mumy, 1954

Rick James, 1948

Bob Jamieson, 1943

Terry Jones, 1942

Sherman Helmsley, 1938

Don Everly, 1937

Garrett Morris, 1937

Boris Yeltsin, 1931

Stuart Whitman, 1929

S.J. Perelman, 1904

Langston Hughes, 1902

Clark Gable, 1901

John Ford, 1894

Louis Stephen St. Laurent, 1882

Hatty Wyatt Caraway, 1878

Victor Herbert, 1859

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Late Night with David Letterman"(TV), 1982

"Rich Man, Poor Man"(TV Miniseries), 1976

"The Secret Storm" (TV), 1954 (first TV soap opera)

"General Electric Theater"(TV), 1953

"You Are There"(TV), 1953

"La Boheme"(Puccini Opera), 1896

"The Corsair"(publication date), 1814

Today in History:

Teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Isabella of France and her lover Roger Mortimer, 1327

The Colony of Roanoke Island is established by the landing of Sir Walter Raleigh, 1587

Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, is rescued from the uninhabited archipelago of Juan Fernandez, 1709

The Ottoman sultan orders the capture of his unwelcome guest, King Charles XII, resulting in the Kalabalik i Bender (Tumult in Bender), 1713

The first US steamboat patent is issued, by Georgia, to Briggs & Longstreet, 1788

The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York, 1796

The American Insurance Company of Philadelphia opens, the first such company managed by blacks, 1810

Volcano Mayon on Luzon, Philippines erupts killing 1,200, 1814

Slavery is abolished in Mauritius, 1835

The first US dental school, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, is incorporated, 1840

Auburn University is chartered as the East Alabama Male College, 1856

Morris Raphall of NYC becomes the first rabbi to open the House of Representatives, 1860

Julia Howe publishes the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," 1862

Jefferson Long of Georgia is the first black to make an official speech in the House of Representatives (opposing leniency to former Confederates), 1871

The first volume of A New English Dictionary, A to Ant,later called the Oxford English Dictionary, A-Ant, is published, 1888

Thomas Edison completes the world's first movie studio, in West Orange, N.J., 1893

The first auto insurance policy is issued, by The Travelers Insurace Co., 1898

China's empress Tzu-hsi forbids binding woman's feet, 1902

The first US federal penitentiary is completed, at Leavenworth, Kansas, 1906

Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar, 1918

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police forms as Royal Northwest Mounted Police merge with Dominion Police, 1920

The United States Army launches Explorer 1, 1958

Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, 1960

The Hamilton River in Labrador, Canada is renamed the Churchill River in honour of Winston Churchill, 1965

Canada's three military services, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, are unified into the Canadian Forces, 1968

Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl, 1978

The Ayatollah Khomeini is welcomed back to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile, 1979

Lillian E. Fishburne becomes the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral, 1998

Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard, 2003

Johanna Siguroardottir is elected as the first female Prime Minister of Iceland, 2009

Myanmar's first freely elected parliament in 50 years has its opening session in Nay Pyi Taw, 2016

Archaeologists announce that the discovery of thousands of previously undetected structures in Mayan lowland civilization in Guatemala, using Lidar technology, which suggests there was a population of about 10 million, 2018

January 2019 was Australia's hottest month on record according to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, 2019

Locusts swarm across East Africa, leading Somalia to declare their largest national emergency in 25 years, 2020

Wisdom the Albatross, age 70, becomes the world's oldest known bird to hatch a chick at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, 2021

The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, considered the 'Nobel Prize for Engineering,' is awarded to Masato Sagawa for inventing the neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnet, 2022