Slam. "Hey, peoples, what's up! I have arrived home.'
It was #2 Son, age 13, back from his vacation with the neighbors.
"Hey mom, guess what! I'm going to have to give up energy drinks for a few months cause I drank 4 Monsters and 5 Red Bulls on the drive up and back, and I hardly slept at all."
"Fruit! I want some, I haven't had a piece of fruit since I left!"
Son, I know they had fruit on the cruise.
"Oh, they had it, but I didn't eat any, and for 5 days I lived on the free pizza and ice cream they had!"
Did you have a good time?
"Yea, even if I did almost get arrested for harassing the endangered iguanas on St. Thomas Island. Boy it feels good to take my shoes and socks off. I wasn't allowed to take my socks off in the RV, and for good reason! Speaking of which, you guys come help me bring my stuff home."
They troop across the street to neighbor's house, and come back heavy laden.
"We had lots of fun. We went to the lounge every night and I had my first girlfriend. She is 14 and from Tennessee, and we danced and made out every night!"
Crash, bang. "Look what I bought! Bongo! They called me Bongo Joe when I went to the lounge like this." I turned to see him in a Bob Marley jacket and a knitted cap with braids looking like they came out from under the cap, bongo in hand.
"Ooh, and we had two massages. It was so nice, we did it twice. Pierce got the ugly therapist both times."
More purchases and souvenirs come pouring out. "Look, a ship made of soda cans! And we stopped at this candy store in New York and I bought about 5 pounds of candy and ate most of it on the cruise, but I still have this, including this huge gummy snake, and this big gummy bear, and these gummies." He hands some to his younger sister.
"Oh, and I spent most of the money you gave me on the claw machine." He throws two stuffed animals at his younger sister.
"Look, bathtowel, and this robe like thing (wraparound for after showers), and slippers." He looks like a walking add for the cruise line.
So you almost got arrested. "Yea, it's a year in jail and a $1,000 fine! But I got a picture of me holding one of the big iguanas!"
"And look at this picture of us when we got into one of the ports!" He is wearing the cap, and a skull and crossbones t-shirt.
"We were allowed to load up our key cards in the arcade, but there was a $70 limit, and I hit the limit almost every day!"
"I want my room, oh room!" He runs in to see, as he knew I would do a bit of tidying while he was gone.
"Whoa, this doesn't look nearly as bad as I remember." I dryly wonder why.
Put all of your things in your room, and your dirty clothes down in the laundry room.
"Oh, you might just as well take the whole suitcase down there, it's all dirty."
No, you take it down there, please.
"Yeah, ha ha, that's right, I'll do it."
"And look, wooden xylophone and a wooden flute for Uncle, and this hat for dad!" The hat says Rebel in red on a blue background. "I put the hat on once while we stopped at a rural diner in the mountains -- we drove through mountains! -- and it was full of people who looked at me funny." My child of this flat Louisiana landscape, who has been to the coast often, but never the mountains, was awed by the people and sights of rural Carolina and Virginia mountain towns.
"Also, I miss all that healthy food you were always trying to stuff down my throat."
Ring, ring. The phone. Others in the neighborhood already know he is back, somehow they always know.
"Hey, what's up? Yea, I'm coming over. I'm bored."
"Bye, mom, I'm going to Gabe's! And I'm glad dad is at work, cause when he gets here I want to ask him, 'What you doing in my house, foo'!' and where's Jeffy, the cat? Love-A-Pet! Cool! And by the way, no one is stopping me from watching Monday Night Raw tonight! I haven't seen it in two weeks and they aren't going to tell me no! Later, guys!"
Welcome home, son. At least he still gives me those little boy hugs. Behind the bravado, there is love.
Today is:
Blueberry Festival, Montrose, Pennsylvania
Champagne Day
Coast Guard Day
Constitution Day, Cook Island
Fairy Drying-Out Day, Fairy Calendar (Makes sense, as we washed them yesterday. Now it begs the question, how does one dry a fairy?)
Independence Day, Jamaica
Munchkins of Oz Convention
National Chocolate Chip Day
National Day, Burkina Faso
National Night Out
New Brunswick Day, Canada
Nicole Robin Day (Celebrates her safe return to the Virgin Islands after being held by Cubans,)
Peer Gynt Festival Days begin, Norway
Vigil of St. Oswald
Birthdays Today:
Cole and Dylan Sprouse, 1992
Billy Bob Thornton, 1961
Roger Clemens, 1962
Raoul Wallenberg, 1912
Louis Armstrong, 1901*
Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, 1900
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792
Today in History
A supernova is observed in constellation Cassiopeia, 1181
The first printing of Zohar (Jewish Kabbalah), 1558
A hurricane in the Carribean kills thousands in Guadeloupe, Martinique,and St. Christopher, 1666
Dom Perignon invents champagne (traditional date), 1693
First edition of the Saturday Evening Post, which was published until 1969), 1821
*In several interviews, Satchmo claimed to have been born on July 4, 1900. Historians always disputed that claim, saying it was too neat and tidy, and his baptismal records, found in a church basement, proved otherwise. Some biographies still give the July 4, 1900 date in error.
This most boring blog in the world is going to stay true to form today and bring the same boredom that makes and will keep it unknown.
Why do we have telephones?
I know, stupid question with what should be several obvious answers. Still, why does an individual have a telephone? Is it for the convenience of the owner of the phone, or the convenience of the person trying to get in touch with the owner of the phone?
I am firmly in the camp of the "I own my phone for my convenience" camp. If you call me, and I just really cannot answer right now, I will see that you called and get back to you as quickly as I possibly can. I expect you to do the same, I do not expect you to jump to serve me when you are otherwise occupied.
My Sweetie is firmly in the "I own my phone for the convenience of those who want to get in touch with me" camp. He believes it is your responsibility to answer no matter what else you might be doing, and that includes everything.
My father was a doctor. Phone calls could be important, even life or death. Still, the phone was for our convenience. When he was not on call, there was the doctor's exchange to pick up and direct the call to the person on call. Our private number stayed private, no matter how many times the chuckleheads at the private schools we attended insisted on publishing them against my parents' request in the school directory. They changed it every time that happened, because of course some of the kids at the school had moms who were patients of my dad, and the number was not for them to call with medical needs. If a medical need was that urgent, they needed to call for emergency services, not call the doctor's house.
Sweetie's father was a church pastor. Phone calls could be important, even life or death. His father drummed it into him that every call could be the vital call that meant someone needed help now. I agree that spiritual needs of your congregation are important, still I think you have to put your own family first. Back then, if someone was in the hospital dying and needed to see the pastor, and he didn't answer the phone, the friendly police officers were willing to go track him down for you.
I don't pretend to have the definitive answer. There are times when it is very important to me to get in touch with someone, and they just don't answer, and I have to graciously wait. There are times when someone probably feels like he or she needs me now, but I am driving, or in the restroom, or something, and that person needs to graciously wait.
I still say, if it is that much of a life and death situation, you should be calling 911, not me. Anything else, and you can give me a few minutes to get back to you.
Sad news alert, do not read if you are very sensitive: All 5 kittens had to be put down. They were going into septic shock, and it was the kindest thing to do.
Today is:
Bourguiba Harib Day, Turkey (Spelled Habib on some websites)
Fairy Washing Festival, Fairy Calendar (Do the fairies wash themselves, or is everyone supposed to wash his/her fairy?)
Feast of Caligo (The mother of Chaos)
Fiesta De la Colmena, Spain
Independence Day, Niger
National Watermelon Day
Minstrel's Gathering, Germany
Royal National Eosteddfod, Wales (Festival of literature, music, and performance, spelled Eisteddfod on some websites.)
St. Nicodemus' Day
St. Lydia of Phillipi's Day
Birthdays Today:
Martin Sheen, 1940
Tony Bennett, 1926
Elisha Graves Otis, 1811
Today in History:
Tiberius, Roman Empire general, defeats the Dalmatians at the river Bathinus, 8
Columbus sets Sail for the "Indes",departing from Palos, Spain, 1492
John Rut, at St. John's, Newfoundland, sends the first known letter from North America, 1527
Harvard defeats Yale in the first intercollegiate rowing race, 1852
Second Maori War begins in New Zealand, 1860
We had a very good day at Adoption Day yesterday.
Both tortoiseshell females, May and Missy, were adopted together to the same home. They have almost opposite personalities, one shy, one bold, one preferring laps, the other playtime; I think they will be happy together and keep their new family satisfied.
Helmsley was adopted, also. Three in one day is unheard of in these times! He is a bundle of kitten energy and love, happy to oblige with cuddles, always ready to play with whatever is at hand. Part of me is glad he is adopted as he should be, part of me almost wishes he could have been around to teach the new kittens how to play and be kittens. He would have made an ideal nursemaid and mentor to them, he was already cleaning them and trying to play with them. Still, this way is better.
Meanwhile, Nebuchadnezzar came out of Love-a-Pet, and Jeffy and Jason went back in. So all we have at home now is Neb and the new 5.
Speaking of the new 5, the two runty ones have been put in a separate box from the big ones. They were getting stepped on and roughed up. I am beginning to be concerned about the little black and white female, she is a listless little thing.
Dryad's Day (Water nymphs, gods, and goddesses, variously celebrated throughout the world)
Farmer's Day, Zambia
Friendship Day
Gee Haw Whimmy Diddle Competition
Harriet Quimby Day (Early American Aviator)
Ilindan, Bosnia-Herzegovina (The day you go to get water from the spring of St. Sava on Savin Kuk peak; the water is supposed to bring health and happiness.)
International Forgiveness Day
National Ice Cream Sandwich Day
Nuestra Senora de los Angeles, Costa Rica
Sinjks Alka, Yugoslavia (Spear Throwing Tournament)
Sisters Day
St. Elias' Day
St. Sidwell's Day
Twins Festival, Twinsburg, Ohio
Birthdays Today
Peter O'Toole, 1932
Jamea Baldwin, 1924
Carroll O'Connor, 1924
Myrna Loy, 1905
Today in History:
Philip II of Macedon leads his army to defeat the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, which secured Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean, BC338
Ferdinand and Isabella expell all Jews from Spain, 1492
First United States Census, 1790
First parachute jump in the US, 1819
Publication of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", 1865
Wild Bill Hickok meets his death; shot in the back while playing poker, his hand, a pair of Aces and a pair of eights, is now called "Dead Man's Hand", 1876
Calamity Jane (Martha Jame Cannary) dies, 1903
Typhoon in China kills about 60,000, 1922
Interfering in-law advice: In-laws usually don't mean to interfere with their advice. Truly, most people, when they give unsolicited advice, it is because of concern, not a desire to interfere.
Thus, the best way to handle unwanted advice, whether from in-laws, outlaws, or just plain strangers, is to say, "Thank you so much for your concern. You have given me something to think about. Right now, we have decided to do ____, but if it is not working, we will keep in mind what you have said." You can also add, "We will talk it over with our doctor/minister/financial advisor/guru/whatever and made a decision from there."
The person giving the advice just needs to know that he/she has been heard, and the words will be considered, to feel better. It makes that person feel useful in your life. It doesn't hurt to say, "thank you for caring enough to tell me these things, " then go out and do what you want anyway.
A piece of interfering in-law advice, to both generations: Don't demand holidays. Take the attitude that "As long as I see you at some point during a few holiday/celebratory times each year, that is fine. We will make the day serve us, not make ourselves slaves to the specific day." Especially if the parents-in-law take this low pressure, I'm glad to see you whenever you can get here approach, the kids-in-law will make the time to see the family.
A small side note about today's holiday list -- it is very long. I think a lot of people must feel sorry for August not having any major holidays, so they cram packed the first day of the month with a lot of reasons to celebrate. Also, August 1 begins Admit You're Happy Month and National Simplify Your Life Week and World Breastfeeding Week, among other monthly and weekly observances. So remember, there is something to have fun about every day of the year!
Today is:
Cheyenne Frontier Day
Cross-Quarter Day
Document Delivery Day
Emancipation Day, Trinidad and Tobago
Fast in Honor of the Holy Mother of Jesus, Orthodox Christian
Fiesta Day, Nicaragua
Girlfriend's Day
Gule of August, Wales (Their name for Lammas Day.)
Homowo, Ghana (A festival of thanksgiving and remembrance.)
Imps Charity Scramble -- Fairy calendar ( Do they scramble the imps, or do the imps scramble for something?)
International Friendship Day
Lady Day Eve
Lammas Day/Lughnasa (Celtic Feast of Bread)
Lanmac Tide (Beginning of the harvest season.)
Laughter Day, Southern California (May we spread this one around? We need more of this everywhere.)
National Mustard Day (Sweetie had an uncle who would have loved this. Ate mustard on everything, including his apple pie. Bigger Girl also eats lots of mustard.)
National Night Out
National Non-Parent Day
National Raspberry Cream Pie Day
National Sweet Corn Day
Picnic Day, Australia
Pod Body Day, Portland, Maine
Respect for Parent's Day (Now, come on. On the same day as Non-Parent Day? Let's let the non parents have a day to themselves, shall we? They are too often peppered with the "Why don't you have kids/have kids yet?" question that is so disrespectful of their life choices. Parents get lots of other days and don't need to hog this one. I will personally forgo it.)
Rounds Resounding Day (Grab your friends and sing a few songs that go in rounds, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Frere Jacques".)
Sports Day (They need a day for this? When the seasons for every sport already overlap?)
St. Ethelwold's Day
Swiss Confederation Day (Celebrates the formation on this day of the Everlasting Confederation, their Day of Independence.)
U.S. Air Force Day
Wattle Day, Australia
Anniversaries Today:
MTV
World Wide Web
Birthdays Today:
Tempestt Bledsoe, 1973
Robert Cray, 1953
Jerry Garcia, 1942
Yves Saint Laurent, 1942
Dom DeLuise, 1933
Herman Melville, 1819
Francis Scott Key, 1779
William Clark, 1770
Today in History:
The future Caesar Augustus, Octavian, enters Alexandria, Egypt, and brings it under the control of Rome, BC30
Japan sends Ono no Imoko to the Sui court in China as envoy, 607
Henry Tudor, soon to be Henry VII, army sails to England, 1495
The first black Americans arrive in Jamestown, Virginia, 1619
Oxygen is "discovered" for the 3rd time, by Priestly, 1774
Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire, 1834
First coast to coast automobile trip, from San Francisco to New York, is completed, 1903
I have been poking at the never ending paper pile. While I am convinced that it has infinite depth, I have come to realize that it does have limited width. The paper will always come in, but I think soon I will be able to contain it. Meanwhile, it has not poked me back, and no paper cuts yet.
Paper, paper, by the score,
I don't like you any more.
Though in books, you're loved, you see,
The rest of the papers can just bite me!
There is a system coming along, developing, I just need to baby it along. Some people want all the auto stuff together, including titles and insurance on each vehicle. I want all auto repair stuff together, but insurance goes under insurance, and vital records all go together. What works for one has to be modified for another, and I'm getting to where my modifications will make sense for me.
Today is:
Always Live Better Than Yesterday Day
Fill in the Blanks Day
Friendship Day
La Hae Hawai'i, Flag Day, Hawai'i
Lammas Eve (Loaf Mass, celebration of the bounty of summer.)
Loki and Sigyn's Day, Norse (i.e. Devoted Couples Day)
Mutt's Day (Hooray for the Heinz 57 dogs and cats of the world!)
National Raspberry Cake Day
Oul' Lammas Fair, Ballycastle
Red Friday
St. Germanus' Day
St. Giovanni Colombini's Day
St. Ignatius Loyola's Day
St Joseph of Arimathea's Day
System Administrator Appreciation Day (I'm not too sure about this -- some systems I don't appreciate at all.)
Anniversary Today:
United States Patent Office (The first patent went to Samuel Hopkins for a potash process, 1790.)
Birthdays Today:
J.K. Rowling, 1965
Evonne Goolagong, 1951
Barry van Dyke, 1951
Geraldine Chaplin, 1944
Ted Cassidy, 1932
Today in History:
Battle of Alexandria; while Marc Antony's forces won this minor skirmish against Octavian, most of his men deserted after, which led to his suicide, BC30
Oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji, 781
The Arabs, under Saracen Leo van Tripoli, occupy, loot, and destroy Thessalonica, 904
Pilgrim Fathers depart England for America, 1620
For publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, Daniel Defoe is found guilty of seditious libel and pilloried; the people pelted him with nothing but flowers, 1703
As I picked up the bananas to put in the shopping cart, I noticed the words on the banana boxes for the first time: Sprayed with Thiabendazole or Imazalil or Azoxystrobin.
I came home and looked them up. Fungicides, all toxic to a degree, sprayed on the produce I can only hope after picking, to keep fungus away. Still. According to all those scientists who keep publishing stuff that is supposed to be in the consumer's best interest, bananas are one of the types of produce you can safely buy as non organic. Yet, still sprayed with this stuff.
Sure, they will tell you if it is sprayed after being picked it stays on the peel, which you throw away. I just hope that is really true. I have been purchasing organic produce only for those fruits and veggies where it makes the most difference, according to this website: http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php I don't buy all organic all of the time because we just don't have that much money.
Every time I see it printed on a box of produce that it has been sprayed with something, or a notice that the fruits and veggies in this market may have been coated with a food grade wax that is petroleum based, or I read something in the news that concerns be about the food supply, I wish I had enough money to buy all organic all of the time.
I look at my family and wonder, what are we doing to the children?
Is it better to just get their fruits and veggies in them? I keep fresh fruits and vegetables available to them at all times to snack on. I serve salad with almost every dinner. Vegetables every night. I don't buy junk food (can't afford it anyway). Is it enough?
Conventional wisdom says better to have produce that is non organic than to eat junk. Still I wonder, is it enough?
Today is:
Crater Day, Virginia
Copperhead Day
Dog Day
Father-In-Law Day
Independence Day, Vanuatu
Kiss Your Cat Day (Highly unsanitary, sorry.)
Marseillaise Day, France (The song was first publicly performed on this day in 1792, sung by 500 men from, where else? Marseilles.)
Mutomboko Ceremony, Zambia (Lunda tribe's celebrations of victories and honoring of their ancestors.)
National Cheesecake Day (Remember the cheese you bought yesterday? To sacrifice? If you bought the right kind, sacrifice it to a cheesecake.)
St. Abdon's Day
St. Silas' Day, Greek
Tisha B'Av - Jewish
World Vegetable Congress
Birthdays Today:
Delta Burke, 1956
Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1947
Paul Anka, 1941
Buddy Guy, 1936
Casey Stengel, 1891
Emily Bronte, 1818
Today in History:
First Defenestration of Prague, 1419
Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga (now Crown Point), New York, setting the tone for French-Iroquois relationships for the next 100 years, 1608
The first elective governing body in what would become the US, the House of Burgesses in Virginia, is seated, 1619
Founding of the City of Baltimore, 1729
Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismark, dies at age 83, 1898
The Wright brothers deliver the first military plane to the army, 1909
As the most boring blog in the world, this post will be typical. After all, where does a boring blogger with blogger's block have to go but down?
I've always been a morning person, which makes it easier for me to take the morning shift feeding the kittens, and one of my night owl children does the last feeding after I go to bed. It is wearing, however, and yesterday when the Hope cat decided to make the night more interesting by peeing in the dryer, it just about frazzled that last nerve.
When looking up today's holidays and special days and bits of trivia, I ran across several sites saying that today is "National Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day." There is no site that tells what this means, though a few do speculate. I think it is some one's idea of a practical joke, spread through the internet like a virus or trojan, but doing no damage except perhaps to the wallets of people who go buy cheese preparing to sacrifice it. I wonder which god or goddess would want a cheese sacrifice? And since today is the day to make the purchase, when is the actual sacrifice?
I propose going out and buying some cheese and just eating the stuff. As expensive as it is to buy cheese (I'm paying an average of over $3/pound when it is on sale), the only sacrifice any cheese I buy will be used for is tonight's dinner.
Speaking of which, another night, another family meal. I wonder what I should cook tonight. The real chef magicians of the world are not necessarily the ones you see on tv. The real magic is in turning out a fresh meal idea for the hungry horde using yet another blah old pound of ground round.
A friend of mine was working on her computers yesterday. She was doing a great deal of technical stuff that makes no sense to me (if I need technical done, I call my friends at Rent-A-Nerd, yes, it is a real business and they do a great job). So she tried to explain it in terms a mom who cooks like grandma could understand.
She explained that she was cleaning and reformatting and redownloading Windows and drivers and such, and we finally got it down to this. The computer is like the stove, and Windows is like the individual burners on the stove (electric, or gas, or ceramic burners with your stove, sweetie?). The drivers are the pots and pans you cook it. When you clean out old stuff from the computer and load in new things, it's like you are cleaning out the pantry and putting new groceries in it. You cook the groceries by using the drivers on the type of burners you want. That's about as close as your going to get to explaining it all to me.
She also told me she has 20,000 songs, and that after she moves they will hook the computer to the speakers she has and have the young generation equivalent of a stereo system/album collection to envy. I think I will stick to my FM tuner, first cousin to a Luddite that I am.
Today is:
Cherry Feast, Germany
Dragon Day
Festival of the Polymorphously Perverse (Do I dare to try to look up this one? Nah, sacrificing cheese is enough for one day.)
Final Frontier Day
NASA Anniversary
National Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day (I say buy the kind you can cook desserts with and sacrifice it in tomorrow's cheese cake.)
National Lasagna Day (Eat your heart out, Garfield.)
National Roller Skating Tournament
Oslok, St. Olav's Feast, Norway (Patron saint of Norway)
Pardon of the Birds, Quimperle, Brittany
Rain Day, Waynesburg, PA
St. Ladislas' Day
Thor's Day (Norse)
Birthdays Today:
Martina McBride, 1966
Clara Bow, 1905
Today in History:
JamesVI crowned King of Scotland in Stirling, 1567
English defeat the Spanish Armada, 1588
Pitt's Gazette becomes the first newspaper published west of the Alleghenies, 1786
Vincent Van Gogh dies in Auvers, France, 1890
