Wrong Date (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.

Like Grandma and Grandpa, we don't really do much to celebrate the new year, especially me as i have to go to work the next day.

Clothile done look at Boudreaux wit' de smile an' say, "Mon cher, you done gots a date fo' New Year Eve?"

An' Boudreaux say, "Mais, oui, December 31."

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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.       

A few pictures from a special Christmas program at the church, some nature photos, and obliging butterfly and sky shots.

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This week, Link Linker the Stinker wants to join the Kitties Blue at The Cat On My Head for their Sunday Selfies Blog Hop.   https://thecatonmyhead.com

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Today is:

Constitution Day -- Ireland

Enjoying ESP Day -- internet generated, and it means eating, sleeping, and partying!

Fifth Day of Christmas

Illegal Pants Day -- commemorates Emma Snodgrass' arrest in Boston in 1852 for wearing pants

Kwanzaa, Day 4, Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)

National Chocolate Again Day -- because someone, somewhere, believes it can't be chocolate something-or-other day often enough

National Independence Day -- Mongolia(1911, from the Qing Dynasty)

Paternoster Row Day -- in memoriam of the famous area destroyed by the Blitz this date and tomorrow in 1940

Pepper Pot Day -- Pepper Pot Soup was invented today in 1777 at Valley Forge for the army to have something warm to eat

Sacrifice to Zeus Horios -- Ancient Greek Calendar (sacrifice in the deme of Erichia; date approximate)

St. Gabriel's Day -- Ethiopia

St. Thomas of Canterbury's Day (Thomas a Becket, Patron of clergy, secular clergy; Exeter College, Oxford, England; Portsmouth, England)

St. Trophimus of Arles' Day (Patron of children; Arles, France; against drought)

Tick Tock Day -- end of the year is getting closer, stop putting off your dreams! sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Yodel in the Shower Day -- internet generated, and i promise not to tell if you do

Anniversaries Today:

J. Paul Getty, Jr., weds Victoria Holdsworth, 1994

Texas becomes the 28th US State, 1845

Birthdays Today:

Jude Law, 1972

Andy Wachowski, 1967

Bryan "Dexter" Holland, 1966

Patricia Clarkson, 1959

Paula Poundstone, 1959

Ed Autry, 1954

John Polito, 1950

Ted Danson, 1947

Marianne Faithfull, 1946

Jon Voight, 1938

Mary Tyler Moore, 1936

Thomas Edwin Jarriel, 1934

Klaus Fuchs, 1911

Billy Mitchell, 1879

Pablo Cassals, 1876

William Gladstone, 1809

Andrew Johnson, 1808

Charles Goodyear, 1800

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Thunderball(Film, UK release), 1965

"The Andersonville Trial"(Play), 1959

The Adventures of Kathlyn(Film, first movie serial), 1913

Today in History:

Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church, 1170

The first nautical almanac in US published by Samuel Stearns, Boston, 1782

Gas lights are installed at White House, during the Polk administration, 1848

The first Young Men's Christian Association chapter in the US opens, in Boston, 1851

Emma Snodgrass is arrested in Boston for wearing pants, 1852

The first telegraph ticker used by a brokerage house, Groesbeck & Co, NY, 1867

The Wounded Knee Massacre takes place, 1890

Edison patents "transmission of signals electrically" (radio), 1891

Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty, 1911

The first movie serial, "Adventures of Kathlyn," premieres in Chicago, 1913

Fred P Newton completes longest swim ever (1826 miles), when he swam in the Mississippi River from Ford Dam, Minn, to New Orleans, 1930

Physicist Richard Feynman gives a speech entitled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology, 1959

Filming began on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey in England, 1965

Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees, 1989

Guatemala and leaders of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union sign a peace accord ending a 36-year civil war, 1996

Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over 1 million lives, 1998

The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct, 2003

Chaparrastique volcano erupts in El Salvador, 2013

The Ebola epidemic in Guinea is declared over by WHO, after 2,500 died over 2 years, 2015

The American weather satellite NOAA-20 records the coldest ever temperature of -111C at the top of a storm in the western Pacific, 2018

120 people are rescued from a breakaway ice floe on the Upper Red Lake near Bemidji, Minnesota, US, 2023

Thankful is What Counts, and What Lasts, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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It may be the last Ten Things of Thankful for 2024, but it's the thankful things that count in life, right?  And there will be more to come, as well.

Last Saturday, i arrived in NOLA to find my nephew Dre was there!  He's a sailor now, being trained as a gunner's mate, and i had no idea they would give him time off his training to come home for Christmas.  It was wonderful to see him, as Grandpa says, looking like a grown man now.

I'm thankful i was able to spend time with him over the holiday, as he goes back to training and then will be stationed in Hawaii for four years!  At least, that's what they are telling him, maybe we need to plan a trip to Hawaii to visit?

Grandpa and i had a funny Saturday, and i'm always thankful for the funny, silly things that keep you laughing at life.  Uncle J wanted a flank steak, and the store where we regularly shop didn't have any.  Grandma drove us to another store gave me his credit card and dropped me at the door.

I got in and found one of the butchers was stocking the case, he pointed out the flank steaks, i grabbed the biggest one (Uncle J asked for a big one to share with everyone that night), got to a register where there was only one person in front of me with only 4 items, and was back out in the parking lot in under 5 minutes.

Then, i couldn't find Grandpa.  The funny for which i'm thankful, he'd parked and walked in, and didn't see me walking out!

A quick phone call, and he came out and we went to the car, and went home laughing, with steak.

And, a busy supermarket on the Saturday before Christmas, to get in and get something that fast?  It's thankful and almost miraculous!

I was also thankful that day to confirm the details for our car rental and the Angel Tree Gift.

Speaking of the gift, Sunday i was thankful to be able to drop off the Angel Tree Gift to the young girl whose name i'd chosen.  I'd asked her mother what she likes and she likes candles so she received a very nice and full of everything you need to start candle making kit.

(For any who don't know, Angel Tree Ministries matches volunteers with the names of children whose incarcerated parent wants to send them a gift, but can't.  The volunteer provides the gift in the parent's name, thus reassuring the child their incarcerated parent still loves and cares about them.)

Monday i was thankful i found the leak under Ms. D's sink before it got out of hand.  It seems the dishwasher is at it again, so she's thankful she can still use her sink and not need a plumber until after the holidays.

I'm also thankful we remembered, after all the hullabaloo of my helping Ms. D dry everything under the sink, to go get the rental car!  We got there at 4pm, just as we'd arranged.

Christmas Eve was spent getting everything, and i do mean everything, ready, and i'm thankful i had time to go to the 11am service at church.

We had one of those monsoon rains we sometimes get here on Christmas morning as we were driving to NOLA, and we were very, very thankful to be in a rental car.

Once down there, we got a call from #1 Son, he'd left later than we did and those awful rains had caused an accident, and he wasn't sure how long it would take him to get there.

We're thankful, when we called #2 Son, he and His Bride and the baby were already on the NOLA side of the accident, having passed it right after it happened, before emergency crews even arrived.

And #1 Son did eventually make it, we were thankful to be 8 of us eating the Christmas dinner together, with the 3+ month old baby providing our entertainment.

There's a thankful, also, to see your first grandchild on her first Christmas, in her cute little dress.

Thursday morning, we were thankful to get the rental back at 7am on the dot, so we only had to pay for 2 days.

Then we got to Ms. SE's house and the crazy happened, just the usual crazy at her place.  The gate wouldn't open, so i'm thankful Mr. DE showed me how to take the pin out and remove the bar so it would open.

The boys were home and were supposed to be up and doing but of course, with it being vacation, they were still snoozing.  I'm thankful they got up when we woke them and picked up their rooms so we could clean, as well as packed their clothes.

Sweetie ran to the closest store to get dishwasher detergent so i was thankful not to have to wash dishes by hand, and i kept several of the packets for future dishwasher "emergencies."

I'm thankful once Ms. SE got back from work, she, the boys and the dogs left for the camp as we do make faster progress cleaning when we're not trying to clean around them.

Also, we're thankful Mr. DE came home and rigged the gate back up as well as ordered a new keypad for it, next time it should work correctly.

Friday evening at the shelter was great, the adoptions have picked up and there are several empty cages, we're very thankful for every one of those.

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:

Bairns Day -- Scotland (Begins the runic half-month of Eoh, the yew tree, which signifies the dead, and is now associated with the Slaughter of the Innocents of Christian tradition, so today is considered by some the unluckiest day of the year, and no work should be undertaken today.)

Call a Friend Day -- just to catch up a bit

Card Playing Day -- internet generated, enjoy a fun game with friends and family; "Go fish!"

Childermas a/k/a Holy Innocents Day -- (Patrons of babies, children's choirs, foundlings)

     various Christian traditions celebrate under many names and in various ways

     Els Enfarinats -- Ibn, Valencia, Spain (flour fight, and if it's anything like the tomato throwing in other towns of Spain, it's probably lots of fun)

     French Childermas tradition interpreted what the Norse saw as evidence of the Wild Hunt of Odin as the spirits of the Holy Innocents running from King Herod

     Inocentes -- Mexico, and sometimes celebrated as Mexican December Fool's Day (Herod fooled himself into thinking he had gotten rid of his rival king born in Bethlehem.)

Dyzemas Day -- Northhamptonshire, UK (an unlucky day to begin any new undertaking, "what is begun on Dysemas Day will never be finished")

     origin unknown, but often translated as Tithe Day, being very close to the Portugese word for tithe

Eat A Vegetarian Day -- an internet generated joke; yes, the vegetarian in question can be a cow

Endangered Species Act Day -- US (act passed 1973; a day to mourn species already extinct)

Fourth Day of Christmas

Incwala Day -- Swaziland (the biggest day of the 8 week Ncwala Festival, which loosely translates as "first fruits", although today's tasting of the first of the harvest by the King is only a portion of the many days of ceremonies)

King Taksin Memorial Day -- Thailand

Kwanzaa, Day 3, Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)

National Chocolate Candy Day

Proclamation Day -- South Australia (trad.)

Return a Gift for the Cold Hard Cash Day -- and good luck, these days

Runic Half-month Eoh (yew) commences

Take a Drive and Enjoy the Christmas Lights Day -- before they are gone for another year

Unluckiest Day of the Year -- various traditions state no work should be started today, for whatever is started today will never be finished!  In Olde England, nothing of importance was ever undertaken on Childermas, because it would prove unlucky

Anniversaries Today:

Billy Ray Cyrus weds Leticia Finley, 1994

The US Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted, 1945

Iowa becomes the 29th US State, 1846

Birthdays Today:

David Archuleta, 1990

Sienna Miller, 1981

John Legend, 1978

Joe Mangianello, 1976

Todd Richards, 1969

Malcolm Gets, 1964

Denzel Washington, 1954

Edgar Winter, 1946

Don Francisco, 1940

Maggie Smith, 1934

Nichelle Nichols, 1933

Martin Milner, 1931

Johnny Otis, 1921

Sam Levenson, 1911

Lew Ayres, 1908

Cliff Arquette, 1905

Earl "Fatha" Hines, 1905

Hendrik Meijer, 1883

Woodrow Wilson, 1856

John Molson, 1763

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Gulag Archipelago"(Publication date), 1973

"Last of the Red Hot Lovers"(Play), 1969

"Night of the Iguana"(Play), 1961

"On the Town"(Musical), 1944

"Tip-Toes"(Musical), 1925

"St. Joan"(Play), 1923

"Cyrano de Bergerac"(Play), 1897

Today in History:

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, a/k/a Westminster Abbey, is consecrated, 1065

The reign of Emperor Hanazono of Japan begins, 1308

Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star, 1612

King Taksin is crowned as king of Thailand and establishes Thonburi as a capital, 1768

Construction of Yonge Street, formerly recognized as the longest street in the world, begins in York, Upper Canada (present-day Toronto, Ontario), 1795

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Echigo, Japan, killing 30,000+, 1828

John Calhoun becomes the first US Vice President to resign (over differences with President Andrew Jackson), 1832

Spain recognizes independence of Mexico, 1836

South Australia and Adelaide are founded, 1836

Rangoon Burma, destroyed by fire, 1841

The United States claims Midway Island, the first territory annexed outside Continental limits, 1867

The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines, marking the debut of the cinema, 1895

The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco, California, 1912

The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park, 1950

Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes "Gulag Archipelago", 1973

Winnie Mandela is banished from South Africa, 1976

The first American "test-tube baby", Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1981

U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years, 2000

At 115 years old and 266 days, Jiroemon Kimura of Japan becomes the world's oldest living person, 2012

Iranian woman Vida Mohaved is arrested for protesting against the policy of the compulsory hijab, sparking other protests, 2017

L’Oréal heiress and businesswoman Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is the first woman to be worth $100 billion, 2023