An Offer to Share (Feline Friday), Friendly Fill-Ins, and Nature Friday

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Feline Friday was originally started by Steve, The Burnt Food Dude (may he rest in peace), and i'm going to believe it's because he liked cats.

He handed hosting duties off to Sandee at Comedy Plus, and now she's entrusting it to me.

Feline Friday is simple to join.  All you have to do is: Post a picture, drawing, cartoon or video of a cat (they may be silly or cute).  Then add your link!

One thing for sure is this is a fun and easy meme to do.  So come and join us in Feline Friday.

What better way to start the weekend than with a feline!

Our little Annie was munching blueberries, helping herself and then running around, so i put them on the chair where she could reach them.

This did not "sit well" (pun intended) with Link Linker the Stinker, as that's his chair, and he went in a huff to the rocker to sulk.

Eventually i found another place for the berries, so he got his chair and then Annie tried to make peace by offering him a blueberry.

He was not impressed!

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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 my favorite Christmas song.

2. ________________________________is a Christmas decoration that I treasure.

3. Though ’tis the season for _________, I much prefer _________.

4. If I could create a new Christmas tradition, it would be _________.

1. O Holy Night  is my favorite Christmas song.   That is, as far as serious songs go.  When it comes to the silly, funny ridiculous songs, i'm partial to I'm Gettin' Nuttin' For Christmas.

2. The Musical Ferris Wheel  is a Christmas decoration that I treasure.  Ours no longer plays the music, but since it's a music box inside, i hope to be able to get it repaired someday.

photo from Ebay, as ours is packed away in the closet

3. Though ’tis the season for   sweets and treats,   I much prefer   fruits and veggies.

4. If I could create a new Christmas tradition, it would be   only giving gifts to children under 12, everyone over this age would have a donation to a good cause made in their honor, or a gift bought for someone in need, instead of us getting one more thing to stuff in our already crowded houses.

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Nature Friday is hosted by LLB in Our Backyard.  Simply post a picture of the natural world, and link up!   

Ms. D has a big, beautiful Christmas cactus.  A few years ago, the formerly all-white blooms turned pink on only one branch and have bloomed pink there ever since.

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Today is:

Bonza Bottler Day™

Constitution Day -- Russia (constitution approved in nationwide referendum 1993)

Feast of Masa'il (Questions/Mystery) -- Baha'i

Fetes de l'Escalade -- Geneva, Switzerland (Scaling, or Climbing Day; celebrating the defeat of the Duke of Savoy's troops; through Sunday)

Gingerbread House Day -- because today is as good a day to start making one as any

Hovercraft Day -- the first prototype of a hovercraft was patented this day in 1955 by British engineer Christopher Cockerell

Human Rights and Peace Day -- Kiribati

Independence Day -- Kenya (Jamhuri)(1953)

Miracle of the Roses / Our Lady of Guadalupe -- Catholic Christian; related celebrations

     Fiesta del Virgin de Guadalupe -- Mexico

     Las Mananitas -- Puerto Rico

National Ambrosia Day

National Cocoa Day

National Ding-A-Ling Day -- an unofficial day on which to honor all the ding-a-lings you know, and even act like one yourself if you wish

National Salesperson's Day -- US (begun by Maura Schreier-Fleming, and listed on various days depending on whom you ask)

Neutrality Day/National Day and Student Youth Day -- Turkmenistan

Official Lost and Found Day -- the day to take inventory of what you've lost or found over the year, and step up your efforts to find things which are still missing

Poinsettia Day -- death anniversary of Joel Roberts Poinsett

St. Finnian of Clonard's Day (Father of Irish Monasticism; going to bed without supper tonight means you risk being carried away by the fairies)

St. Lucy's Eve -- Austria (night of the shining that some use to predict the future)

Yuletide Lads begin arriving -- Iceland (Jolasveinar trolls, children of Gryla and Leppaludi, who come one each day to bring gifts and mischief from now until Christmas)

     Yuletide Lad of the Day, Stekkjarstaur -- Sheepfold Stick, who will try to drink the milk from the farmers' ewes

Anniversaries Today:

Jerry Lee Lewis marries his cousin Myra Gale Brown, 1957

Pennsylvania becomes the 2nd US State, 1787

Birthdays Today:

Mayim Bialik, 1975

Rey Mysterio, Jr., 1974

Madchen Amick, 1970

Jennifer Connelly, 1970

Tracy Austin, 1962

Sheila E. 1957

Cathy Rigby, 1952

Robert Lindsay, 1949

Tom Wilkinson, 1948

Emerson Fittipaldi, 1946

Dionne Warwick, 1941

Connie Francis, 1938

Robert Lee "Bob" Pettit, Jr., 1932

Edward Irwin Koch, 1924

Bob Barker, 1923

Bob Dorough, 1923

Joe Williams, 1918

Frank Sinatra, 1915

Edward G. Robinson, 1893

Edvard Munch, 1863

Gustave Flaubert, 1821

Stand Watie, 1806

William Lloyd Garrison, 1805

John Jay, 1745 (Old Style date)

Erasmus Darwin, 1731

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"La Valse"(Ravel ballet), 1920

St. Louis Post-Dispatch(First edition), 1878

Today in History:

The Battle at Nineveh: Byzantine emperor Heraclius defeats Perzen, 627

The Order of the Dragon is created by Sigismund, King of Hungary, and his wife Queen Barbara of Celje, following the battle for possession of Bosnia, 1408

Isabella crowns herself Queen of Castile and Aragon, 1474

Jews are expelled from Schlettstadt Alsace by Emperor Frederick III, 1479

In Vienna, Ludwig von Beethoven receives his first lesson in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn, 1792

Mexico is officially recognized as an independent nation by the US, 1822

The first Canadian coins are circulated (1 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent and 20 cent), 1858

Rudolph Dirks' first Katzenjammer cartoon strip appears in the NY Journal, 1897

Belo Horizonte, the first planned city of Brazil, is founded, 1897

George F Bryant of Boston patents the wooden golf tee, 1899

Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland, 1901

Delhi replaces Calcutta as the capital of India, 1911

Oscar Straus becomes US Secretary of Commerce, the first Jew to be a US Cabinet member, 1906

The first all metal aircraft, the Junkers J-1, is test flown in Dessau, Germany, 1915

In Nebraska, Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys, 1917

The first prototype of a hovercraft is patented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell, 1955

Guinea joins the United Nations, 1958

The Russian Federation gains independence from the USSR, 1991

An asteroid named 4179 Toutatis, over 3 miles wide, passes within 4.3 million miles, or 18 lunar distances from Earth, 2012

The International Space Station suspends some of its non-critical systems after an ammonia cooling pump fails; the station and six crew members aboard were not in danger, 2013

French President Francois Hollande proposes that terminally ill patients should have the right to be sedated until death; the proposal does not suggest assisted termination of the patient's life, 2014

Bill English is sworn in as New Zealand Prime Minister, 2016

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Prokopyev compete a complex spacewalk to fix a hole in their Soyuz spacecraft, 2018

A point of land 3.5km (11,500ft) below sea level under the Denman Glacier in Antarctica is identified as the deepest point of land on Earth, 2019

Emma Tucker becomes the first woman editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, 2022

Ms. G's Form of Round Robin (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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Note:  A few weeks ago, my six was about a lost cat.  I finally got an update, the cat went into one of the traps set nearer the building and was returned to her owner safely.  For the one who asked about why the cat wasn't in a carrier in the car, she had been, but the owner let her out "just for a few minutes."  That's all it takes for a skittish cat to get away.

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Ms. G is one of those people with a lot of stuff, much of it prettily displayed in her home and a good bit of it out for daily use but a lot more of it crammed into bags and boxes in back rooms and closets, or in cram-full kitchen cabinets or linen cupboards.

She's always talking about "getting shed of some of this crap" but "I'm never home to do it," she has so many irons in the fire, so many projects, appointments, and emergencies to deal with, and she's always heading out to do something for someone.

Yesterday, she got home after i'd been there about an hour, getting the usual chores done, and she decided she needed to clean out the "cat cabinet," a large cabinet in her kitchen; as she said, "This isn't what I was planning to do with my day, but I almost never get to do what I'd planned to do with my day, so that's just how it goes."

It seems Mr. Gray cat got angry with April cat and "left his mark" somewhere in the house; we can smell it but cannot see it, and somewhere in the cat cabinet was an old black light which she wanted to use once it was good and dark at night to try to find the exact place so she could use the enzyme cleaner and get it gone.

Thus we spent an hour pulling every single item out of the cabinet, with her deciding if she was going to keep it, give it away, or throw it away; one white garbage bag was mostly full by the end to go to the trash can outdoors, and another large bag had donations to go to one of the dog rescues she knows can use the items, but most of it went right back into the cabinet, which is less crowded now, but still has plenty in it.

Yes, we did find the black light, but the batteries were dead, which meant trying to find batteries, which meant heading to the tool room/litter box room to try to straighten the area where she keeps the battery tester and batteries...

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

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While Good Fences Around the World seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, i still enjoy looking for and posting interesting fences, so i will!

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

We came to see Santa but he's not here,

it seems he left us some Christmas cheer!

I'll take the cookies and you the cream,

and this fulfills our Christmas dream!

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

Today i am thankful things are working out for me to go to Pilgrimage this coming Sunday evening so i can take care of Becca while her mama sings.  Usually i would be with our little Annie, but that's also Luminaries night in our neighborhood, so #2 Son and Daughter-in-Law will take her around to see all the lights.

Don't think my Sweetie and i at Pilgrimage will miss all the fun back home, either, because we get home by 7pm and Luminaries go until 8!

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Today is:

Agonalia -- Ancient Roman Empire; also observed

     Festival for Diva Palatua -- guardian of Palatine Hill

     Septimonia -- to honor the Seven Hills of Rome

Feast of Sekhmet, Bast, and Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (goddess of warfare, feline goddess, and sun god; date approximate)

Fourth Republic Day -- Madagascar

International Mountain Day -- UN

Jashan-e Sadeh / Adar-Jashen -- Zoroastrian/Parsi (a mid-winter fire ceremony for purification; date approximate)

National Day / Republic Day -- Burkina Faso (also called Proclamation of Independence Day)

National Noodle Ring Day

Pampanga Day -- Pampanga Province, Philippines

Remembrance Day of Llywelyn II -- Wales (death anniversary of Llywelyn the Last, the last native-born Prince of Wales, killed in battle in 1282)

St. Damasus' Day (Patron of archaeologists)

St. Pens' Day (Patron of Llanberis, Wales)

Tango Day -- Buenos Aires, Argentina (birth anniversary of both Julio de Caro and Carlos Gardel)

Anniversaries Today:

Unicef is established, 1946

Edward VIII abdicates, 1936

Indiana becomes the 19th US State, 1816

Birthdays Today:

Rider Strong, 1979

Mos Def, 1973

Mo'Nique, 1967

Gary Dourdan, 1966

Curtis Williams, 1962

Jermaine Jackson, 1954

Ken Wahl, 1953

Susan Seidelman, 1952

Teri Garr, 1949

Brenda Lee, 1944

John Kerry, 1943

Donna Mills, 1943

David Gates, 1940

Tom Hayden, 1940

Rita Moreno, 1931

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918

Carlo Ponti, 1913

Naguib Mahfouz, 1911

Marjorie H. Buell, 1904

Fiorello LaGuardia, 1882

Annie Jump Cannon, 1863

Robert Koch, 1843

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"City of Angels"(Musical), 1989

"Magnum, PI"(TV), 1980

Today in History:

Honoratus, the first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople, takes office, 359

Llewelyn the Last (born c. 1228) the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cimeri, 1282

The Aurora Borealis is seen from New England by English settlers for the first time, 1719

The first newspaper on Curacao is published, the Curacao Gazette & Commercial Advertiser, 1812

Nitrous oxide is used in dental work for the first time in Hartford, Connecticut, 1844

Boston's Bijou Theatre becomes the first American theater lit exclusively by electricity, premiering Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe" as its first performance, 1882

The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire, 1907

Color moving pictures are demonstrated in Madison Square Garden, 1909

The Boll Weevil Monument is dedicated in Enterprise, Alabama, 1919

The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, 1931

Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time, 1934

Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada, 1962

Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon, 1972

The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature, 1997

The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization, 2001

In Taipei, protesters demand foreign live-in caregivers have the right to a day off each week, 2011

Pope Francis is named Time Magazine's "Person of the Year," 2013

A landmark trial for Huntington's disease in London announces positive results, the first time a drug has been able to slow an incurable brain disorder, 2017

India passes its controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill, clearing the way for citizenship for immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan as long as they are not Muslim, 2019

The journal Nature publishes details of the earliest figurative artwork found in the world to date, 43,900-year-old depictions of part animal, part human figures in a cave in Sulawsi, Indonesia, 2019

NASA's Orion spacecraft returns to earth after completing the Artemis I test flight around the moon in 25.5 days, a record distance traveled by a spacecraft designed to carry humans, 2022