Today is Sunday, November 25 and there are 368 days until Thanksgiving. Now you know how much time you have to finish up the leftovers from this past Thursday. Today we remember the birthdays of Andrew Carnegie, Joe DiMaggio and Ricardo Montalban. On this day in 1715 the first English patent was granted to an American, for processing corn, in 1817 the first sword swallower in the US performed in New York City and in 1963 John F Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. In Surinam it is Independence Day and in the US it is National Parfait Day.

As you know, this past Thursday was Thanksgiving. I have always enjoyed this holiday. It is a day to be with family, eat too much food, sit around for a little while so that you can be ready to eat dessert and to start playing Christmas music. I, of course, started earlier than Thanksgiving, but there are traditionalists who wait. I don’t usually watch the big parade (referred to, by some, as the Macy Day Parade), but I tried to watch some of it this year. The reason I did was because they were predicting strong winds and I wanted to see if anyone would be carried off by a balloon. No one was and I missed the part where the Grinch balloon attacked the crowd. Oh well.

It was quite cold this year – in the 20’s, not including the wind chill – but there were large crowds out to enjoy the show. I was surprised by the size of the crowds. It seems that people want to go see the parade regardless of the weather. I was content to sit in the living room, drinking coffee, wearing comfortable fleece-lined slippers and not having to be concerned with where I was going to find a bathroom.

News reporters were talking to people, asking why they were there. I would have thought the answer was obvious. They came to see the parade. Fortunately, the people all had better answers than I would have given. Some go every year, as part of a holiday tradition. Some people said it was on their bucket list. One family that they talked to had travelled up from Florida to see the parade. I imagine it was quite a shock to arrive in New York just in time for a polar blast to come through and realize you would be standing out in one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record. Next year I hope their bucket list is to see the 4^th of July fireworks over the Hudson. It will be much warmer then.

People make such a big deal out of their bucket lists. They always want to go to exotic places and do crazy things. Barbara has a bucket list that is realistic. I have helped her accomplish several of the items, including visiting New England states and seeing Niagara Falls. There are some other places that we will be working on in the future. My bucket list is more down-to earth. I want to walk into a room and remember why I went there. I want to be able to get out of bed in one movement, instead of in fits and starts. I want to be able to put on my socks without grunting and working up a sweat. There are other items, but some of them are more personal. If you are going to have a bucket list, it should be filled with items that you really want to do and are possible, based on your age, budget and ability. When you are 72 years old and living on Social Security, one of your bucket list items should not be to travel to Nepal to climb Mt Everest.

One thing that occurred to me Thursday, between dinner and dessert was that we were only 33 days from Christmas. I have got to start scheduling the various things I need to do between now and the 21^st, when we leave to drive to South Carolina. I have shopping to finish for my grandsons and for Barbara. I have baking to do for Christmas and for the cookie exchange we are involved with here in our community. I have packages to wrap. I have music to learn for when I go to my brother’s church to sing with his choir for their Lessons and Carols service. I have to iron my Christmas Hawaiian shirts. I am exhausted just thinking about it. I may have to go lie down and take a nap. Daily naps are on my bucket list, too.

This week our fact tells us that an ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. First of all, how does one tell if an ant is intoxicated? What is the preferred beverage to get an ant drunk? I have watched ants walk around. They do not walk in straight lines to begin with, so how would you know if one is intoxicated. It’s not like you can do a breathalyzer test on them.  I had an aunt who laughed a lot when she was intoxicated, but I never actually saw her fall over. Next question is why would you take the time to get an ant drunk and then watch to see which way it falls? How many ants were watched to determine that this was a fact? Which way do other insects fall?

Today is Sunday, November 18 and there are only 37 days until Christmas. Time to start searching for those gifts that you bought early and then put away and now do not know where they are. Today we remember the birthdays of William Gilbert, Alan Shepard, Jr and Jeffrey Siegel. On this day in 1307 William Tell shot an apple off his son’s head, in 1865 Mark Twain published “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and in 1960 the US Copyright office issued its 10 millionth registration. In Albania it is Independence Day, in Haiti it is Army Day, in Oman it is National Day and in the US it is Mickey Mouse’s Birthday and National Princess Day.

Happy Birthday Mickey Mouse! Mickey Mouse – the cartoon character and mascot of the Walt Disney Company was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios in 1928. He debuted publicly in “Steamboat Willie” on November 18, 1928. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Here is an interesting fact for you. Each of Mickey's hands has only three fingers and a thumb. Disney said that this was both an artistic and financial decision, explaining "Artistically five digits are too many for a mouse. His hand would look like a bunch of bananas. Financially, not having an extra finger in each of 45,000 drawings that make up a six and one-half minute short has saved the Studio millions." That should give you some good filler for your Mickey Mouse trivia folder.

This past week, we had our first snow storm, much earlier than usual. A few years ago there was one on Halloween which messed up that day, but generally we get them in late December and into the new year. What got me was that the storm wreaked havoc on the highways and for commuters. I am not really sure why. They had been predicting this snow since Monday. The forecasters kept saying that, depending on what model you believed, we would see up to six inches in my area and more the further north you went.

The snow started to fall in the early afternoon and by the time people were on their way home it was chaos. The news kept showing accidents with cars driving into trucks, buses getting stuck and traffic moving at a very slow pace. The public transportation terminals were so jammed with people that they were standing outside waiting to get in. All of this was because the people responsible for clearing the snow so traffic could move had not done their job. Of course, after the fact there was a lot of finger pointing and everyone was blaming someone else, but the bottom line was that the job did not get done. One person being interviewed said, “I am not sure why they weren’t ready. I watched TV and knew this was coming. I have on boots, a warm coat and I have my umbrella. I was ready. Why weren’t they?”

I have always found it interesting that doing a bad job is okay as long as you have someone to blame for it. Imagine this scene in a bakery. “Frank, a customer just returned a cake that was not completely baked. The inside was still raw batter.” Frank shakes his head and says, “That will be a problem for some of the cakes we made this morning because the oven is not working right. I told the manager that it needed to be fixed, but I guess he didn’t get it done.” “But if you knew the oven wasn’t working right, why did you use it?” “Because I had to get those cakes done.” “But they weren’t done, they were raw in the middle!” “That was because the manager didn’t get the oven fixed.” … but I digress.

Back to the snow issue, it would seem to me that if you know a storm is coming, you should be prepared to deal with it. I would think it would be better to be geared up for the worst and then deal with what you get than to be unprepared and have to play catch up the rest of the day. But that’s just me. To paraphrase a statement I make all the time – it is better to be ready and not need to be than to not be ready and need to be. I will now let this subject rest and move on. I am sure that most of you were not responsible for the foolishness that went on the other day, anyway. If any of you were, shame on you.

This week our fact tells us that in Bexley, Ohio ordinance number 223 prohibits the installation and usage of slot machines in outhouses. Is this because the machine takes up valuable space? I would think that common sense would tell you not to use a slot machine in there. If you were to win and the money started coming out would you have the hands free to catch it? Would you really want whatever fell on the floor? Another time that I would love to know the story behind the law.

Today is Sunday, November 11 and there are only 44 days until Christmas. By now you should have your lists to the people who you hope will buy you presents. Today we remember the birthdays of Abigail Adams, George Patton, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr and me. On this day in 1620 41 pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and signed the Mayflower Compact, in 1865 Mary Edward Walker, first Army female surgeon, was awarded the Medal of Honor and in 1959 the first episode of “Rocky and His Friends” aired. In Angola it is Independence Day, in Belgium and France it is Armistice Day, in Maldives it is Republic Day and in the US it is Veterans Day and National Sundae Day.

I would like to start off by discussing today’s holiday – Veterans Day. This is an official US holiday that honors military veterans. It coincides with Armistice Day and Remembrance Day celebrated in other countries that mark the anniversary of the end of World War I. Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when the Armistice with Germany went into effect. The United States Congress adopted a resolution on June 4, 1926, requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue annual proclamations calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate ceremonies.

In 1945 World War II veteran Raymond Weeks had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who died in World War I. Weeks led a delegation to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who supported the idea of National Veterans Day. A bill was presented establishing the holiday through Congress and was signed into law on May 26, 1954. It had been eight and a half years since Weeks held his first celebration for all veterans. Congress amended the bill on June 1, 1954, replacing "Armistice" with "Veterans," and it has been known as Veterans Day since.

Moving along, but still staying somewhat on the subject, there are a few more things I would like to mention. First, the day is Ve-ter-ans Day not Vetrins Day. It’s only one more syllable! Please pronounce it correctly. Another thing I have been mentioning is that it is, in fact, my birthday. This year I am celebrating the 39^th anniversary of my 30^th birthday (I will give you a minute to do the math). I have always enjoyed celebrating my birthday. It means that I am still alive, so no matter how many years it is, I will enjoy it.

When I was just a kid, we had the day off from school and our town always had a parade actually on Veterans Day. For a number of years I had my friends convinced that it was all done for my birthday. It didn’t take long for them to find out the truth. I think it was because they complained that we didn’t get off from school or a parade for their birthdays. Nowadays, people say that because I was born on Veterans Day I was destined to go into the service and become a veteran. That is like saying that because a person was born on Easter they were destined to be a large rabbit that distributed colored eggs and candy.

 I am a veteran and am proud of it, but I will be the first to point out that I really did not have a choice. My only choices were to run off to Canada, go to college or be drafted. My high school years were not my best, so college was not really an option. I didn’t go to Canada because I figured so many had gone before me that all the good jobs would be taken. Being drafted was difficult to avoid. Back then, if you were breathing you were going. I opted to enlist in the Air Force, figuring I had a better chance of not going to Vietnam and ended up volunteering to go there anyway. Go figure.

For years everyone has geared up for the big Black Friday sale on the day after Thanksgiving. It was a tradition that many looked forward to. They would plan their route, make their lists and go to bed early so that they could join the crush the next day. Over the years, things got crazy and people started camping out at stores to get one of the 10 special items of the year. I never understood that part of the whole thing. If your company has a product that everyone wants, why would you only have a limited quantity available. Aside from making people angry because they did not get it … but I digress.

My point is that this year, the Black Friday sales started on the day after Halloween, a month before it used to start. So now we will have Black Friday sales going on all month, messing up another tradition. Who didn’t look forward to seeing people pushing and shoving to get into the stores to buy everything they could get their hands on. Who cared if it was what they really wanted or if it would fit? The point was they got it at the special Black Friday price (which was inflated by 40% so they could cut it by 20% and make money). I have always said, and still maintain, that if you wait until December, you will get things at a better price. That is when retailers realize that, if they don’t reduce the prices, they will be stuck with lot of stuff. The up side to starting Black Friday almost a month early is that you don’t have to camp out in a parking lot, drinking tepid coffee and making sure no one jumps your spot in line.

This week our fact tells us that the average American will eat 35,000 cookies in a lifetime. Are they serious? I exceeded that number a long time ago between my mother’s great Christmas cookies and the Girl Scout cookies I get each year. Not to mention the baking I do now. If all a person eats is 35,000 they are slackers. Come on America – eat up!

Today is Sunday, November 4 and there are only seven days until my birthday. I’m just saying.  Today we remember the birthdays of Eden Phillpotts, Walter Cronkite and Noam Pitlik. On this day in 1842 Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in Springfield, IL, in 1924 Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected the first US female governor, in Wyoming, and in 1980 Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter by a landslide. In Italy it is Unity Day, in Panama it is Flag Day, in Tonga it is Constitution Day and in the US it is National Candy Day.

Since it is November, here is some information on the month. November is the eleventh and penultimate month of the year and the fourth and last of four months to have a length of 30 days. November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar. November retained its name (from the Latin novem meaning "nine") when January and February were added to the Roman calendar. The birthstones are topaz and citrine and the flower is the chrysanthemum. November is National Diabetes Month, National Family Caregivers Month, Banana Pudding Lovers Month and National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, to name just some of the monthly observances. That should cover your need for November trivia.  Let’s close that file so we can move on.

Once a year, time goes backward. That time came this morning at 2 a.m., when we “fell back” and set our watches an hour earlier to 1 a.m. The occasion marks the annual transition from daylight saving time to standard time. There are a number of reasons why people dislike this time of year – mainly, earlier sunsets. My problem is that, as an owner of a large number of watches, it is going to take me a rather long time to reset them all. Credit — or blame — for the biannual shift goes back to Benjamin Franklin, who published An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light in a 1784 journal after he noticed that people burned candles at night but slept past dawn, but he never saw his plan put into action. 

The U.S. first implemented daylight saving during World War I as a way to conserve fuel. There are proponents of going to Daylight Saving Time and staying there and there are those who feel we should just stay with Standard Time. This is a discussion that has been going on for years and will probably go on for years. Like it or not, we are stuck with it for now. So, we have fallen back and will not spring forward until March. If you like standard time, enjoy the months that you have. If you like daylight saving time, you only have to wait five months and it will be back.

Recently, Barbara and I went shopping at one of those large discount grocery (and everything else) stores. We purchased a number of items, loaded them into the car and came home. We unloaded everything, brought it all into the house and put it away. No problem! That night, as we were getting ready to go to bed, I asked her if she had put away the box of K cups we bought. She said no, she thought I had. I said I didn’t think so and went to check. In fact they were not where we would normally store them. 

She wondered if we had left them in the car so, at 11:30 PM, I went out to the car to see if they were there. I even took a flashlight on the theory that the light in the car would not be sufficient for me to see a red box large enough to hold 60 K cups. They were not in the car. I came back in the house and we began searching for where we might have put them. You know how it is. You are in the process of putting things away and carry something with you and then put it down, not meaning to leave it there, but forgetting to pick it up. I even went back out to the car to see if the box had fallen and I didn’t see it.

She said she knew they were not in the cart when she returned it to the cart corral, because she checked. I wondered if I had left it by the car when I was unloading and someone came along and took it. I had some less than pleasant things to say about whoever would have done that. I even checked to see if it had been put in the freezer; however, Barbara scoffed at me for that, pointing out that there would not have been enough room for it there. I said that I remembered carrying several things into the house and I even mentioned what each of the items was. We went through the event of unloading and carrying, each time ending with my giving the inventory of what I carried. I remembered giving the items to Barbara, but she did not remember having the K cups.

It was closing in on midnight and we had looked everywhere several times. I even made another trip to the car, thinking maybe they had somehow shifted from the back of the car to the back seat. They had not. I also took one more look under the car, but they had not magically appeared or been returned by contrite neighbors. As I was walking back into the house, I ran the event through my head and realized that the item I thought was the box was actually something else. 

At this point, Barbara suggested that I check the receipt. I did and discovered that they had not charged us for the coffee. Apparently they did not see it on the counter. We did not notice that they were not in the cart, nor did we notice that we did not put them in the car. It was not until I checked the receipt that we realized that we never had them. Now you have some idea of the things you can look forward to as you get older.

This week our fact tells us that no one may catch fish with his or her bare hands in Kansas. I am not sure if this is a law or if it is because fish are just too hard to catch by hand and the ones in Kansas are particularly slippery. I will have to check on that.