Today is Sunday, November 19 and there are only 357 days until my birthday, for those of you who missed it this year.  Today we remember the birthdays of George Rogers Clark, Indira Gandi and Calvin Klein.  On this day in 1493 Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico, on his second voyage, in 1863 Abraham Lincoln delivered his address at Gettysburg and in 1959 Ford cancelled production of the Edsel.  In Mali it is Liberation Day, in Puerto Rico it is Discovery Day and in the US it is National Carbonated Beverage With Caffeine Day and National Play Monopoly Day.  This coming Thursday is, of course, Thanksgiving.

There is not much to say about Thanksgiving that I have not said before so I will not bore you with all that.  Instead let’s go into something else.  I am sure that many of you had the same reaction that I did when you read about it being National Carbonated Beverage With Caffeine Day – Huh?  I decided to find out more, so open up your useless holiday information file.  National Carbonated Beverage With Caffeine Day is a unique food holiday observed annually on November 19.  Some people cannot have caffeine due to medical reasons, some choose to avoid caffeine for their own reasons; however, there are the millions of people who like their caffeine very much.  The same is true with the carbonation in beverages.  Today’s celebration combines the two of them together.

In 1767, Englishman Joseph Priestly suspended a bowl of distilled water above a beer vat at a local brewery in Leeds, England which led to the discovery of a method of infusing water with carbon dioxide to make carbonated water.  Priestly’s invention of carbonated water is the major and the defining component of most soft drinks.  Caffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant, temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness.  Ninety percent of adults in North America consume caffeine daily.   Some people notice sleep disruption after drinking beverages containing caffeine while others see no disturbance at all.

I was unable to find out when this holiday was created or who developed it, but so what.  Enjoy the day anyway.  Now let’s put the holiday folder away for this week.

I know that I said I would get out and try to have some interesting things to discuss this week, but that did not happen.  I spent the better part of the week working on a project for my grandson.  He has become a very good percussionist and his parents bought him a drum set last year.  With all the rain we have had and based on historic evidence, it was decided that he should have a platform to raise his drums up off the floor.  They have a sump pump, but they have also had flooding in the basement in the past.  It was decided that it would be wise to get the drums up out of harm’s way.

I told my son that I would be happy to build it for them.  He gave me the measurements and I started planning the project.  It is amazing how simple something seems when planning and how tough it is to actually do the work.  The first thing I had to do was buy the lumber.  Barbara and I went to the big store near the kids’ house to make our purchases.  I had made a list of what I would need and naively believed it would be simple to get the wood, load it into my car and drive it to the house.  It was simple to get the wood, because one of the people working there helped load it onto the cart.  We went to the cashier and she scanned the tags, I paid and we went outside.  That is where simple stopped.

I went and pulled my car up to where Barbara waited with the supplies.  The first sheet of plywood was kind of awkward, but we figured it out and the second went smoother.  Next we had to put one 16 foot long board and four 12 foot long boards in the car  I ended up pushing them up onto the console, leaving just enough room to be able to shift the car.  Now came the problem of tying down the tailgate.  I got a couple lengths of cord and began to try and figure how to tie these boards so that they would stay in place during the drive.  I could not really find a good tie down in the car, but we did what we thought was a job good enough to get us where we needed to be.  There was a time or two when I accelerated from a red light that we thought we were going to lose them, but we were able to hang on and pull them back in.

State law here requires that if the load you are carrying extends four feet beyond the end of your vehicle, you need to hang a red flag on the end of the load.  The store conveniently provided the red flags.  Unfortunately, they did not provide any method for attaching the flag to the wood.  So we drove on without it.  At one point, we were driving on the road to the kids’ house and a car was behind us.  The driver of the other car decided that maybe he would stay well behind us, just in case.  Maybe he saw us pulling the boards back in or he had some kind of bad experience either as a person with a load of lumber or following someone else.

In any event, we got to the house, unloaded the wood, then came home, took the appropriate medication to avoid aches and pains and then sat around moaning and groaning.  I will not go into the gory details of measuring numerous times, cutting the wood and then actually putting the whole thing together.  The most nerve wracking part was getting the carpeting measured and cut so that it would fit properly.  I managed, but there was a whole lot of math written out on the plywood before I made the first cut.  There was also a lot more moaning and groaning by me.  I am hoping that sometime later today I will finally be able to stand up straight without making any noise, but I am not confident.  Maybe in the new year.

This week our fact tells us that it in Connecticut it is illegal to pirouette while crossing the street.  I wonder why?  I think it would be entertaining to see that.  But why only a pirouette?  Is it okay to plie, releve or sauté?  Again, more information would be nice on this law.

I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you all have a day filled with good food, good family and friends and watching football with your pants unbuttoned.