Day 353 - a bright and sunny but chilly Tuesday

 Today is the 3rd day of the 51st week, the 19th day of the 12th month, the 353rd day of 2023 [you really don't want to know how many shopping days are left until Christmas if you haven't finished yet], and: 

• Holly Day
• Look for an Evergreen Day
• National Emo Day
• National Hard Candy Day
• National Oatmeal Muffin Day
• the moon at first quarter at 1:40 PM EST
• and Voyager 1 is 22h 33m 53s of light travel time from Earth

On this day in....

1487 - Opening ceremony of the sixth Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) 4,000 prisoners of war are sacrificed to Aztec gods over four days

1606 – The ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery depart England carrying settlers who founded, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.

1686 - Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Daniel Defoe's famous novel)

1835 - HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard arrives in New Zealand

1843 - 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens is published [6,000 copies sold]

1854 - Allen Wilson of Conn patents sewing machine to sew curving seams

1918 - Robert Ripley begins his "Believe It or Not" column (NY Globe)

1924 – The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

1950 - Chinese invasion of Tibet forces the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to flee Lhasa for Yadong on the Tibetan-India border [I just find it very sad that for my entire life, the Dalai Lama has been a fugitive.  He was formally exiled nine years later]

1955 - Carl Perkins records "Blue Suede Shoes" for Sun Records at Memphis Recording Service studio

1957 - Meredith Willson's musical "The Music Man", starring Robert Preston and Barbara Cook, opens at Majestic Theater, NYC; runs for 1375 performances, wins 5 Tony and a Grammy Award

1958 - First radio broadcast from space, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends a Christmas message "to all mankind, America's wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to men everywhere"

1962 - Transit 5A1, the first operational navigational satellite, launched

1971 - NASA launches Intelsat 4 F-3 for COMSAT Corp

1972 – Apollo program: The last crewed lunar flight, Apollo 17, carrying Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, southeast of Samoa.

1978 - France performs nuclear test

1984 - China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC

1984 - Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration to transfer Hong Kong back to China in 1997

1995 – The United States Government restores federal recognition to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Native American tribe.

2001 - "The Fellowship of the Ring", 1st Lord of the Rings film is released. Makes US$47 million US opening weekend, $871 million total worldwide.

2007 - The Lakotah people, a Native American tribe, proclaim independence and withdraw all their treaties with the United States. Establish the Republic of Lakotah, as a separate country.

2013 – Spacecraft Gaia is launched by the European Space Agency.

2019 - Earliest fossilized trees, 386 million years old, found at a quarry in Cairo, New York, study published in "Current Biology"

2023 - "Science" names anti-obesity medications that mimic the hormone GLP-1, containing semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro), their breakthrough of the year  [personal note - despite my unfortunate severe allergic reaction, my daughter and many others have benefited from the regulation of their blood sugar and their weight]

Quote of the day:

"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."

~ PJ O'Rourke, American political satirist and journalist 

I have always found that reading tastes differ widely, even among those who are closest.  And after all these years, I can still be sneered at for my fixation on science fiction and fantasy by those who prefer to "learn something about real life".  I just laugh and stick my head back in my book.  Thank you very much, as a history major, one who makes the mistake of reading the news, a full time employee, and mother, I have quite enough "real life" and treasure the ability to escape.

There is a quality of taking a deep breath as the holidays loom around the corner.  The last requests for pre-audit information are trickling in.  The EOM report prep is starting.  And it is time to start creating the tracking calendars for next year - vacation and time in the office.   

Bossman is taking us out to lunch tomorrow at the Capital Grille  and declared that after lunch, we can all go home.  He also told us those scheduled to work in the office on Friday and Tuesday can work from home.  Just wish that he would extend it through the entire week between Christmas and New Year's as we talked him into doing last year, but it is what it is.  

One thing that I miss this time of year, and I didn't think I would, is the sheer volume of mail that used to come.  Understandable, I don't get Christmas cards because I stopped sending them out after Frank died, but I find that I miss getting them, altho I did get a very personalized calendar that was put in the HUB for retrieval.  I don't get the catalogs like I used to because I shop online these days [and I tend to pitch the few that do come] but I find I rather miss their cheerful commercialization and flipping through the pages to find outlandish items.  These days I have been getting bills and requests for donations [which I ignore] when I check the mailbox. 

To those asking if I am "ready for Christmas", I always reply that I am.  The packages are wrapped and ready to go, but despite the elaborate decorations in world, plus beladona arrayed in festive outfits, hanging that gorgeous wreath on my door, listening to Christmas stories on Audible, and completing the advent calendar every day, the Christmas tree remains ensconced in the Disaster Area.

Oh well, there are still five more days between me and the big day.  Maybe Saturday....