August 9th

     A lot of monumental things have happened on August 9th.  Here's a couple highlights:

• 1483 - Opening of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican
• 1655 - Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell divides England into 11 districts
• 1757 - English Fort William Henry, NY, surrenders to French & Indians troops
• 1803 - 1st horses arrive in Hawaii
• 1831 - 1st US steam engine train run (Albany to Schenectady, NY)
• 1854 - Henry David Thoreau publishes "Walden"
• 1859 - Elevator patented
• 1902 - Edward VII of Great Britain crowned having succeeded his mother Victoria
• 1910 - Alva Fisher patents electric washing machine
• 1930 - Betty Boop debuts in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes
• 1942 - Mahatma Gandhi & 50 others arrested in Bombay after passing of a "quit India" campaign by the All-India Congress
• 1944 - Smokey Bear debuts as spokesman for fire prevention
• 1945 - US drops 2nd atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Japan destroys part of Nagasaki
• 1969 - Manson family commits Tate-LaBianca murders
• 1974 - Richard Nixon resigns presidency, VP Gerald Ford becomes 38th US president
• 2008 - Laurel Sullivan, our beloved mom, dies in Boston

     There are days like today where you just want to wallow in misery, staying in bed or on the couch, watching pointless crap on TV, while children sit on or around you.  But then you get up and go to work, run errands afterwards, try to act as normal as possible around the babies, put the groceries away and carry on.  It's the "keep a stiff upper lip," "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," "learn to move on" approach.
     You know what ... it's disingenuous to your real self and your real emotions.