Wannaskan Almanac for Saturday, February 17th

Greetings from the newest, contributing author of the Wannaskan Almanac! I’m the pup of the bunch. Hopefully my WA counterparts will be enamored by my bouncy energy and enthusiasm instead of annoyed by the latest yipping goulash.

Disclaimer: I am not fond of research. Actually, I abhor it. If I were to take the CliftonStrengths quiz (formerly Strengths Finder 2.0) that assesses and ranks, from strongest to weakest, my entire cadre of 34 strengths, I’m pretty sure that anything involving research and analysis would fall into the bottom five. Scratch that. The bottom three. For sure.

However, given the spirit and purpose of an almanac – to inform – I will pluck these strengths from the bottom of my heap and pair them with my top five - Positivity, Woo, Maximizer, Connectedness, and Communication.  If I were a dog, I like to think I’d make a great Golden Retriever.

Speaking of dogs, here’s my first useful bit of intel to impart. Two great, dog-related books I can heartily recommend include A Dog’s Purpose and The Art of Racing in the Rain. I am NOT a dog lover (although I have been wooed on occasion) so don’t take this recommendation lightly.

Okay, another disclaimer. I haven’t actually read A Dog’s Purpose. My book club did, but I just couldn’t get past the whole dog reincarnation bit. But recently I saw the movie with my kids and cried more than the five-year-old.  Book club loved it too, so there you go; fortification for my recommendation. (P.S. The whole dog reincarnation thing ends up making sense.)

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein, I have read. This is one of the most brilliant and beautiful works of fiction I have ever read. Definitely in my top five. This assurance of my recommendation either reveals great sense of taste or how little I read. You be the judge!

Speaking of kids, I have five. This has proven useful. Did you know kids are a wealth of information? While gaining the oomph to finally put on my big girl pants and start perusing the internet for fun facts, the aforementioned five-year-old told me something fascinating. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what it was - another byproduct of having five children - but what I do remember is that Eureka moment.

Unbeknownst to them, the kids did not disappoint. The rest of the week was fun-fact laden. However, eventually they caught on, the teens especially suspicious as to why I kept asking them to write their fun facts down on post-its. They made it clear that if I wanted to take advantage of their seemingly random, yet useful, knowledge, I would have to record it myself. The middle child, on the other hand, is now sending me emails.

So, without further ado, I add to the wealth of Wannaskan Almanac knowledge three bits of information the kids deemed worthy to share with their mother.

Fun Fact #1: In Colombia, young teens are taking care of robot babies to teach them how to take care of real babies. This is because, between the ages of 15-19, there is a large number of teen parents. (Source: Most recent National Geographic magazine lying on the kitchen counter.)

Fun Fact #2: Panama is the only country in the world where you can see the sun rise in the Atlantic and set in the Pacific without moving.” (Note: Yes, I know, the sun doesn’t set in the oceans, but that’s what he wrote.)

Fun Fact #3: “If the Hinden Burg didn’t crash then the first nuclear bomb would never have been made and Hitler would unleash it. (Note to self: Work with boy on grammar and word spacing. “Unleash” and “it” were so close together, I almost didn’t understand what he’d written. Also, not sure if the “e" in unleash was indecipherable or absent.)

And here are some brief highlights to celebrate accomplishments ON THIS DAY.

Happy February 17th Highlighted Events!

- 1568 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II agrees to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire for peace.
- 1865 Columbia, South Carolina, burns down during American Civil War.
- 1876 Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine.
- 1969 Golda Meir sworn in as the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
- 1972 British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market.
- 2017 Discovery of a new mostly underwater continent Zealandia in the South Pacific announced in research journal "GSA Today."

I love how the importance of canning sardines is equated with world peace. It's practically poetic justice that the burning down of Columbia is countered by the discovery of Zealandia.

Happy February 17th Birthday!

- 1754 Jan Jachym Kopriva, Czech composer and organist, born in Cítoliby, Czech Republic,

(d. 1792), He came from quite the musical family.

- 1844 Aaron Montgomery Ward, found mail-order business (Montgomery Ward)
- 1924 Margaret Truman, pres daughter/writer (Murder at FBI)/pianist
- 1929 Chaim Potok, American novelist (Promise), born in NYC, New York, I loved his book, The Chosen.
- Michael Jordan and Larry the Cable Guy were born on the EXACT same day in 1963.
- A grand total of 1 of my Facebook friends has a birthday on this day.

As the texting lingo goes, TTFN!

Kim