Daily Update: Thursday, May 23rd, 2024

With no Saints to honor today, we note that today is World Turtle Day. And my late mother (died in 1985) was born on this date in 1929.

World Turtle Day, sponsored yearly since 2000 by American Tortoise Rescue, was founded to bring attention to, and increase knowledge of and respect for, turtles and tortoises, and to encourage human action to help them survive and thrive. American Tortoise Rescue (ATR) is an animal rescue organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, adoption and protection of all tortoise and turtle species, and the protection of their environments. Located in Malibu, California, ATR is a United States 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. Since its founding in 1990 by husband and wife team Marshall Thompson and Susan Tellem, ATR has rescued over one thousand turtles and two thousand tortoises. The organization’s in-house population “floats” at about one hundred and twenty-five animals. World Turtle Day is celebrated around the globe in a variety of ways, from dressing up as turtles or wearing green summer dresses, to saving turtles caught on highways, and engaging in research activities. Turtle Day lesson plans and craft projects encourage teaching about turtles in classrooms. (Turtles have feet that are at least slightly webbed, because they are partly or wholly aquatic; for the same reason, their shells are flat and streamlined. Tortoises live on land, have no webbing on their feet, and have dome-shaped shells. Box turtles live on land and have domed shaped shells, but they do have a bit of webbing on their feet, so though they look like tortoises, they are actually turtles.) And my late mother (died in 1985) was born on this date in 1929.

Last night I started reading The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun by Robert Kaplow (Ebook).

I fed the cats and showered the front plants, the butterfly garden, and the porch plants. Richard went to drink coffee. I posted to Facebook that today was World Turtle Day. Richard got home, and I started washing the mattress cover, sheets, and summer bedspread on our bed. I did my Book Devotional Reading. The Full Moon arrived at 8:53 am. I ate my breakfast toast and read the Thursday papers out on the porch, and did my Internet Devotional Reading. I left the house at 10:00 am. I left off a stool sample at the Lab, and was told to do the cards instead. At the Lafayette Public Library – Southside Branch, I returned American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins and took out Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker. I then went to Hobby Lobby and got some items (more anon). I arrived home at 1:00 pm, and Richard had finished washing the bedding and put it back on our bed; he also said his cousin had called, and will meet us for crawfish at 6:30 pm. I uploaded some music CDs I had gotten at the last book sale, and worked on my weblog. I then continued reading Books: Their history, art, power, glory, infamy and suffering according to their creators, friends and enemies by Gerald Donaldson. After Jeopardy!, I made some earrings from charms I got at Hobby Lobby. We left the house at 6:15 pm, went to Mo’Crawfish, and had dinner with Richard’s cousins. We got home at 9:00 am. At the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama our LSU Tigers won their SEC College Baseball game (double elimination) with the South Carolina Gamecocks by the score of 11 to 10. At the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama our LSU Tigers will be playing an SEC College Baseball game with the Kentucky Wildcats or with the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday, May 25th. And I will now finish this Daily Update, do some reading, and go to bed.

Tomorrow is the second of three Ember Days for this season of the year. Tomorrow is the Optional Memorial of Our Lady, Help of Christians. Tomorrow is also the birthday of my daughter’s friend Chelsie here in town (1988). I have nothing planned for tomorrow. At the NCAA Super Regional (Best of Three Game Series) in Stanford, California, our #11 LSU Lady Tigers will be playing the first game of a three-game College Softball Series with the #8 Stanford Cardinal.

Today our Parting Quote comes to us from Eric Carle, German-born author and illustrator (died 2021). Born in 1929 in Syracuse, New York, his father was a civil servant. In 1935, when he was six, his family moved to Stuttgart, Germany, where his mother had grown up. His father was drafted into the German army at the beginning of World War II (1939). Carle was sent to the small town of Schwenningen to escape the bombings of Stuttgart. When he was fifteen, the German government conscripted boys of that age to dig trenches on the Siegfried Line. His father was taken prisoner by the Soviet forces when Germany capitulated in May 1945; he did not return home until late in 1947, weighing eight-five pounds Carle graduated from high school, and moved to New York City in 1952 with only forty dollars in savings; he landed a job as graphic designer in the promotion department of The New York Times. He married his first wife in 1953; they had three children. He was drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War and stationed in Germany with the 2nd Armoured Division as a mail clerk. After discharge Carle returned to his old job with The New York Times. He and his first wife divorced in 1963. He then became the art director of an advertising agency. Educator and author Bill Martin Jr. noticed the illustration of a red lobster Carle had created for an advertisement and asked him to collaborate on a picture book. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was published by Henry Holt & Co. in 1967 and became a best-seller. His first books as both author and illustrator were 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo and The Very Hungry Caterpillar in 1969. His artwork was created as collage, using hand-painted papers, which he cut and layered to form bright and colorful images. Many of his books have an added dimension—die-cut pages, twinkling lights as in The Very Lonely Firefly, even the lifelike sound of a cricket’s song as in The Very Quiet Cricket. The themes of his stories are usually drawn from nature and inspired by the walks his father would take him on across meadows and through woods. He married his second wife in 1973. He and his wife founded The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, a 44,000 square foot museum devoted to the art of children’s books in Amherst, adjacent to Hampshire College. According to the museum, it has had over 500,000 visitors, including more than 30,000 school children, since it opened its doors in 2002. In 2003 he received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) from the professional children’s librarians, which recognizes an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made “a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children”. In a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, The Very Hungry Caterpillar was voted the number two children’s picture book behind Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. In 2019 a jumping spider mimicking a caterpillar was named in Carle’s honor to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and to celebrate his ninetieth birthday (died 2021): “With many of my books I attempt to bridge the gap between the home and school. To me home represents, or should represent; warmth, security, toys, holding hands, being held. School is a strange and new place for a child. Will it be a happy place? There are new people, a teacher, classmates—will they be friendly? I believe the passage from home to school is the second biggest trauma of childhood; the first is, of course, being born. Indeed, in both cases, we leave a place of warmth and protection for one that is unknown. The unknown often brings fear with it. In my books, I try to counteract this fear, to replace it with a positive message. I believe that children are naturally creative and eager to learn. I want to show them that learning is really both fascinating and fun.”