#national sticky bun day

[doctorfriend79]

😋 Happy National Sticky Bun Day! 😋

[subby-sab]

Today is 21st of February.

Today is International Mother Language Day, National Sticky Bun Day, Card Reading Day.

[murderousink23]

02/21/2023 is Mardi Gras 🌏, National Pancake Day-IHOP 🥞🇺🇲, National Sticky Bun Day 🇺🇲, Pancake Tuesday 🥞🇬🇧, International Mother Language Day 🇺��

[ami-ven]

Happy National Sticky Bun Day!

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Musician Age Gap AU Pt 8

"I cannot believe you told my wife your date was with *Lena Luthor*," Alex whispers mid-yell, "before you told me!"

"Would it have changed your recommendation?"

At that, Kara hears Alex pause to consider.

"No," comes the final response. Then, "Did it work?"

Kara flushes-- she'd certainly gotten the reaction she'd been looking for. She just isn't sure she wants her sister to know that they hadn't fully resolved that desire.

"Well enough," Kara returns, settling on an incomplete truth. She'd explain the rest later... eventually.

A muttered curse issues over the line. "Jesus. How did this even happen? Wait-- what happens now? Esme said her next show is in, like... 16 hours, in Denver."

Kara smiles into the phone. "We stay in touch."

She's already received a picture via text, showing Lena with a tongue-out wink and a playful peace sign. Another photo had revealed a sticky bun, with a note that Lena had gotten Jess to swing by Noonan's on the way to the airport.

Though the sight of the sticky bun had made her hungry, the selfie made her pause to absorb the image. From the relaxed tousle of Lena's wavy hair, to the ray-bans hooked on the collar of her shirt, and the luxury of the private plane lurking around the edges.... she wonders if Lena realizes just how far she's letting Kara in, allowing her to see Lena in so personal a setting.

Kara's response had been simple. "Fly safe."

It had earned her a floating heart emoji and a promise to touch base upon landing.

"That's it?" Alex asks, pulling Kara back to the present.

Kara huffs a laugh. "What did you expect? She wasn't going to cancel half a national tour for personal time with someone she only met two days ago."

"Well why not? You're worth it."

"You're only saying that because you're my sister," Kara counters. "Besides, I don't want that for her."

Seeing Lena on stage had proven it's something the woman enjoyed. She thrived on the experience of it, and so did the thousands of fans who came to see her.

Which is why, a few hours after Lena's first Denver show would have concluded, Kara is surprised to receive a call from Lena. They'd facetimed when she'd landed, so the lack of video is her first clue that something isn't right.

"Hey," Kara greets, pressing the phone to her ear as she wipes sleep from her eyes. She'd meant to stay awake to check in herself, but not even a book had been able to keep her from dozing off.

"Hey."

Lena's voice is somber. It's such a difference that a wave of concern wakes Kara the rest of the way.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

There's a short pause before Lena responds. "Nothing."

"How was the show?"

"Fine. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be calling so late. I just... I wanted to hear your voice." Lena pauses again. "Is that weird?"

"No." Kara listens closely to the quiet that follows, as though it might give her some insight into what was happening on the other end of the line. "Lena..."

"Could you... talk to me?"

"About what?"

"Anything. Just... so I can listen."

Kara's brow furrows. She fights the impulse to dig deeper, to push to find the why. She doesn't need to know. Lena has asked for what she needs-- and it's something Kara is able and willing to give.

"Did I ever tell you that I didn't always live in National City?"

Lena hums a negative, prompting Kara to continue.

"I'm actually from a town up the coast. Midvale. I miss it sometimes. The stars mostly. In high school, I had friend named Kenny, and we would take his telescope to the old barn, and we would chart the skies together..."

Kara goes on, relating many and more of the troubles she and Kenny had gotten up to in those days. She was careful to steer clear of his murder, and the bullying they'd both experienced. Lena needed distraction, not more heartache.

As she speaks, Lena hums occasionally, sometimes even giving a chuckle. When the sounds of her following along peters out, Kara pauses to listen if Lena notices the stop. When no reaction comes, Kara smiles to herself.

"Lena?" she asks softly. "Still there?"

No answer comes, but when Kara increases the volume on her phone, she can hear the steady inhale and exhale of sleep. Kara listens for a few heartbeats more.

"Sweet dreams, Lena."

[eqt-95]

a new kind of romance, pt 5

part 4 | frosting

🍄 | could we? wood we?

“Oh look, a mushr-ooph!”

And then what was a breathless morning became a breathless morning smeared in mud and leaf-tangled hair and a pout the size of Metropolis sitting on Kara’s lower lip.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the outdoorsy one?” Lena laughed, and sure, her rosy cheeks and amber scarf hung around her neck and loose curls tumbling over her shoulders helped temper Kara’s flare of frustration at another thing gone wrong. And sure, maybe Lena was extra glowy because of the warm fall colors and that fought Kara’s own annoyance of slipping and tripping and falling - again.

But only barely.

Because while Lena was being her perfect, soft, perfect, kind, perfect self, Kara was powerless and awkward and now inelegantly in those same fall colors and pouting.

It had been a great idea a week earlier; maybe even the best idea Kara Danvers had ever had: a Saturday-morning hike with her very best friend to an outlook of the city painted in an autumnal palette followed by a stop at an apple orchard for some cider and cinnamon sugar donuts with that same very best friend, all ending with a viewing party of David Attenbourough’s soothing narration back at Kara’s tucked in close to - you guessed it - Kara’s very - very - best friend. It was flawless. It was perfect. It was exactly how Kara wanted to spend every Saturday for the rest of her life. Heck, every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and… well, every day.

Except when she planned it a week ago, Kara hadn’t expected it to drizzle or that a National City crisis would burn out her powers.

So pout she did while Lena cautiously toed down the steep hill, dressed in warm flannels and a deep green jacket and gosh, she looked so pretty. How did she always look so pretty?

“Come on, there’s still a whole hill to climb,” a pair of pretty, unpainted lips said and Kara blinked out of her dazed stupor.

“Or maybe we can just call it quits and get cocoa and a couple sticky buns at noonans?” Kara asked hopefully, tucking her pout away.

“I can’t believe my ears,” Lena huffed, offering an outstretched hand. “Is Kara Zor El quitting on me?”

“No,” Kara huffed like a petulant child, climbing to her feet. The lower lip threatened to perch again. “It’d just be nice if, you know-oah!”

Words were ripped out from under Kara with the same slipperiness that sent her sprawling moments earlier. Only this time, she was met with a very different set of tangled limbs and breathless huffs because this time there was a flannel-clad Lena to negotiate.

And that negotiation might have felt exactly like the Princess Bride tumble if the Princess Bride tumble had been Buttercup (Lena) and Westley (Kara) tumbling together down a smaller hill covered in damp leaves with Buttercup (Lena) landing on top of Westley (Kara). 

Except there were some key differences. The biggest, Kara would argue, was that Lena was way prettier than Robin Wright. The next biggest was that their tumble was objectively far more romantic because Lena was laughing and tucking her face into the crook of Kara’s neck and holding tight at her waist even after they’d rolled to a stop and maybe Kara wanted to stay like this forever and ever, wet ground be damned.

Not that Kara romanticized things about her friend - her best friend. The word had never crossed her Pulitzer-prize-winning mind. This was simple platonic adoration. 

Because how could she not adore the dimples blossoming across Lena’s cheeks, or admire her laughter reverberating through their entwined form, or cherish the freckle peeking out from her disheveled scarf, or revere the way her lips looked so soft and pink, or delight in the lock of hair that her own hand reached up and tucked behind Lena’s ear.

And yea, maybe since her hand was already there, Kara let the pad of her thumb brush the smudge of dirt that sat along Lena’s creamy cheekbone because how could she not? And sure, maybe that gesture - that platonic gesture made time slow and Lena quiet with a sudden eye-locking focus before letting out a quiet, breathy sigh that made Kara feel things in ways that were certainly not platonic but definitely not not good feeling. 

And maybe it wasn’t fair that Kara was friends with the most perfect person in the whole world because maybe, just maybe, she wanted to romanticize the idea of tumbling down a hill together and landing tangled and breathless and watching with slow, agonizing curiosity as Lena’s lips drew closer (or was it Kara’s that leaned nearer?) because then if she did that - if she romanticized that, it might mean that maybe, just maybe they could, maybe they would-

“My hero,” Lena grinned, her cheeks rosy and breath warm against the chilly air.

And then there was the crinkle of leaves.

And then there was a ghost of Lena’s warmth.

And then there was a hand extended toward her.

“Come on Supergirl, we’ve still got a mountain to climb.”

And maybe Kara didn’t know how to say what she wanted, because of course it would be silly to ask Lena to stay and to sit in the damp leaves and to feel the cold creep up while the sun rose and climbed and set on them. 

So she didn’t say any of that. Instead she accepted Lena’s offered hand and swallowed hard against the uncertainty in her throat and carefully climbed the thirty-seven steps back to the safety of the trail.

Kara’s feet wavered once there, her whole self unmoving except for the way her eyes glanced between where they came from and where they were meant to go. And then she glanced back down the hill to where they’d unexpectedly tumbled and wondered why they couldn’t just keep down that path.

“You ok?” came Lena’s voice, having closed the distance with her brow furrowed in concern. “Did you hurt anything?”

Kara shook her head and pressed her mouth into a smile. “No, just thinking.”

Lena eyed her, a silent ‘about?’ lobbed, and if Kara looked hard enough she might have seen the cautious hope in the way Lena watched her. And if Kara had looked hard enough, she might have seen that cautious hope flicker and dim when Kara patted her own stomach.

“Do you think there are snacks at the top?”

And, already well-practiced, Lena broke into a smile, a small eye-roll of affection bringing a smirk to Kara’s own face.

“It’s amazing that even without powers you’re still this hungry,” Lena replied, taking the lead along the battered, well-worn path.

“It’s a gift?”

“Or curse,” Lena said with a quick backwards wink that made Kara want to tumble all over again. 

Instead she followed.

“We’re still stopping for donuts though, right?” Kara called, hurrying to catch up. Always trying to catch up.

- - - - - - - - - part 6 | cuddles

[strangelittlestories]

Three weeks into the latest depressive episode A magazine calls - they want me on the cover

I tell them they’ve made a mistake I tell them the only reason I picked up Was for the sticky ‘ew’ feeling Of answering a phone call In this day and age

I tell them I haven’t showered And all I’ve eaten today Is a pack of six bake-at-home cinnamon buns And I feel a bit sick

He tells me I work for ‘Not Okay’ Magazine And we don’t make mistakes

Well, okay, we do Often But most of the time they’re sexy mistakes. We both know he’s lying, But I agree out of exhaustion.

They send a photographer to my flat We agree on a series of tasteful nudes With unwashed laundry And mouldy mugs In all the right places. They ooze attitude They also ooze literal ‘ooze’ Because of the, y’know, mould.

I list my nearest and dearest So they can ask for quotes. The one they print reads: “I wouldn’t really call us friends I haven’t heard from them In years I assumed they were mad at me.”

We chat in my living room Over a single measuring jug filled With expired instant coffee The interviewer breathes in a waft Of bovril-smelling caffeine slurry  And wipes the awe from his eyes Then says:

“A few years ago No-one knew you You were medium sad The human equivalent of a drive-thru restaurant Bad, sure, but everyone knew what they were getting. You were … a C minus.

But now? You’re a landmark A national trust ruin They may as well tattoo ‘This is not a place of honour’ On the small of your back.

My doctor heard I was interviewing you And referred me for therapy  As a precaution. So let me ask the question on everyone’s lips? What’s your secret?”

“What a great question.” I say, wrestling the coffee From his hands Because I deserve it

“It takes a lot of practice. You’ve just got to make time To remap your synapses I try to fit in one life-changingly bad event a year To really forge new wide-ranging roads Through my internal atlas Away from those depots of cloying serotonin I know I don’t deserve. Y’know, something really verve-destroying.

I’ve careened across the map Wheels burning into redundancy town Double-parking at heartbreak hotel (did you know you could fail a break-up?) Getting a ticket on bereavement boulevard A hit-and-run through jury service-ville (leaving my faith in humanity behind)

And of course Pandemic City was a blessing  for all us sad-sacks But an extra spicy affair if you worked in healthcare

Finally, I crashed the metaphor into a river On the coldest night on record But it was pretty shallow And I think the cold probably helped Shock me out of it. Plus, I made it home with my trousers only partially frozen.

We are creatures of habit, Michael Can I call you Michael?”

(He quickly corrects me - Michael is not his name - “I didn’t ask you what your fucking name was I asked if I could call you Michael” He says yes)

“Like I said - creatures of habit If you *practice* If you really dig your feet in If you cut a wide furrow through the mud Some part of you will start to think Of the hole you burrowed in the dirt As home.

Your highest landmarks Are distant skyline and To visit would feel like trespassing.”

At the end of the interview I ask Michael If he’s sure I’m qualified To be a coverperson

After all There are so many people More ‘not okay’ than me Or who have more reason to be Yet remain seemingly functional.

“That’s the beauty of Not Okay magazine,” he says, with a smile like marshmallow “We don’t judge or rank. We ask for one thing: That today you are not okay.

In its own way, every sadness is interesting Even when it feels boring as the road you grew up on Tomorrow you might even be happy That’s okay too. Tomorrow is an impossibility of sunrises. Today - you are seen.”

[goxinsane]

A VERY DESCRIPTIVE PROFILE OF YOUR MUSE !!

Repost with the information of your muse, including headcanons, etc. if you fail to achieve some of the facts, add some other of your own!

► NAME: andrea eve powell. ► NICKNAME: everyone calls her drea (only her parents and wife can call her andrea.) ► TITLE(S): does coach, gift-wrapping queen or mom count? ► AGE: 52. ► SPECIES: part-elf. human. ► SEX: female. ► NATIONALITY: canadian-american. ► INTERESTS: hockey, hockey, and more hockey. watches classic and/or holiday movies while redecorating all year round, shops a little too much, likes to peruse through home decor magazines (like 'good housekeeping, better homes & gardens', etc), and wine-making. occasionally enjoys: tobogganing, building snowmen, ice-skating and attempting to play ringette and hockey, leaf-pressing, canoeing, camping and hiking. ► PROFESSION: day job (interior designer/teacher?) tbd. full-time hockey coach. ► BODY TYPE: unfortunately always struggled with being a plum shape, even after the delivery of her triplet children. ► EYES: baby blue. ► HAIR: dark brown, often wavy with unmanageable stray hairs. ► POSTURE: relaxed and sometimes slouchy after a long day but taught to be more proper. ► HEIGHT: 5'8". ► VOICE: here. crisp and honeyed, semi-deep register, talks fast when stressed out or hyper, and can project a stentorian voice when need be. ► SIGNATURE OUTFIT: both looks work for running errands but if at home, she often sports a hockey or alma mater sweatshirt with unique print pj pants or jeans (and a messy bun) examples: x , x , OR she wears a winter coat with a matching scarf and signature (often blue) beanie (with freshly curled hair) OR a jersey with layers, while coaching or spending time on the ice/in snow. examples: x , x , x, x. ► SIGNIFICANT OTHER: verse dependent @lavenderrpages' drew!! ► COMPANIONS: a golden retriever named puck! ► ANTAGONISTS: coaches, teachers or parents who push their kids too hard, bullies, someone who breaks their promise, technology when it fails to work and often--- her parents/in-laws and their opinions. ► STRENGTHS: loves her family and would do anything for them in a heartbeat, prides herself on the art of gift-giving and wrapping and makes an overly delicious cup of hot chocolate (chocolate and mint fiend), punctual and safe driver, optimistic, trustworthy/reliable, patient, and a timid but hard-working team leader. ► WEAKNESSES: hugs, fresh pecan pie or sugar cookies, when her family shows their love-language or does something for her without asking, scattered story-teller, disorganized enough to lose her phone cord or sticky-note on a daily basis, too driven/focused on the little things/self critical (thanks to her childhood), and can sometimes be too forgiving or too easily influenced without a thorough think-through. ► FRUITS: bananas, strawberries, peaches, canned cherries and pomegranate seeds-- best all together in a refreshing fruit salad. ► DRINKS: water, 2% milk, hot chocolate with marshmallows, or a foamy cappuccino. ► ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES: a glass of (homemade is preferred) pinot grigio or merlot. ► SMOKES: n/a ► DRUGS: nothing recreational but does take: daily thyroid medication, melatonin for tough nights, and uses cbd oil in her baths. ► DRIVER’S LICENSE: yes.

tagged by aka stolen from: @briillicnt , tagging: @ghostsxagain, @dogtccth, @aquamanandfriends, @emmaxmeyer, @purityran, @heroexxs, @gcldcnhour, @seilas, @wlwhq, @perfectionreached, @wlwindie, @indigodreames, @muutos and you!

[choices-february2023]

Prompts

Similar to the November 2022 challenge, many of the prompts in the first two columns are from the National Day Calendar. The third column are songs to inspire.

The fanworks must be posted in February (with late entries accepted through March 7). The works do not have to be posted on the specific day. You want to use the prompt almonds (from the 16th) and post it on February 5, go ahead. Just make sure in the notes or tags to specify the day or the prompt.

As always, if you have any questions, please ask either here or send a message to my main at @lucy-268.

Have fun!

1. Umbrella | Baked Alaska | I'm Still Standing (Elton John)

2. Snow Sculpture | Bubble Gum | Welcome to My Life (Simple Plan)

3. Wear Red | Carrot Cake | Stronger (Kelly Clarkson)

4. Harmony | Homemade Soup | So What (P!nk)

5. Intimate Apparel | Nutella | Believer (Imagine Dragons)

6. Chopsticks | Margarita | About Damn Time (Lizzo)

7. Cards | Fettuccine Alfredo | Miss Me More (Kelsea Ballerini)

8. Counseling | Peanut Butter | House of Memories (Panic! At the Disco)

9. Dream | Bagels | Maybe I'm Amazed (Paul McCartney)

10. Toothache | Brownies | Born This Way (Lady Gaga)

11. Spilled Milk | Peppermint Patty | The Winner Takes it All (Abba)

12. Marriage | Plum Pudding | All of Me (John Legend)

13. Galentine's Day | Cheese | I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)

14. Valentine's Day | Chocolates | I Honestly Love You (Olivia Newton John)

15. Canada | Gumdrops | Anti-Hero (Taylor Swift)

16. Grouchy | Almonds | Because You Loved Me (Celine Dion)

17. Anthropology | Cabbage | Stand By Me (Ben E. King)

18. Romance | Seafood | Hanging by a Moment (Lifehouse)

19. Condom | Mints | Lights (Ellie Goulding)

20. Red Sock | Cherry Pie | Happier (Marshmello)

21. Mardi Gras | Sticky Bun | The Middle (Jimmy Eat World)

22. Logic | Sweet Potato | Shape of You (Ed Sheeran)

23. Birthday | Banana Bread | I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)

24. Bartender | Tortilla Chip | Hello (Adele)

25. Language | Clam Chowder | In My Life (The Beatles)

26. Fairy Tales | Pistachio | In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel)

27. Polar Bear | Strawberry | We All Sleep Alone (Cher)

28. Toothfairy | Chocolate Souffle | And So it Goes (Billy Joel)

Guidelines

[raisindave]

[Chapter 13] Seeing the World Through Ballistic-Tinted Glasses

Usually, when it comes to military paperwork, things move slowly. Impossibly slow. It's so slow that you wonder if you’re even enlisted anymore. However, this time, your upgrade came in a matter of weeks. Two, to be exact, with another date calling for your pinning ceremony. It's only a week away. Really not letting things simmer, are they? Not that you minded anyway. So much time at home left you restless, eager to stimulate your brain. You ached for something more meaningful than daytime TV and shitty action movies and occasionally flipping through dogeared textbooks to refresh old lessons. 

Days passed of domestic bliss and self-care, and finding time to talk with people who weren’t comrades or superiors made you realize how disconnected you were from others. Though it never bothered you. To you, knowing that your friends’ only concerns were asshole neighbours and shitty phone operating system updates brings you peace in that there was always stability to come home to. A sorority of eager friends who genuinely cared whether you lived or died. Not seeing you as a badge, now with one additional stripe, on a database somewhere. 

What wasn’t easy was lying to them. Not that you had a choice. Telling them that there had been a death in the family and that’s why you were absent, with the bonus of excusing your sunken eyes and mangled cuticles. It made you wonder what they’d think of what you’d seen, though, weighing their opinions on Russian trucking rings or your terrifying lieutenant who wore a Halloween costume 24/7. They’d get a kick out of him. 

To your delight, you finally forgave yourself enough to indulge in your favourite sweets, sticky fingers bringing sugary treats to your delighted lips. You never understood why people praise well-made desserts as being ‘not too sweet .’ As a little girl, you’d suck on Tic Tacs until the sweet film dissipated, spitting out the bitter mint before popping another onto your tongue. Something MREs hardly carry is chocolate, gummies, and anything sweet save for the odd M&M in trail mix or the odd chocolatey granola bar, portions which you deemed unsatisfactory.

Years of service made the action of tucking your hair into a taut, styleless bun a breeze, tight enough to cause a steady headache from the pressure. Fingertips slick with the necessary gel made you cringe at the thought of washing the crunchy stuff out later. It was no matter; laying on your bed was the freshly ironed but no less frumpy green formalwear that was expected for a pinning ceremony. Searing spotlights and a tedious ceremony would conclude in a matter of hours, and your baptism into your new rank would be complete. 

Chucky was at the ceremony, sitting tall and stiff. You could tell he’s ex-military even if he was wearing a two-piece pyjama set. Even how he cut his hair was dutiful and prim, no longer peppered with grey, but now entirely silver in colour. No longer salt and pepper, but just salt. From the view up on the stage, it would be hard to tell if he was proud to be there, but the way he wiped his nose, just for a moment, made your heart soften. Surface-level emotion had been wrung from him decades ago, but you had the eye to see right through that kind of stoicism. He rose from his seat, dutifully following the line of called-upon family members of neighbouring pin recipients. As is tradition, family members are invited to deliver the reward unto your uniform, and the glossy gleam in Chucky’s eyes as he clipped the new patch onto your regalia set your soul on fire. Nothing in the world could strip this memory from your mind, stepping back diligently to fall back into line. 

In your opinion, the following pomp and ceremony came and went a bit overly patriotic with high-flying proud flags and a particularly enthusiastic rendition of your national anthem. Cherrywood podiums and screeching metal chairs, voices of presidents and directors who had never even known of your existence hours before. At this point, you wondered if you might be the first sergeant to piss themselves at their pinning ceremony. Kicking your heels to march off the stage, you performed the practiced and stiff walk off the platform to conclude the ceremony. 

There was Chucky. Wine and flowers in hand, pulling you into a tender hug, feeling the tacky bouquet of rainbow flowers smashing into your back. The look on your face must have screamed that you were eager to exfil, and he concurred. He had promised a lavish meal at the fanciest place in town, sparing no expense for the new Sergeant Grant, a cheeky grin creasing across his sun-spotted face. You both knew what that truly meant. Sloppy, greasy tacos from a curbside pop-up, eaten on the tailgate of his kitted-out truck. It was a decent distance from your house, but every mile was worth it in the little slice of nostalgia, perfect for baring your soul. 

“The assignment went well. Got to spend some time up north. It kinda reminded me of home. Home home.” It's weird not being able to blabber about every detail of the mission, though if all people were to understand, it would be Chuck. Not that it mattered, as he seemed to enjoy his own presence enough regardless of your company. 

“You should go back,” He huffed into the crinkling tin foil of his soggy burrito, “it’s been a while, no harm in a visit.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve been back. I don’t even know anyone there anymore.”

“You’d be surprised, Lua, people up north are pretty damn stubborn. They hardly ever just pack up and leave, and I know you’ve got some cousins o’er there, too. Hmm. They might be second cousins, not too sure.”

“I’ll think about it…” The words slipped from your lips between crunches of starchy taco shells, calm California air gliding under the sleeves of your frumpy jacket. 

“Hell, I remember one time I was a pilot up n’ Siberia, and this sucker stood too close to the helo, and the upward suction from the blades picked him right up and got his head snipped clean off,” he made a snipping action with his fingers, almost giddy with excitement. “I’ll never forget the look on Davey’s face when he saw it, hah. You remember Davey, right? The guy who lost his leg to the submarine door? Oh- he’s dead now. Forgot to tell ya’. 

“Ever the storyteller, Chuck-O.” 

Back home, opening the sugar-sweet, cheap white wine Chucky knew you preferred, you toasted your success in one steady gulp, tipping another glugging pour into your empty glass. Peeling the firm bun from your hair, praying for it to relieve the thrumming headache it manifested, you scrolled through texts from friends and past colleagues celebrating your new rank. A blissful sigh slips from your lips, shrugging the heavy overcoat of your standard-issue formalwear onto the couch, now decorated with one extra stripe. 

A knock at the door stopped you in your tracks. Craning your neck around the corner, the particularly shadow bulky shadow in the misted window on your door didn’t indicate that Chucky was back for Scar Show-And-Tell 2.0. Flurrying footsteps skipped to open the door, peeking through the privacy curtain to reveal a familiar face. It was Jason, an old comrade all the way back from basic training. He was affectionately called Rhino because of one particular stunt in the barracks that caused him to fling himself head-first clean through a sheet wood door. 

“Rhino! Long time no see!” You whipped the door open, greeted with Rhino’s lopsided smile and pale eyes illuminated by your porch light. 

“Hey Lua, I heard ‘bout your promotion. Wanted to give you this.” He shifted his armful of roses for you to receive. 

It’s so nice to see familiar faces, especially in this line of work. So often are you introduced to new and changing faces that the familiar ones almost come as a shock. Hopefully, at the higher rank of a sergeant, the grunt duty that comes with being on a lower rung will be a thing of the past. Though Rhino refused to come in and enjoy some shitty wine, he did share a handful of life updates that left you at peace, finding that he has a wife and a baby on the way. Although Chucky always said comparison is the death of hope, the wide smile across your lips as you nodded in intrigue was marred with envy. 

An extravagant bouquet of roses and baby’s breath, crinkling plastic revealing a delightfully painted hand-crafted vase. This must’ve been expensive. He had no right to spend this money on you, especially as a comrade you hadn’t seen in years. Along with the bouquet was an oddly shaped envelope, which he took special care to ensure you received. 

“Good to see you, Cricket,” He spoke, turning for one last word before disappearing for an unknowable distance. 

“You too, Rhino,” you smiled, clicking the porch light off for the evening, “take good care.”

Setting the fragrant bushel of roses down onto the counter with a heavy thump, you took a moment to enjoy the sight. Velvety red petals alight with vitality, cut with the grace and care of a master of their craft. Eyes wandered to the manilla envelope, oblong shape, piquing your interest and refusing to be ignored. Tipping the envelope, a heavy object slid onto your palm. A cell phone. A cheap flip phone in particular. Clicking the screen open, you were surprised to see no mysterious contact labelled ‘Detonate’ or something. 

It didn’t take more than five minutes after Rhino left, vibrating with that eerily cheerful default ringtone on burner flip phones. Your fingertips wavered over the device, considering the possible consequences of hearing who is on the other end of the call. It could be a prank. It could also be a muffled voice demanding ransom. Hell, it could be a detonation device, and you just doomed some pipe bomb somewhere to explode. Curiosity overrides all restraint, and in an instant, you flick the phone open and press it to your ear.

“Hello?” 

“Nice to hear from you again, Miss Grant.” 

“Laswell. Pleasure,” you nodded in response, though the motion is fruitless in a cellular conversation, “what can I do for you?”

“Well,” She paused for a moment, making your anticipation spike, “quite a bit, actually. What’s the soonest possible time you can chat?”

You, too, took a moment to pause, weighing the consequences of one last night in your bed over her implied insistence that you drop everything to meet her. The glass of wine in your hand gave you enough validation to respond comfortably, your alibi swirling in your palm. Fuck. You’ll have to text Chucky to take custody of your goldfish this time. 

“Morning.” 

“How early? ” Laswell retorted.

“I can meet at oh-six hundred.”

“Excellent. Meet me at the Roadrunner Cafe near you then. Pack a bag.”

“I can’t help but notice you didn’t instruct me to ‘dress warm,’” you smiled into the phone.

“That would be correct.”

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Master List

[footemoji-talks]

February 21st, 2024 (National Sticky Bun Day)

Day Rating: 5/10

Main Events

-yall imma be honest i didn’t do shit today i watched one movie and was knocked out

note of the day: life in plastic is fantastic

[dankusner]

Cole Escola’s Great Day on Broadway

“She never made this cake,” Cole Escola informed me, briskly whipping egg whites as I sifted flour.

It was early June, and we were baking at Joe’s Pub, the downtown performance venue, where the line cooks watched our efforts with mounting concern.

The cake was a white almond cake, and “she” was Mary Todd Lincoln, whom Escola portrays as an unhinged diva with a drinking problem in “Oh, Mary!,” their self-written Broadway début.

Escola boasts of having done zero research for the play—which just opened, to universal acclaim, at the Lyceum.

Yet they still saw fit to question my recipe.

“I feel like this is something they always did for First Ladies,” Escola said, affecting a treacly tour-guide voice.

“‘This is a cake that she made. This was her favorite drapery.’ ”

They whipped harder as I protested that Mary Todd was well-known to have made the cake, and, additionally, that I’d found the recipe on the Web site of the National Park Service.

Would they lie?

“Absolutely,” Escola replied.

“I’ve had it out for them for decades.”

Escola, in a two-toned polo and red leather boots, seemed at ease in the crowded space, sidling past kitchen staffers with a grace learned from a stint at a vegan bakery.

(They loved frosting cupcakes but hated working the register: “It was more degrading to fake that niceness than doing sex work.”)

At thirty-seven, they are slight yet striking, with big, powder-blue eyes, a pronounced chin dimple, and a silvery Caesar cut framing their cherubic features.

Their guileless good looks have an edge of the uncanny—sharp canines, a faraway expression—which they’ve played up in mesmerizing portrayals of deranged innocence.

Many know Escola as The Twink on “Search Party,” an inbred scion of a sticky-bun fortune who idolizes, then kidnaps the show’s femme fatale (Alia Shawkat), in a riff on Stephen King’s “Misery.”

Others are devotees of their cabaret routines and sketch comedy, often performed in drag, which put a surreal spin on morning shows, mom-oriented marketing, and other anodyne genres.

But their long-simmering celebrity has reached a boiling point with “Oh, Mary!,” which has transformed Escola from cult icon of the queer-comedy world into the It They of Broadway.

“At first it was just you and the other faggots,” they said of the show, which premièred in January, Off Broadway, at the Lucille Lortel.

Then came straight couples and Hollywood celebrities, like Pedro Pascal, Steven Spielberg, and Sally Field, who played Mary Todd in Spielberg’s “Lincoln.”

Before long, Escola was bantering in costume on late-night shows and attending the Met Gala in a white Thom Browne suit accessorized with a purse in the shape of a dachshund.

The demands of newfound fame have been relentless, and Escola has made a bit of their struggle to stay apace.

“It’s cold!” they exclaimed as we prepared to blend two sticks of butter into the mix.

“You’re setting me up to fail. You’re doing this on purpose—this is sabotage.”

I felt a bit like Louise, the hapless hired companion whom Mary torments throughout Escola’s play, once threatening to stab her in the eyes during a lesson in needlepoint.

“Oh, Mary!” revolves around the First Lady’s efforts to revive her career as a “niche cabaret legend,” despite the efforts of her husband—portrayed as a bitter, horny closet case by Conrad Ricamora—to confine her theatrics to the White House.

“How would it look for the First Lady of the United States to be flitting about a stage right now in the ruins of war!”

Abraham pleads in one exchange.

“How would it look?!” Mary, lunging toward the audience, retorts. “Sensational!”

Onstage in a taffeta hoop skirt and a wig of “bratty” curls, Escola’s Mary is a tantrum personified, clutching her flounces and furbelows as she terrorizes the Oval Office.

The First Lady goes low at every opportunity, whether it’s smashing open a desk in search of whiskey or reading Shakespeare in the cadences of “a horny

snake.” Remarkably, for a play about the Presidency scheduled to close in November, “Oh, Mary!” thumbs its nose at questions of history and politics.

(When Abe complains that he’s hated in the South, Mary exclaims, “South of what?”)

It’s less of a dodge than a puckish gambit; in Escola’s anti-“Hamilton,” bawdy jokes fly without the safety net of “serious” themes.

“I am the stupidest person here, and I mean that as an insult to all of you,” Escola said while accepting a Drama Desk Award.

For them, “stupid” is a term of art, an assertion that killer comedy needs no alibi.

“Oh, Mary!,” directed by Sam Pinkleton, earned more than a million dollars in its first full week, breaking the Lyceum’s all-time box-office record; Escola celebrated its première by inviting audiences to a leather bar.

The show is not only proof of their comedic brilliance but a defense of their sensibility.

They are often classed as part of a wave of New Queer Comedy, alongside entertainers such as Bowen Yang, John Early, and Ayo Edebiri.

But Escola’s rigorous weirdness is singular, combining “low” humor with the stylized precision of a pre-Code Hollywood starlet.

Their work forgoes relatability to revel in delusion, with all its abjection and pathos—especially their own.

“Her arc is my arc,” Escola said of their First Lady. “Her wanting to do cabaret is me wanting to do the play about Mary Todd Lincoln.”

As the oven preheated, Escola and I walked down the hall to the performance space, where a dozen booths and tables clustered around a tiny quarter-circle of a stage.

“This is my favorite seat,” they said, leading me to a table behind a partition in the very back. “It’s just like you’re watching TV.”

Joe’s Pub, an annex of the Public Theatre, is where Escola honed their craft in the early two-thousands.

Like Mary, they were a cabaret singer, in a downtown scene that counted such offbeat performers as Murray Hill, Tonya Pinkins, and Bridget Everett, who once wrote a part for Escola as a singing fetus.

“I would watch other people’s numbers and I would be, like, Oh, fuck, that really killed,” they recalled. “I want to kill like that.”

Escola struggled for years to find their place in the world of performance.

Born in the tiny mill town of Clatskanie, Oregon, they took to acting almost immediately, appearing at eleven in a production of “The Grapes of Wrath.”

A local paper put Escola on the front page (the headline: “Give My Regards to Broadway”), though the cute quotes belie their childhood’s difficulty.

At the time, Escola was sleeping over, illicitly, at their grandmother’s nursing home, because it was in the same town as the production; their mother couldn’t afford to drive them to rehearsals.

(“The actress that played Rose of Sharon would buy me lunch and dinner every day,” they recalled.)

Several years earlier, Escola’s father, a Vietnam vet who suffered from alcoholism and P.T.S.D.-induced hallucinations, had forced them and their mother out of the family’s trailer home with a rifle.

“My mom was my dad and TV was my mom,” Escola has said.

Weaned on sitcoms like “Keeping Up Appearances,” they developed an aspirational affinity with “rich-white-lady humor.”

They were also deeply attached to their grandmother, who baked, sewed, crocheted doilies, and bought them Barbies without worrying about whether or not the dolls were gender-appropriate.

Escola adopted nonbinary pronouns two years ago, but their gayness was clear from the beginning.

“I would pray to God to make me bisexual,” Escola recalled. “I was willing to compromise.”

(“Oh, Mary!” gives this experience to Abraham Lincoln.)

They came out in their late teens, helped to the realization by a lesbian cousin and a video-store clerk who introduced them to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

After graduating from high school—an occasion they marked by performing their first cabaret routine—Escola moved to New York and studied acting while at Marymount Manhattan College.

But the emphasis on naturalism taught them only that drama school wouldn’t be worth the loans.

“I always associated ‘theatre’ with pretending I’m straight,” they told me.

Escola dropped out and worked odd jobs as a typist, a kid’s-party entertainer, and a bookseller in Manhattan.

“There were nights I would walk from the Scholastic bookstore to my place in Bushwick to save two dollars, whatever subway fare was then,” they told me. “It was miserable.”

Dan Fishback, a singer-songwriter and playwright whom Escola briefly dated, has recalled Escola as “a very quiet alien,” prone to sudden creative outbursts.

He encouraged them to share their “secret genius” after seeing a video of their first original character, Joyce Conner, who emerged from a spell of suicidal rumination.

A childhood friend had mailed Escola a fake fur coat and a jewel-toned onesie, inspiring them to picture themselves as a despondent older lady living on the Upper East Side:

“What if there was this woman who was planning her suicide as if it were a brunch that she kept putting off?”

Fishback invited Conner to begin m.c.’ing anti-folk shows, where her antics were a surprise hit with the largely straight crowd.

One day, Joyce failed to appear, because Escola had been mugged; a man held a gun to their head as another kicked in their teeth.

They returned to Oregon to recuperate, taking a three-day bus because they couldn’t afford airfare.

“I just laid on the couch for three months,” Escola told me. “I would drink a two-litre of Diet Coke every day, and I remember that I was watching ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ That was the season Jane Seymour was on and her mother died and she did a gorgeous foxtrot.”

They laughed.

“That really got me through.”

The binge eventually proved formative for Escola’s comedy, but at the time a career in writing and performance still seemed beyond reach.

“The plan was for me to apply to community college,” they told me. “I didn’t understand that I was traumatized.”

Escola slid the cake pan into a multitiered industrial oven, which we operated with the help of Joe’s Pub staff members.

(Our plan to bake at their apartment in Cobble Hill—a den of porcelain dolls and Old Hollywood memorabilia that an Apartment Therapy showcase described as granny chic—had been foiled by ants.)

Recovering in Oregon, they had briefly considered pastry school, based solely on their enjoyment of the show “Barefoot Contessa.”

But the expense of tuition made them realize that becoming a tart might be easier than selling them.

They got in touch with Jeffery Self, an acquaintance who did sex work on Craigslist, and moved back to New York.

The two started sharing johns and collaborating on comedy, beginning with a workout-video parody called “Sweatin’ to Sondheim!”

Their YouTube sketches, which they also performed at Joe’s Pub, led to “Jeffery & Cole Casserole,” a show on the gay network Logo.

It ran for only two seasons, but kick-started a decade of creativity.

Escola developed a repertoire of absurd personae onstage and online, from an impersonation of the Broadway legend Bernadette Peters to characters like Jennifer Convertibles, a furniture impresario with the haughty mannerisms of a film-noir villainness.

(“Futons?” she snarls in a face-off with IKEA. “If I wanted to make something for dirty frat boys to piss all over, I’d have a gay son.”)

Yet the path from YouTube and cabaret to the main stage remained obscure.

In 2011, when Escola was struggling with alcoholism, a critic damned their work as too old-fashioned for the slick “Glee” era of gay culture.

“The message I was getting from the world was, ‘There’s no place for what you want to do,’ ” they told me. “ ‘It might be fine as a little segment in a variety show, but, come on, be real.’ ”

Escola found their footing in television, winning fans for their inspired petulance in supporting roles on “Difficult People” and “At Home with Amy Sedaris,” in addition to “Search Party.”

Even television, though, began to feel straitlaced.

“Every time I act in something filmed, the note I get is, ‘A little less,’ ” Escola told me.

“Which you don’t have to do onstage when you wrote it and it’s supposed to be big.”

The conceit of “Oh, Mary!” came to them fifteen years ago, but they put off writing it until the pandemic, afraid to ruin the idea by making it real.

The show’s unqualified success has been a dream come true, but also a trigger for “queer hypervigilance,” Escola told me.

“I think it means I’m on my way out.” During curtain call at “Oh, Mary!” ’s opening night at the Lyceum, they prankishly announced that the show was already closing;

last week on “The View,” they poked fun at its exuberant filth by saying that they “wanted to write something for families to enjoy.”

Escola was briefly tempted to tone the play down ahead of its Broadway transfer, but a memoir by the playwright and drag queen Charles Busch fortified their spirits.

“When ‘Vampire Lesbians of Sodom’ moved from being a bar show to Off Broadway, he stayed up for a couple days just being, like, ‘We’ve got to beef this up and make it more like theatre,’ ” they told me; ultimately, Busch decided to trust the show as it was, and Escola did likewise.

[ginalento]

Too-ra loo-ra Loo-ral

Today is National Sticky Bun Day. However, I haven’t done anything with Sticky Buns other than a sketch in my daily ‘toon box where I have Lucy and Mack looking longingly at a sticky bun on the table.  (No, we haven’t had any sticky buns today.  But the day is still young.)  What I did paint today is one of my little characters that I call my “coyote Ugly.”  I have been doing these little…

[murderousink23]

02/21/2024 is National Sticky Bun Day 🇺🇸, National Grain-Free Day 🇺🇸, International Mother Language Day 🇺🇳

[brookston]

Holidays 2.21

Holidays

Alka Seltzer Day

Armed Forces Day (South Africa)

Ben Appreciation Day

Break Up Day (India)

Card Reading Day

Communist Manifesto Day

Father W.H. Lini Day (Vanuatu)

Find Out My Breast Density Day

Freedom of Worship Day (France)

International Mother Language Day (UN)

International Tourist Guide Day

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day

John Lewis Day

King Harald V Day (Norway)

Kurt Cobain Day (Aberdeen, Washington)

Labor Day (Oregon; Original Date, 1st State Observance)

Language Movement Day (a.k.a. Shahid Dibosh; Bangladesh)

Locomotive Day

Matthiola Day (French Republic)

Mental Health Nurses Day (UK)

Musikahan Festival begins (Philippines) [thru 2.27]

Nascar Day

National Pillow on Head Day

National Waste Awareness Day (Indonesia)

New Yorker Magazine Day

Nina Simone Day (Tyron, North Carolina)

Red Books Day

Remember the Funniest Thing Your Child Ever Did Day

Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day (Zimbabwe)

Sandino Day (Nicaragua)

Sewing Machine Day

Single-Tasking Day

Telephone Book Day

Washington Monument Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Drink It Now Day

National Biscuits & Gravy Day

National Grain-Free Day

National Malört Day

National Sticky Bun Day

World Kombucha Day

3rd Wednesday in February

National RA Appreciation Day [3rd Wednesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning February 21

Potahto Week (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) [thru 3.1]

Independence & Related Days

Aulpannian Shatidom (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

British Protectorate in Egypt ended (1922)

South Formosa (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

Festivals Beginning February 21, 2024

National Watermelon Association Convention (Scottsdale, Arizona) [thru 2.25]

Noise Pop Festival (San Francisco, California) [thru 2.27]

NordicFuzzCon (Malmö, Sweden) [thru 2.25]

30A Wine Festival (Ales Beach, Florida) [thru 2.25]

Feast Days

Anais Nin (Writerism)

Blue Dragon Festival (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Boris Karloff Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Daniel, priest, and Verde, virgin (Christian; Martyrs)

David Foster Wallace (Writerism)

Day Sacred to the Goddess Muta (a.k.a. Laranda; Ancient Rome)

Double Second Day (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Feast of Peace and Love (Ancient Rome)

Felix of Hadrumetum (Christian; Saint)

Feralia (Old Roman Spirits Festival)

Feralia — Day of Purification (Pagan)

George of Amastris (Christian; Saint)

German and Randaut (Christian; Martyrs)

Germanus of Granfel (Christian; Martyr)

Horace (Positivist; Saint)

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (Artology)

Mathilda (Muppetism)

Pepin of Landen (Christian; Saint)

Peter Damian (Christian; Saint)

Pyotr Konchalovsky (Artology)

Randoald of Grandval (Christian; Saint)

Seize a Sausage Day (Pastafarian)

Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis (Christian; Saint)

Talk to a Goldfish Day (Pastafarian)

W.H. Auden (Writerism)

Yakuyoke Festival (a.k.a. Toshi-no-Matsuri; honoring Kami for bountiful rice harvest; Shinto)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fortunate Day (Pagan) [8 of 53]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 9 of 60)

Premieres

Alice at the Rodeo (Disney Cartoon; 1927)

The Alpine Yodeler, featuring Farmer Al Falfa (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)

Anna Christie (Film; 1930

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Anime TV Series; 2005)

Babylon Revisited, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Short Story; 1931)

Bottle Rocket (Film; 1996)

Bullwinkle Makes a Hit or I Get a Bang Out of You (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 25; 1960)

The Call of the Wild (Film; 2020)

Captains of the Clouds (Film; 1942)

The Conqueror (Film; 1956)

Emma (Film; 2020)

Fishing Made Easy (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1941)

The Gorilla Hunt (Color Rhapsody Cartoon; 1939)

The Hungry Wolf (MGM Cartoon; 1942)

Jerry and Jumbo (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1953)

King of America, by Elvis Costello (Album; 1986)

Kiss Me Car (WB LT Cartoon; 1953)

Le Bœuf sur le Toit (The Bull on the Roof), by Darius Milhaud & Jean Cocteau (Ballet; 1920)

Lipstick on Your Collar (Film; 1993)

The Night Clerk (Film; 2020)

The Night Manager (TV Mini-Series; 2016)

9-1/2 Weeks (Film; 1986)

Old School (Film; 2003)

Peg Leg Pete (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1932)

Pinkadilly Circus (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)

Pink Punch (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1966)

Real Time with Bill Maher (TV Series; 2003)

Rock and Roll, by Led Zeppelin (Song; 1972)

Suffering’ ’til Suffrage (America Rock Cartoon; Schoolhouse Rock; 1976)

Three on an Island or Tell It to the Maroons (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 26; 1960)

The Wind Rises (Animated Studio Ghibli Film; 2014)

Yokel Boy Makes Good (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1938)

Today’s Name Days

Enrica, Gunthild, Petrus (Austria)

Damir, Natalija, Petar (Croatia)

Lenka (Czech Republic)

Samuel (Denmark)

Aavo, Auvo, Avo (Estonia)

Keijo (Finland)

Damien (France)

Enrica, Gunhild, Peter, Petrus (Germany)

Efstathios, Evstathios, Stathis (Greece)

Eleonóra (Hungary)

Eleonora, Leopoldo, Nora, Pier Damiani (Italy)

Eleonora (Latvia)

Eleonora, Feliksas, Kęstutis, Žemyna (Lithuania)

Celine, Samuel, Selma (Norway)

Eleonora, Feliks, Fortunat, Kiejstut, Teodor, Wyszeniega (Poland)

Eustatie, Timotei (Romania)

Eleonóra (Slovakia)

Pedro (Spain)

Hilding (Sweden)

Dallin, Doug, Douglas, Duff (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 52 of 2024; 314 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 8 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Nuin (Ash) [Day 4 of 28]

Chinese: Month 1 (Bing-Yin), Day 12 (Yi-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025)

Hebrew: 12 Adair I 5784

Islamic: 11 Sha’ban 1445

J Cal: 22 Grey; Oneday [22 of 30]

Julian: 8 February 2024

Moon: 93%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 24 Homer (2nd Month) [Horace]

Runic Half Month: Sigel (Sun) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 63 of 89)

Week: 3rd Week of February

Zodiac: Pisces (Day 3 of 30)

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 2.21

Holidays

Alka Seltzer Day

Armed Forces Day (South Africa)

Ben Appreciation Day

Break Up Day (India)

Card Reading Day

Communist Manifesto Day

Father W.H. Lini Day (Vanuatu)

Find Out My Breast Density Day

Freedom of Worship Day (France)

International Mother Language Day (UN)

International Tourist Guide Day

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day

John Lewis Day

King Harald V Day (Norway)

Kurt Cobain Day (Aberdeen, Washington)

Labor Day (Oregon; Original Date, 1st State Observance)

Language Movement Day (a.k.a. Shahid Dibosh; Bangladesh)

Locomotive Day

Matthiola Day (French Republic)

Mental Health Nurses Day (UK)

Musikahan Festival begins (Philippines) [thru 2.27]

Nascar Day

National Pillow on Head Day

National Waste Awareness Day (Indonesia)

New Yorker Magazine Day

Nina Simone Day (Tyron, North Carolina)

Red Books Day

Remember the Funniest Thing Your Child Ever Did Day

Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day (Zimbabwe)

Sandino Day (Nicaragua)

Sewing Machine Day

Single-Tasking Day

Telephone Book Day

Washington Monument Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Drink It Now Day

National Biscuits & Gravy Day

National Grain-Free Day

National Malört Day

National Sticky Bun Day

World Kombucha Day

3rd Wednesday in February

National RA Appreciation Day [3rd Wednesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning February 21

Potahto Week (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) [thru 3.1]

Independence & Related Days

Aulpannian Shatidom (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

British Protectorate in Egypt ended (1922)

South Formosa (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

Festivals Beginning February 21, 2024

National Watermelon Association Convention (Scottsdale, Arizona) [thru 2.25]

Noise Pop Festival (San Francisco, California) [thru 2.27]

NordicFuzzCon (Malmö, Sweden) [thru 2.25]

30A Wine Festival (Ales Beach, Florida) [thru 2.25]

Feast Days

Anais Nin (Writerism)

Blue Dragon Festival (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Boris Karloff Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Daniel, priest, and Verde, virgin (Christian; Martyrs)

David Foster Wallace (Writerism)

Day Sacred to the Goddess Muta (a.k.a. Laranda; Ancient Rome)

Double Second Day (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Feast of Peace and Love (Ancient Rome)

Felix of Hadrumetum (Christian; Saint)

Feralia (Old Roman Spirits Festival)

Feralia — Day of Purification (Pagan)

George of Amastris (Christian; Saint)

German and Randaut (Christian; Martyrs)

Germanus of Granfel (Christian; Martyr)

Horace (Positivist; Saint)

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (Artology)

Mathilda (Muppetism)

Pepin of Landen (Christian; Saint)

Peter Damian (Christian; Saint)

Pyotr Konchalovsky (Artology)

Randoald of Grandval (Christian; Saint)

Seize a Sausage Day (Pastafarian)

Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis (Christian; Saint)

Talk to a Goldfish Day (Pastafarian)

W.H. Auden (Writerism)

Yakuyoke Festival (a.k.a. Toshi-no-Matsuri; honoring Kami for bountiful rice harvest; Shinto)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fortunate Day (Pagan) [8 of 53]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 9 of 60)

Premieres

Alice at the Rodeo (Disney Cartoon; 1927)

The Alpine Yodeler, featuring Farmer Al Falfa (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)

Anna Christie (Film; 1930

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Anime TV Series; 2005)

Babylon Revisited, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Short Story; 1931)

Bottle Rocket (Film; 1996)

Bullwinkle Makes a Hit or I Get a Bang Out of You (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 25; 1960)

The Call of the Wild (Film; 2020)

Captains of the Clouds (Film; 1942)

The Conqueror (Film; 1956)

Emma (Film; 2020)

Fishing Made Easy (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1941)

The Gorilla Hunt (Color Rhapsody Cartoon; 1939)

The Hungry Wolf (MGM Cartoon; 1942)

Jerry and Jumbo (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1953)

King of America, by Elvis Costello (Album; 1986)

Kiss Me Car (WB LT Cartoon; 1953)

Le Bœuf sur le Toit (The Bull on the Roof), by Darius Milhaud & Jean Cocteau (Ballet; 1920)

Lipstick on Your Collar (Film; 1993)

The Night Clerk (Film; 2020)

The Night Manager (TV Mini-Series; 2016)

9-1/2 Weeks (Film; 1986)

Old School (Film; 2003)

Peg Leg Pete (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1932)

Pinkadilly Circus (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)

Pink Punch (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1966)

Real Time with Bill Maher (TV Series; 2003)

Rock and Roll, by Led Zeppelin (Song; 1972)

Suffering’ ’til Suffrage (America Rock Cartoon; Schoolhouse Rock; 1976)

Three on an Island or Tell It to the Maroons (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 26; 1960)

The Wind Rises (Animated Studio Ghibli Film; 2014)

Yokel Boy Makes Good (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1938)

Today’s Name Days

Enrica, Gunthild, Petrus (Austria)

Damir, Natalija, Petar (Croatia)

Lenka (Czech Republic)

Samuel (Denmark)

Aavo, Auvo, Avo (Estonia)

Keijo (Finland)

Damien (France)

Enrica, Gunhild, Peter, Petrus (Germany)

Efstathios, Evstathios, Stathis (Greece)

Eleonóra (Hungary)

Eleonora, Leopoldo, Nora, Pier Damiani (Italy)

Eleonora (Latvia)

Eleonora, Feliksas, Kęstutis, Žemyna (Lithuania)

Celine, Samuel, Selma (Norway)

Eleonora, Feliks, Fortunat, Kiejstut, Teodor, Wyszeniega (Poland)

Eustatie, Timotei (Romania)

Eleonóra (Slovakia)

Pedro (Spain)

Hilding (Sweden)

Dallin, Doug, Douglas, Duff (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 52 of 2024; 314 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 8 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Nuin (Ash) [Day 4 of 28]

Chinese: Month 1 (Bing-Yin), Day 12 (Yi-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025)

Hebrew: 12 Adair I 5784

Islamic: 11 Sha’ban 1445

J Cal: 22 Grey; Oneday [22 of 30]

Julian: 8 February 2024

Moon: 93%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 24 Homer (2nd Month) [Horace]

Runic Half Month: Sigel (Sun) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 63 of 89)

Week: 3rd Week of February

Zodiac: Pisces (Day 3 of 30)