Today’s my birthday. ::blushes shyly::

The following things happened today, on my birthday, according to Wikipedia:

• 1606 - Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is executed for his plotting against Parliament and James I of England.
• 1747 - The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.
• 1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
• 1876 - The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.
• 1929 - The Soviet Union exiles Leon Trotsky.
• 1930 - 3M markets Scotch Tape.
• 1936 - The Green Hornet radio show debuts.
• 1945 - US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed, the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.
• 1950 - President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
• 1958 - Explorer program: Explorer I - The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit.
• 1961 - Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2 - Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.
• 1968 - Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon.
• 1968 - Nauru declares independence from Australia. [This being the actual day I was born.]
  
• 1988 - Super Bowl XXII: The Washington Redskins win their second championship of the 1980s, 42-10 over the Denver Broncos.
• 1990 - The first Russian McDonald’s opens in Moscow, Russia.
• 2004 - Mystery Science Theater 3000 ends its run on the Sci-Fi Channel.
• 2005 - The child molestation trial of superstar Michael Jackson begins in California.

Births

• 1902 - Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (d. 1968)
• 1919 - Jackie Robinson, American baseball player (d. 1972)
• 1921 - Carol Channing, American actress
• 1923 - Norman Mailer, American writer and journalist
• 1929 - Jean Simmons, English actress
• 1937 - Philip Glass, American composer
• 1937 - Suzanne Pleshette, American actress
• 1941 - Richard A. “Dick” Gephardt, American politician
• 1941 - Jessica Walter, American actress
• 1947 - Nolan Ryan, American baseball player
• 1956 - Johnny Rotten, British singer (Sex Pistols)
• 1959 - Anthony LaPaglia, Australian actor
• 1959 - Kelly Lynch, American actress
• 1960 - Grant Morrison, British comic book author
• 1961 - Lloyd Cole, British singer
• 1970 - Minnie Driver, British actress
• 1973 - Portia de Rossi, Australian actress
• 1981 - Justin Timberlake, American singer

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism - Feast day of St. John Bosco, patron saint of Christian apprentices, editors, and publishers

And most importantly of all…

• National Gorilla Suit Day

There is a new-to-us cat tree now “gracing” my living room. I got it from my next door neighbor whose cat Beau–a weird, half-feral tom who feuded hatefully with my cat Wallace–recently died. I’ve always meant to get my cats some form of cat tree, but unfortunately I think they’re hideous. I admit it, I am a Cat Tree Snob. And in my tiny apartments I’ve never had anywhere but the living room to put them. I always felt bad and wanted my cats to be able to play–I shut them out of my room at night so I can get a modicum of sleep and feel guilty for making their world smaller for several hours. But I could never bring myself to pay all that money for something I would hate every day that I had it. I kept waiting for someone to make one that might actually look kind of cool, but so far no one has (except for a few I saw once that were made by an artsy-fartsy “designer” and cost like $600). That and my cats are the size of Buicks–most cat trees look too flimsy for their lard asses.

Two weeks after Beau died, my neighbor asked if I wanted Beau’s old tree. It was tall, sturdy, in pretty good shape, and free. Oh for cryin’ out loud, how do I turn that down?

My cats–Wallace and Gromit–have one window they’re obsessed with. The tree is now in front of it, right in the middle of everything. It’s like the monolith from 2001. I said I’d never put a fugly-ass cat tree in my living room. I said this, I did.

The cats jumped all over it initially, scratching and sniffing and playing despite the fact that it used to belong to Wallace’s worst enemy. A bit later they went outside, and I looked at this THING in the middle of the stuff I’d spent so much time picking out and arranging–oh my GOD it couldn’t live in that spot. There had to be a compromise between cat happiness and visual harmony. While the boys were not there to give me the stink-eye, I moved the tree to a corner between the side and front windows, but not in front of either. I relocated the stuff that had been in the corner and felt much better about how things looked, and the possibility of living with a large hunk of dirty carpet in my main room from now on. I thought to myself that I’d just see how the guys reacted to having the tree there. See if they jumped on it as much, hung out on it, whatever. I’m the boss. It’s my living room, it is, it is.

Wally walked back in at one point, paying no attention to the tree at all. He went into the kitchen. He came back out and kind of stopped and looked at the now-empty window area, orbiting around, craning his neck, looking hard to find something. I said “Hey, buddy, the tree’s still here. It’s just over there now. See? It’s there.” I couldn’t get his attention to where the tree was. He just kept staring at where it wasn’t.

The tree was back in front of the window approximately 45 seconds later.

I turned the chair next to it a little differently. I’m making my peace.

And now, the pictures of the initial hostile takeover… (more…)