22 July 24

It's National Zoo Keeper Week! I am not a traditional zookeeper, but we do have a large menagerie of stuffed animals (and other creatures), many of them associated with classic children's books like "Corduroy," "A Color of His Own," and "I Know a Rhino." This year I decided to wear my tessellated animals tie, and we invited some of our grandchildren to construct a "zoo" to show off the stuffies with their books.

4 October 23

The Feast of St. Francis (4 October) is also celebrated as World Animals Day. My tie has a tessellation (space-filling repeated pattern) of many animals, including giraffes, elephants, lions, hippopotami, pheasants, polar bears, ducks, crocodiles, horned sheep, penguins, zebras, eagles, toucans and turkeys.

22 September 22

 Today is World Rhino Day and Elephant Appreciation Day! So I'm celebrating with my tessellated animals tie. It shows elephants and many others, but since it doesn't have a rhinoceros I've asked our house rhino (and elephant) to join me for the usual photo. (Today is also Hobbit Day, honoring the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.)

11 August 21

Yesterday was World Lion Day but my own main topic was the birthday of Charles Darrow. So today I'm honoring the king of the jungle with this topsy-turvy tessellation of animals that includes a prominently-maned lion (umop-apisdn).

20 April 20

Today in Beginning Ethics we are starting our discussion of animal ethics. So my tie features a huge jumble of animals, "tessellating" the plane. And my photo shows two of our most recent "friends" to join our family (or home zoo) -- a bear and a turtle.

4 April 19

Today I'm celebrating the birthday of American painter Edward Hicks (1780-1849). Two of my favorite paintings by this Quaker minister are "Noah's Ark" and "The Peaceable Kingdom," and I think the animals on my tie resemble what Hicks pictured for us. His are perhaps more realistic and are nicely lined up or lying comfortably, while mine are tumbled together in a tessellation.

29 November 17

C. S. Lewis was born on this date in 1898. He died in 1963, on the same day as John F. Kennedy. I chose my tie to remember Lewis' fascination with animals, particularly the talking ones he introduced to us in the Chronicles of Narnia! The tessellated pattern includes lions like Aslan. They are shown upside down, which would be abnormal for a great lion like Aslan except when he was cavorting with Lucy and Susan Pevensie.

5 June 17

Happy Birthday, Kirsten Rae Huizenga Caminiti! My niece Kirsten is a musician who lives near Philadelphia with her husband Joseph (an orchestral conductor), not far from my dear sister Gloria. One of her earliest public appearances was as a flower girl in our wedding! She chose this tie for me to wear today because of her "fascination with and affection for the animal world." The tie's label says "IT'S A WILD LIFE!" and I agree with that.

4 September 16

Today is National Wildlife Day! It is celebrated on 4 September to honor the life of Steve Irwin, aka "The Crocodile Hunter," who became famous for his media crusades on behalf of endangered species and animal welfare. He was born on 22 February 1962 and died 4 September 2006.

5 January 16

Here's your giraffe, Mary Ullrich! Mary was a good friend at church in Nicholasville, KY and since then on Facebook. She asked me to help celebrate her birthday today with a giraffe on my tie! (By the way, a design that fills up space with repeated geometric figures is called a tessellation.)

19 July 15

This is the beginning of National Zookeepers' Week! I am keeping quite a zoo on my tie, though the animals do not have a lot of space to move around.

9 Feb 15

Happy Birthday, dear sister Gloria Huizenga! She chose my "tessellated wild animals" tie for today to honor her three grandchildren who are currently in Cameroon (at a school affiliated with Wycliffe Bible Translators). And today Mallie Jayden Elizabeth Kleppinger is 19 months old!

9 July 14

Mallie Jayden Elizabeth Kleppinger is celebrating her FIRST BIRTHDAY today! She chose my tie for today -- we offered five options and she settled on the one with lots of animals.

21 October 13

I discovered that I had not worn this tie since November 2011! But it's very special today because I get to take care of Mallie, who is almost 15 weeks old. I'm quite sure she will be excited to see the colors and shapes.

17 November 11

Happy Birthday, Mr. Möbius! August Ferdinand Möbius (November 17, 1790 - September 26, 1868) was a German mathematician who discovered the unusual properties of the one-sided "Möbius strip" in 1858. You can make one for yourself by looping a long strip of paper, twisting the paper once before fastening it (e.g., with tape) to complete the loop. The surface of this object now has only one side, as you can prove by drawing a continuous pencil line around the loop. The technical definition is "a non-orientable two-dimensional surface with only one side when embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space" (Wikipedia, article on Möbius). Möbius-loop patterns are famous in art, particularly in many designs by M. C. Escher, and they are also of increasing interest in chemistry. My tie recreates a one-sided loop to celebrate Möbius' birthday, with animals parading in all possible directions.

9 June 11

Happy Birthday today to Dick Vitale (72), Cole Porter (would be 120), and Peter the Great (would be 339). But my tie celebrates the birthday tomorrow of Maurice Sendak (83), writer/illustrator of children's books including Where the Wild Things Are! (published in 1963). Our youngest cat (named W. C. Fields) is the wildest of our three.

04 April 11

Today marks the birthday of American painter Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780 – August 23, 1849). His most famous work is "The Peaceable Kingdom," but I also enjoy his portrayal of "Noah's Ark." This tie has a very peaceful tumble-ation of animals.














Peaceful people around the world also note that today is designated by the United Nations as the International Day for (Land) Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.

04 October 10

Today is World Animals Day. Its celebration on October 4 is tied to the Feast of St. Francis (of Assisi), who is the patron saint of animals, because he was known to be very friendly with all creatures.

2 May 10

This is the beginning of "Be Kind to Animals Week." So I selected my jumbled-animals tie. Then it became even more appropriate as a "Noah's Ark" tie because we have had nearly-continuous rain, with much local flooding, since Saturday morning.

10 December 09

This is International Animal Rights Day, which has been celebrated since 1998. One Web site says that this day's purpose is "moo-ving people toward compassionate living."