Pictures of the Season (Wordless Wednesday), Words for Wednesday, and No Tricks, Just Treats for Shelters Bloghop (LLB In Our Backyard)

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.      

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts that encourages us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Elephant's Child.  

This week's prompts are:

1.   mild
2.   uncertainty
3.   haircut
4.   consultation
5.   mystery
6. movie
   
   

And/or

1.   joy
2.   surface
3.   agreement
4.   freckle
5.   fixture
6.   solo

The first time he had stepped into the new barber shop, it had been with UNCERTAINTY.  He'd suddenly needed a HAIRCUT for business reasons and his own barber had been out of town.  Knowing that, until a new barber has given you a cut it is a MYSTERY whether you will like what you see and whether the two of you will get along, he'd discovered he liked this barber as well as, if not better than, his original.

The barber himself was MILD in his mannerisms and, in spite of great loss, seemed to radiate quiet JOY.  Upon finding out the man's widowed daughter-in-law took in sewing to make a living, he'd brought her a favorite pair of pants to have a seam repaired.  What was supposed to be a SOLO visit soon became a FIXTURE in his world.

He found that CONSULTATION with this barber on many different matters always resulted in some point of view being shared that shed light and wisdom on the subject.  One pair of pants to be mended by the seamstress had become anything that needed tailoring finding its way into her hands, and by unspoken AGREEMENT, much more time spent with her and her son.

The boy loved his barber grandfather, his mama, and was overjoyed with the time now being spent with this new friend he was learning to love, also.  His daddy, the barber's son who had died in Iraq, was a fading memory to him, living only in pictures and stories.  This man was real time, and took him to the park with his mama, and did lots of other fun things, too.  "Child, you have a FRECKLE for every inch" he would say, and they would both grin.  In fact, the boy's smile became so constant it was almost like it would have to be surgically removed if you wanted to see him without it.

The SURFACE of his life seemed to go on the same, but the deeps were stirred as this tiny, fractured family made its way into his heart.

I feel like I'm living in a cheesy romance MOVIE, he thought to himself as he stopped for a bouquet of fresh flowers on the way to take her out to dinner.

Such a change simply because once his own barber was out of town.  Who would have thought it could lead this way, but every day, he was more glad that it did.

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LLB in Our Backyard is having their annual No Tricks, Just Treats for Shelters Blog Hop. This is a fund raiser to help various shelters.  The LLB Gang will be donating $1 per hop entry and 50¢ for each comment, and our friend Sandee of Comedy Plus will be matching them this year!

From the LLB blog:

This year we will be holding our Fifth Annual Blog Hop/Fundraiser October 30th thru October 31st(Wednesday and Thursday). Publish a Halloween post letting us know some way you plan to/or have helped a shelter or pet in need, and link up to the hop. We will be donating $1 per hop entry AND 50 cents  for each comment we receive on the 30th and 31st(including duplicates)! The money raised will be split between three Blogville "Helping Hands", you can find out more by heading over and leave a comment, and help shelter pets!     

As for us, today is our usual day to do a morning shift at the cat shelter near here.  Sweetie and i will be there at 6am to feed, water, and change litter boxes for all cats and kittens that are in cages, the intake room, the offices, or the upper respiratory infection room (that one gets done last, of course.  This shelter has been open about 10 years, and i have done one or two shifts per week almost since it opened!

We go on Fridays, too, in the evenings, just to do food and water, and to clean toilets and sinks and the kitchen because somebody needs to take care of the people there, too, and who better than a janitor?

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Today is:

Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security

Anniversary of the Declaration of the Slovak Nation -- Slovakia

Buy A Doughnut Day -- any wonder who started this one? (insert eye-roll here)

Checklists Day -- prevent tragedy, create great checklists; in honor of the development of the first well known checklist following a B-17 prototype's crash due to pilot error

Create a Great Funeral Day -- don't make your family choose the plans in the midst of grief, plan your sending away party now, it's more fun when it's done -- in advance!

Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions -- most former Soviet Republics

Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show -- Ft. Lauderdale, FL, US (hosted at the "Yachting Capital of the World"; through Sunday)

Hawaiki Nui Va'a Race -- French Polynesia (spectacular three-day open water outrigger canoe race from Huahine to Raiatea to Tahaa to Bora Bora; through Friday)

Look in the Back of Your Refrigerator Day / Haunted Refrigerator Night (And hope the old hamburger isn't grazing on the moldy salad.)

Mischief Night, a/k/a Goosey Night, Devil's Night, Cabbage Night -- US

National Candy Corn Day

Practice Winter Snuggling Night -- when it gets really cold, you'll be glad you practiced

Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan -- Beginning of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, Hebrew Year 5780, at sundown today

St. Dorothy of Montau's Day (Patron of brides, difficult marriages, dying children, parents of large families, widows; Pomerania; Prussia)

St. Marcellus' Day  (as a Roman centurion who threw down his armor and refused to take part in pagan worship, he is Patron of conscientious objectors)

The Rhyne Toll -- Chetwode Manor, UK (through Nov 7) -- the Lord of the Manor may tax any cattle he finds on his Liberty (free pasture) on these days

Try on Your Halloween Costume Early Day -- to see how goofy you look, and make sure you have everything you need

Will Rogers' Days -- Claremore and Oologah, OK, US (celebrating the man's wit and humor at his birthplace and the museum dedicated to him; through Monday)

Birthdays Today:

Nastia Liukin, 1989

Matthew Morrison, 1978

Gavin Rossdale, 1967

Diego Armando Maradona, 1960

Kevin Pollack, 1958

Charles Martin Smith, 1953

Harry Hamlin, 1951

Andrea Mitchell, 1946

Henry Winkler, 1945

Ed Lauter, 1940

Grace Slick, 1939

Claude Lelouch, 1937

Dick Gautier, 1937

Dick Vermeil, 1936

Robert Caro, 1935

Louis Malle, 1932

Ruth Gordon, 1896

Charles Atlas, 1893

Ezra Pound, 1885

William "Bull" Halsey, 1882

Emily Post, 1872

Alfred Sisley, 1839

Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821

Richard Sheridan, 1751

John Adams, 1735

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Symphony No. 11 in G minor(Shostakovich Op. 103), 1957

"Panama Hattie"(Musical), 1940

"War of the Worlds"(Radio), 1938

Today in History:

Antioch surrenders to Rashidun Caliphate and his Muslim forces after the Battle of the Iron Bridge, 637

End of the 8th Crusade, 1270

King Henry VII, Tudor, crowned, 1485

Queen Isabella bans violence against Indians, 1503

The first Methodist church in the US is initiated (Wesley Chapel, NYC), 1768

Dr. Richard Gatling patents the machine gun, 1862

Founding of Helena, Montana (capital city), 1864

John Willis Menard, of Louisiana, becomes the first black elected to the US Congress (by special election, he was challenged by the loser, but was allowed to address Congress from the lectern), 1868

Daniel Cooper patents the time clock, 1894

Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah becomes the first woman US Senator, 1896

The first US Automobile Show opens in Madison Square Garden, NYC, 1900

Czar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia's first constitution, creating a legislative assembly, 1905

Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy, 1922

John Logie Baird creates Britain's first television transmitter, 1925

Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States, 1938

Anne Frank and sister Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 1944

Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color barrier, 1945

Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1960

The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise, 1961

The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time, 1973

The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire, 1974

Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco, 1975

In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit home entertainment system, the TurboGrafx-16, known as PC Engine, 1987

Quebec sovereignists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote is 50.6% to 49.4%), 1995

The last Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) early time-sharing operating system is shut down at the Canadian Department of National Defense in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2000

George Lucas sells Lucasfilm, Ltd., to the Walt Disney Company, 2012

Canada and the EU sign a free trade deal, 2016