Wednesday, April 1, 2020

An Encouraging Sign for the A to Z Challenge, with Wordless Wednesday and Words for Wednesday

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     


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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 to encourage 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. Stop
  2. Reasonable
  3. Best
  4. Kind
  5. Dragon
  6. Drinking

And/Or

  1. Flower
  2. Foster
  3. Sing
  4. Pieces
  5. Darker
  6. Thinking


“Mama, why would the DRAGON be DRINKING tea out of a FLOWER petal cup with the princess and the knight?  Jimmy said all the dragons do in stories is capture princesses and eat them, and that the knights have to kill the dragons and steal the treasures back and make them stop.”

Shawna stood with her book open, showing her mother the illustration.  The whimsical scene was pictured just as she’d described it.  On the next page, Mr. Dragon had been persuaded to SING for their entertainment.

For a moment Mama stood, THINKING how best to answer the innocent face standing there looking up at her.  She wasn’t ready to do as her son had done, try to argue the DARKER side of life, with what many would call REASONABLE and mature and responsible ways of looking at the world.

All that would come for the child soon enough.  For now, she could afford to FOSTER a gentler way to see things.  

“It all depends on whose version of the story you believe,” she answered, choosing her words with care.  She felt as if she were putting PIECES of tile together for a mosaic, and she wanted to be careful about how it would look at the end.   

“There have always been those who love war and fighting and who want you to believe that dragons are the enemy, who want to see themselves as tough dragon-fighters.  How do we know there weren’t KIND dragons that lived their lives and never fought a soul?  Maybe they just never got to tell their stories.

“When you hear one side of a story, always STOP and remember there’s another side, and the rest of the story might be the BEST of the story.”

Mama smiled and Shawna smiled back.  “How about we have some tea and cookies ourselves, and I’ll read the story to you,” Mama offered, and was rewarded with a smile and a resounding, “Yes!”


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Today is:

APAWS International Pooper Scooper week -- The Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists believe every dog should have its day, but not on someone else's lawn!

April Fool's Day  a/k/a Huntingowk Day or Gowkie Day in Scotland, because an April Fool is called a gowk; in England it is All Fools Day or April Noddy Day, as an April fool is a "noddy"

Azalea Festival -- Muskogee, OK, US (month long celebration with citywide events throughout)

Capture of Brielle Remembrance -- Brielle, Netherlands

Civil Service Day -- Thailand

Community Spirit Days -- an open invitation, all month long, for any town or community to involve itself in a special service project

Day of Hathor -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Edible Book Day -- Sponsored by the Edible Book Festival, Austin, TX, US (celebrating books and culinary creativity by making edible representations of books, then eating them)

Fossil Fools Day -- part of the conservationist movement of many organizations that want us to decrease reliance on fossil fuels and stop corporate polluters

Greek Cypriot Day -- Cyprus (EOKA Day)

International Fun at Work Day -- originally sponsored by Playfair, which encourages non-foolish humor that is non-toxic 

International Tatting Day

Investiture of the New Captains Regent -- San Marino (sometimes listed as National Day)

Kalends of April -- Ancient Roman Empire; also
    Festival of Fortuna Virilis -- Fortune in her role of bringing luck to women who want better relationships with men
    Veneralia -- ritual yearly washing of the statue of Venus

Kha b-Nisan -- Assyrians (traditional New Year celebration)

Loki's Day -- by some calculations, but more likely it was moved to this date to celebrate the trickster of all time on the trickiest day of the year

Miyako Odori -- Kobu Kaburenjo Theatre, Kyoto, Japan ("Dance of the Old Capital", the highly anticipated geisha dance and music festival, through the 30th)

National Day of Hope -- US; recognizing victims of child abuse and neglect, a day to recommit to make the world safe for children

National Sourdough Bread Day

National Walking Day -- US 

Orissa Day -- Orissa, India

One Cent Day -- no history on this, just noted on several sites

Paraprofessional Appreciation Day -- honoring the contributions of paraprofessionals everywhere

Pigasus Award Announcement Day -- by James Randi, awarded to parapsychological, paranormal or psychic frauds

Reading is Funny Day -- a day to read riddles, jokes, and fun things with kids to show them how great reading can be

School Year Begins -- Japan, most schools and universities

Sizdeh Be-dar -- Iran (Nature Day, an ancient Persian celebration to get out and joyfully spend the day outdoors)

Sorry Charlie Day -- a day to recognize Charlie the Tuna, always rejected but never giving up, and anyone who has ever been rejected and lived to tell about it

St. Gilbert de Moray's Day (Patron of Caithness, Scotland)

St. Stupid's Day (First Church of the Last Laugh) 

Tree Loving Week begins -- South Korea (always the week that includes April 5, their Arbor Day)

Uzupis Day -- Uzupis District, Vilnius, Lithuania


Anniversaries Today:

Nunavut becomes Canada's third independent territory, 1999
Jim Bakker marries Tammy Faye LaValley, 1961


Birthdays Today:

Randy Orton, 1980
Jon Gosselin, 1977
Rachel Maddow, 1973
Susan Boyle, 1961
Libby Riddles, 1956
Annette O’Toole, 1953
Samuel A. Alito, Jr, 1950
David Eisenhower, 1947
Daniel Joseph “Rusty” Staub, 1944
Ali MacGraw, 1938
Gordon Jump, 1932
Debbie Reynolds, 1932
Jane Powell, 1929
Anne McCaffrey, 1926
Toshiro Mifune, 1920
Abraham Maslow, 1908
Clara "Mother" Hale, 1905
Lon Chaney, 1883
Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1873
Otto von Bismarck, 1815
William Harvey, 1578
Emperor Go-Saga of Japan, 1220


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Will Rogers Follies"(Musical), 1991
"General Hospital"(TV), 1963
"The Doctors"(TV), 1963
"Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel"(Film; premier of Marlene Dietrich), 1930


Today in History:

The ruins of the city of Pompeii are found, 1748
Japan's volcano Unsen erupts, killing about 53,000, 1793
Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine, 1826
Cincinnati becomes the first US city to pay firefighters, 1853
Singapore, Penang & Malakka become British crown colonies, 1867
The London-Paris telephone connection is opened, 1891
The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, Illinois, 1891
The Royal Air Force is created by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, 1918
The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed, 1924
Generalisimo Frederico Franco announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, 1939
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands creates a tsunami that strikes Hawai'i, killing 159, 1946
The twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State become the Republic of Ireland, 1949
The Canadian government repeals Japanese Canadian internment after seven years, 1949
The BBC broadcasts the spaghetti tree hoax on its current affairs programme Panorama, 1957
Project Tiger, a tiger conservation program, is launched in the Corbett National Park, India, 1973
Apple Inc. is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, 1976
The Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia is created, 1996
Comet Hale-Bopp is seen passing over perihelion, 1997
Nunavut is established as a Canadian territory carved out of the eastern part of the Northwest Territories, 1999
Croatia and Albania join NATO, 2009
The world’s first smelling TV screen is unveiled in Japan, 2013
Bob Dylan receives his Nobel Prize for Literature at a private ceremony in Stockholm, 2017
The discovery of a major archaeological site on a reef in the middle of Lake Titicaca, in the Andes, and dating to the 8th and 10th centuries AD, is announced, 2019
For the first time ever, online sales in the US overtake retail brick and mortar store sales, with 11.813% online compared with 11.807% for general merchandise stores, 2019

17 comments:

  1. I love the idea of a kindly flower loving dragon - and have read several stories where their love of tea (and the associated ceremony) is documented.
    I also love your always positive slant.

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  2. There is always hope.
    A sweet story with a good message.

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  3. This year will be our first time celebrating Easter at home.

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  4. There is always hope. There should be. Praying for you all.

    God bless.

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  5. I like your story, and echoes EC, stories of nice dragpns sure exist. Thank you for your lists, I always eye the news of April first with suspicion.

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  6. There are nice dragons, it's just that don't get talked about very often! Thanks for including the BBC's spaghetti tree April fool prank in your list. I was only a kid at the time but it always gets mentioned every year!

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  7. What a beautiful story and what a smart momma.

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  8. Love your story as always. A great message.

    Thank you for joining the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop.

    Have a fabulous Wordless Wednesday. Big hug. ♥

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  9. That really is a sign of the times. Good story too!

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  10. Great idea my friend. Yours tops them. Have a great night & stay healthy!

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  11. Great story- you always come up with the best! Cheers!

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  12. You wrote a dragon story! And I love it :)

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  13. From Toffee the cat: My old woman says she remembers that spaghetti April Fool's joke (she's very old). She also says she's looking forward to reading all the posts in your A to Z challenge. xxx

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  14. Mimi,

    Great encouraging sign! Oh, I just loved your flash fiction piece - so adorably sweet. :) Great way to start of the A2Z fun, my dear.

    Do be safe and healthy in these uncertain days. The good news is we know that Jesus lives! Be blesssed.

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  15. Wonderful sign ~ Hope ^_^

    Be Well,
    A ShutterBug Explores,
    aka (A Creative Harbor)

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