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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Catsynth, Keith, 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 River at Drifting Through Life.
This week's words/prompts are:
1.concoction
2.premises
3.smoky
4.genuine
5.stronger
6.grease
Charlotte's colour of the month is Ocean Twilight.
I knew from the time I was a very small child the herb woman in our village was GENUINE, and I knew from the talk that in some villages, this was not the case.
Not that I knew how to express it, but somehow I felt it the first time I walked onto her PREMISES at the age of almost three, clutching my mama’s skirts and coughing fit to choke from the grippe.
I watched, wide-eyed with wonder, as she stoked her SMOKEY fire and put together a CONCOCTION for my mama to give me. It was thick with honey and some kind of GREASE and the color of Ocean Twilight, but it didn’t taste bad and I remember being in such awe of the herb woman I swallowed the first dose right then with no resistance.
“I made it STRONGER,” she told my mama, “you let her go long before bringing her to me.”
“I am sorry, we had the fields to tend before the rains so I could not get away sooner and I did not realize how sick she was getting,” my mama said.
“Bring her back next week, fields or no fields,” the herb woman said. “She may need more. Also, look at the eyes of her, even ill she has not stopped her looking. If she has the makings of an herb woman, and she has the marks, I want to apprentice her early.”
Since becoming an herb woman myself, I now know, yes, she was good; so am I, thanks to her.
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Today is:
Anniversary of the Arengo and the Feast of the Militants -- San Marino
Annunciation of the Virgin Mary -- Roman Catholic Christian
Lady Day/Quarter Day -- England; Ireland; Wales (traditional New Year's Day)
Varfrudagen -- Sweden (waffle day)
Day of the Shining Ones of Heaven move Upstream -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)
Festival of King Amenhotep I -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (rituals depicting his death and burial, performed for the Deir-el-Medina workforce; date approximate)
Hilaria -- Ancient Roman Empire ("Day of Joy", honoring Attis)
Independence Day -- Cyprus; Greece(1821)
International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade -- UN
International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members -- UN
International Waffle Day -- based on Sweden's tradition of having waffles on Annunciation Day
Little Red Wagon Day
Medal of Honor Day -- US (first one awarded this date in 1963)
Mother's Day -- Slovenia
National Day of Celebration of Greek and American Democracy -- Greece; US
National Lobster Newburg Day
National Pecan Day -- anniversary of George Washington's planting of Pecan trees at Mt. Vernon in 1775
National Waffle Day -- possibly also International Waffle Day, depends on the site you search
Navpad Oli/ Ayambil Oli -- Jain (nine day religious festival)
Old New Year's Day -- until 1751, British Empire
Revolution Day -- Greece (anniversary of the revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1821)
Sacrifice to Kronos -- Ancient Greek Calendar (private sacrifices to Kronos; date approximate)
Seward's Day -- Alaska, US
St. Dismas' Day ("Dismas" is the name given to the unnamed "Thief on the Cross", crucified next to Jesus according to Biblical accounts, and who repented; Patron of condemned/death row prisoners, funeral directors/undertakers, penitent criminals, prisoners, reformed thieves; Merizo, Guam)
Struggle for Human Rights Day -- Slovakia
The Tichborne Dole - in Alresford, Hampshire, UK; since 1150, a gallon of flour is given to every resident by the Tichborne family head on this day, to avoid a curse
Tolkien Reading Day -- sponsored by The Tolkien Society on the anniversary of the fall of Sauron
Whole Grain Sampling Day -- sponsored by the Whole Grains Council
Birthdays Today:
Danica Patrick, 1982
Lee Pace, 1979
Sheryl Swoopes, 1971
Sarah Jessica Parker, 1965
Marcia Cross, 1962
John Stockwell, 1961
Mary Gross, 1953
Paul Miles, 1952
Bonnie Bedelia, 1948
Elton John, 1947
Bonnie Bedelia, 1946
Paul Michael Glaser, 1943
Aretha Franklin, 1942
Anita Bryant, 1940
Gloria Steinem, 1934
James Lovell, 1928
Eileen Ford, 1922
Simone Signoret, 1921
Howard Cosell, 1920
Norman Borlaug, 1940
David Lean, 1908
Bela Bartok, 1881
Arturo Toscanini, 1867
Gutzon Borglum, 1867
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Barrymore"(Play), 1997
"Cagney & Lacey"(TV), 1982
Today in History:
The first Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus, 31
According to legend, Venice, Italy is born today at noon, 421
Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France, leading to his death on April 6, 1199
Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland, 1306
Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert's patent to explore North America, 1584
Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co., 1609
Lord Baltimore founds Catholic colony of Maryland, 1634
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christian Huygens, 1655
Mount Etna in Sicily erupts, destroying Nicolosi, killing 20,000, 1669
The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire, 1807
The Swansea and Mumbles Railway in England, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger carrying railway in the world, 1807
Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism, 1811
Greeks revolt against the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence, 1821
In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers, leading to factory reform laws, 1911
The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811, 1917
The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, 1948
The European Economic Community is established (West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), 1957
Canada's Avro Arrow makes its first flight, 1958
Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, 1965
The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch, 1979
The world's first wiki, a part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is made public by Ward Cunningham, 1995
The European Union's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease, 1996
Protesters demanding a new election in Belarus, following the rigged Belarusian presidential election, clash with riot police, 2006
In southwest China, environmental and health concerns among residents are raised when 1,000 dead ducks were pulled from the Sichuan River, 2013
The world's largest banana split ever, at 8,040 metres long, is made in Innisfail, Australia, 2017
Doctors perform the first ever organ transplant from a live HIV+ patient to an HIV+ recipient, a kidney transplant in Boston, MA, US, 2019
NASA has to cancel a planned all female spacewalk because it doesn't have enough space suits in the right size, 2019
The Renaissance masterpiece The Ghent Altarpiece (1432) by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck goes on display, after a seven-year restoration, in St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, 2021
A rare, long-track tornado travels 170 miles from Rolling Fork to Armory, Mississippi leaving a trail of devastation, 2023
The first widespread outbreak of bird flu in cows is reported at farms in six US states, 2024
