Bayou Igloo (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday.

***********************************

This month, Elephant's Child is hosting Words for Wednesday, although the prompts are being provided by Margaret Adamson and Sue Fulton. 

This is part of a serial story, and if you click on the "Alice" page above, you can read the previous segments.

Last week i was unable to get my story written in time, so i have last week’s prompts and this week’s as well.

Last week’s prompt words:

1. Giraffe
2. Puddle
3. Thorny
4. Evergreen
5. Distant
6. Tubular

And/or

1. Torrent
2. Cab
3. Aspidistra
4. Faucet
5. Teddies
6. Carbuncle

“What do you mean, she disappeared?  People do not just disappear.”  The voice at the other end of the phone was very agitated.

“I know, but I can’t find her!” he said, moving from room to room, pulling furniture away from walls and opening every closet.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go in unless you saw her through the window?”

“I did see her, in fact I stepped in  PUDDLE and got prickled by that THORNY EVERGREEN she planted under all the windows trying to make sure she was in here,” he yelled back.

“So you are telling me she is not there when you saw her through the window in the room a few minutes earlier.  That’s like telling me a GIRAFFE disappeared from the zoo, it does not happen!”

 “I know people don’t just disappear, but I’m telling you she isn’t in the house!  I’ve searched every room!”

Alice could hear the TORRENT of words as the man traipsed back and forth through the house, his boots clomping over her head like DISTANT thunder. 

The intruder continued to argue on his phone while Alice dialed the emergency number from her hiding place.  She whispered to the emergency operator that someone had cut off her electricity and broken into her house, to please send help immediately.  The operator agreed to do so, and Alice held her phone out so the sound of the intruder slamming cabinets opened and closed could be heard.

“Look,” the intruder said into his phone, “I’m getting out of here, I’ve already lost the element of surprise even if she’s hiding somewhere in the house so I’m going back to the diner and catch a CAB.”

“Great, now we’re going to have to come up with another plan!” the person on the other end hung up, and the intruder, frustrated with not being able to find any sign of Alice, kicked at the TUBULAR leg of one of the laboratory tables, then yelled in pain.

As he hobbled out of the same back door he had kicked open, the police had driven up in the front with no sirens or lights.  One officer headed for the front door while the other went for the back yard, hoping to catch any intruder trying to leave the scene.

By the time he realized the police were there, he had tripped over the faucet for the sprinkler system and was caught, face down, cussing up a storm.

The police told the dispatcher to tell Alice they were there, but she made sure she snuck out of her hiding place when they were in another room.  She reasoned that this would not be the last time she’d have to use it, and wanted it kept hidden.

“Would you come and identify the intruder?” one of the officers asked.  She answered, “I didn’t see him, just heard his voice, but I can tell you if I know him or not.”

“I didn’t do anything but come over here to visit my cousin!” he was yelling, but he got very quiet when he saw her peering into the back of the police car.

“Yes, I know him, and that’s his voice.  He kicked the back door open,” she said.

“All I did was knock, I wanted to talk to you!” he yelled.

“Yeah, sure,” the officer said, “and the furniture moved around, the closet doors opened, what was that all about?”

“Not to mention,” Alice added, “you turned off the electrical main, knocked over my ASPIDISTRA, all of my TEDDIES and dolls are on the floor...”

“We’re going to take him to lock-up, you can come down and give a statement tomorrow,” one of the officers told Alice, and the other added, “Call again if you need us.  Now that we know someone is after you, we will patrol here more often, too.”

The Dec. 12 prompts are:

The show must go on

And /or

The straw that broke the Camel’s back

After the police left, Alice went back into the house and pulled a heavy china hutch in front of the now broken back door.

“Tomorrow I will have to deal with getting a carpenter to fix the door and going to make a complaint with the DA,” she thought.  “But I am not quitting, I am not giving up, THE SHOW MUST GO ON!”

“Now that the idiot has gone and gotten himself arrested,” he thought, “I am not going to try to work through her family any more.  They’ve done dumb stuff before, but this is THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL’S BACK!”

Today is:

Acadian Remembrance Day -- Acadians of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island

Count the La's in "Deck the Halls" Day -- just so you can say you know

Feast of Hathor -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (goddess of joy, feminine love, and motherhood; date approximate)

Fiesta de Santo Tomas -- Chichicastenango, Guatemala (week long festival celebrating the town's Patron Saint that includes the Palo Volador dance, where men hang by ropes from 30 meter poles, spinning and swinging)

Hanukkah -- Judaism (began sundown yesterday; through sundown Dec. 20)

Ice Cream and Violins Day -- another of those silly made up holidays that no one can trace, but would be fun to celebrate.  Get yourself a bowl of buttered pecan or rum raisin -- if you are going to celebrate, do it in style -- and put in a Mozart or Bach CD, and enjoy!

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Giljagaur -- Gully Oaf, who tries to sneak in the cowshed and skim the cream from the pails of milk

Ides of December -- Ancient Roman Calendar; other observance

     Festival for Tellus -- a/k/a Tellura or Tellus Mater, the personification of the earth's productive powers

Jum ir-Repubblika -- Malta (Republic Day)

National Day -- Santa Lucia

New Calendar Day -- time to get the 2018 model, unless you contribute to so many charities you are already flooded with them

Peace Day -- Korea (the fighting stopped in 1953, but the Koreas didn't sign a formal nonaggression pact until this day in 1991)

Pick a Pathologist Pal Day -- Wellcat Holidays reminds us that pathologists and coroners are an especially jovial lot, and befriending them is a good way to remind yourself that tomorrow is never guaranteed

Runic Half-month Jara commences (fruition)

St. Herman of Alaska (Orthodox Church Patron of the Americas)

St. Jodocus' Day (Patron of boatmen,harvests, mariners, sailors, watermen; against fever, fire,storms, and shipwrecks)

Saint Lucy's Day (Patron of authors, blind people, cutlers, glaziers, laborers, martyrs, peasants, saddlers, salesmen, sore eyes/eye problems, sore throats, stained glass workers; Begijnendijk, Flemish Brabant, Belgium; Conzano, Italy; Mtarfa, Malta; Perugia, Italy; Santa Lucia di Piave, Italy; Syracuse, Sicily, Italy;

Villa Santa Lucia, Latium, Italy; against blindness, dysentery, epidemics, eye diseases, hemorraghes)

     Feast of the Light-bringer -- honoring Juno Lucina (Roman goddess of light) and Lucia (Old Swedish goddess of light), all now merged with St. Lucy

     Little Yule a/k/a Luciadagen or Santa Lucia (Festival of Lights in many parts of Scandinavia, honoring St. Lucia.)

Unreturned Library Book Sale -- Fairy Calendar (Imps)

Birthdays Today:

Taylor Swift, 1989

Amy Lee, 1981

Tom DeLonge, 1975

Christie Clark, 1973

Jamie Foxx, 1967

Steve Buscemi, 1958

Wendie Malick, 1950

Ted Nugent, 1949

John Davidson, 1941

Aga Khan IV, 1936

Christopher Plummer, 1929

Dick Van Dyke, 1925

Archie Moore, 1913

Kenneth Patchen, 1911

Mary Todd Lincoln, 1818

Heinrich Heine, 1797

Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Susan B. Anthony Dollar(USD coin), 1978

"Alice's Restaurant"(Song and Album), 1969

"An American In Paris"(Gershwin Symphony), 1928

Today in History:

The Council of Trent opens, 1545

Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England to circumnavigate the globe, 1577

Emperor Ferdinanad II delegates the first Anti-Reformation decree, 1621

The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes 3 militias which are today seen as the founding of the United States National Guard, 1636

Dutch navigator Abel Tasman becomes the first European to land in New Zealand, 1642

Dartmouth College in New Hampshire is chartered, 1769

Italo Marcioni patents an ice cream cone, 1903

The Relay 1 communication satellite is launched, 1962

Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk" of Apollo 17, 1972

The European Union announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members from May 1, 2004, 2002

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured, 2003

The Baiji, or Chinese River Dolphin, is announced as extinct, 2006 Scientists in northeast Madagascar confirm a new /species of lemur has been found, 2010

An unpublished early work by Hans Christian Anderson is found at the bottom of a filing box at the National Archives of Funen, 2012