Cat Shelter Decor (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

 

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday.

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Words For Wednesday

This month, Elephant's Child is hosting Words for Wednesday, and the prompts are being provided by others.

This week, the prompts are photographs by Bill.

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

This week's prompt photos and my story follows:

With one cousin safely in the local hoosegow, and the other relatives seemingly cowed by her promptness in pressing charges, Alice threw herself back into her work.

She began filling out patent applications on the first two chemicals, interspersed with working to perfect the other three.  She was close on those, so close she could feel it, so close she felt a panic begin to rise.  Alice knew her family would never give up, and she wanted to get all of the patent applications in at once.

Once applied for, she could rest on that front.  At that point, companies would come to her and she could pick her contracts.  She also figured there would be patent infringement eventually, but she would fight those battles when they came.  As Great Aunt Edna had noted, she was comfortably well off without the money the patents would bring, so she didn't have to be come a multi-zillionaire and be outrageous.  Her parents, Edna, and she all believed what they were adding to the world was worth more than money if it helped the world create less toxic, un-recyclable waste.

As she stared out of the window trying to regroup her thoughts one afternoon, she noticed a raven, dark against the sere gray of the winter field behind the house.  It was looking at something incongruously bright and red, and at first she thought it was a berry and that the bird was going to eat it.  

She had found her mother's old field glasses, which had been used to teach her a bit about birds when she was a child.  They brought back bittersweet memories of her mother's avid birding, and she loved using them to watch the antics of both birds and the squirrels, raccoons, and other critters.  Grabbing the glasses, she took a closer look and realized the bird was next to a tiny red flower.  How it was growing in this space of days between snowstorms was a mystery, but she decided to simply enjoy it, and stepped outside to walk over and take a closer look.

Today is:

50 Ways To Leave Your Lover Day -- marking the debut of the song, think of 50 ways to stay with the one you love, and do one!

BPT Remembrance Day -- try to remember what breakfast was like BPT (before Pop-Tarts)

Cathode Ray Day -- the kinescope (cathode ray tube) was patented by Vladimir Zworykin on this day in 1938

Dot Your I's With Smileys Day -- a great internet generated idea, if you are a 9-year-old girl

Fete des Cafres -- Reunion (Abolition Day)

Go Caroling Day -- if you have the voice for it, enjoy

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Bjugnakraekir -- Sausage-pilferer, who will steal any kind of sausage you don't manage to hide from him

International Human Solidarity Day -- UN

Louisiana Purchase Day -- US

Macau Special Administrative Region Establishment Day -- Macau

Mudd Day -- for Samuel Mudd, the doctor who accidentally treated a disguised John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Lincoln; don't hang your head in shame if your name is Mudd!  Today is your day.

National Fried Shrimp Day

National Sangria Day (If you still aren't ready for Christmas, you might need it.)

Old St. Thomas' Eve -- St. Thomas, whose feast is now in July, was formerly on Dec. 21, and the evening before used for prognostication; related observance

     Tammasmass E'en -- Orkney Islands, UK (from tonight until Yule, no work was undertaken or amusements enjoyed after sunset; all alemaking for the Yule celebrations had to be done by this day)

Snowflake-Riding Championships -- Fairy Calendar (no Goblins allowed!)

St. Dominic of Silos' Day (Patron of captives, pregnant women, prisoners, and shepherds; against hydrophobia, insects, mad dogs, and rabies)

Try to Remember Where You Hid The Christmas Gifts Day -- it's getting close, and you don't want to have to go out at the last minute and buy more; sponsored by "Marlar in the Morning," QFL-101 Radio, Rockford, Illinois

Winter Solstice Eve

Anniversary Today:

Donald Trump weds Marla Maples, 1993

Montgomery Bus Boycott ends, 1956

Birthdays Today:

Jonah Hill, 1983

David Cook, 1982

Billy Bragg, 1957

Jenny Agutter, 1952

Uri Geller, 1946

Peter Criss, 1945

William Julius Wilson, 1935

John Hillerman, 1932

David Levine, 1926

George Roy Hill, 1922

Irene Dunne, 1898

Susanne K. Langer, 1895

Robert Gordon Menzies, 1894

Hazel Virginia Hotchkiss Wightman, 1886

Wesley Branch Rickey, 1881

Harvey Firestone, 1868

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Sunshine Boys"(Play), 1972

"The Dating Game"(TV), 1965

It's a Wonderful Life(Film), 1946

Today in History:

Vespasian enters Rome to claim the title of Emperor, 69

Richard the Lionheart is captured in Vienna, 1192

Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta, 1522

Peter the Great orders the Russian New Year changed from Sept 1 to Jan 1, 1699

The Louisiana Purchase is formally transferred from France to US for $27M, 1803

The international cantilever railway bridge opens at Niagara Falls, 1883

North America's longest railway, at 50,000km, the Canadian National Railways, is established, 1919

The first international dogsled mail leaves Minot, Maine for Montreal, Quebec, 1928

The cathode-ray tube is patented by Russian immigrant Vladimir Zworykin, 1938

Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales, United Kingdom, 1955

Djibouti and Vietnam join the United Nations, 1977

NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X, 1996

US District Court Judge John E. Jones III rules against mandating the teaching of "intelligent design" in his ruling of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 2005

Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days, 2007

Intercontinental Exchange purchases the New York Stock Exchange, the largest in the world, for $8 billion, 2012

Britain agrees to help Syria destroy more than 165 tons of chemical weapons, including substances that can be used to make toxic nerve agents, 2013