Contradiction (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday.

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Words for Wednesday is a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts that encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.  This month, the prompts are being posted by Cindi  of Letting the Words Escape.  

1. frisbee
2. baseball
3. Winston
4. truce
5. Studebaker
6. diamond

and/or

1. vanish
2. message
3. Tokyo
4. Wanda
5. twist
6. maim

"FRISBEE golf or BASEBALL?" he asked as she packed the picnic box.

"Since BASEBALL is as close to a DIAMOND as I am likely to get for now, bring the bat and ball," she said with a wry smile.

He came over to where she was shutting the lid on the box and put his arms around her.  "Would you really have preferred to be with WINSTON?  He could give you a DIAMOND, and a STUDEBAKER to boot."

"No, no," she murmured, hugging him back, "I'd rather be with you."

"He could take you to TOKYO, Venice, all the places you've said you wish you could go to someday."

She leaned back and looked him in the eye.  "I don't want to be with him any more than you want to be with WANDA now.  They both need to VANISH into the mists of memory!"

"You don't need to TWIST my arm for me to get that MESSAGE," he answered.  "Any more time with her and I would be mentally MAIMED for life."

He stepped away and headed for the closet where they kept the sports equipment and said, "TRUCE?"

She grinned and said, "Truce.  Bring the bat and ball.  I'd rather be on a picnic with you and catching your pop flies than anywhere else in the world."

"Pop flies!" he said with overdone mock chagrin.  "We will see about that!"

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Today is:

Alasitis Fair -- Aymara Indians, Bolivia (offerings to the god of prosperity, now celebrated in conjunction with the Roman Catholic Feast of Our Lady of Peace, for whom La Paz is named)

Beer Can Appreciation Day -- the first canned beer, Krueger's Cream Ale, went on sale today in 1935

Belly Laugh Day -- at 1:24pm local time, join the Belly Laugh Bounce Around the World!

Economic Liberation Day -- Togo

Eskimo Pie Day -- patented this day in 1921

Fairy-Four Paganalia -- Fairy Calendar

Gold Rush Day -- US (gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, sparking the California Gold Rush, in 1848)

National Compliment Day -- begun by Debby Hoffman and Kathy Chamberlin, a day in which to compliment at least 5 people

National Peanut Butter Day

Opposite Day -- internet generated, and fun if you play it right

Paul Pitcher Day (So called because it is the eve of the Celebration of St. Paul's Conversion on the road to Damascus.  Cornish tin miners would traditionally set up a water pitcher in a public place and throw stones at it to destroy it.  A replacement pitcher was then bought and filled with beer, which was drunk and replenished through the day.  These miners were great inventors for reasons to celebrate, and they did this to rebel against the rule that only water was to be consumed during the work day.)

Sailing of Bast -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (people sailed the Nile to converge on Bubastis and celebrate the cat goddess; date approximate)

Sementivae, in honor of Ceres and Terra, begins -- Roman Empire (one of the few dating approximate items on the Roman Calendar, as each area of the Empire celebrated according to the timing of a local magistrate, but now through Feb. 2 was a typical time)

Social Sipping and Nibbling Rehearsal Day -- a day to practice cutting a piece of cake on a paper plate, using a plastic fork, and also balancing a napkin and punch in a paper cup; or practicing what clever thing you will say if you drop it all

St. Francis de Sales' Day (Patron of authors/journalists/writers, confessors, deaf people, educators/teachers; Champdepraz, Aosta, Italy; against deafness)

TV Game Show Day -- birth anniversary of Mark Goodson

Ziua Unirii -- Romania (Unification Day)

Anniversaries Today:

Popeye meets Olive Oyl, 1929 (in Elzie Segar's Thimble Theater comic strip)

Birthdays Today:

Mischa Barton, 1986

Tatyana Ali, 1979

Ed Helms, 1974

Matthew Lillard, 1970

Mary Lou Retton, 1968

Nastassia Kinski, 1960

Jools Holland, 1958

Yakov Smirnoff, 1951

John Belushi, 1949

Warren Zevon, 1947

Michael Ontkean, 1946

Sharon Tate, 1943

Neil Diamond, 1941

Aaron Neville, 1941

Ray Stevens, 1939

Maria Tallchief, 1925

Jerry Maren, 1920

Oral Roberts, 1918

Ernest Borgnine, 1917

Jack Brickhouse, 1916

Mark Goodson, 1915

Granny D, 1910 (formerly Granny Haddock, or Ethel Doris Haddock, political activist)

Edith Wharton, 1862

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"21"(Adele Album), 2011

"American Dream"(Albee Play), 1961

Treasure of the Sierra Madre(Film), 1948

The Grapes of Wrath(Film), 1940

"Boris Godunov"(Opera), 1874

"I, Puritani"(Bellini Opera), 1835

Today in History:

Caligula, known for his cruel despotism, is assassinated and succeeded by his uncle Claudius, 41

Connecticut colony organizes under Fundamental Orders, 1639

The first Jewish doctor in US, Jacob Lumbrozo, arrives in Maryland, 1656

Henry Knox arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts with the artillery that he has transported from Fort Ticonderoga, 1776

The University of Calcutta is formally founded as the first full-fledged university in south Asia,1857

The Romania principality arises under King Alexander Cuza, with Bucharest as the capital, 1862

General Baden-Powell's publication of Scouting for Boys starts the Boy Scouts movement, 1908

The Gregorian calendar introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective from February 14(NS), 1918

Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada, 1952

A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost, 1961

Jackie Robinson is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962

Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II, 1972

Soviet satellite Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered, 1978

The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale, 1984

Voyager 2 passes within 81,500 km (50,680 miles) of Uranus and discovers new moons, 1986

Japan launches Hiten, the country's first lunar probe,and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States, 1990

Lara Giddings becomes the first female Premier of the Australian state of Tasmania , 2011

TV drama "The X-Files" returns after 13 years, reuniting lead actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson and produced again by Chris Carter, 2016