Our Patriotic Pup (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

(Because some people like Blogger and some like WordPress, i am putting the same content at both.  If you would prefer to read this on the other site, it is linked here.) 

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday.

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts that encourages 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 are:

1. pitiless

2. circumstance

3. coffee

4. black

5. shimmer

6. bottles

and/or:

1. reminded

2. sluice

3. blazing

4. fragment

5. routine

6. compartment

"That sun is PITILESS!  How can you drink hot COFFEE in this heat?"

She smiled at her husband and took another sip of her steaming BLACK unction and said, "Ah, ambrosia!"  After all, she always said she liked her brew dark as the swamp mud and hot as the bayou in July.

Shaking his head, he turned to the BOTTLES of iced beverages in the cooler.  The sun was BLAZING down and he wondered how long they would remain cold.  The little drawer COMPARTMENT in the top held their lunches, and he had to struggle with himself to keep from sneaking one of the brownies.

Although she was staring at the water, looking toward the area of the SLUICE gate and watching for the SHIMMER that would tell them when it opened, she knew just what he was thinking.  "Need you be REMINDED that my eye is upon you?" she said, still smiling.  He reluctantly grabbed a drink and let the top fall closed.

Eyes like a hawk, he thought to himself.  No wonder they put her on duty for this.  The only CIRCUMSTANCE that could get him out here in the heat and BLAZING sun was to keep her company, and the picnic she packed for them after.  It didn't mean he wanted it to become a ROUTINE.

"And there it is!" she called out, and he looked up to see her smiling and pointing.  "I'll call back up to the house and tell them, then we can go find a shady spot and eat."

"That's the best news I've heard today," he said with relief, hefting the cooler and heading for the shade trees.

“No brownies until I get there!” she called after him.  She knew him too well.

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Today is:

Air Force Day -- US (declared by President Truman in 1947)

Anniversary of the Founding of Scouting -- first day of Brownsea Island Camp in 1907, where Robert Baden-Powell began Scouting

Armed Forces Day -- Lebanon

Earth Overshoot Day -- according to the Global Footprint Network, this is the date on which humanity has exhausted the Earth's budget of resources for the year   

Emancipation Day -- Barbados; Guyana; Jamaica; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and Grendines; Trinidad and Tobago; Turks and Caicos Islands (Trad.)

Fast in Honor of the Holy Mother of Jesus / Procession of the Cross and Dormition Fast -- Orthodox Christian

Feast of Kamal (Perfection) -- Baha'i

Fiesta de Santo Domingo -- Managua, Nicaragua (patron saint; through the 10th)

Girlfriends' Day -- a day to celebrate the women who enrich your life

Halifax International Busker Festival -- Halifax, NS, Canada (with action packed, mind blowing shows from around the globe; through August 6)

Harriet Quimby Day -- first woman to earn a pilot's license, this date in 1911

Hirosaki Neputa Matsuri -- Hirosaki, Japan (through the 7th, parade and purification ritual to rid the the town of future illness and bad fortune)

Homowo -- Ghana (a festival of thanksgiving and remembrance, among various groups of Ga peoples, all through August and September.)

Imps Charity Scramble -- Fairy calendar (Do they scramble the imps, or do the imps scramble for something?)

Independence Day / National Day -- Benin(1960)

Kalends of August -- Ancient Roman Calendar; related observances

    Feast of Spes (personification of hope)

    Festival for Victoria (goddess of victory)

Lammas Day / Lammac Tide -- Christian, a Cross Quarter Day (called the Gule of August in Wales, and known as August Eve and Lady Day Eve)

Liberation of Haile Selassie -- Rastafari

Lughnassad / Imbolc -- Wicca and Pagan (based in the Northern Hemisphere on the Celtic Feast of Bread, beginning of the harvest season)

Maine Lobster Festival -- Rockland, ME, US (more fun than a lobster can shake a tail at; through Sunday)

Minden Day -- British Armed Forces

Nagaoka Festival -- Nagaoka, Japan (through the 3rd, samuri procession, traditional music and dances, fireworks)

National Day -- Switzerland (where it is also called Swiss Confederation Day, when Switzerland became a single unit in 1291)

National Minority Donor Awareness Week -- US (bringing awareness to the fact that there are fewer minorities who are organ donors)    

National Non-Parent Day -- sponsored by The National Organization for Non-Parents and No Kidding!

National Raspberry Cream Pie Day

Parents' Day -- Democratic Republic of the Congo

Respect For Parents Day -- with information here    

Rounds Resounding Day -- sponsored by Rounds Resounding Society (Grab your friends and sing a few songs that go in rounds, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Frere Jacques".)

Social Resistance Day -- North Cyprus

Spiderman Day -- he first appeared today in Amazing Fantasy #15, released Aug. 1, 1963

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori's Day (Founder of the Redemptorists, a/k/a Ligourians; Patron of confessors, final perseverence, moralists, scrupulous people, theologians, vocations; Pagani, Italy; Sant'Agata de' Goti, Italy; against arthritis, scrupulosity disorder)

World Breastfeeding Week begins -- International (the theme this year is "Breastfeeding: Foundation of Life")   

World Lung Cancer Day -- International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer    

World Scout Scarf Day -- wear your Scout Scarf in public today    

World Wide Web Day -- what would become our current ability to waste time reading blogs and doing other fun stuff was begun as an idea at CERN during August back in 1990

Yorkshire Day -- Yorkshire, England

Anniversaries Today:

Colorado becomes the 38th US State, 1876

Birthdays Today:

Tempestt Bledsoe, 1973

Robert Cray, 1953

Giancarlo Giannini, 1942

Jerry Garcia, 1942

Yves Saint Laurent, 1942

Ronald Harmon "Ron" Brown, 1941

Dom DeLuise, 1933

Tom Wilson, 1931

James Hill, 1916

Herman Melville, 1819

Maria Mitchell, 1818

Francis Scott Key, 1779

William Clark, 1770

Debuting/Premiering Today:

M2(TV Network), 1996

"The Rush Limbaugh Show"(Radio), 1988

MTV(TV Network), 1981

Today in History:

The future Caesar Augustus, Octavian, enters Alexandria, Egypt, and brings it under the control of Rome, BC30

Japan sends Ono no Imoko to the Sui court in China as envoy, 607

The Swiss Confederation is formed with the signature of the Federal Charter, 1291

Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile drive the Jews out of Spain, 1492

Henry Tudor, soon to be Henry VII, sails with his army to England, 1495

The first black Americans arrive in Jamestown, Virginia, 1619

Oxygen is "discovered" for the 3rd time, by Priestly, 1774

The Act of Union is passed in which merges the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1800

Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire, 1834

First coast to coast automobile trip, from San Francisco to New York, is completed, 1903

The first Jeep is produced, 1941

Anne Frank makes the last entry in her diary, 1944

The United States and Canada form the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), 1957

Israel annexes East Jerusalem, 1967

Peat cutters discover Lindow Man, Lindow Moss, Cheshire, England, 1984

CERN physicists begin discussing building what would eventually become the World Wide Web, 1990

Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia join the European Environment Agency, 2001

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia dies and is succeeded by Prince Abdullah, 2005

Buddhist treasures buried during the Mongolian Communist Purge in the 1930's are rediscovered in the Gobi Desert, 2009

Russia grants NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden one year of temporary political asylum; Snowden leaves Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, 2013