Veterinarian Sense of Humor (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday 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 that encourages us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Margaret Adamson and her friend Sue Fulton, with some pictures by her friend Bill Dodds, and are posted by Elephant's Child.                      

This week's words are:

Precipitation

Lanky

Grotesque

Clockwork

Still

Transporting

and/or

Eskimo

Cyclone

Cassowary

Waitress

Cleaning

Auditorium

"You have to admit it was a rather GROTESQUE performance," he said, his LANKY form draped over the vinyl seat of their favorite booth at the 24-hour Waffle House as if he didn't have the strength to sit up straight.

"I'll admit nothing of the sort!  I found it rather charming," she said as she stared off into space, toward the direction of but not necessarily at the WAITRESS who was CLEANING a booth about halfway down the row.

It has been her idea to attend her nephew's grade school play in the small AUDITORIUM at the local library.  He'd been thrilled to know his aunt and uncle would be there, along with his own family.

"Well, it's a production of The Wizard of Oz that I won't soon forget," he noted with a wry grin.

"I think they did very well for a grade school," she was a bit miffed, thinking he expected too much of the performers, some of whom were very young.

"Let's just say I didn't expect the Scarecrow character to look so much like a CASSOWARY, or the Munchkin Mayor to be dressed up like an ESKIMO.  And what in the world was the sound effect that accompanied the prop that was supposed to be a CYCLONE?"

"It was supposed to be the noise of the PRECIPITATION that normally accompanies such a storm!"   She had become both tart and icy in her response, not an easy feat, and he realized he wasn't getting her to laugh, he was truly making her feel insulted on behalf of the children.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "The way they used the props in TRANSPORTING Dorothy and Toto to  Oz was quite clever, and the kids mostly knew their lines.  If the child in the seat behind me had been STILL for more than five seconds at a time, I probably would have enjoyed it much more."

"They knew their cues like CLOCKWORK, too," she said with a bit of cool still in her voice, and he hurried to agree.

"Yes, they had that down, and knew the songs cold," he smiled with encouragement at her and sat up straight as their meals arrived.

She thawed under his smile as she always did eventually on the rare occasion when they had this kind of disagreement.

"They only do one play a year, you will be glad to know, so this won't happen often," she told him, and he thought but did not say, That's plenty often enough, as they tucked in.

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Today is:

Balloons Around the World -- balloon artists around the world are encouraged to donate an hour or more to a charity of their choice in their community, entertaining children everywhere with balloon sculpture

Buttering-Up Semi-Finals -- Fairy Calendar

Change a Light Day -- US (was originally sponsored by EnergyStar, promoting energy saving light bulbs; although they don't seem to be running this particular campaign any more, it's a great idea to switch to the highest efficiency bulbs you can)    

    while the original dates were on Wednesdays, some websites list this on the first Sunday

Festival of Bacchus/Dionysus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (tasting the old and new wine and celebrating the harvest)

Independence Day -- Iraq

Kae Chun Jul -- Korea (National Foundation Day, BC 2333)

Morazan Day -- Honduras (Soldier's Day, trad.; will be observed on Monday)

National Butterfly and Hummingbird Day -- internet generated; celebrate these beauties today, no matter where you are

National Carmel Custard Day

Nottingham Goose Fair -- Nottingham, England (dating back to at least 1284, what began as a fair market so people could stock up on food supplies for winter is now a fun festival with rides and games; through Sunday)

Oschophoria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (in honor of the return of Theseus after killing the Minotaur; deities celebrated were Dionysius and either Athena or Ariadne, depending on the source cited; date approximate)

Relief of Leiden Day -- Netherlands

Reunification Day /Unity Day-- Germany

Semana Morazanica, una Fiestas Patrias -- Honduras (through Friday)

Sts. Ewald the Black and Ewald the Fair's Day (Patrons of Westphalia)

Techies' Day -- give your techies some well deserved appreciation

Birthdays Today:

Neve Campbell, 1973

Gwen Stefani, 1969

Janel Maloney, 1969

Clive Owen, 1964

Jack P. Wagner, 1959

Dennis Eckersley, 1954

Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1954

Dave Winfield, 1951

Lindsey Buckingham, 1949

Roy Horn, 1944

Chubby Checker, 1941

Erik Bruhn, 1928

Gore Vidal, 1925

James Herriot (James Alfred Wight), 1916

Harvey Kurtzman, 1902

William Crawford Gorgas, 1854

George Bancroft, 1800

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"L.A. Law"(TV), 1986

"Scarecrow and Mrs. King"(TV), 1983

"Quincy"(TV), 1976

"The Dick Van Dyke Show"(TV), 1961

"The Andy Griffith Show"(TV), 1960

"The Pat Boone Show"(TV), 1957

"The Real McCoys"(TV), 1957

"Captain Kangaroo"(TV), 1955

"The Mickey Mouse Club"(TV), 1955

"Father Knows Best"(TV), 1954

"Our Miss Brooks"(TV), 1952

"The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet"(TV), 1952

The Maltese Falcon(Film, NYC release), 1941

Today in History:

The state of Gojoseon (modern-day Korea) is founded by Dangun Wanggeom during the reign of the Chinese emperor Yao, BC2333

The siege and battle of Alesia is ended by the surrender of Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, to Julius Caesar, BC52

Julius Caesar's assassins suffer a decisive defeat at the First Battle of Phillipi, BC42

Jews are expelled from Eger, Bohemia, 1430

The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor, 1712

British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska, 1778

General Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence being named to defend the French National Convention against armed counter-revolutionary rioters, 1795

George Washington proclaims the first national Thanksgiving Day will be held on Nov. 26, 1789

American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death, 1849

J.S. Thurman patents a motor-driven vacuum cleaner, 1899

The first conference on wireless telegraphy agrees to adopt SOS as the warning signal and sign of distress, 1906

Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles in Vienna, Austria, found the Pravda newspaper, 1908

Mrs. W.H. Felton, of Georgia, becomes the first woman seated in the US Senate, 1922

A V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany is the first man-made object to reach space, 1942

The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon, 1952

Germany is reunified, 1990

Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy is attacked by one of the show's tigers, 2003

Archaeologists on the Egypt-Gaza border find the first evidence of a 2,000-year-old city, 2010

Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves," 2017