Sign Seen Before the Storm (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 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 WiseWebWoman.  

(1)

School

Highway

Redhead

Crow

(2)

Yarn

Spider

Knife

Beer

It looks, she thought to herself, like a house out of the Munsters TV show.

That, at least, was her first impression.

Her second impression, that the SPIDER webs hanging from the ceilings looked more like YARN than thin strands because of all the dust attached, wasn’t much better.

She wondered what the children at the SCHOOL right across the HIGHWAY thought when they looked at this place.  Did they tell each other scary stories about the house, the way she and her friends would have done?

The real estate agent who had let her in was keeping up a constant stream of chatter, which she ignored.  She might have been attracted to him as he was a gorgeous redhead, her favorite type, had he not been so wordy. 

She did not ignore the signs that the house had been broken into at least once, such as the empty BEER bottles in one corner and a small pile of dirty dishes, a KNIFE conspicuously on top, in the sink.  Probably a homeless person desperate for shelter had been here, and was scared off by something.  Police?  A ghost?  No way to know.

Stepping out of the back door, she noticed a huge CROW in one of the scraggly trees, and it noticed her, cawing loudly.  She looked up and said, “Yes, I see you, I mean you no harm, you are welcome to stay.  I like crows!”

Turning back to the agent she finally got a word in edgewise and said, “Yes, we will rent the place.  It’s perfect for the movie we want to film.  In fact, we couldn’t have set up a better haunted house if we’d tried.  Don’t change or clean anything, just let us know when we can come sign an agreement and drop off the first month’s check.

“And tell the crow in the back yard to stick around, he might become famous!”

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Today is:

Air Conditioner Day -- the first modern electrical air conditioning unit, invented by William Carrier, began working on this day in 1902

Bregenzer Festspiele (Bregenz Festival) -- Bregenz, Austria (an amazing performing arts festival, through August 18)

Constitution Day -- South Korea

Feast of St. Kenelm -- saint mentioned in "The Nun's Priest's Tale" of The Canterbury Takes

Feast of the Clockless NowEver -- can't find any confirmation on what this one is, but it sounds like fun if i don't have to bother with a clock or schedule

Festival for Victoria and Virtus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of victory and god of bravery in warfare)

Gion Matsuri -- Yakasa Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (one of the largest and best Gion festivals)

King Letsie III's Birthday -- Lesotho

National Baby Food Festival -- Fremont, MI, US (in the hometown of Gerber Products, adults have a baby food eating contest and tots have crawling races, among other fun things; through Saturday)

National Peach Ice Cream Day

Petal-Hopping for Hopeless Cases -- Fairy Calendar

Sinclair Lewis Days -- Sauk Centre, MN, US (a grand celebration in Lewis's hometown; through Sunday)

St. Alexius Day (Patron of Alexians, beggars, belt makers, nurses, pilgrims, travellers)

Wear Crazy Socks to Work Day -- at your own risk

World Day for International Justice

Wrong Way Corrigan Day -- anniversary of the flight of Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, who was supposedly heading for California from New York and ended up in Ireland instead

Yellow Pig Day -- mathmatics festivals at various universities, celebrating the number 17 and the yellow pig with 17 eyelashes, created by mathematicians Michael Spivak and David C. Kelly

Birthdays Today

Tash Hamilton, 1982

Alex Winter, 1965

Dawn Upshaw, 1960

Mark Burnett, 1960

Aaron Lansky, 1955

J. Michael Straczynski, 1954

David Hasselhoff, 1952

Phoebe Snow, 1952

Lucie Arnaz, 1951

Camilla Parker Bowles, 1947

Diahann Carroll, 1935

Donald Sutherland, 1934

Phyllis Diller, 1917

Art Linkletter, 1912

James Cagney, 1899

Berenice Abbott, 1898

Erle Stanley Gardner, 1889

John Jacob Astor, 1763

Elbridge Thomas Gerry, 1744

Isaac Watts, 1674

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Yellow Submarine(Animated film), 1968

Punch(Magazine, first publication), 1841

Today in History

Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians, the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world, 180

Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China, 1402

Catherine II (the Great) becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia, 1762

Londoner Thomas Saint patented the first sewing machine, 1790

The first issue of Punch magazine was published, England, 1841

The Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston as the first dental school in the U.S, 1867

On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia, 1918

The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; 5 lives are lost, 1918

An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain begins the Spanish Civil War, 1936

After being denied permission to make a transatlantic crossing, Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan, 1928

Disneyland televises its grand opening in Anaheim, California, 1955

An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations, 1975

The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team, 1976

The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business, 1997

A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless, 1998

A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, 1998

South Korea develops a long range cruise missile, 2010

Astronauts Sunita Williams of the United States, Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Aki Hoshide of Japan, arrive at the International Space Station for a three-month long mission, 2012

In an effort to curb obesity rates, the United Arab Emirates offers its citizens one gram of gold for every kilogram of weight they lose, 2013

The discovery of the oldest evidence of bread, made from wild grains, is announced by archaeologists in a dig at a 14,000 year old site in the Black Desert, Jordan, 2018