Don’t Lose Time (Wordless Wednesday) and Taking Care of Business (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 to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Mark Koopmans, and are being posted by Elephant’s Child.           

This week's prompts are:

1. Annihilate
2. Zinfandel
3. Lozenge
4. Pacemaker
5. Spokes
6. Invoice

And/or

1. Business 
2. Panniers 
3. Wooden 
4. Thunderstruck 
5. Podcast 
6. Zesty  

Oh, great! James thought as he saw Bert headed his way.  Of all the people to run into at a BUSINESS luncheon.  Bert was several years his senior, and could easily have sent his juniors, much easier to deal with, to do such menial details as attend this sort of thing.  

“Jamesssss!” yelled Bert, who always managed to make James’ name sound like he was calling a snake.  “Did you know your boss still hasn’t paid my last INVOICE!”

James took a deep breath and did everything he could to keep his face neutral.  He couldn’t give away that he was THUNDERSTRUCK by the nerve and bad form Bert was displaying.  The job had only finished two days before, the check was being cut that day, and Bert was simply trying to show dominance in front of others.

As he tried to come up with a ZESTY response, or at least one that would get him out of further conversation, James remembered a PODCAST he’d listened to a few days before.  As Bert smirked and proceeded to ANNIHILATE his third glass of ZINFANDEL, James decided to simply smile and use his imagination to do ridiculous things to Bert.

First he imagined Bert on an old bicycle with baseball cards held with clothespins so as to make the SPOKES create a sound similar to a motorcycle, the way they did as children to make them as noisy as possible.  He really put his mind to it, imagining Bert riding with WOODEN PANNIERS on the back of the bike, full of cabbages.  

“Careful, old boy!” James called back, knowing that Bert was touchy about his age.  “Don’t get your PACEMAKER in an uproar!”

Those who knew what was going on and how Bert behaved were grinning and mentally congratulating James, while Bert now looked like he was sucking on a bitter LOZENGE.

“You turned in the order for payment yesterday and pay goes out today.  You don’t have to worry, if it doesn’t come through you just get your secretary to show you how to send me a text and I’ll see it gets to you!”

Others knew better than to laugh, they didn’t want to be on Bert’s bad side, but they loved how James had dealt with him in such as way as to get him to sit and tend to his plate instead of try to find another victim.

It turned out to be a very productive luncheon, after all.

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Today is:

Bubble Bath Day -- remember how much fun it was as a kid?  enjoy that again today

Day Sacred to Justicia -- Ancient Roman Empire (personification of justice)

Emperor Norton Day -- E. Clampus Vitus Society puts on a party in San Francisco's Chinatown in honor of the passing on this day of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico

Feast of Hathor and Sekhmet -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Feast of St. Gudula (Patron of single laywomen; Brussels, Belgium)

Grandmothers/Midwives Day -- Bulgaria (a/k/a Babin Den; celebrating Grandmothers as midwives of their grandchildren, for the role they play in the traditional family.)

Haloa -- Ancient Greek Calendar (fertility festival of Demeter and Dionysos called after the halos, or threshing floor; date approximate)

    Rural Dionysia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (the fertility festival of the countryside)

It All Adds Up Day -- anniversary of Hollerith's tabulating machine patent

Kim Jong-un's Birthday -- North Korea

Male Watcher's Day -- often listed as a day for the females to get even and do a little guy ogling, but no site gives any reason behind why this day was chosen

Midwife's Day / Women's Day -- Greece (women get out and go to a cafe or shopping, and the men must stay home and do the chores and care for the children, and in some areas, men caught shirking will be stripped and drenched in cold water; on the approximate date of an ancient Greek celebration of midwives)

    Gynaecocratia -- Macedonia

Milk Carton Day -- Sheffield Farms began packaging milk in paraffin lined paper cartons on this day in 1929

National Eat Something Raw Day 

National English Toffee Day

National Joygerm Day -- a day to infect others with joy; begun by Joygerm Joan, whose motto is "The only thing Joygerms allow to get depressed are their tongues!"

Old Hickory Day -- Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson leads the victory in the Battle of New Orleans

Rock 'n' Roll Day -- on Elvis' birth anniversary, of course

Show and Tell at Work Day -- another Wellcat Holiday to observe carefully if at all

St. Severinus' Day (Patron of Austria and of San Severo, Italy)

Toka Ebisu Matsuri -- Osaka, Japan (Festival of Ebisu, god of business and prosperity; through the 11th)

Birthdays Today:

Ami Dolenz, 1969

Vladimir Feltsman, 1952

Don Bendell, 1947

David Bowie, 1947

Robbie Krieger, 1946

Kathleen Noone, 1946

Stephen Hawking, 1942

Yvette Mimieux, 1939

Bob Eubanks, 1938

Shirley Bassey, 1937

Elvis Presley, 1935

Charles Osgood, 1933

Soupy Sales, 1926

Ron Moody, 1924

Larry Storch, 1923

Jose Ferrer, 1912

Galina Ulanova, 1910

Wilkie Collins, 1824

James Longstreet, 1821

Nicholas Biddle, 1786

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Symphony No. 15 in A major (Opus 141, Dmitri Shostakovich), 1972

"Almira"(Handel's first opera), 1705

Today in History:

Monaco gains its independence, 1297

Genoa, Italy expels Jews, 1598

The oldest surviving commerial newspaper begins in Haarlem, Netherlands, 1675

The New York Fishing Company is the first American commercial corporation chartered, 1675

Premiere performance of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1734

US President George Washington delivers the first "State of the Union" address, 1790

Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, emerges voluntarily from the wild in southern France (he had been captured and escaped before), 1800

The Battle of New Orleans, 1815

The first US music school, the Boston Academy of Music, is established, 1833

The US national debt hits $0 for the first and only time, 1835

Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code), 1836

French physicist Jean Foucault proves, using his "Foucault's pendulum," that the Earth rotates on its axis, 1851

Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the US Cavalry at Wolf Mountain in Montana Territory, 1877

Dr. Herman Hollerith receives the first US patent for a tabulating machine, considered by some to be the earliest computer, 1889

The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system, 1904

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., 1963

Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched, 1973

The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II, 2004

Some scientists claim 2012 weather as the hottest year ever recorded, 2013

The previous year, 2017, is declared a record year for cost of natural disasters, coming in at $306 billion, 2018