Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Warnings for Wordless 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 to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Lee at Kitchen Connection.   

The words for the week are:

mythology
contemporary
instinct
overture
banter
groundbreaking
barrier
captivate
companion
unique
affair
interior

"Yipes!" she cried out, startled and  jumping back.  Then her eyes got wide.

"I thought you were MYTHOLOGY," she said in a whisper, looking at what appeared to be a real, actual, live gnome in her garden.  Every INSTINCT said run, but she was rooted to the ground, frozen with a combination of fear and curiosity.  For the moment, at least, curiosity was winning.

"That's what we want most of the CONTEMPORARY populace to believe," it growled, looking decidedly grumpy, but not at all threatening.

Still unable to believe this was real, that she was engaged in BANTER with a gnome, she took a deep, calming breath.  "So why did you let me know you are real?"

"Someone had to make an OVERTURE to you, and I was chosen."  He did not look  happy about being chosen.

"The lady from whom you inherited this property knew about us..."

"Wait," she said.  "First of all, that was my great aunt, a very, very dear person to me, and second, I thought you said you didn't want modern people to know about you."

"Quote me correctly, missy, I said we don't want most of you to know," he said, with a great emphasis on the word "most."  "Sometimes it can't be helped, and your great aunt was one of those times, and now, so are you, and I would like to get through this quickly, if you don't mind, I haven't the time to try to CAPTIVATE you with my charms, I just need to be direct and to the point."

The last part of the statement dripped with heavy sarcasm, and for some reason that set her at ease.  Under it all, he had a sense of humor, and knew how to use it.  He couldn't be all bad.

"You are doing some GROUNDBREAKING in the part of the garden right next to the house that is going to breech a BARRIER and cause some adverse effects, if you don't take care, and you need to be warned."

He stopped at that moment, moved his hat back so she could really see his eyes, and looked at her with a piercing gaze.  She was startled by the UNIQUE look of his eyes, once he'd moved enough of his hair and the hat out of the way so she could get a good look at them.  

Her great aunt had once told her, "In any AFFAIR of great importance, look at the eyes.  You have a gift, you will know whom to trust."  She was only a small child at the time, and had no idea then what it meant.  It came back to her now, as if she were reliving the moment, and his eyes told her he was speaking the truth.

"The area here is UNIQUE, and we fairy folk use it for some special purposes.  The ground you are considering moving hides the way to the INTERIOR, and more than that I am not allowed to tell you.  You don't want to change that garden bed, now or ever.  It's yours to protect."

"Am I protecting you from humankind, or humankind from the fairy folk?" she asked, with just a hint of mischief glinting from her own eyes.

"Both."

Again, from his eyes, she knew it was true.

"Thank you for warning me," she said.  "I will take it as a great responsibility to protect this land."

"Your great aunt was right about you," he said, then turned and stomped off.  His errand done, he wasted no time in disappearing into the plants that grew thickly in the very bed about which they'd been speaking.

She turned and called out to one of the landscapers from the crew she had hired to make the changes she thought she had wanted.

"Wait.  That one bed, over there, right up against the house.  I've changed my mind, I really don't want it touched.  Please go ahead and clear and clean the others, and do the new plantings we talked about, but leave that one alone."

The workman turned to his COMPANION, shrugged with a smirk as if to say, "What do you expect, it's like a woman to change her mind," and they both headed for a different part of the yard.


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Today is:

Abolition Day -- Guadeloupe; Saint Martin

Buttercup Day -- an internet holiday that just sounds fun

Cellophane Tape Day -- patented this date in 1930

Children's Day -- Nigeria (a school holiday)

FindleFritter's Stoat-Wheedling Event -- Fairy Calendar

Mother's Day -- Bolivia

National Grape Popsicle Day

National Senior Health and Fitness Day -- US (don't let age get in the way of staying healthy! this year the theme is "Life is Better in Motion")    

Pop-up Toaster Day -- Charles Strite applied for his patent on the first pop-up toaster on this day in 1919

St. Augustine of Canterbury's Day (Roman Catholic Church observance; Patron of England)

St. Melangell's Day (Patron of hares)

Sun Screen Protection Day -- an annual, and unsponsored, reminder to use that SPF protection, every day!

Throw the B*st@rds Out Day -- originally directed at politicians, (and if you want to do that, too, great!), and celebrated on various days on various sites, but whomever is making your life miserable, toss them out!  or at least, toss them out of your thoughts for today.



Birthdays Today:

Chris Colfer, 1990
André Benjamin, 1975
Jamie Oliver, 1975
Jack McBrayer, 1973
Joseph Fiennes, 1970
Jeremy Mayfield, 1969
Todd Bridges, 1965
Pat Cash, 1965
Adam Carolla, 1964
Peri Gilpin, 1961
Richard Schiff, 1955
Bruce Weitz, 1943
Louis Gossett, Jr., 1936
Ramsey Lewis, 1935
Lee Meriwether, 1935
John Barth, 1930
Henry Kissinger, 1923
Christopher Lee, 1922
Herman Wouk, 1915
Sam Snead, 1912
Hubert H. Humphrey, 1911
Vincent Price, 1911
Dolores Hope, 1909
Rachel Louise Carson, 1907
Dashiell Hammett, 1894
Isadora Duncan, 1878
Arnold Bennett, 1867
Wild Bill Hickock, 1837
Julia Ward Howe, 1819
Amelia Bloomer, 1818
Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1794


Debuting/Premiering Today

From Russia With Love(Film). 1964
The Three Little Pigs(Disney animated short), 1933


Today in History:

Habeaus Corpus Act, codifying how the writ of habeaus corpus is to be used, passes in UK, 1679
Peter the Great founds St. Petersburg, 1703
In Bolivia, the Battle of La Coronilla, in which the women from Cochabamba  fight against the Spanish army, 1812
In Canada, American forces capture Fort George, 1813
Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco, California, 1907
The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight, 1919
The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public, 1930
Richard Gurley Drew receives a patent for his adhesive tape, later manufactured by 3M as Scotch tape, 1930
The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon  The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", 1933
In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, , 1937
Toronto's CHUM-AM, (1050 kHz) becomes Canada's first radio station to broadcast only top 40 Rock n' Roll music format, 1957
Australians vote in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census, 1967
In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition, 1995
Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire, 1996
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milosevic and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity, 1999
The May 2006 Java earthquake strikes at 5:53:58 AM local time (22:53:58 UTC May 26) devastating Bantul and the city of Yogyakarta killing over 6,600, 2006
Scientists in Canada bring 4000 year-old bryophyte specimens left behind by retreating glaciers during the Ice Age back to life, 2013
The director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde calls for "tougher regulation and tighter supervision" of the banking sector, 2014
Commercial space company SpaceX is approved as a contractor to the U.S. military for satellite launches, 2015
A research team from University of York publish a study based on 711 samples from 72 countries that shows the world's rivers are widely contaminated with antibiotics, especially in Africa and Asia, 2019

19 comments:

  1. I really, really like your Words for Wednesday story - and would like to know more. Please. If future prompts allow it.

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  2. Oh, I do love your story! I don't know how you always make such good stories from the prompts, but they always delight me.

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  3. Great story, Mimi. Thanx.

    God bless you.

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  4. LOL @ and elsewhere :-)

    I enjoyed the story mimi too :-)

    Have a safetastic week 😷😷😷

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  5. We would just like to go one day without hearing or seeing that word COVID. It is tiring.

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  6. Oh, good story. I'd like to have written it. Normally I do not read other peoples' WfW before writing my own, but the first few words just pulled me in.

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  7. That was a very interesting story. My hubby has a Denver Bronco gnome. But he was not very helpful the past few years with their NFL team. He is looking over at me right now. I love all your shares here. Have a great day! xo

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  8. Yes we can change our minds, but often there is a very good reason. Well done as always.

    Phase one and if we social distance in our cars we will eliminate the tailgaters. Excellent idea.

    Thank you for joining the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop.

    Have a fabulous Wordless Wednesday. Big hug. ♥

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  9. I like the story. Social distancing has become the new normal. Have a wonderful day.

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  10. awesome story today...great job !! :) ☺☺♥♥

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  11. That's sure a sign of the times and a good story too!

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  12. I'm not sure I'm convinced that grape popsicles warrant a day all their own... but I am only one woman. :-)

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  13. That is quite an interesting sign ~

    Be Safe, Be Well,
    A ShutterBug Explores,
    aka (A Creative Harbor)

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  14. How wonderful your use of the words is, messymimi! Terrific!

    Everyone has come up with good stories wound around this week's words.

    Thanks for the fun. :)

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  15. I love gnomes and I love your story! I'm so glad she listened as did her great-aunt before her.

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  16. Great tale, well done on including that huge list of words! I've noticed even cars are social distancing now, every cloud ...!

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  17. Woo Hoo! I really enjoyed your story! Thank you and I hope you had a nice day! Stay healthy and stay safe!

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