How Did They Get It To Grow In A Swamp? (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 to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

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

This week's prompt is:

There is a door with a single keyhole - it will open regardless of what key you use to unlock it.  All keys will open this door.  What's on the other side, however, depends on the type of key.  What key will you use, and what is on the other side of the door.

Approaching the door with an old timey skeleton key, the kind Great-Grandmother kept around but never really used to lock anything but the bathroom door (and that for privacy, not fear of burglars), she wondered why she had chosen it.

She'd been told the key she chose would end up being the right one, but that had not made the choice any easier.  She was concerned she'd chosen poorly.

She approached the door in the semi-lit hallway carefully.  Fitting the key in the lock, she gently tried it, afraid to break something.  It turned easily, and the door swung open soundlessly.

For a moment, the sunlight pouring in made her put her hand up to shield her face.  As her eyes adjusted, she was looking at the sun pouring through the windows and past the lace curtains of one of the rooms of her childhood, the room she missed the most.

Great-Grandmother was sitting on the couch with her knitting.  Looking up with a huge smile as if it had only been since yesterday, not years and years, Great-Grandmother invitingly said, "Come in, child, and grab a book from the shelf.  It's reading time!"

She slid into the room, eyes wide, and went to the familiar shelf.  All of the favorites were there, and she grabbed the most worn one of all.  Sitting tentatively at first next to the older woman, she felt herself slide into the story, and the next thing she knew she was leaning against Great-Grandmother's side, listening to her gentle voice, feeling safe and secure as she had once upon a time.

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Today is:

Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day (Buy your cheese that will be sacrificed on Cheese Sacrifice Day, and no, I never have found out why there is a Cheese Sacrifice Day anyway or to whom you are supposed to sacrifice it.)*

Chicken Wings Day -- Buffalo, NY, US (they want it to be a national day, and maybe someday it will be)

Feast of St. Martha, Virgin, Dragon Charmer, Sister of Lazarus (Patron of butlers, cooks, dieticians, domestic servants, homemakers, hotel keepers, housemaids, housewives, inkeepers, laundry workers, maids, manservants, servants, servers, single laywomen, travellers; Villajoyosa, Spain, which village she saved on her feast day by sending a flash flood to wash away the Moorish invaders in 1538)

Fiesta de Santa Maria Ribarteme (a/k/a Festival of Near Death Experiences) -- As Neves, Pontevedra, and Galicia, Spain (festival of Mary in which those who have come back from near death are carried to the shrine in open coffins, or walk there clad in shrouds)

International Tiger Day

NASA Day -- marking the day President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, creating NASA

National Anthem Day -- Romania

National Lasagna Day

National Thai Language Day -- Thailand (Wan Phasa Thai Haeng Chat)

Photograph Your Children When They're Not Looking Day -- get a good, candid shot to enjoy

Runic Half-Month Thorn begins (defense)

St. Lazarus' Day -- date given in the Martyrologium Romanum; celebrated on Lazarus Saturday by most Eastern Churches and on Dec. 17 in most Western Churches

St. Olaf's (Olav) Day (Norway's Viking king; patron of carvers, difficult marriages, kings; Norway)related observances

     Olavsokadagur -- Faroe Islands (opening of Logting, or Parliament; a National Day, on the Feast Day of St. Olav)

     Oslok Eve -- Norway (celebrating the valiant death of their hero on this evening at the battle at Stiklestadt in 1030)

     sometimes associated with Thor's Day among the Norse and Thunor of the Anglo-Saxons

Territory Day -- Wallis and Futuna

Tisha B'Av -- Judaism (begins at sundown, through tomorrow; fast in remembrance of the destruction of the First Temple in 586BCE and the Second Temple in 79AD)

*"A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk's leap toward immortality." Clifton Fadiman

Anniversaries Today

Andy Taylor marries Tracey Wilson, 1982

Charles, Prince of Wales, marries Lady Diana Spencer, 1981

Mary, Queen of Scots, marries Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, 1565

Birthdays Today

Danger Mouse, 1977

Josh Radnor, 1974

Wanya Morris, 1973

Wil Wheaton, 1972

Julian McMahon, 1968

Martina McBride, 1966

Alexandra Paul, 1963

Patty Scialfa, 1956

Ken Burns, 1953

Tim Gunn, 1953

Marilyn Quayle, 1949

David Warner, 1941

Peter Jennings, 1938

Elizabeth Dole, 1936

Paul Taylor, 1930

Chester Bomar Himes, 1909

Melvin Belli, 1907

Clara Bow, 1905

Dag Hammarskjold, 1905

Stanley Kunitz, 1905

Benito Mussolini, 1883

Newton Booth Tarkington, 1869

Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, 1861

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Friday Night Videos"(TV), 1983

Help(Film), 1965

"Steamboat Willie"(Animated short, first appearance of Mickey Mouse), 1928

Today in History

King Olaf II fights and dies trying to regain his Norwegian throne from the Danes, 1030

James VI is crowned King of Scotland at Stirling, 1567

English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France, 1588

John Graves Simcoe decides to build a fort and settlement at Toronto, having sailed into the bay there, 1793

Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 1836

In Tipperary, an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put down by police, 1848

The First Hague Convention is signed, 1899

Sir Robert Baden Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England; this is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement, 1907

The International Atomic Energy Agency is established, 1957

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel, 1987

The film Cry Freedom is seized by South African authorities, 1988

Astronomers announce the discovery of Eris, the largest dwarf planet in the solar system, 2005

South Sudan becomes the 54th member of the African Union, 2011

Scientists reveal new research identifying a mechanism by which Earth-warming carbon is pulled deep into the Southern Ocean, and locked away, and scientists claim this process may be threatened by climate change, 2012

Microsoft launches Windows 10, 2015