The Lawyers Got Loose in the Laundromat Again (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 River at Drifting Through Life.    

This week's words/prompts are:

1. surprise

2. winked

3. firepit

4. gnomes

5. quilt

6. sunroom

and/or:

1. lonesome

2. shirt

3. beach

4. volcano

5. train

6. moat

use either list or both, or mix and match, just have fun.

She knew the weather had changed in the night when she opened her eyes and WINKED them shut again immediately.  When she woke up with the "VOLCANO in her head," as she called the light-hurts-your-eyes headache, it always meant the weather was changing.

Just as she was trying to pry herself out of bed, the family burst in and yelled, "SURPRISE!"

"We made you your favorite breakfast in bed for your birthday!" Sam exclaimed, while Bella and Jody climbed up on the bed with her, sitting on the QUILT so she wasn't going to go anywhere.

"The GNOMES and I did just that," Mark said with a grin, using his favorite term for their crew, then he noticed the look in Sarah's squinting eyes.  "Uh, oh.  Headache?"

The grimace on her face as she tried to answer told him everything he needed to know.  He set the tray with her favorite coffee and "beignets," actually just store biscuits cut into fourths and fried, then sprinkled with powdered sugar, down on the nightstand.

"Okay, troops!" he said brightly, deciding to rally them and change the plans up a bit, "let's go out to the FIREPIT and get it lit so we can start smoking those ribs early."

As the children scrambled out of the room, whooping with excitement, he leaned over and gave her a gentle hug.  "I'm so sorry you have a headache today of all days," he said.

"Thanks," she whispered, then, "could you hand me that SHIRT?"

He handed it over and said, "After you take your meds, why don't you go lie down in the SUNROOM?  The clouds today will keep it from being too bright, and you can watch the kids through the windows, I'll let them know you need to rest until your medication kicks in."

She nodded, and as soon as she was able, went in and laid down on the couch where she could see what everyone was doing in the yard.  Mark was tending to a very smokey fire, assisted by Bella, who adored cooking.  Jody was at the sand box, dubbed "the BEACH" by the family, digging a MOAT around her sandcastle.  Sam was conspicuously absent.

Then she heard a light rap at the door.  Sam came in.  "Mom, I'm sorry you woke up with a headache on your birthday.  I brought you my favorite TRAIN to keep you company so you won't be LONESOME while you rest."

He set the train in her hand and she smiled at him as best she could, then he disappeared.  She saw him emerge into the back yard and run over to watch the fire.

The headache would go within an hour, but the comfort of knowing her family had her back, and she had theirs, that would last.

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Today is:

Agricultural Reform Day -- Sao Tome and Principe

Ask A Stupid Question Day -- teachers wanted to get students asking more questions, so they did, even if the questions were stupid; now, it's a holiday on the last school day of September each year! 

Banned Websites Awareness Day -- sponsored by the American Association of School Librarians   

Celtic Tree Month Gort begins (Ivy)

Day of Liberation of the Republic of Abkhazia -- Abkhazia (disputed territory on the Black Sea)

Do Something Wacky With A Grandparent Day -- just not the monkey bars, please; old bones don't knit fast enough; whatever you do, take some pictures!

Eleusinian Mysteries -- Ancient Greek Calendar (the Greater Mystery Rites, date approximate; mystery rites of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, one of the most sacred times of their year)

Independence Day -- Botswana

International Translation Day -- International Federation of Translators 

Kokkeisetsu -- Chinatown, Yokohama, Japan (Chinese National Founding Day in the largest Chinatown in Japan; through tomorrow)

Medetrinalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (festival fruits offer to the goddess of medicine)

Monkey Bars Day -- a day to go see if you can still do tricks on the monkey bars, because the internet wants to kill us and let the machines that would never do anything so silly take over

National Hot Mulled Cider Day

National Mud Pack Day -- give yourself a facial

St. Gregory the Enlightener (or Illuminator; Patron of Armenia)

St. Jerome's Day (Patron of archaeologists, archivists, Biblical scholars, librarians, libraries, school children, students, translators; Saint-Jerome, Quebec) 

     also an Apache celebration of Geronimo, the Native American who was named after this saint

Anniversary Today:

Haleakala National Park is established in Maui, Hawaii, 1960

Birthdays Today:

Dominique Moceanu, 1981

Marion Cotillard, 1975

Jenna Elfman, 1971

Crystal Bernard, 1964

Eric Stoltz, 1961

Fran Drescher, 1957

Deborah Allen, 1953

Victoria Tennant, 1953

Marilyn McCoo, 1943

Z.Z. Hill, 1935

Johnny Mathis, 1935

Angie Dickinson, 1931

Elie Wiesel, 1928

W. S. Merwin, 1927

Truman Capote, 1924

Deborah Kerr, 1921

Buddy Rich, 1917

William Wrigley, Jr., 1861

Rumi, 1207

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Millie's Book: As Dictated to Barbara Bush(Publication date), 1990

"Murder, She Wrote"(TV), 1984

"Cheers"(TV), 1982

"Love Child"(Single release), 1968

"The Flintstones"(TV), 1960

"Tea and Sympathy"(Play), 1953

"The Red Skelton show"(TV), 1951

"Porgy and Bess"(Opera), 1935

Little Women(Publication date), 1868

"Les pecheurs de perles/The Pearl Fishers"(Bizet opera), 1863

"Die Zauberflote/The Magic Flute"(Mozart opera, K. 620), 1791

The Gutenberg Bible(first section, publication date), 1452

Today in History:

Rambam (Maimonides) authorizes Samuel Ibn Tibbon to translate the Guide of the Perplexed from Arabic into Hebrew, 1199

Anesthetic ether is used for the first time by Dr. William Morton, who extracted a tooth, 1846

German scientist Hermann von Meyer announces the discovery of the first fossil of an archaeopteryx, 1861

The first Portuguese immigrants arrive in Hawai'i, 1878

The world's first commercial hydroelectric power plant begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States, 1882

Hubert Cecil Booth patents the vacuum cleaner, 1901

The first manned rocket plane flight, made by auto maker Fritz von Opel, 1929

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Yemen join the United Nations, 1947

The World Series, featuring the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, is televised for the first time, 1947

The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear reactor powered vessel, 1954

James Dean is killed in a road accident, 1955

Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the United Farm Workers, 1962

James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying segregation, 1962

General Suharto rises to power in Indonesia after an alleged coup by communists, and massacres over a million Indonesian people suspected of belonging to the Communist Party, 1965

BBC Radio 1 is launched and Tony Blackburn presents its first show, 1967

Ethernet specifications are published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation, 1980 

The Dalai Lama unveils the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights in Canada's capital city of Ottawa, 1990

The first images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat are taken 600 miles south of Tokyo, 2004

The controversial drawings of Muhammad are printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, 2005

A case of Ebola virus is diagnosed in Dallas, Texas, US, 2014