It's Not My Place to Judge Where My Clients Keep Their Almonds (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 week, the prompts are the following photographs by Bill Dodd, and posted by Elephant's Child.      

Dude, are you okay?

Yeah, I'm just so thankful to be here.

Uh-huh, I know what you mean.

It was awful, you know.

No, I don't know, but you can tell me, it might help.  That's what I'm here for.

It was an old, broken down factory.  Concrete floors, no grass.  No sky, but what we could see through those awful windows.  It was so hot in summer, and cold in winter.  The stench was bad because they didn't walk us, we were kept in chain-link fence kennels scattered all over inside the place, and sometimes they didn't wash them down too often.

They fed us as little as they could, so we wouldn't "make as much mess."  The food was awful, too.  We only ate it because we had no choice.

They kept us only for breeding puppies, and if you got old or sick you just...disappeared.  It was so different from here.  No beds to sleep on, just concrete.  No grass, no treats, no people petting you unless you were a puppy.  Those they petted so they would be more friendly and they could sell them.  No other animals to snuggle up to, no toys, nothing.

It sounds like a nightmare.

It was a nightmare, for all of us.  Until the day some people in vans showed up and ran in, yelling at the people who kept us there, leading them away.  That was scary at first, and when they tried to get a leash on me and get me out of the kennel, I kept growling at them.  I didn't know what they were going to do to me.  Some guy came in my kennel and started talking to me, real gentle and friendly.  I'd never heard someone talk like that to me that I could remember.  He gave me a treat, and led me out to one of the vans, giving me treats the whole way.

Once they had all of us, they drove us here.  It's been so different here.  They talk to me, they pet me, it's clean, there's grass and good food, and even though I'm not sure about that vet guy and all of his needles, the rest of them are good.  They keep saying something about adoption, but whatever that is, it probably can't be as good as just sitting here in the yard with you.

Adoption is a good thing, dude.  Trust me.  This is what the people here do, they get you out of an awful place, and find you a good place.

What about you, how did you end up here?

Me?  I flew over one day, and saw the pond, and decided to move in.  When i realized how good the chow was that they are feeding you guys, I just started hanging out with everybody else.  The people laughed and let me, and now my job is listening friend, i just sit with the new guys and let them talk to me.  Since I'm a bird, not another dog, most of you don't feel threatened by me.

And speaking of chow, it's close to time, I think.  You ready?

Yeah, just one more thing.  About adoption, are you sure it's a good thing?

Totally sure.  They adopted me here, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

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Today is:

Beaujolais Nouveau Release -- France (at midnight, so really most of the celebration is tomorrow, a new wine celebration, normally marked with fireworks and festivities)

Constitution Day -- South Africa (the 1993 Constitution, granting blacks the right to vote, was approved)

Dan sjecanja na zrtve Domovinskog rata i Dan sjecanja na zrtvu Vukovara i Skabrnje -- Croatia (Remembrance Day for Homeland War Victims)

Day of Ardvi Sura (Aredvi Sura Anahita), Mother of the Stars -- Ancient Persian Calendar (date approximate)

Deepavali/Diwali(Festival of Lights) -- Hindu; Jain; Sikh (fifth day of the festival)

     Bhai Tika -- ritual where sisters honor brothers for the protection they give

     Gyan Panchami -- Jain (celebration of knowledge and education)

European Antibiotic Awareness Day -- ECDC (because prudent use of antibiotics can help stop antibiotic resistance)  

Feast of the Virgen de Chiquinquirá -- Maracaibo, Venezuela

Geographic Information Systems Day   

Hap-Dancing and Tiger-Tuning -- Fairy Calendar

Independence Day -- Morocco(1956); Western Saraha(1975)

Married to a Scorpio Support Day -- remembering those married to Scorpios and suffering because of it, and encouraging them too hide the flow charts and assert themselves today; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

National Day -- Oman 

National Educational Support Professionals Day -- US

National French Vichyssoise Day

Ned Ludd Memorial Machine-Smashing Day -- internet generated, but enjoy!  i know i will

Proclamation of the Republic -- Latvia (1918)

Push-Button Phone Day -- launched this day in 1963

Repentance Day -- Saxony, Germany (Day of Prayer and Repentance [Buss und Bettag])

     Buss und Bettag -- German speaking Lutheran, Reformed, and United Protestants (Day of Repentance and Prayer)

St. Odo of Cluny's Day (Patron of needed rain)

Total Disregard for Taste Day -- marking the debut of Howard Stern's radio show on this day in 1985

Vertieres Day -- Haiti (Battle of Vertieres and Army Day)

William Tell Day -- the famed apple-off-his-son's-head-shot was today in 1307

World COPD Day -- International (helping people understand Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; this year's theme is "Living Well With COPD -- Everybody, Everywhere")   

Birthdays Today:

Owen Wilson, 1968

Elizabeth Perkins, 1960

Sinbad, 1956

Katy Sagal, 1956

Kevin Nealn, 1953

Andrea Marcvicci, 1948

Jameson Parker, 1947

Wilma Mankiller, 1945

Susan Sullivan, 1944

Linda Evans, 1942

Brenda Vaccaro, 1939

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, 1939

Mickey Mouse, 1928

Alan Shepard, Jr., 1923

John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer, 1909

Imogene Coca, 1908

George Gallup, 1901

Eugene Ormandy, 1899

Clarence Shepard Day, 1874

Dorothy Dix (Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer), 1861

Ignacy Jan Paderewski, 1860

James Edward Sullivan, 1860

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, 1836

Asa Gray, 1810

Louis-Jacques Daguerre, 1787

Sojourner Truth, 1787

Carl Maria von Weber, 1786

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Star Trek: Generations(Film), 1994

Malcolm X(Film), 1992

Calvin and Hobbes(Comic strip), 1985 (in this first strip, Calvin catches Hobbes in a tiger trap baited with a tuna sandwich)

"See It Now"(TV), 1951

"Skin of Our Teeth"(Wilder play), 1943

Steamboat Willie (a/k/a Mickey Mouse), 1928

US Uniform Time Zone Plan, 1883 (on this date, the railroads adopted the current uniform time zone plan; it wasn't legally mandated until 1918)

Today in History:

Old St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated, 326

The Japanese Emperor Kammy relocates the residence of Nara to Kioto, 794

William Tell shoots the apple off his son's head, 1307

The Holland/Zealand dikes break during a storm, resulting in thousands of deaths, 1421

The first English printed book, "Dictes & Sayengis of the Phylosophers", is published, 1477

Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico, 1493

Vasco da Gama reaches the Cape of Good Hope, 1497

The worst earthquake in Massachusetts Bay/Boston area, 1755

The first Unitarian Minister in the US is ordained in Boston, 1787

30 women meet at Mrs Silas Lee's home in Wiscasset Maine, to organize the Female Charitable Society, first woman's club in America, 1805

Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press, 1865

National Woman's Christian Temperance Union organizes in Cleveland, 1874

Standard time zones are formed by railroads in the US and Canada, 1883

The first newspaper Sunday color comic strip is printed, in the NY World, 1894

Britain flies its first sea plane, 1911

Lincoln Deachey performs the first airplane loop-the-loop, over San Diego, 1913

Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish high school fraternity, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1917

Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, 1928

Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula, 1929

New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison, 1940

In the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is ratified, 1993

HIP 13044 b, a planet that was formed in another galaxy, is discovered in the Helmi Stream, 2010

Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria becomes the 118th Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, 2012

NASA launches the MAVEN probe to Mars, 2013