Civic Association Sign (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 Alex J. Cavanaugh and are posted by Elephant's Child.       

     

This week the words are

fates

warning

armored

saint

dynasty

and/or

wolfheart

serenity

dream

theater

voyager

It had not been an easy week for her, and it seemed the FATES were still not done.  The night before, i'd had a terrible DREAM, and maybe i should have taken it as a WARNING.

When i arrived, i could tell her spirit was still in an ARMORED shell.  You know how it is, when there's been a crisis and you have to be the strong one, you pull on that costume and it's mighty good THEATER, you are brave until everyone leaves so you can finally give yourself permission to break.

She hadn't given herself permission yet, she was going to stay strong, and this would be a day to try a SAINT.

After she'd let the dogs out for the morning, she'd gone back in to start getting ready for the funeral.  When she opened the door, Jack came in, Sam did not.  She had to go find him.

When i arrived, he was sitting on his favorite chair, and he didn't move, didn't beg me for treats, just lay there breathing hard.

She'd just gotten out of the shower, and she said she was taking Sam to the emergency vet and dropping him off.  It took both of us, carrying him between us on a blanket, to get him into the car.

If we thought there would be any vestiges of SERENITY to the morning, that went along with the lost keys, lost vitamins, lost air freshener, lost earrings.  The litany of things i was to look for as i was cleaning and they were at the funeral for the head of their DYNASTY went on and on.  Some items were found, some were not.

Through the day they received news.  Sam, the dog of WOLFHEART and insatiable appetite had to have emergency surgery the moment he got to the vet, parts of his stomach were already necrotic.  The vet kept checking on him, running tests, the news got worse and worse.  His cancer was back, a mass on his spleen, lots of other things.

He wasn't supposed to be a VOYAGER to the other side just yet, but these things are out of our hands.  The same day Mr. KW was laid to rest, Sam, Ms. RW's heart dog, crossed that bridge.

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Today is:

Daytona 500 Pole Day -- Daytona International Speed-way, Daytona Beach, FL, US (qualifying, and earing the right to lead the pack)

Deep Blue Day -- the IBM computer defeats chess champion Gary Kasparov, the first such victory for a computer, in 1996

Feast of Saint Paul's Shipwreck -- Malta

Gold Record Day -- Glenn Miller is awarded the first ever Gold Record, for "Chattanoga Choo Choo", 1942

National Cream Cheese Brownie Day

National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe -- Italy, especially in Trieste

Plimsoll Day -- honoring Samuel Plimsoll, the "Sailor’s Friend," who persuaded Parliament to have a maximum load limit on ships.

St. Scholastica's Day (Patron of children in convulsions, nuns; LeMans, France; against rain, storms)

Try to Invent a New Jell-O Flavor Day -- it can't hurt to try

Umbrella Day

Anniversaries Today:

Poland is symbolically married to the Baltic Sea by Jozef Haller de Hallenburg, celebrating the restitution of Polish access to the water, 1920

Tom Thumb marries Mercy Lavinia Warren, 1863

Queen Victoria marries her cousin Albert von Saxe-Coburg, 1840

Treaty of Paris ends the Seven Years' War (a/k/a French and Indian War), 1763

Academie Francaise forms in Paris (by Cardinal Richelieu), 1635

Birthdays Today:

Lance Berkman, 1976

Laura Dern, 1967

Glen Beck, 1964

Lenny Dykstra, 1963

Cliff Burton, 1962

George Stephanopoulos, 1961

Greg Norman, 1955

Jim Cramer, 1955

Mark Spitz, 1950

Donovan, 1946

Frances Moore Lappe, 1944

Roberta Flack, 1939

Robert Wagner, 1930

Leontyne Price, 1927

Lon Chaney, Jr., 1906

Bertolt Brecht, 1898

Frances Margaret "Dame Judith" Anderson, 1898

Jimmy Durante, 1893

William "Bill" Tilden, 1893

Boris Pasternak, 1890

Samuel Plimsoll, 1824

Charles Lamb, 1775

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"My Friend Flicka"(TV), 1956

"Death of a Salesman"(Play), 1949

"Puss Gets the Boot"(Cartoon, first Tom and Jerry short), 1940

"Icebound"(Pulitzer-winning Davis' Play), 1923

"All the News That's Fit to Print"(Slogan of the New York Times), 1897

"Les Contes d'Hoffman"(Offenbach Opera), 1881  

"The Lily of Killarney"(Opera), 1862

Today in History:

St. Paul is shipwrecked on the island of Malta, 60

Crusaders defeat Prince Redwan of Aleppo at Antioch, 1098

The St. Scholastica's Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days, 1355

Wampanoag Indians under King Philip kill all the men in Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1676

Edmund Halley is appointed the second Astronomer Royal of England, 1720

The Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War, surrendering Canada to England, 1763

Simon Bolivar is named dictator by the Congress of Peru, 1824

The first US fire extinguisher patent granted to Alanson Crane of Virginia, 1863

The YWCA is founded in NYC, 1870

Nathaniel Carr Goodwin becomes the first actor to perform in two different cities on the same day, in Boston for a matinee, and then in NYC for and evening performance, 1887

Nearly 11,000,000 acres of land, ceded to the US government by the Sioux Indians, is opened for settlement, 1890

The New York Times begins using the slogan, "All the news that's fit to print," 1897

Japan and Russia declare war after Japan's surprise attack on Russian fleet at Port Arthur disabled 7 Russian warships, 1904

Britain's first modern and largest battleship "HMS Dreadnought" is launched, 1906

Baseball outlaws all pitches that involve tampering with the ball, 1920

New Delhi becomes the capital of India, 1931

The first singing telegram is delivered, by the Postal Telegram Company of NYC, 1933

Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, 1962

Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party, 1989

The IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov for the first time, 1996

The communication satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 collide in orbit, destroying both, 2009

The Venezuelan government orders more than 100 malls to close early to save electricity, due to drought caused by El Niño, 2016