Cat Shelter Humor (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 Hilary Melton-Butcher and are posted by Elephant's Child.            

This week's prompts are:

watchful

laggard

pudding

mulberry

bark

and/or

promenade

vineyard

allotment

wisdom

tenth

and as a bonus

life

borrow

wily

ochre

brook

Tanya arrived at the ALLOTMENT she'd shared with Laney for over a year now and surveyed the work with a critical eye.

Under their WATCHFUL care, it had done very well.  They now had a small MULBERRY planted, and it was showing signs of giving them fruit.  Tanya had fond memories of a summer PUDDING her grandmother used to make that contained lots of berries, including mulberries, and she wanted to try to make it herself.  Her mother still had grandmother's recipe book, and she knew she could BORROW it any time she wanted and copy out what she needed.

She put her hand on the BARK of the small tree and eyed the nearby PROMENADE, knowing Laney couldn't be that far behind her.  Sure enough, a moment later those OCHRE pants flashed into view.  Laney loved wearing those pants to work on their garden plot, she claimed it looked the color of the dirt.

"Sorry I've been a LAGGARD this morning," Laney said as soon as she was within distance to be heard.  "That WISDOM tooth extraction a couple of days ago started hurting worse last night, so I went in to see the oral surgeon, to make sure nothing was wrong."

"It's okay, isn't it?" Tanya asked, knowing Laney wouldn't be there if there was a problem, but still concerned.

"Yes, it could have turned into a dry socket, but I got there in time and I'll be on meds to take care of it.  Tell you what, though, I've never felt that much mouth pain in my LIFE!"

"Do you want to head home and I'll take care of the work today?"  Tanya knew the answer, but had to ask anyway.  She and Laney had grown to be close friends, and she always felt protective of her friends.

"No, I'll be okay, as I said, it's much better now."

They each started weeding at the end of a row, close enough to each other to converse if they wanted.  Sometimes they did, and sometimes they just worked in companionable silence.

Today, it was Laney who wanted to talk.  "Look at that WILY goose by the BROOK."  She pointed toward a large, white goose that they'd been watching for a couple of days.  He was young and courting an equally young female, but a rival suitor had shown up.  "He's going to give that other one what for!"

Sure enough, the boys started a fight, and the girl just watched.  The birds and other wildlife in the area were a constant source of entertainment.  

"I wonder if she's thinking what I'm thinking," Tanya said.

"What's that?" Laney asked.

"That those two are a couple of nitwits!"

Both of them laughed, and Laney responded, "No, she's wanting to mate with the winner.  The stronger male has the stronger genes and will produce better babies."

"I'm sure you are right, but my first thought is still that they are nitwits."

"In a way we all turn into nitwits where love is concerned.  By the way, are we still going to go tour that VINEYARD on the TENTH?"

"We have a reservation confirmed, so unless something happens, yes."

"I'm looking forward to it.  My mouth should be all healed up by then.  Meanwhile, it's time for a break and I need something soft to eat.  How about a custard?"

"Sounds great!  Let's go."

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Today is:

Bunsen Burner Day -- on the birth anniversary of its inventor, Robert Wilhelm Eberhard von Bunsen, in 1811

Buy Some New Socks Day -- because all the websites that list it agree you are worth it

Cesar Chavez Day -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah,& Wyoming, US

Culture and Traditions Day -- Micronesia

Day Everyone Says "31" a Lot -- Fairy Calendar

Eiffel Tower Day -- inaugurated this day in 1889

Festival for Luna -- Ancient Roman Calendar (moon festival)

Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa -- Buddhism (birthday of Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy)

Hot Guitar Day -- the day Jimi Hendrix first set fire to his guitar in 1967

Jum il-Helsien (Freedom Day) -- Malta

King Nangklao Memorial Day -- Thailand

National Clams on the Half Shell Day

Little Red Wagon Day

Oranges and Lemons Day -- St. Clement Danes Church, London, Enlgand (traditional children's service based on the rhyme that begins "Oranges and lemons/say the bells of St. Clement's)

"She's Funny That Way" Day -- pay tribute to the women in your life, and how they keep you laughing; sponsored by Brenda Meredith of Dahomey Publishing, Inc.

St. Balbina's Day (Patron of those with scrofulous diseases or stroma)

Thomas Mundy Peterson Day -- New Jersey, US (the first African-American to legally cast a vote in the US, this date in 1870)

Transfer Day -- US Virgin Islands

Vigil to Mourn China's Annexation of Tibet -- anniversary of the day in 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled to India

Whole Grain Sampling Day -- sponsored by the Whole Grains Council   

Birthdays Today:

Pavel Bure, 1971

Ewan McGregor, 1971

Marc McClure, 1957

Angus Young, 1955

Edward Francis "Ed" Marinaro, 1950

Al Gore, 1948

Rhea Perlman, 1948

Gabe Kaplan, 1945

Christopher Walken, 1943

James Earl "Jimmy" Johnson, 1938

Herb Alpert, 1935

Richard Chamberlain, 1935

Shirley Jones, 1934

John Jakes, 1932

Gordie Howe, 1928

Cesar Chavez, 1927

William Daniels, 1927

Leo Buscaglia, 1925

Henry Morgan, 1915

John "Jack" Johnson, 1878

Andrew Lang, 1844

Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, 1823

Edward Fitzgerald, 1809

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol, 1809

Joseph Haydn, 1732

Andrew Marvell, 1621

Rene Descartes, 1596

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"'night, Mother"(Play), 1983

"The Shadow Box"(Play), 1977

"The Best Man"(Play), 1960

"The Glass Menagerie"(Play), 1945

"Oklahoma!"(Musical), 1943

"Le Chasseur Maudit/The Accursed Huntsman"(Symphonic poem), 1883

Today in History:

Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade; Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade, 1146

King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella sign decree ordering Jews to convert or be expelled from Spain, 1492

Jews are expelled from Prague, 1745

Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade, 1854

Thomas P Mundy of Perth Amboy, NJ, becomes the first African American to cast a vote, 1870

The Eiffel Tower, commemorating the French Revolution, opens, 1889

Richard Pearse allegedly makes a powered flight in an early aircraft, 1903

Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1909

Construction begins on the RMS Titanic, 1909

Construction of the RMS Titanic is completed, 1912

The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the United States Virgin Islands, 1917

Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time, 1918

The Royal Australian Air Force is formed, 1921

The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada, 1949

Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau, 1951

In the Canadian federal election, 1958, the Progressive Conservatives, led by John Diefenbaker, win the largest percentage of seats in Canadian history, with 208 seats of 265, 1958

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum, 1959

The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon, 1966

Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit, 1970

The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California, 1992

Netscape releases the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement; the project is given the code name Mozilla and is eventually spun off into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, 1998

Amid unrest in the Mideast, activists claim China has launched the largest crackdown on dissenters in recent years, 2011

The International Court of Justice at the U.N. agrees that Japanese whaling is conducted for commercial purposes, not scientific research; Japan accepts the order to cease all whaling activities in the Antarctic, 2014

Robert Weighton of Great Britain becomes the world's oldest man at 112 years, 2020