Not What It Seems (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:

dredge

hedgerow

curmudgeonly

scruffy

pink

and/or

disgruntled

hispid

plying

dolphins

sea-cave

Gramps had tried for years to come off as a DISGRUNTLED, CURMUDGEONLY old man.  The smile at the edge of his lips and his eyes that he couldn't hide when grandgirl came downstairs that first morning with her SCRUFFY PINK teddy bear gave him away.

The two spent the days in various occupations while mama had to work.  The HEDGEROW was most entertaining as he taught her about the critters that lived in it, under it, and even in the earth beneath it.

She told him stories she'd dreamed up of DOLPHINS in the SEA-CAVE of the ocean queen, or PLYING him with pretend tea in her favorite tea cups.

He taught her to cook, and they had especial fun when it was time to DREDGE anything in flour.  They and the kitchen would end up as white as whatever they were cooking.  Mama was quite startled to come home early one day and hear him calling out, "Grab me yon HISPID broom, apprentice!" while they both laughed at the mess they'd made.

There are always going to be difficult times, mama thought, but even in those, you can have good times.  Moving in with Gramps during this difficult time was one of the ways to make it a good time, it helped them all for the better.

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Today is:

Bonza Bottler Day™

Day of Remembrance for Prince Igor -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan Calendar

Heart-Accelerating Sodium-Enriched Cold Cuts Day -- internet generated by someone who has no intention of letting anything healthy past his/her lips

Hina Matsuri -- Japan (Doll Festivals throughout the country, where women and girls dedicate dolls to shrines which are then floated out to sea to take away evil and sicknesses that afflict women)

If Pets Had Thumbs Day -- because if you are going to imagine something silly today, it might as well be this; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

I Want You to be Happy Day -- a day to devote some time to making someone else truly happy about something

International Omega-3 Awareness Day

Joshi-no-Sekku -- Shinto (festival to honor girls)

Liberation Day/National Day -- Bulgaria

Marriage of the March Nymphs -- Fairy Calendar

Martyr's Day -- Malawi

Mother's Day -- Georgia

National Anthem Day -- US (current US anthem adopted this date in 1931)

National Cold Cuts Day

National Mulled Wine Day

Peach Blossom Day - coincides with the start of the Peach Blossom Festival around this time of year in Hunan, China, where you celebrate the beauty of peach blossoms, and girls celebrate being girls

Sportsmen's Day -- Egypt

Stop Bad Service Day -- spread around the internet by someone who got lousy service

St Casimir' Eve / Kaziukas Fair -- Vilnius, Lithuania (traditional craft fair dates back to the 17th century, celebrating Lithuania's patron saint; through tomorrow)

St. Cunegunda's Day (Patron of Bamberg, Germany; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Poland)

St. Winnal's Day (First comes David, Next comes Chad, Then comes Winnal, roaring mad! -- Traditional English saying about the storminess of March 3; St. Winwaloe or Winnal was the Christianized version of the Teutonic Aegir, god of the sea and controler of weather)

Thanks to the Maple Festival -- Iroquois (date approximate, held when sap began flowing, usually early March)

World Maths Day -- International   

Anniversaries Today:

Florida becomes the 27th US state, 1845

Colegio Militar of Portugal is founded, 1803

Birthdays Today:

Jessica Biel, 1982

David Faustino, 1974

Julie Bowen, 1970

Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 1962

Herschel Walker, 1962

Ira Glass, 1959

Miranda Richardson, 1958

Tim Kazurinsky, 1950

Caroline Lee Bouvier Radziwill, 1933

Doc Watson, 1923

Diana Barrymore, 1921

James Doohan, 1920

Jean Harlow, 1911

Matthew Bunker Ridgway, 1895

Norman Bethune, 1890

Alexander Graham Bell, 1847

George Pullman, 1831

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Moonlighting"(TV), 1985

"Goodtime Charley"(Musical), 1975

"The Lion in Winter"(Play), 1966

"Mr Wizard"(TV), 1951

"Juno and the Paycock"(Play), 1924

"Time Magazine", 1923

"Carmen"(Opera), 1875

"Symphony No. 3 in A minor(Scottish)"(Mendelssohn Op.56), 1842

"Symphony No. 101 in D major(The Clock)"(Haydn), 1794

Today in History:

The Statute of Rhuddlan incorporates the Principality of Wales into England, 1284

The Olympic Theatre, designed by Andrea Palladio, is inaugurated in Vicenza, 1585

The first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau, 1776

The first US Jewish governor, David Emanuel, takes office in Georgia, 1801

The US declares war on Algeria for taking US prisoners and demanding tribute, 1815

The Missouri Compromise, an attempt to keep the US half Slave and half free, is passed by the US Congress, 1820

The Battle of Pelee Island takes place, Ontario, Canada, 1838

Tsar Alexander II emancipates the serfs of Russia, 1861

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the founding member of the HSBC Group, opens, 1865

The first ever organized indoor game of ice hockey is played in Montreal, Canada as recorded in The Montreal Gazette, 1875

Georges Bizet's opera Carmen receives its première at the Opéra Comique in Paris, 1875

Bulgaria regains its independence from Ottoman Empire, 1878

Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood becomes the first female attorney to argue before the US Supreme Court, 1879

The US Geological Survey is created, 1879

Anne Sullivan arrives to begin teaching Helen Keller, 1887

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia agrees to create an elected assembly, the Duma, 1905

Toronto's Dr Banting & Dr Best announce discovery of insulin, 1921

Time Magazine begins publication, 1923

The United States officially adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem, 1931

Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia, 1938

In Mumbai, Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the autocratic rule in India, 1939

Jackie Brenston, with Ike Turner and his band, records "Rocket 88", often cited as "the first rock and roll record", at Sam Phillips' recording studios in Memphis, Tennessee, 1951

An amateur video captures the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers, 1991

The tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, Sky Tower in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, opens after two-and-a-half years of construction, 1997

Citizens of Switzerland narrowly vote in favor of their country becoming a member of the United Nation, 2002

Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane non-stop around the world solo without refueling, 2005

A 2-year old Mississippi girl born with HIV/AIDS is pronounced HIV negative after receiving treatment for the virus within 30 hours after her birth, 2013

The Dragon capsule from SpaceX successfully docks with the International Space Station during its demonstration run, 2019

Irishwomen Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamar, of Grafton Architecture, become the first women to share the Pritzker Architecture Prize, 2020