Ms. RW is Preparing for the Grandbaby (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:

shindig

hootenanny

shemozzle

heiress

banana

barricade

and/or

light

tough

coffee

nightmare

curved

Christmas

"Which service are you attending today?" he asked as he hoisted another COFFEE urn onto the table.

"The one Boots always called the 'HOOTENANNY' service," she answered, grinning.

"Ah, yes, he was always a traditionalist.  He used to say, 'The whole SHEMOZZLE is more like a SHINDIG than a church service!"  He shook his head.  "How I miss him."

"Me, too.  He may have been traditional about church services, but he was a TOUGH cookie when it came to keeping up with the latest in business.  And he could come up with ideas for church fundraising!  Remember the BARRICADE of the parking lot with him charging cars to park here for the CHRISTMAS parade?"

"That was a NIGHTMARE.  I thought Ms. Morris was going to barbecue him!"

"She would have, too, on a CURVED spit and over an open flame if the pastor hadn't gotten there in time to smooth it all over."

"Yeah, well those two argued over everything, including which was the right end to start to open a BANANA.  Did you know they even got in a small feud over which brand of LIGHT bulbs to buy?"

"A small feud?  I thought everything was a big feud to them."

"Yeah, I guess it was, the businessman and the HEIRESS always taking opposite sides.  Then at the end, when he went into the hospital, she went and visited him and said, 'Boots, the church is getting too tame without you, I need someone to argue with!'"

"I hadn't heard about that, but I did hear from the pastor that once she realized he was actually dying, Ms. Morris would go up there every day and hold his hand and say, 'Boots, you are a good man, and you love Jesus, and you know where you're going, so don't be afraid and I'm going to just sit and hold your hand until the end.'  She did, too."

"And now she's gone as well."

"I know, and there's no one to make fun of the contemporary service any more, even the ones who go to the traditional service don't say too much."

"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that.  The other day I heard Ms. Tucker saying she can't believe they still play that 'honky-tonk' music at the nine o'clock service."

"That's what she called it?  Honky-tonk music?"

"She sure did!"

"Hmmm, I wonder if she has any particular opinions about what kind of light bulbs we should use?"

"You're not thinking of starting something, are you, now?"

"Well, I don't know about starting something, but it can't hurt to have a little discussion..."

"Girl, get yourself in to that church service and don't you come out until you repent, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir!"

(This is loosely based on a member of our church who was affectionately known as Boots, and who did really call the contemporary church service a hootenanny.)

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Today is:

Clean Air Day -- Canada

Coronation Day -- United Kingdom

Coronation Day and Social Forestry Day -- Bhutan (anniversary of  the coronation day of the Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the 4th Druk Gyalpo, in 1974, and the day children plant trees)

Festa della Republica -- Italy (National Day/Feast of the Republic)

Festival of Light and Dark Spots -- Fairy Calendar

Festival of Utter Confusion -- an internet declared holiday, and this is the one for me!

Global Running Day   globalrunningday.org

Hristo Botev Day -- Bulgaria (poet and national hero who fell fighting the Turks this day in 1876)

"I Love My Dentist" Day -- no one will claim starting this one, so it makes me suspicious

Isabel Province Day -- Isabel Province, Solomon Islands

National Bubba Day -- created by comedian T. Bubba Bechtol for Bubbas everywhere to have their day

National Leave the Office Earlier Day -- sponsored by Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro, who urges people to maximize productivity so they can leave the office earlier every day 

National Rocky Road Day

St. Blandina's Day (Patron of girls, people falsely accused, torture victims; Lyon, France)

St. Elmo's Day (a/k/a St. Erasmus; Patron of ammunition workers, boatmen, childbirth and women in labor, explosives workers, mariners, navigators, ordnance workers, sailors, watermen; Gaeta, Italy; against abdominal pains, appendicitis, birth pains, childhood intestinal disease, colic, danger at sea, intestinal disorders, seasickness, stomach diseases, storms)

Tailor's Day -- the first Wednesday of June is noted on many sites as the day to thank your tailor

Yell "Fudge" at the Cobras in North America Day -- at noon, your local time, because according to Wellcat Holidays, cobras hate fudge and will not stay if we mention it

Anniversaries Today:

U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom, 1886 (only president to wed in the executive mansion)

Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, 1953 (the first major international event to be televised)

Birthdays Today:

Justin Long, 1978

Zachary Quinto, 1977

Queen 'Masenate Mohato Seeiso, Queen consort of Lesotho, 1976

Wayne Brady, 1972

Wentworth Miller, 1972

Joel Tobeck, 1971

Dana Carvey, 1955

Gary Grimes, 1955

Dennis Haysbert, 1954

Diana Canova, 1953

Cornel West, 1953

Jerry Mathers, 1948

Marvin Hamlisch, 1944

Charles Haid, 1943

Stacy Keach, Jr., 1941

Charlie Watts, 1941

Sally Kellerman, 1937

Milo O’Shea, 1926

Johnny Weissmuller, 1904

Hedda Hopper, 1890

Sir Edward Elgar, 1857

Thomas Hardy, 1840

Marquis de Sade, 1740

Martha Dandridge Custiss Washington, 1731

Today in History:

The Vandals enter Rome and begin 2 weeks of plundering, 455

The First Siege of Antioch ends when Crusader forces take the city, 1098

The first Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France, 1615

Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692

The Derby horserace is held for the first time in Epsom, England, 1780

P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States, 1835

The Slavic congress in Prague begins, 1848

Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his early radio device, 1896

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act, making Native American Indians withing US territories and states US citizens, 1924

Lou Gehrig begins his streak of 2,130 consecutive games played, 1925

In a referendum, Italians vote to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic, and exile their king, Umberto II di Savoia, 1946

The USSR and Yugoslavia sign the Belgrade declaration and thus normalize relations, 1955

Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft land on another world, 1966

Pope John Paul II visits his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country, 1979

The Bhutan Broadcasting Service brings television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time, 1999

Europe launches its first probe to voyage to another planet, Mars, 2003

The World Health Organization announces the E. coli strain responsible for the 2011 E.coli O104:H4 outbreak had never before been isolated from patients, 2011

The US Congress passes new legislation to reform National Security Agency procedures, restricting gathering of phone records, 2015

One hundred volunters in Bhutan set a world record for tree planting, setting out 49,672 in 1 hour, 2015