We Don’t Go to Circle Meetings Just For the Food (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 Elephant’s Child.     

This week’s prompts are:

1. He had a chip on his shoulder
2. Best thing since sliced bread
3. With a cherry on top
4. She wants to have her cake and eat it too
5. Everything but the kitchen sink
6. Bringing home the bacon 

Essie sat on her front porch in the rocker, watching the world go by.  She had done all of the things she considered her “duties” for the day and rested content that her nest was in what her mama always called “apple pie order.”

She enjoyed sitting out in the evening sunshine, watching the neighbors coming home.  “Bringing home the bacon,” she thought to herself, laughing at how she and her husband had always grinned over that expression.  Back in the days when you helped the neighbors butcher the pig and brought actual bacon home, it was sensible.  Now it was just another of those expressions most people knew but didn’t understand.

Her phone rang and another expression popped into her head.  Phones are “the best thing since sliced bread!”  Actually, she thought as she picked it up to see who was calling, they aren’t.  Phones predate presliced bread, since Wonder brand came out with the product in 1930 and phones were around before that.  Shoot, she thought to herself, even Betty White is older than presliced bread!

Smiling over the turns her thoughts were taking, she answered the phone.  “Hey, Essie, what are you doing for supper?”  Her friend Priscilla was always off on some adventure or other, and wanting her to come along.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she admitted, and Priscilla said, “Well come on over.  I’m making a home baked ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ pizza and we’ll chase it with chocolate sundaes.”

“Will they ‘have a cherry on top’? Essie playfully asked, and they both laughed.  Essie had often said, “If it’s not chocolate, it’s not dessert, and chocolate always needs a cherry.”

“You always have a jar at your place, so you bring those,” Priscilla answered.

“I’ll be there in a bit,” Essie said, and hung up.  Just as she turned to go in, the neighbor she least liked to see pulled into his drive across from hers.

Darrin, she thought, was either born a curmudgeon or turned into one when he realized his wife wanted to always “eat her cake and have it, too.”  She’d never been pleased with anything in her life, no matter how hard he’d worked, and he’d turned into a grouch “with a chip on his shoulder.”

Shaking her head, Essie found her keys, threw on a sweater, grabbed a jar of cherries out of the pantry (she knew Priscilla would laugh that she actually brought them) and headed for her car.  A nice evening with her friend was what she needed, and she wasn’t going to let any thoughts of neighbor squabbles distract her from having a great evening.

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Today is:

Big Bang Day -- London, England

Boxer Shorts Day

Cernova Tragedy Day -- Slovakia

Children's Day -- Australia

Cranky Co-Worker's Day -- because we all have occasional bad days; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays 

Feast of Osiris in Abydos -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Good Bear Day -- on Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, celebrating the stuffed toy created in his honor

Hawaiki Nui Va'a Race -- French Polynesia (spectacular three-day open water outrigger canoe race from Huahine to Raiatea to Tahaa to Bora Bora; through Friday)

Independence Day -- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines(1979); Turkmenistan(1991)

Lhabab Duechen -- Buddhism (Descending Day of Lord Buddha)

     a public holiday in Bhutan, although the exact day off may vary

Lung Health Day -- US (on the Wednesday of Respiratory Care Week; some sites to explore about lung health are here and here)    

National American Beer Day

National Potato Day

National Tell A Story Day -- Scotland; UK (preserving the heritage of traditional stories)

Navy Day -- US (on T.R.'s birth anniversary)

Radio Day -- US (US Commerce Dept. issued the first broadcasting license this date in 1920)

St. Frumentius' Day (Patron of Abyssinia; Ethiopia)

Sylvia Plath Day

Tunch Puddling -- Fairy Calendar (a contest of throwing twigs in a pond -- awards are for artistically thrown twigs and throwing style, among other things)

World Day for Audiovisual Heritage -- International     

World Occupational Therapy Day    

Anniversary Today:

The NYC Subway begins operation, 1904

Birthdays Today:

Zadie Smith, 1975

Marla Maples, 1963

Simon LeBon, 1958

Roberto Benigni,1952

Jayne Kennedy, 1951

Fran Lebowitz, 1950

Carrie Snodgrass, 1946

John Cleese, 1939

Ruby Dee, 1924

Roy Lichtenstein, 1923

Bette Babray, 1920

Nanette Fabray, 1920

Dylan Thomas, 1914

Emily Post, 1872

Theodore Roosevelt, 1858

Niccolo Paganini, 1782

Captain James Cook, 1728

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Lettice and Lovage"(Play), 1987

"Beyond the Fringe"(Revue), 1962

"Walt Disney/Wonderful World of Color/Wonderful World of Disney"(TV), 1954 (the show had several different names over the years, but even when it switched stations, it was still the same show)

"You Bet Your Life"(Radio), 1947

"Nocturnes"(Debussy orchestral compsition), 1901(first performance of all three parts together)

Today in History:

Constantine the Great is said to have received his Vision of the Cross, 312

Founding of the city of Amsterdam, 1275

Founding of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1682

US Navy forms, 1775

Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated, 1838

R.H. Macy & Co. opens its first store, on 6th Ave. in NYC, 1858

Boss Tweed is arrested, 1871

The first underground New York City Subway line opens, 1904

The first published reference to "jazz" appears, in Variety, 1916

Chuhei Numbu of Japan sets the long jump record at 26' 2 1/2", 1931

"You Bet Your Life," with Groucho Marx, premiers on ABC radio, 1947*

Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force, 1954

Mauritania and Mongolia join the United Nations, 1961

The British government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang, 1986

The U.S. prison population tops 1 million for the first time in American history, 1994

Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified, 1994

Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown, 1997

The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years, 2004

The SSETI Express micro-satellite is successfully launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, 2005

The Royal Australian Navy announces that they discovered the wreck of a World War II submarine in Simpson Harbour, Papua New Guinea during Operation RENDER SAFE - it is likely to be Japanese, 2011

The first operation to separate conjoined twins joined at the head in India completed in New Delhi, 2017