Before and After and During, a Random and Happy Tuesday Word Counters Post

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It's time once again for a random and happy Tuesday, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked and Sandee at Comedy Plus.  

Part of today’s post is also a writing challenge. This is how it works: one of the contributing bloggers picked a number between 12 and 50. The submitted number is a challenge to participating bloggers to write at least one piece using that exact number of words. 

This month, the word count number is: 44

It was submitted by:  Diane at On The Border

 

Links to the other Word Counters posts:

Baking In A Tornado                    

On the Border                                  

When i arrived yesterday, Carl was getting out of bed stretching, prepared to get back into the recliner for another hour before getting up for work.  He grinned, rubbed his belly, and said, "We had a party last night and I ate too much!"

While he napped, i surveyed the damage.  Part of his special needs is that he has almost zero executive function, meaning he cannot plan, monitor and successfully execute his goals.  Once interrupted in doing something, he has to start over from the very beginning.

One result of having to start over again and again is several pairs of socks pulled out, as each time he gets distracted and tries to put his shoes on he has to start over again by getting a pair of socks out.  

Today it was 3 pair, one i handed him and two that he got for himself.  Not counting, of course, the ones that he'd already pulled out the night before as his mother told him to get his stuff out and ready for work.

He does try.  When he finally got up to shower, he asked me if his room was better this time.  My response was that i've seen worse.  What i did not add was what Sweetie said once when we got to Ms. SE's house.

We once arrived at Ms. SE's house and my Sweetie did his usual reconnoiter through, looking over the terrain.  He came back and said, "I've seen worse.  I don't know when, but I've seen worse."  Carl tries too hard for me to respond sarcastically.

Carl's long-suffering parents, Ms. V and Mr. L, do try.  They've worked with him for 40+ years, and it's tiring, so they remind him and work with him as much as they can and leave the rest for me, which is my job security.

Trust me, he leaves plenty for his parents to tidy up in the rest of the house, plus they have to monitor his spending, assure his work schedule is correct, see to it he gets doctor visits and speech therapy scheduled and gets there.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words: 

Before.

His fridge wasn't bad this time!

During and after his breakfast in the main kitchen.

After.

Now for something different, a poem Grandma sent me.

In My Hand I Hold A Ball,

White And Dimpled, And Rather Small.

Oh, How Bland It Does Appear,

This Harmless Looking Little Sphere.

 

By Its Size I Could Not Guess

The Awesome Strength It Does Possess.

But Since I Fell Beneath Its Spell,

I've Wandered Through The Fires Of Hell.

 

My Life Has Not Been Quite The Same

Since I Chose To Play This Stupid Game.

It Rules My Mind For Hours On End;

A Fortune It Has Made Me Spend.

 

 It Has Made Me Curse And Made Me Cry,

And Hate Myself And Want To Die.

It Promises Me A Thing Called Par,

If I Hit It Straight And Far.

 

 To Master Such A Tiny Ball,

Should Not Be Very Hard At All.

But My Desires The Ball Refuses,

And Does Exactly As It Chooses.

 It Hooks And Slices, Dribbles And Dies,

And Disappears Before My Eyes.

Often It Will Have A Whim,

To Hit A Tree Or Take A Swim.

 

 With Miles Of Grass On Which To Land,

It Finds A Tiny Patch Of Sand.

Then Has Me Offering Up My Soul,

If Only It Would Find The Hole.

 

It's Made Me Whimper Like A Pup,

And Swear That I Will Give It Up.

And Take To Drink To Ease My Sorrow,

But The Ball Knows ... I'll Be Back Tomorrow.

 

Stand proud you noble swingers of clubs and losers of balls!  A recent study found that the average golfer walks about 900 miles a year.

Another study found that golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.

This means that, on average, golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon!

Kind of makes you proud. Almost makes you feel like a hybrid........

Have a blessed and beautiful Tuesday, everyone!

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Today is:

Candlemas -- on the Julian Calendar, and in the Orthodox Christian Churches

Decimal Day -- UK (anniversary of the 1971 currency conversion to the decimal system)

Flag Day -- Canada (Maple Leaf adopted this date 1965)

John Frum Day -- Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Kamakura Matsuri -- Yokote, Akita Prefecture, Japan (Snow Cave Festival; through tomorrow)

Kuromori Kabuki -- Kuromori, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan (traditional Kabuki, through the 17th)

Liberation Day -- Afghanistan

Lupercalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (remembrance of the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus)

National Gum Drop Day

Nirvana Day -- Buddhist; Jain; Sikh (regional observances may vary)

Remember the Maine Day -- US (remembrance of the Spanish War)

Singles Awareness Day -- although some celebrate on the 14th as an anti-Valentine's Day

Sretenje -- Serbia (National Day)

Stop and Smell Your Compost Pile Day -- snort away the winter blues and think about spring (but i think this one is just plain weird)

St. Sigfrid's Day (Patron of Sweden)

Susan B. Anthony Day -- US (birth anniversary)

Total Defense Day -- Singapore

Birthdays Today:

Amber Riley, 1986

Renee O'Connor, 1971

Jane Child, 1967

Chris Farley, 1964

Matt Groening, 1954

Melissa Manchester, 1951

Jane Seymour, 1951

Marisa Berenson, 1948

Susan Brownmiller, 1935

Adolfo, 1933

Claire Bloom, 1931

Harvey Korman, 1927

Kevin McCarthy, 1914

Irena Sendler,1910

Miep Gees, 1909 

Cesar Romero, 1907

Harold Arlen, 1905

John Barrymore, 1882

Ernest Shackleton, 1874

Alfred North Whitehead, 1861

Elihu Root, 1824

Susan B. Anthony, 1820

Charles Lewis Tiffany, 1812

Cyrus McCormick, 1809

John Augustus Sutter, 1903

Henry Engelhard Steinway, 1797

Abraham Clark, 1726

Galileo Galilei, 1564

Pedro Mememdez de Aviles, 1519

Babur, 1483 (founder of Mughal dynasty in India)

Claudius Drusus Germanicus Caesar Nero, 37 

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Come Back, Little Sheba"(Play), 1950

"Cinderella"(Disney cartoon), 1950

"The Little Foxes"(Play), 1939

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"An der schönen blauen Donau"(The Blue Danube)(Strauss Waltz), 1867

Today in History:

Philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death, BC399

Khosrau II is crowned as king of Persia, 590

Ho-tse Shen-hui, Zen teacher, disputes the founder of Northern Ch'an line, 732

The city of St. Louis, Missouri, is founded by Pierre Laclade Ligue as a French trading post, 1764

The first US printed ballots are authorized, in Philadelphia, 1799

Sarah Roberts is barred from attending a white school in Boston, 1848

Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits its first patient, 1852

A fire in Rotterdam, Netherlands, damages the Museum Boymans, 1864

American President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, 1879

Nine inches (23cm) of snow falls on New Orleans, Louisiana, 1898

The USS Maine sinks in Havana harbor, cause unknown-258 sailors die, 1898

The first Teddy Bear is introduced in America, made by Morris and Rose Michtom, 1903

Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls, 1949

The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China sign a mutual defense treaty, 1950

Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska, 1954

A new red-and-white maple leaf design is adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner, 1965

The decimalisation of British coinage is completed on Decimal Day, 1971

The 1976 Constitution of Cuba is adopted by the national referendum, 1976

The drilling rig Ocean Ranger sinks during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 84 rig workers, 1982

The Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan, 1989

At the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China, a Long March 3 rocket, carrying an Intelsat 708, crashes into a rural village after liftoff, killing an unannounced number of people, 1996

First draft of the complete Human Genome is published in Nature, 2001

YouTube, the Internet site on which videos may be shared and viewed by others, is launched in the United States, 2005

A near-Earth asteroid, 2012 DA14, comes within 17,200 miles of the Earth's surface, a record-close approach for an object estimated at 50 meters, or 160 ft in in diameter, 2013

The Indian space rocket PSLV-C37 successfully launches 104 satellites in a single flight, 2017 

IBU Female Rookie of the Year Hanna Öberg of Sweden wins the individual biathlon gold medal with 4 clean shootings at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in the first victory and podium of her career, 2018

Beijing orders people returning after a Lunar New Year holiday to self-quarantine in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19, 2020