Doggie Wisdom (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 C. Lee McKenzie.     https://www.cleemckenziebooks.com

This week’s words are:

Sweetheart

Succotash

Semi-stable

Solace

Singularly

Solution

Married

Lately

Diet

Denied

Squash

Urban

In her day, she was belle of the ball, everybody's SWEETHEART.

Growing up in the country, she remembered riding to school on a mule.  Her mama bought a grand piano for $500 and gave piano lessons to pay for it.  "At $1 a lesson that was a lot of lessons Mama taught," she'd told me.  "She made me take lessons, too, but I was never any good."

They had land, so her mama also grew a garden.  She had a love for SUCCOTASH and SQUASH, but could not and would not abide Brussels' sprouts.  Mama fed them sugar bread for dessert, so she had an insatiable sweet tooth.  By the time i knew her, it seemed her whole DIET was mostly sugar or stuff with sugar in it.

She became a beauty queen and went to college where she got introduced to cigarettes and her first husband.  Although she never used it, she got a degree in speech therapy.  Her interests went in other directions as she ran a cattery (breeding show Persian cats), painted and sculpted, and became the editor of a trade journal.

The URBAN life caught up to her, she also started drinking.  It cost her first marriage.

By the time i met her, i thought she was SINGULARLY unsuited for married life anyway.  She was always fiercely independent.  She told me both marriages had been bitter and unhappy with lots of fighting, and i believe it.

She had married again, but after her second divorce, with a child from each marriage to support and few options, she worked as hard as she could as things went from bad to worse.  Although she found AA and got clean, it was too late to repair the damage with her daughter, who broke contact and DENIED her requests to see the grandchildren.  She told me, "It broke my heart when my lawyer told me I needed to cut her out of my will when she hadn't spoken to me in 10 years."  It was a breach that would never be mended.

While she did kick the alcohol, she never got over the d*mn ciggies, and i say it that way because it makes me so very, very angry.  Toward the end of her life they were a SOLACE even as they stole everything from her.  

First she had to be moved, against her will, out of the house she loved to an apartment in a elder living community.  She became dependent on oxygen, then bedridden, and though she DENIED she needed extra help, she needed extra help.

Finally she could deny no more, and the only SOLUTION was a full assisted living situation.  She wanted to stay in the same complex where the apartment was located, but her son and daughter-in-law, who never left her no matter how combative she became over her situation, got her into a place near them where they could visit often and monitor her well.

LATELY she seemed SEMI-STABLE.  Then last week, her oxygen dropped precipitously.  The place where she lived has a policy of checking on residents multiple times a day and night, and she was getting worse.  They were talking about hospice.

At some point between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, she took off her oxygen and probably got confused and tried to get out of bed.  When they came to check on her again, she was on the floor and it was already too late.

My client, prayer partner and friend Ms. S went to be with her Savior Jesus early this morning. 

My hope is she's dancing at a ball right now, a belle once again.

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Today is:

9-1-1 Day -- the first 911 call in North America was placed, demonstrating the new system, on this day in 1968

Akiyoshidai Yamayaki -- Akiyoshidai, Japan (dry grass on the mountain side is burned in this coming of spring ceremony; date subject to change)

Bonten Matsuri -- Miyoshi-jinja Shrine, Akita, Japan (two day festival to ask for good crops this year)

Daytona 500 Pole Day -- Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, FL, US (qualifying, and earing the right to lead the pack)

Do a Grouch a Favor Day -- internet generated attempt to get us to either get the grouches on our side, or make us cynical

Full Snow Moon -- sometimes also called the Full Hunger Moon, as the most snow falls this month and finding food is hardest

     Meaka Bochea -- Buddhist (celebration of the final sermon of Buddha)

     Navam Full Moon Poya Day -- Sri Lanka

     Spring Lantern Festival -- China (final day of the Chinese New Year celebrations)

     Tabodwe Full Moon -- Myanmar (month of Hta-Ma-Ne Feast, the harvest festival of Thanksgiving)

Guru Ravidas Jayanti/Magha Purnima -- CH, HP, HR, MP, and PB, India

Independence Day -- Lithuania (National Day/Restoration of Statehood)(1918)

Kyoto Protocol Day -- International (treaty on climate change; today is proposed as "Wear purple for Kyoto Day")

Magha Puja Day -- Buddhism (Celebrations of the teachings of Buddha to an assembly of holy men)

National Almond Day

Respectable Tales of Kelp-Koli -- Fairy Calendar (5 minutes only) 

St. Juliana of Cumae's Day (Patron of the ill)

St. Onesimus' Day (runaway slave of Philemon, converted by Paul, of whom the Letter to Philemon was written)

Birthdays Today:

Christopher Eccleston, 1964

John McEnroe, 1959

Ice T, 1959

LeVar Burton, 1957

James Ingram, 1956

William Katt, 1951

Richard Ford, 1944

Barry Primus, 1938

Sonny Bono, 1935

Vera-Ellen, 1921

Patty Andrews, 1920

Jimmy Wakely, 1914

Hugh Beaumont, 1909

Richard McDonald, 1909

George Kennan, 1904

Edgar Bergan, 1903

Robert Joseph Flaherty, 1884

Johann Strauss, 1866

Nichiren, 1222

Emperor Yingzong of China, 1032

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"What's My Line"(TV Game Show), 1950

"Le Voyageur Sans Baggage"(Anouilh Play), 1937

"The Marquise"(Coward Play), 1927

"Chung Sai Yat Po"(Publication; first Chinese daily newspaper in US), 1900

"Werther"(Massenet Opera), 1892

"Ladies' Home Journal"(Publication), 1883

"Orpheus"(Liszt Opera), 1854

"Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard"(First Publication), 1751

Today in History:

9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet, 374

Pope Gregory the Great issues a decree saying that "God bless you" is the correct response to a sneeze, 600

English king Charles I accepts Triennial Act, requiring the king to assemble Parliament at least once every 3 years, 1641

The first known check (cheque) is written, for 400 English Pounds Sterling (currently on display at Westminster Abbey), 1659

Kentucky passes a law permitting women to attend school under certain conditions, 1838*

Weenen Massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulus, 1838

American Charles Wilkes discovers Shackleton Ice Shelf, Antarctica, 1840

The Battle of Sobraon ends the First Sikh War in India, 1846

Studebaker Brothers wagon company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established, 1852

The French Government passes a law to set the A-note above middle C to a frequency of 435 Hz, in an attempt to standardize the pitch, 1859

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks forms, 1868

The "Ladies Home Journal" begins publishing, 1883

The first Chinese daily newspaper in the US, Chung Sai Yat Po, begins publication in San Francisco, 1900

The first US Esperanto Club organizes in Boston, 1905

The first synagogue in 425 years opens in Madrid, Spain, 1917

Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, 1923

The first patent is issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree, 1932

Wallace H. Carothers receives a United States patent for nylon, 1937

Canadians are granted Canadian citizenship after 80 years of being British subjects. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes the first Canadian citizen, 1947

Britain abolishes the death penalty, 1956

Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1, 1959

In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service, 1968

The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago, Illinois), 1978

The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi guard dubbed "Ivan the Terrible" in Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem, 1987

The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its ratification by Russia, 2005

The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army, 2006

China announces it will relocate 9,000 people in Guizhou province, before completion of world's largest telescope (FAST), designed to look for extraterrestrial life, 2016

Pope Francis defrocks ex-cardinal and archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick for sexually abusing minors and adults, making him the first Cardinal to be removed for sexual abuse, 2019

The United States removes 400 citizens quarantined for Covid19 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, 2020