Clever Gadget (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, BeThere2Day, 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 her blog, Drifting Through Life.     

This week's prompts are the following words:

1. study 

2. exercise 

3. gnome 

4. cagier 

5. fountain 

6. super 

7. enigma 

8. sludge

and/or this image:

Her STUDY was a reflection of her.  

She'd never liked EXERCISE, and was CAGIER than ever about going to a gym since the lockdowns, so a treadmill stood in the corner.  She always laughingly said she was short as a GNOME and almost as round, but she kept after the walking and tried to watch what she ate.  Most of the time, she would tell you, she just watched it disappear, but she did try.

The FOUNTAIN hadn't quite worked out as she'd wanted.  It was supposed to be a calming, soothing sound for times when she had squirrel brain, and instead the cat had decided he liked drinking from it.  Because there was no way to attach a filter to it, she didn't want the cat drinking from it, so it was empty of water.

That didn't mean it was empty, however.  It had been co-opted to hold pens, safety pins, a tube of SUPER glue, paper clips and other various items that she often needed and was always losing.

It was an ENIGMA how her work was so organized, but her desk so messy, the room holding more books than anyone had counted in a long, long time, least of all her.

Many of the books were worthless to everyone else, old and not even well written.  They'd been discarded as useless and she thought of them as book SLUDGE.  Even so, she felt sorry, not for the books, but for the authors who put in the time and effort to write and then were simply forgotten in the mists of time.  True, some didn't write well enough to be remembered, that wasn't the point.  They'd tried, and she wanted to acknowledge that.

The huge photo that dominated one wall often surprised people who ended up actually coming to her home and seeing this room.  They knew how she loved her mountain vacations and "I detest sand in my bloomers!" was something she often said.

When asked, she would simply say, "It's a picture of my life," and give no other explanation.  If they'd ever been able to see what she hid in the bottom desk drawer, they would have understood.

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Today is:

Angam Day -- Nauru ("Day of Fulfillment"; a celebration of overcoming hardships)

Armed Forces Day -- Benin

Children's Day -- Australia

Day of the Ancients -- Asatru/Pagan Slavic Calendar

Day of Mourning -- Libya

Deepavali/Diwali(Festival of Lights) -- Hindu; Jain; Sikh (3rd day of the festival)

     Gai Tihar and Laxmi Puja -- Day of Cows and Laxmi (goddess of wealth; day three of the festival)

Ludi Victoriae Sullanae -- Roman Empire (celebration of the victories of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, through Nov. 1)

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

Mule Day -- anniversary of the first importation of donkeys to the US, which George Washington used to breed the first mules in the Americas

National Chicken Fried Steak Day

National Day -- Austria

National Gospel Day -- Cook Islands

National Mincemeat Pie Day

Pretzel Day

Pumpkin Day -- time to get one for the 31st, if you haven't already

St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki's Day (Patron of soldiers; Thessaloniki, Greece)

     Greek day to broach the wine barrels and taste the new season's wine in honor of this saint

Sts. Lucian and Marcian's Day (Patrons of converts, possessed people)

Toping Wagglegammon -- Fairy Calendar (no human knows what this means, but it sounds intriguing)

Workaholic Stop and Smell Something Day -- internet generated day to encourage workaholics to stop and consider what they might be missing

Worldwide Howl at the Moon Night -- some organizers even have howling parties

Anniversary Today:

Grand opening of the Erie Canal, 1825

Birthdays Today:

Sasha Cohen, 1984

Keith Urban, 1969

Tom Cavanagh, 1968

Natalie Merchant, 1963

Cary Elwes, 1962

Dylon McDermott, 1962

Jeff Probst, 1962

James Pickens, Jr., 1954

Lauren Tewes, 1954

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1947

Pat Sajak, 1947

Jaclyn Smith, 1947

Ivan Reitman, 1946

Pat Conroy, 1945

Bob Hoskins, 1942

Jackie Coogan, 1914

Mahalia Jackson, 1911

Abby Greene Aldrich Rockefeller, 1874

Joseph Hansom, 1803

Georges Danton, 1759

Domenico Scarlatti, 1685

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"St. Elsewhere"(TV), 1982

Doonesbury(Comic strip), 1970

The Village Voice(newspaper, first issue), 1955

"Mourning Becomes Electra"(Play), 1931

Today in History:

Comet 55P/1366 U1 (Tempel-Tuttle) approaches 0.0229 AUs of Earth (2.1 million miles and 3.4 million kilometers) -- marking the third closest approach of any comet to our planet in recorded history, 1366

First use of lead pencils, 1492

William Penn accepts the area around the the Delaware River from the Duke of York, 1682

The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia, and the Minute Men begin to organize in the colonies, 1774

King George III goes before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorized a military response to quell the American Revolution, 1775

Benjamin Franklin departs from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution, 1776

The first of the "Federalist Papers" are published, calling for ratification of the US Constitution, 1787

The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created, 1795

Hamilton Smith patents a rotary washing machine, 1858

Soccer football rules are standardized and rugby starts as a separate game, 1863

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona, 1881

First use of a "getaway car" after a robbery in Paris, 1901

The first Soviet (worker's council) formed, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1905

Margaret Sanger arrested for the obscenity of advocating birth control, 1916

The Maharaja of Kashmir agrees to allow his kingdom to join India, 1947

Mother Teresa founds her Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, 1950

Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France, 1958

The world sees the far side of the Moon for the first time, in pictures taken earlier in the month by the Soviet Luna 3, 1959

The last natural case of smallpox is discovered in Merca district, Somalia, 1977

"Baby Fae," born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, receives a controversial heart transplant from a baboon, dies of kidney infection 21 days later, 1984

The Charlottetown Accord fails to win majority support in a Canada wide referendum, 1992

Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty, 1994

Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament, 1999

The water level at Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest water control and utilization project, reaches full capacity, 2010

China blocks the New York Times from searches and social media in response to an investigation into Premier Wen Jiabao, 2012

The World Health Organization classifies processed meat as carcinogenic, 2015

Jacinda Adern is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand, becoming the world’s youngest female head of government, 2017

NASA announces tests show there is more water on the Moon than was previously thought, in both sunlit and shadowed regions, 2020