Cat Stockings (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 Elephant's Child.      

This week's prompts are:

 

• Wash
• Fresh
• Extreme
• Jelly
• Exfoliate

 

And/or

 

• Relaxing
• Pure
• Thick
• Minerals
• Citrus 

Have fun

"Isn't this RELAXING?"

Aunt Marigold was obviously in her element, her voluminous spa robe pulled up to her knees as her feet soaked in some THICK liquid and her eyes were covered with FRESH cucumber slices.  A cool drink, decidedly CITRUS based by the scent and with a colorful umbrella, sat on a table next to her.

June sat in the place next to her, feeling a bit out of her element but trying her best to enjoy what was, for her, the new sensation of someone else doing something to her feet.

"Let them put that JELLY stuff on your feet," Aunt Marigold had told her.  "It's full of MINERALS and will EXFOLIATE them beautifully, you'll see!"

When Aunt Marigold had invited June for a "girls' spa weekend," June had protested to Alan that it seemed a little EXTREME.

"Aren't those places horribly expensive?" June asked her husband worriedly.

"You know Aunt Marigold has enough in her coffers to cover it, and she wants to get to know you better," he'd said.  "Her motives are PURE,  you didn't grow up with our family and she'd like to spend some time with just you and not have me tagging along.  It's only a weekend, and it's her birthday gift to you, you can't say no to a gift.  

"Besides, she's done this for every female member of our family at some point.  She's trying to let you know she considers you the same as her born kin.  Go, and enjoy!"

The last had almost been in the tone of a command, which June might have resented had she not known he was simply being adamant, and she'd acquiesced.

Now here she was having her feet tended and it was rather relaxing, once she got used to it.

Eventually they were led off to the showers to WASH with the exquisitely and ridiculously expensive fancy soaps, and Aunt Marigold practically floated on air as she said, "Next is lunch, and I read the menu.  Thai!"

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Today is:

Ako Gishi sai -- Ako, Japan (traditional dances and warrior parades honoring the 47 Ronin)

Buy a Tree Day / Deck the Halls Day -- internet generated, and if you are going to decorate, why did you wait this long?

Christmas Bird Count begins -- sponsored by the National Audubon Society (through Jan. 5; since 1900, the longest-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations)

Free Shipping Day -- with hundreds of participating merchants    

Halcyon Days begin -- a time of calm and tranquility (beginning seven days before the winter solstice, lasting until December 28, seven days after the solstice; named for an ancient-fabled kingfisher bird [or halcyon], which hatches and raise her young during this time)

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Stufur -- Shorty, who is also known as Ponneskefill, the pan-scraper, who will scrape food scraps from the pans left out

Khoiak Ceremony for Ploughing the Earth -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Monkey Day -- unofficial, by animal groups, to draw attention to the plights of simians kept in labs and as pets monkeyday.org

National Bouillabaisse Day

National Energy Conservation Day -- India

Play An Old Song That You Didn't Like To See If You Still Don't Like It Day -- internet generated, and don't bother, bad songs don't improve with age

Precalentines Day -- an unofficial holiday for math lovers begun by a precalculus class at a Nova Scotia high school

South Pole Discovery Day -- thank you, Roald Amundsen

St. John of the Cross' Day (Patron of contemplative life, contemplatives, mystical theology, mystics, Spanish poets; Ta' Xbiex, Malta)

St. Spyridon's Day (Patron of Corfu, Greece, and potters)

 

Anniversaries Today:

Alabama becomes the 22nd US State, 1819

Princess Mary Stuart is crowned Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542

Birthdays Today:

Samantha Peszek, 1991

Vanessa Hudgens, 1988

Paul "Beakman" Zaloom, 1951

Bill Buckner, 1949

Dee Wallace Stone, 1948

Patty Duke, 1946

Jane Birkin, 1946

Ernie Davis, 1939

Leonardo Boff, 1938

Lee Remick, 1935

Charlie Rich, 1932

Don Hewitt, 1922

Shirley Jackson, 1919

Morey Amsterdam, 1914

Spike Jones, 1911

Margaret Madeline Chase Smith, 1897

James Harold Doolittle, 1896

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Saturday Night Fever(Film), 1977

Diamonds are Forever(Film), 1971

"Il Trittico"(Puccini opera), 1918

Today in History:

Osman ibn Affan is appointed the third kalief of Islam, 644

The Zuider Zee seawall collapses, 50,000 lives are lost in the floods that follow, 1287

The first artificial pearls, made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales, are manufactured by M Jacquin in Paris, 1656

The Montgolfier brothers' first balloon lifts off on its first test flight, 1782

David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patents a machine that cuts nuts and bolts, 1798

The American Academy of Political and Social Science is organized in Philadelphia, 1889

The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from Ocean Beach, San Francisco to Honolulu, Hawaii, 1902

Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first to reach the South Pole, 1911

Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sri Lanka join the United Nations, 1955

The United Republic of Tanzania joins the United Nations. 1961

NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus, 1962

Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations, 1999

The Millau viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, near Millau, France is officially opened, 2004

China's first lunar rover, the Yutu, lands successfully on the Moon, 2013

The Vatican announces it has rediscovered the lost last paintings of Rafael, painted around 1520, in the Vatican Museum, 2017

The Walt Disney Company buys most of 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion, 2017

The 85th Heisman Trophy is awarded to Joe Burrow of Louisiana State University; Burrow received the highest percentage of first place votes ever with 90.7%, 2019

A total solar eclipse is visible over parts of Chile and Argentina, 2020