Perfect! (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday, an A to Z Post

 ***********************************

To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     

***********************************

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, BeThere2Day, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

***********************************

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 Teresa.     

This week's prompt list:

artificial

sector

insect

lawlessness

midnight

and/or

Wednesday

complaint

lake

biker

moon

Charlotte/Mother Owl's color of the month is Reseda Green (a grayish green).

"You're favorite person is here!"

The boss looked up and said, "You don't mean..."

"Yeah, him.  He wants to lodge a COMPLAINT."

"Great.  Just the way to ruin a good WEDNESDAY.  Send him in."

Jensen loved being the manager of the apartment complex, most of the time.  He had a good maintenance crew and his office staff kept things organized well.  It would be a great job, he told himself, if it weren't for the tenants.

Or at least, the tenants like this one.  Mr. Zabriski vacillated between swaggering into the manager's office like he owned the place, and skulking in like he was afraid he was being followed.

Today, he skulked in and in a conspiratorial whisper said, "I believe there is LAWLESSNESS afoot in your SECTOR!"

Jensen knew better than to ask him what sector that was, as Mr. Zabriski was obviously believing a conspiracy theory again, and would have gone off on a tangent of explanations which made no sense to anyone but himself.  Jensen knew to just play along and take the "report."

"What happened, Mr. Zabriski?"

"There was a BIKER out by the LAKE last night."

"Uh-huh," Jensen scribbled on his pad.  "About what time?"

"It was near MIDNIGHT."

"And how did you see him?"

"It was MOON bright out there, and he had one of those headlamps."

"I see, well, go on.  Did he do anything suspicious?"

"I'll say he did!  He had this RESEDA GREEN backpack..."

"What kind of backpack?"

"It's a color, a kind of grayish-green.  At least, that's the color it looked at night.  Colors don't look quite right in moonlight."

"O-kay, well, what did he do with the backpack?"

"He took something out of it and put it down by the lake, and then he rode off."

"And what did you do, Mr. Zabriski?"

"Do?  I did what a law-abiding citizen is supposed to do.  I went down there to see what skulduggery he was up to!"

"And did you find it?"

"Did I ever!  I found tiny footprints, like little ARTIFICIAL INSECTS had been released there."

"Do you mean bugs?"

"Yes!  Exactly!  Bugs, but they're whatayacall -- robots!  Fake bugs, and he released them down by the lake so they can work their way up into the apartments and spy on us!"

Jensen knew he had to play this very carefully, he didn't want Zabriski trying to spread such tales among the tenants, or worse, call the police again.  Last time had been a nightmare.

"Mr. Zabriski, I need you to keep this quiet while I investigate, okay?  I'm going to tell my people to be on the lookout for these things.  If they're small, like real bugs, it will take them a while to travel.  I'll have the lawns and gardens searched, and we'll even mow the grass down to the lake, the lawn mowers would either run over them or suck them up and destroy them.  Meanwhile, don't tell anyone, we don't want to start a panic.  Can you keep this quiet?"

"Mum's the word!" Mr. Zabriski said, and tiptoed out the door.

"Boss," Manny said, coming in a moment later, "should I go ahead and move mowing the lawns by the lake up a day on the schedule so Mr. Zabriski thinks we got all the robots?"

"Manny, do you always listen by my door?" Jensen asked with mock sternness.

"Only when it's him.  He's too funny, poor old guy.  We gotta look after him, even if he is a bit nuts, he's got no one but his friends here in the apartments.  And us."

"Yeah, I know Manny.  Yes, go ahead and mow a day early, make him happy.  Next week he'll have forgotten all about it and will have something new for us."

"Yes, boss.  Oh, and there's fresh coffee if you need it, Stan just brewed a new pot."

"Thanks, I'll be there.  I need it after Mr. Zabriksi."

"I thought you would, and so did Stan."

***********************************

Today is:

Bendideia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival for Bendis; date approximate)

National CPA's Goof Off Day -- US, the day after tax day because they deserve it!

Dutch-American Friendship Day -- anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the US, America's oldest continuously peaceful diplomatic relations

Ebertfest/Roger Ebert's Film Festival -- Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL (in the best show biz tradition, the show will go on; through Sunday)

Independence Declaration Day -- Venezuela

John Parker Day -- many US States (anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, where parker said “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon; but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”)

King Mswati III's birthday -- Swaziland

Lozenge Competition -- Fairy Calendar (no, i don't know what they do with the lozenges that makes it a competition)

National Amaretto Day

National Cat Lady Day -- and don't say "Cat Lady" like it's a bad thing!

National Garlic Day

National Hanging Out Day -- Project Laundry List and other organizations promote bringing back the clothesline to save energy and the planet!

Oklahoma City Bombing Commemoration Day

Okoshi Daiko Festival -- Furukawa, Japan (today, hundreds of men in loincloths fight to touch a wooden frame supporting a huge taiko drum as it is carried through the streets, and tomorrow is an elegant parade with lion dancers and traditional music)

Primrose Day -- UK (anniversary of the death of Disraeli)

Shab-e-Qadar -- Bangladesh (Night of Destiny)

St. AElfheah's Day (Patron of kidnap victims; Greenwich and Solihull, England)

St. Expeditus of Melintine's Day (Patron of merchants, navigators; for expeditious and prompt solutions; against procrastination)

St. Leo IX's Day

Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day -- US (the day after you pay your taxes, bring the comforts of home to the office; sponsored by PajamaGram) 

Anniversaries Today:

Grace Kelly marries Ranier III of Monaco, 1956

Cheyney University is founded as The Institute for Colored Youth, 1837

Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI by Proxy Marriage, 1770

Birthdays Today:

Maria Sharapova, 1987

Hayden Christensen, 1981

Kate Hudson, 1979

James Franco, 1978

Luis Miguel Basteri, 1970

Ashley Judd, 1968

Al Unser, Jr., 1962

Tony Plana, 1954

Paloma Picasso, 1949

Tim Curry, 1946

Alan Price, 1942

Elinor Donahue, 1937

Dudley Moore, 1935

Jayne Mansfield, 1933

Dick Sargent, 1930

Hugh O'Brian, 1925

Eliot Ness, 1903

Lucretia Rudolph-Garfield, 1832

David Ricardo, 1772

Roger Sherman, 1721

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope"(Musical revue), 1972

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"(Musical), 1951

"Carousel"(Musical), 1945

"Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder/Mother Courage and Her Children"(Play), 1941

"National Barn Dance"(Radio), 1924

"The Bing Boys are Here"(Musical revue), 1919

"Revizor/The Government Inspector"(Comedy), 1836

"Iphigenia in Aulis,"(Opera), 1774

Today in History:

Sir Francis Drake sails to Cadiz and sinks the Spanish Fleet, 1587

Because he has no male heirs, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, assuring Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would go to his daughter, Maria Theresa, 1713

Captain James Cook sights Australia, 1770

John Adams secures Dutch recognition of the United States, and his home in The Hague becomes the first American Embassy, 1782

Venezuela achieves home rule, 1810

The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and Luxembourg as a Grand Duchy, 1839

Charles Duryea claims to have taken the first automobile built in the US for a spin, 1892

The first Boston Marathon is won by John McDermott of NY in 2:55:10, 1897

Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute  jump, 1919

The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published, 1928

Burma (now Myanmar) joins the United Nations, 1948

The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders, 1961

Sierra Leone becomes a republic, 1971

India's first satellite, Aryabhata, is launched, 1975

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168, 1995

The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, the first German parliamentary body to meet there since the Reichstag was dissolved in 1945, 1999

His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church, taking the name Benedict XVI, 2005

Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years, 2011

A shipwreck that may have drowned up to 900 North African migrants traveling to Europe has prompted the European Union to meet in order to develop a plan to fund and organize rescues while reducing human trafficking incidents, 2015

US Senator Tammy Duckworth, the first US Senator to give birth while holding that office, is the first parent to bring a baby into the US Senate a day after the Senate votes to allow babies on the chamber's floor, 2018 

King Mswati III changes the name of Swaziland to eSwatini, or “land of the Swati”, 2018

New Zealand and Australia open a travel bubble between the two countries after more than a year of border closures, 2021

NASA successfully flies its drone helicopter Ingenuity on Mars, making it the first powered aircraft to fly on another world, 2021