Take Your Rainbows Where You Find Them (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, Sean Jeating is providing the prompts which will be posted by Elephant's Child.     

This week's prompts are:

• barely
• bird
• keep
• simply 
• too 
  

And/or 

• breath
• calm
• silent
• soon
• wood
  

Charlotte (MotherOwl)  has given us Dahlia Yellow as the colour of the month.  If you can also incorporate it into your stories she (and I) will be grateful.

She took it for granted she was the most important person in the room.

They disliked and feared her, and she was partially proud of it and partially despised them for it.  They were underlings, after all.

Like the BIRDs at the feeder scattering at the sight of the hawk, she could clear the room, if it wasn't a meeting they were required to attend.  Most tried to melt away to the copy room or other places when she came into the cubicle area looking for someone, especially if she was BREATHing fire.

She liked making them do things which showed how her status was above theirs.  Today she'd come to the office in her newest outfit and she looked fabulous and knew it.  Dahlia Yellow was her color and although she would be considered a beauty by most, as Jim always said, "My Grandfather told me, 'Beauty is as beauty does,' and he was right."

But beautiful as the outfit was, it wasn't very warm and though she knew she'd be warm enough on the drive home once the heater came up in the car, why wait, getting into a cold car in the first place if she didn't have to?  After all, she had power over these people and what good was it if you didn't use it?

Jim was the first person she her eyes lighted on when she went looking for someone.  She caught his eyes and said, "Here!" tossing him the keys to her car.  "Go warm up my vehicle for me, it's in my usual reserved spot in the parking garage."

Jim froze.  This was SIMPLY TOO much.  He was close enough in his middle management position to some of the upper-level bosses to know they wouldn't put up with her doing things like this.

He held his tongue, keeping very CALM and SILENT.  Then he turned without a word, went over to the nearby supplies closet, and SOON returned with the WOODen broom, sans dustpan, kept there so they wouldn't have to go to the janitor closet just to sweep up small messes.

He thanked his lucky stars for the brainstorm he'd gotten and for the fact one of his female coworkers kept a standing space heater near the front of her cubicle.  He walked the broom over to it and leaned it so the heat was blowing right on it, and said, "Your ride will be warm soon," startling her as he threw her back the keys.

The rest of the workers, almost all of whom saw what was happening, could BARELY KEEP it in, and after a moment they couldn't help it, the whole room erupting into guffaws and cheers.

She turned and stomped from the room, promising she'd deal with him, but Jim was right and those whose ranks she'd joined were closed against her on this, and the noose began to tighten around her, although she wouldn't admit it.

Eventually she moved on, much to their relief.

(Loosely based on a true story.)

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Today is:

Armed Forces Day -- Romania

Children's Day -- Australia

Constitution Day -- Lithuania

Day of the Basque Country -- Basque Country

Feast of Forty Martyrs of England and Wales -- Roman Catholic

International Artist Day -- invite an artist to lunch, buy that painting that you've wanted for so long, go to an art gallery or the symphony or a play -- celebrate how art adds to your life daily!  

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

National Greasy Foods Day

Punk-for-a-Day Day -- internet generated; if you've always wanted to be a punk, try it out for a day

Republic Day -- Kazakhstan

Retrocession Day -- Taiwan

Sourest Day -- as a balance, because we have so many days that emphasize sweet

Sts. Crispin and Crispian's Day (Patrons of cobblers/shoemakers, glovemakers, lace makers/lace workers, leather workers, saddle makers, tanners, weavers)

Thanksgiving Day -- Grenada

World Pasta Day -- as established by the first World Pasta Congress in 1995; a related website is here 

Birthdays Today:

Katy Perry, 1984

Midori, 1971

Tracy Nelson, 1963

Brian Kerwim, 1949

Jon Anderson, 1944

Anne Tyler, 1941

Helen Reddy, 1941

Bobby Knight, 1940

Marion Ross, 1936

Billy Barty, 1924

Minnie Pearl, 1912

Leo G. Carroll, 1892

Pablo Picasso, 1881

Georges Bizet, 1838

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1800

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Victor/Victoria"(Musical), 1995

"Newhart"(TV), 1982

"Le Repetition"(Anouilh play), 1950

"The Time of Your Life"(Play), 1939

Today in History:

Seljuk Turks defeat the German crusaders under Conrad III at the Battle of Dorylaeum, 1147

Battle of Agincourt, in which the Welsh longbow defeats armored knights, 1415

Christopher Columbus, aboard the Santa Maria, lands at the Dominican Republic, 1492

Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the Western Australian coast, 1616

Governor Bradford of the US colony Plymouth disallows sport on Christmas Day, 1621

Wedding of future US President John Adams and Abigail Smith (the marriage lasted 54 years), 1764

Canadians and Mohawks defeat the Americans in the Battle of Chateauguay, 1813

Opening of the Erie Canal, 1825

Battle of Balaclava, memorialized as the "Charge of the Light Brigade", results in the deaths of 409 troops, 1854

The Toronto Stock Exchange is created, 1861

Traditionally understood date of the October Revolution in Russia, which corresponds to November 7 on the Gregorian Calendar, 1917

The Archbishop of Dubuque, Francis J. L. Beckman, denounces swing  music as "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people", warning that it leads down a "primrose path to hell", 1938

Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba, 1962

Uganda joins the United Nations, 1962

Nelson Mandela is sentenced to five years in prison, 1962

The United Nations seated the People's Republic of China and expelled the Republic of China, 1971

Proceedings on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction conclude at The Hague, 1980

Three months after the end of the Ten-Day War, the last soldier of the Yugoslav People's Army leaves the territory of the Republic of Slovenia, 1991

Fidel Castro announces that transactions using the American Dollar will be banned in Cuba, 2004

Sony removed the original cassette Walkman from the market, 2010

Scientists announce that the completion of the nuclear genome study of a 24,000 year old Siberian boy's remains shows 2/3 of today's Native Americans are of Eastern Asia origin, and the others from Western Eurasia, 2013

The artificial intelligence created artwork "Portrait of Edward de Bellamy" becomes the first AI art to be sold at auction, bringing $432,500 at Christie's in New York, 2018

Sahle-Work Zewde becomes Ethiopia's first female President and Africa's only female head of state after being elected by parliament, 2018

Chile overwhelmingly votes to scrap their constitution, drafted during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, 2020

Pope Francis announces the appointment of thirteen new cardinals including the first African American cardinal, Wilton Daniel Gregory, 2020

For the first time, New Zealand's Parliament has more female than male memebers, 2022