On Grandma's List (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday, an A to Z Post

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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 Elephant's Child.  

This week's prompts are:

• Antique
• Guide
• Celebration
• Journal
• Expressive 
  

And/or

 

• A little bird told me
• Cat got your tongue?
• Every dog has his day
  

Charlotte (MotherOwl) has selected water blue as the colour of the month.  If you can include it in your story she and I will be grateful.

As always, have fun.

My mom was always, well, my mom.

She was very intelligent and got her points across in a few well chosen and EXPRESSIVE words.  Always a JOURNAL keeper, she'd written about each of us 3 kids both in her own book and made one for each of us as we were growing up and given ours to us on our 18th birthdays.

I couldn't speak for the others, but mine was a treasure, a Water Blue cover and stories about me from the time she knew she was expecting, all the way through the story of how I almost missed my own graduation ceremony when someone rear ended my father's car on the way to the auditorium and every milestone and CELEBRATION between.

Once us children were out of the house, she and dad had become docents at a nearby famous estate turned museum.  She would GUIDE tour groups through with stories and anecdotes about every room and every ANTIQUE, while dad showed the practical areas outdoors, stables and livery and such places.

Dad had been gone about a year when I got a call from my sister and you could have almost knocked me over with a feather when she told me what was up.

"A little bird told me mom's got a new boyfriend," she said the moment I'd said hello.

 Some kind of sound, between a yelp and a gasp, came out of me, and my sister laughed.

"What's the matter?  Cat got your tongue?" she asked.

"Well, you did rather surprise me," I managed to say.

"Why would it surprise you?  She's been a bit lonely since dad died, even if she does have her volunteering and the grandchildren.  We're all busy and she spends too much time alone.  Besides, this guy is solid.  He was Navy, just like dad, a school principal and then taught at the Junior College.

"And get this, he has a motorcycle!  That's how I found out, I saw them on his bike, at least, I thought it was mom in the sidecar, but couldn't be sure because of the helmet.  She'd seen me though, and called me, and asked me to come to supper this Sunday afternoon and meet him, and she wants all of us there."

I still couldn't quite grasp what I was hearing and connect it to my mom.  Would she really date someone else, someone with a motorcycle, and ride with him?  My mother?

It seemed so.

"Of course, I'll come to supper if she wants, I'd be glad to meet him, but you have to admit it is rather shocking to think of our mom, the room mother at school and museum guide everyone loves as a motorcycle babe."

My sister laughed.  "Every dog has its day, and this is mom's.  If she wants to let her hair down a little at her age, what's to stop her?  You'll be there, right?"

"Yes, I'll be there.  Does Jim know yet?"  I wondered if my brother would flip out.

"I called him first, and he thinks it's about time.  Said she's due some happy times again like she had with dad."

That's how I met my future stepfather, the man who brought my mom out of her shell and got her journaling again.  I didn't know she'd stopped after dad died.

Now I wouldn't have things any other way.

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Today is:

American Academy of Arts and Letters Charter Day

Bat Appreciation Day -- sponsored by Bat Conservation International, at the time of year when bats begin awakening from hibernation

Blah, Blah, Blah Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

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

Ellis Island Family History Day -- US (by proclamation of the nation's governors and in conjunction with the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, a day to celebrate the achievements and contribution of the immigrants and their descendants who came through Ellis Island; on the anniversary of the day, in 1907, when 11,747 immigrants were processed through the island, the most in one day) 

Equality Day -- Canada (the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force on April 17, 1985, guaranteeing equality without regard to race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability)

Flag Day -- American Samoa

Ford Mustang Day -- International (on the "birthday" of the vehicle)

Independence Day / Evacuation Day -- Syria

International Day of Peasants Struggle

Myanmar New Year -- Myanmar

National Cheeseball Day

National Haiku Poetry Day -- sponsored by The Haiku Foundation 

Nosy Neighbor Appreciation Day -- to be celebrated, if you dare, by greeting and thanking your neighbor for being nosy

Nothing Like A Dame Day -- a day to pay homage to the unique wit, wisdom, style and strength of dames past and present, and to cultivate the dame in you or in your life

Ramnawami / Ramanavami / Chaitay Dashain -- India; Nepal (Hindu celebration of the birth of Lord Rama, avatar of Vishnu)

     Swaminarayan Jayanti -- birth of Lord Swaminarayan for followers of the Swaminarayan tradition

St. Kateri Tekakwitha's Day (Patron of ecologists, ecology, environment, environmentalism, environmentalists, exiles, people who have lost their parents, people ridiculed for their piety)

St. Stephen Harding's Day (Co-founder of Cistercian Order)

Thargelia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (two-day festival for the birthday of Apollon and Artemis; date approximate)

Toothbrush Appreciation Day -- think of what it would be like without one!

Tortoiseshell Cat Appreciation Day -- according to Catster Magazine  

Verrazano Day -- New York, US (Celebrates discovery of New York harbor by Giovanni Verrazano, Florentine navigator)

Women's Day -- Gabon

World Hemophilia Day

Birthdays Today:

Victoria Beckham, 1974

Jennifer Garner, 1972

Liz Phair, 1967

Lela Rochon, 1966

Norman Julius “Boomer” Esiason, 1961

Sean Bean, 1958

Olivia Hussey, 1951

Don Kirshner, 1934

Cynthia Ozick, 1928

Harry Reasoner, 1923

William Holden, 1918

Thornton Wilder, 1897

Nikita Krushchev, 1894

Adrian Constantine “Cap” Anson, 1852

J.P. Morgan, 1837

Samuel Chase, 1741

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Caveman(Film), 1981

"McCartney"(Album), 1970 (first solo album)

"No Time for Comedy"(Play), 1939

Today in History:

Geoffrey Chaucer tells his Canterbury Tales for the first time, at the court of Richard II, ten years to the day after the pilgrimage actually began, 1397

Christopher Columbus signs his contract with Spain to find the Indes, 1492

Martin Luther stands firm and refuses to recant before the Diet of Worms, 1521

Sir Ralph Abercromby attacks San Juan, Puerto Rico in what would be one of the largest invasions of the Spanish territories in America, 1797

The first Sino-Japanese War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, 1895

A one day record 11,747 immigrants are processed at Ellis Island, 1907

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios is formed by the merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and the Louis B. Mayer Company, 1924

Cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer J Fudd & Petunia Pig, debut, 1937

At midnight, 26 Irish counties officially break with the British Commonwealth and form the Republic of Ireland, 1949

The Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco begins, 1961

Ford Motor Company unveils the Mustang, 1964

Jerrie Mock becomes the first woman to circumnavigate the world by air, 1964

The ill-fated Apollo 13 spacecraft returns to Earth safely, 1970

Patriation of the Canadian constitution in Ottawa by Proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, 1982

The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly ends, 1986

NJ Devil Martin Brodeur becomes the 2nd NHL goalie to score in a playoff game, 1997

The 5th Summit of the Americas takes place in Port of Spain; Trinidad, thirty-four heads of government attend, 2005

An explosion at a fertilizer plant in the city of West, Texas, causes 15 deaths and major damage to nearby buildings, residences, a nursing home and middle school, 2013

Jazz composer and musician John Coltrane is awarded a posthumous Special Citation by the Pulitzer Prize board, 2015

A report from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital says that 10 children with SCID-X1 (Bubble Boy Disease) have been cured by gene therapy, 2019

The funeral of Prince Philip, Consort of Queen Elizabeth II, is held under Covid restrictions at Windsor Palace, 2021

Research of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch shows it now has coast creatures living and breeding in it, including jellyfish, sponges and worms, raising concerns about the spread of invasive species, 2023