How to Keep the Attic Door Closed (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 David M. Gascoigne and will appear on Elephant's Child's blog.  

This week's prompts are:

1. Solar
2. Polls 
3. True 
4. People 
5. Indication 

and/or

 

1. Celestial
2. Temperature 
3. Concern 
4. Obvious 
5. Surreal 

An additional prompt from Charlotte (MotherOwl) is to include Bright Red Orange in your take on the prompts.

 Have fun.

You don't have to take POLLS, it's just OBVIOUS, when you deal with PEOPLE, you never know what a day will bring.

My Tuesday (yes, just yesterday) was supposed to be a quiet morning, a short meeting with the person who helps us with Sweetie's small retirement account, and then a quiet rest of the day.

We all know what happens, right?

Sweet Ms. D, neighbor and client, age 87, calls and says, "Are you busy today?  I just called my doctor, my leg has hurt for 3 days and it's getting worse, and it's going numb and so are my hands and lips a little, and I'm trying to get an appointment and I'm afraid to drive.  Could you take me?"

Is it a TRUE INDICATION of my CONCERN that i told her no, I was taking her straight to the ER in case it was a blood clot or stroke, and i was up, dressed and at her house in under five minutes?

She was unable to put her shoes on, so i got them on her when i got there and she insisted on brushing her teeth, but meanwhile her doctor called back and told her to get to the ER, now.

Because the TEMPERATURE in our area is already summer hot and i have no A/C in the car, i drove her vehicle, got her to the emergency room and settled in, then went to meet Sweetie for our appointment.  She told me to simply use her car until i took her home, which was a bit SURREAL.  She drives one of those bigger cars like Lunceford the Land Yacht was, and i haven't driven one of those in a while.  They do drive very nicely indeed.

Once done with the meeting, i offered to go back and be at the hospital with her, but Ms. D said they were running her all over for test after test and i wouldn't be able to be with her anyway.  Thus i waited at home for her to call, which she did just as the evening traffic was at its worst.

As we were coming home, the traffic was easing up and it really didn't take too long.  She told me on the way it was a combination of things they'd come up with, all hitting at the same time, her sciatica acting up, one of the vertebrae in her back has degenerated more, her knee is inflamed and needs to be seen by an orthopedist, her electrolytes were low and her kidney function was slightly off.  All of them together in an 87-year-old with A-fib and slightly high blood pressure and a day in the ER is the result.

She had blood on her clothes from where her IV had backed up, so we got her out of those clothes and i rinsed them thoroughly in cold water, treated them with stain remover and we got them in the wash.

Her breakfast dishes were still in the sink so we took care of that and got her dinner ready.

When i left, she was feeling much better (the IV with electrolytes had helped her tremendously) and having supper, ready to watch TV.

As i came home in GusGus, the center of our SOLAR system treated me to a CELESTIAL show of a Bright Red Orange sunset, a nice end to an adventurous day.

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Today is:

Abolition Day -- Martinique

Bear Waking Day -- Norway (traditionally said to be the day the bears awaken from their hibernation, at least according to many sites)

Buy a Musical Instrument Day -- even just a kazoo, and have some fun making music; maybe if this one spreads around the world and enough of us do it, it will foster some harmony in our lives

Emergency Medical Services for Children Day -- because children need different care, they aren't just tiny adults   

Harvey Milk Day -- The Harvey Milk Foundation    

Independence Day -- Montenegro

International Day for Biological Diversity -- UN

National Maritime Day -- US (commemorating the first transoceanic voyage under steam power)

National Sovereignty Day -- Haiti

National Vanilla Pudding Day

St. Julia's Day (Patron of torture victims; Corsica, Portugal; Livorno, Italy)

St. Rita of Cascia's Day/La Abodada de Impossibles (Patron of desperate causes, difficult marriages, forgotten causes, illness, lost causes, parenthood, sick people, sterile people, victims of physical spousal abuse, widows, wounded people; against abuse, infertility, loneliness, sickness, sterility, wounds, unhappy marriages; Cascia, Italy; Dalayap, Philippines; Igbaras, Philippines)

Toothpaste Tube Day -- the tube was invented on this day in 1892 by dentist Washington Wentworth Sheffield, who wanted to replace the unhygienic practice of dipping the brush into a jar of dental cream

Unity Day / National Day -- Republic of Yemen

Visakh Bochea Day -- Cambodia (Buddha Day)

World Goth Day -- Get your Goth on around the world! 

Birthdays Today:

Apolo Anton Ohno, 1982

Ginnifer Goodwin, 1978

A.J. Langer,1974

Naomi Campbell, 1970

Morrissey, 1959

George Best, 1946

Paul Winfield, 1941

Michael Sarrazin, 1940

Frank Converse, 1938

Richard Benjamin, 1938

Susan Strasberg, 1938

Garry Wills, 1934

Peter Nero, 1934

Charles Aznavour, 1924

Judith Crist, 1922

Sun Ra, 1914

Sir Laurence Olivier, 1907

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859

Mary Cassatt, 1844

Richard Wagner, 1813

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"(TV), 1967

"Paulus / St. Paul"(Oratorio, Mendelssohn Op. 36), 1836

Today in History:

The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus, BC334

The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to murder Saladin near Aleppo, 1176

Pope Gregory XI issues five papal bulls to denounce the doctrines of English theologian John Wycliffe, 1377

Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England, 1455

A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason, 1807

On the second and last day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling (near Vienna), Napoleon is repelled by an enemy army for the first time, 1809

The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean; the ship arrived at Liverpool, England on June 20, 1819

HMS Beagle  departs on its first voyage, 1826

The transporting of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished, 1840

Farmers Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel discover Howe Caverns, 1842

The Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames is officially opened, 1897

The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine", 1906

Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, and is the only mountain other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the continental US during the 20th century, 1915

The most powerful earthquake ever documented, the Great Chilean Quake, measures 9.5 and strikes southern Chile, 1960

The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores, 1968

Ceylon adopts a new constitution, thus becoming a Republic, changes its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations, 1972

Namco releases the highly influential arcade game Pac-Man, 1980

Microsoft releases the Windows 3.0 operating system, 1990

Johnny Carson retires from The Tonight Show after 30 years, 1992

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia join the United Nations, 1992

A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, 2002

Sarah West, a British naval officer Commander is appointed commander of HMS Portland, the Royal Navy frigate; she is the first female officer to take command of a major British warship, 2012

Japanese researchers from University of Yamanashi report birth of mice from freeze-dried sperm stored on the International Space Station, 2017

The New York Stock Exchange announces Stacey Cunningham will be its first woman head in its 226-year history, 2018

Washington State becomes the 1st US state to legalize composting human bodies, 2019

Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, forcing evacuations by sending rivers of lava toward the nearby city of Goma, 2021

California, Arizona and Nevada agree to a deal cutting water use of the Colorado River, 2023