Sometimes Shelter Peeps Run Out of Cat Names (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 Hilary Melton-Butcher  and will appear on Elephant's Child's blog.

This week's prompts are:

 

1. Banal
2. Bows
3. Canyon
4. Dough
5. Observant 
   

And/or

 

1. Fulminating
2. Beady 
3. Margarine
4. Suit
5. Brazen
   

An additional prompt from Charlotte (MotherOwl) is to include Signal Green in your take on the prompts.

 Have fun.

The child was not really looking forward to the dinner.  BANAL discussions among grown-ups (at least to her they were, if she'd been old enough to know the word), children must be seen and not heard, it was a boring chore.  Even though they had a daughter, she and the other girl would only be allowed to talk to each other before and after the meal.

Mom was very busy getting said meal together and setting the table.  The good tablecloth had been ironed earlier in the week, the Signal Green one with the eyelet BOWS on it.  The "company" dishes and serving plates that went so nicely with the tablecloth had been washed, too.

While she wasn't really told what the menu would be, she was OBSERVANT and realized there would be a large roast with vegetables.  The home baked bread was always a given, she loved watching as mom kneaded the DOUGH, and they'd have real butter, of course.  No MARGARINE for this family, her mother had tried to serve the stuff once and her father's vehement FULMINATING against it had precluded any such attempt again.

All three family members were dressed in what she called "Sunday clothes" and the other family arrived wearing the same, although she privately thought the man's SUIT wasn't as nice looking as her fathers' was and he had BEADY eyes she didn't trust.  The mom looked a bit harried, rather like her mom did, but the men started in to talking and her father said, "What can I get for you to drink?" and served up something from the bottles she wasn't allowed to touch.

The mothers went to the kitchen, and the girls were each given a small cup of non-alcoholic apple juice and sent to "play nicely, dears."

They went to her room and played with her dolls and rather wished they lived close enough to play together more often, although neither said it.  They were only together for the dinner because their fathers worked together, but otherwise they lived on opposite ends of town and probably wouldn't see each other often.

Mom had put the food on the table and called everyone in, and father said grace, and the adults started serving up their plates.  The children would be served last and knew it and simply waited, mouths watering and tummies rumbling.

When her mom took the lid off the butter dish and started putting some on each plate for the home baked bread, the other little girl did the unthinkable and spoke without being spoken to.  "Oh, real butter!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement.

The family had been to the Grand Canyon the year before, and she thought the silence which overcame the table at the moment was like a CANYON, only in sound not in sight and she wondered how she had dared be so BRAZEN.  Both of the girl's parents turned red and her father glared at her.  She shrank back timidly and quietly explained, "I meant it as a compliment."  That didn't seem to help, but a moment later her father had tactfully asked another question about their work discussion, and the awkward moment passed.

After dinner, the girls went back to the bedroom to play and the guest told her about how they never had real butter at their house and how much she liked it.  Not long after, the family left and it was time for bed.  The dinner had been a little less boring than she'd expected.

(Based on a true story Grandma tells about a family her parents had dinner with from time to time.)

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Today is:

Alexandra Rose Day -- anniversary of the tradition started by Queen Alexandra on this day in 1912, in which roses and rose emblems were sold in London and the UK, with the money going to smaller charities that are not usually in the national spotlight; also by tradition, the Lord Mayor of London bought the first rose

     Alexandra Rose Charities still exists, but uses other forms of fundraising and now supports healthy eating initiatives among lower income mothers and children

Armed Forces Day -- Azerbaijan

Barcode/UPC Day -- the first scanner, at Marsh's Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, scanned its first item, a pack of Wrigley's gum at 8:01am this day in 1974

Beautician's Day -- on a couple of websites, while other list other days; if yours puts the "beauty" in beautician, remember her next time you go have your do tended to

Holiday for the Shemsu of Heru -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Independence Day -- Madagascar[Fetin'ny Fahaleovantena]; Somalia

International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking -- UN

International Day in Support of Victims of Torture -- UN

National Canoe Day -- Canada

National Chocolate Pudding Day

St. Pelayo's Day (Patron of abandoned people, torture victims; Castro Urdiales, Spain; Torreira, Portugal)

Sunthorn Phu Day -- Thailand (celebration of the country's best-known Royal Poet)

Ziua Tricolorului -- Romania (Flag Day)

Birthdays Today:

Jennette McCurdy, 1992

Jason Schwartzman, 1980

Derek Jeter, 1974

Gretchen Wilson, 1973

Chris O'Donnell, 1970

Paul Thomas Anderson, 1970

Sean P. Hayes, 1970

Harriet Wheeler, 1963

Greg LeMond, 1961

Chris Isaak, 1956

Claudio Abbado, 1933

Eleanor Parker, 1922

Charlotte Zolotow, 1915

"Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, 1914

Colonel Tom Parker, 1909

Peter Lorre, 1904

Pearl S. Buck, 1892

Sir Robert Laird Borden, 1854

Lord Kelvin, 1824

Abner Doubleday, 1819

Arthur Middleton, 1742

Debuting/Premiering Today:

For Your Eyes Only(Film), 1981

"Absurd Person Singular"(Play), 1972

"A Hard Day's Night"(Album, US version, release), 1964

"The Valkyrie"(Opera, WWV 86B), 1870

Today in History:

Roman Emperor Julian is killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire; General Jovian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops on the battlefield, 363

The legendary Pied Piper leads 130 children out of Hamelin, German, 1284

Richard III is crowned king of England, 1483

Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima, 1541

W. K. Clarkson patents the first bicycle, 1819

The Christian  holiday of Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States, 1870

The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity, 1909

The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco, 1945

William Shockley files the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor, 1948

The Berlin Airlift begins, 1948

The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens, opening North America's Great Lakes to ocean-going ships, 1959

The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, 1974

Indira Gandhi establishes emergency rule in India, 1975

The CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, is opened to general public, 1976*

Biologists J. Craig Venter and Francis S. Collins announced that their research groups had mapped the human genome, 2000

Wangdue Phodrang Dzong, the four thousand year-old ridge-top monastery in Bhutan catches fire and is destroyed; no relics were lost in the fire because the monastery was under renovation, 2012

Following the military coup in Thailand, people are warned that anyone calling for protest on social media will be prosecuted for sedition, 2014

The city of Falluja is freed from Islamic State control after a month-long campaign by Iraqi forces, 2016

Iceland’s presidential election is won by history professor Guðni Jóhannesson, 2016

The Panama Canal's third set of locks opens for commercial traffic, doubling the Canal’s capacity, 2016

A polio outbreak is confirmed in New Guinea by the World Health Organization, 18 years after it was declared free of the disease, 2018

More than 5,000 smuggled turtles are discovered in luggage at the Kuala Lumpur Airport, Malaysia, bound for India, 2019

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou declares a water emergency for Montevideo due to drought, 2023

*It is still the tallest in the Western Hemisphere