Much Needed (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, Charlotte (MotherOwl ) is providing the prompts on her blog, and i am most grateful to her for doing so.  Next month it is my turn.

This week the prompts are

Alphabet

Bookends

Careful

Devoted

Gland

Elegy

and/or

Fabulous

Island

Legend

Mirror

Yak

Violent

Charlotte (MotherOwl) has also chosen Light Ivory as the color of the month.

"My, these are lovely!" Viola said to the hostess, looking at a pair of bookends which were obviously teak and interestingly carved.

"The Hawaiian ALPHABET BOOKENDS?  Thank you, I am very CAREFUL with them as we're DEVOTED to keeping them in good shape, even as we use them out here in the parlor," the hostess replied.

"Do they have a story?" Viola asked, wondering why the friend who had brought her to this event in this home had a peculiar look on her face.

"Of course they do," the hostess answered, "everything we own has a story.  When I was very, very ill with kidney and adrenal GLAND trouble and my poor, devoted husband was so worried he thought he'd be writing my ELEGY very soon, we heard about a FABULOUS doctor on one of the Hawaiian ISLANDs, and he used a blend of modern and traditional medicine to cure me.  While there, I admired these bookends.  They'd been carved by his grandfather so he would learn the letters when he was small, and he gave them to us as he said I was his favorite patient ever."

At this point Viola's friend piped up, "Later you need to tell her the LEGEND of the MIRROR, and about the Light Ivory YAK you met in Tibet that turned VIOLENT.  You certainly have some yarns, don't you!"

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Today is:

Always Live Better Than Yesterday Day

Cotton Candy Day

Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola -- (Founder of the Jesuits, especially revered in Spain; Patron of retreats, soldiers, and the Society of Jesus which he founded; Basque country; Bilbao, Spain; Bizkaia, Spain; Gipuzkoa, Spain; Guipuscoa, Spain; Guipúzcoa, Spain; Spiritual Exercises (by Pope Pius XI); Vizcaya, Spain)

Hachinohe Sansha Taisai -- Hachinohe City, Japan (one of the most elaborate neputa festivals, through Aug. 4)

Jump for Jellybeans Day

Ka Hae Hawai'i Day -- Hawai'i (State Flag Day)

Lammas Eve / Lughnassad Eve

Lithasblot -- Norse harvest festival with a "blot", or offering, to the gods, celebrated through tomorrow

Loki and Sigyn's Day - Asatru / Norse Pagan (aka Devoted Couples Day)

Make Homemade Ice Cream and Invite the Neighbors Over Day -- summer's almost over, make the most of the days we have left!

Moby Dick Marathon -- aboard the last US wooden whaler, the Charles W. Morgan, Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT, US (through tomorrow, from noon to noon, a marathon reading of Moby Dick in honor of Melville's birthday)

Mutts' Day -- because mutts deserve a day as much as purebreeds do!

National Raspberry Cake Day

St. Germanus' Day (Patron of Auxerre, France)

St. Joseph of Arimathea's Day -- Eastern Orthodox Church (Patron of funeral directors)

Uncommon Instruments Day    

World Ranger Day -- the International Ranger Federation wants us to honor wildlife rangers around the world as they work to protect the world's natural and cultural treasures, and remember those killed in the line of duty

Birthdays Today

Eric Lively, 1981

Dean Cain, 1966

J.K. Rowling, 1965

Jim Corr, 1964

Wesley Snipes, 1962

Bill Berry, 1958

Michael Biehn, 1956

Barry Van Dyke, 1951

Evonne Goolagong, 1951

Gary Lewis, 1946

Geraldine Chaplin, 1944

Susan Flannery, 1943

France Nuyen, 1939

Ted Cassidy, 1932

Don Murray, 1929

Curt Gowdy, 1919

Milton Friedman, 1912

Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Living Daylights(Film), 1987

"The Shadow"(Radio), 1930

Today in History

Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide, BC30

The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji, 781

Thessalonica falls to the Arabs, who destroy the city, 904

The Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree takes effect, 1492

On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus 

becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad, 1498

Aurangzeb is proclaimed Moghul emperor of India, 1658

The Treaty of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War, 1667

Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers, 1703

The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Marquis de Lafayette  "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States," 1777

First U.S. patent is issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process, 1790

Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city, 1856

The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia, 1865

The radio mystery program The Shadow is aired for the first time, 1930

Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius in Persepolis, 1938

First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio, 1954

At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning because of rain, 1961

The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy, 1970

Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover, 1971

NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, 1976

A rare, class F4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage, 1987

Georgia joins the United Nations, 1992

Fidel Castro hands over power temporarily to brother Raúl Castro, 2006

Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end, 2007

U.S. Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps wins a record 19th Olympic medal, with gold in the 4x200metres freestyle relay, 2012

Facebook discloses and removes a Russian-linked network of site pages that are attempting to interfere in American politics, 2018

American swimming superstar Katie Ledecky wins the women's 800m gold for an unprecedented third consecutive Olympics in Tokyo, 2021

The McKinney fire at Klamath National Forest, becomes California's largest fire of the year, 2022

Turtle Shells, Phones and Sailing Into Political Waters, a Random and Happy Tuesday Post

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It's time once again for a random and happy Tuesday, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked and Sandee at Comedy Plus.  

No, i'm not going to talk politics, just talk about talking about politics.  Sort of.

Even before heading to Carl's yesterday, i knew he was off work this week.

And they must have had company.  How would i know?  The floor cleaning pads i'd washed were dirty again and all the stuff from the kitchen table is on top of the dryer.

It's funny how your housekeeper knows so much about you, isn't it.

After determining he didn't have anything to be dealt with in the laundry room besides me looking for two of the missing dryer balls, i woke Carl and reminded him he had to go sleep in his chair so i could do the cleaning.

He stretched, got out of bed, brushed his teeth, and then started trying to clean the prodigious mess that is his room almost all the time, almost stepping on one of those dryer balls.  I later found the other in a pants pocket.  At least that way i knew the pants were clean.  Why he didn't remove it from the pocket before trying to put the pants away by stuffing them in the top of the closet we will never know.

I interrupted his sniffing clothes to find out of they were clean or dirty and reminded him i just rewash them all if they aren't hung up in the closet.  He then tried to start hanging up clothes and i had to run him out of his room so i could get the cleaning done, reminding him anything he was currently wearing would not get washed.

"Why not?" he asked.

Because i can't throw you in the washer and they are on you, i told him.

"Oh."  Then, "Yeah, right."

 

He left with his blanket and pillow, and came back about 15 minutes later.

"Bigger pillow!  Need to trade!" he said, so i let him pick one of his other three and put a clean pillowcase on it as those had been taken off and were already in the washer.

As he headed back to his sleep chair, he said, "We ate at a restaurant yesterday!"

I knew Ms. V, his mom, had a birthday and figured their other son and his wife had come in town for the celebration.  That's why the last minute cleaning and shuffling of stuff was done.

What'd you have? i asked him.

"Stuffed shrimp!" he said proudly, licking his lips.  "Someone had steak."

I'm glad you had a good time, i told him.

"We talked politics!" he said.

Dangerous, i told him, but in this case it wasn't really.  Their family are all mostly on the same page and are very respectful of each other in the few places they disagree.

He finally went to his chair and i noticed Mr. L wasn't asleep, but had the TV on and some type of earbuds in, probably so he could hear the TV without his hearing aids.

In order not to scare him, i try to make a point of making sure he sees me and knows i'm around, since his hearing is very bad, i know he won't hear me come in.  I went in and waved to him and he pointed to the TV.  "America's Cup in San Francisco!" he said.  

I had no idea he was into sailing, but he was obviously enthralled.  I just nodded and headed back to Carl's room.

For having a day off, Carl really came into his room very little.  At one point, he wanted to tell me about his plans for a pool party, then said he was going back to sleep for a short time.

I reminded him he could sleep for a long time if he wanted, but he set the timer in the kitchen for 23 minutes and 23 seconds.  Why that length of time is anyone's guess, but he didn't get up when the timer went off.  In fact, he was just getting out of bed when i had to run to the house mid-morning to tell my Sweetie something and he had his phone turned off.

Why was his phone turned off?  Because he'd already called me to let me know the car was working again and they checked it and told him it was a glitch.  This model car will sometimes have the power steering go out when you are stuck in slow traffic for long periods of time.  Just pull off the road, turn off the engine and let it reset itself, and then it will be fine.

Let's hope that holds true.

But anyway, he'd already spoken to me once, so why in the world would he need to talk to me again?

It's a good thing we don't live far from Carl's place, but #2 Son had put a turtle shell to finish drying in the back yard under a bucket the evening before and he didn't want it accidentally thrown away, as has happened previously with hides he was tanning or other hunting trophies he was trying to taxidermy.

By the time i got back from alerting Sweetie to leave the bucket with the bricks on top alone and why, Carl had showered in the hall bath instead of his own, which i had already cleaned for him, so i had to clean the hall one, too.

Ms. S across the street was my second client of the day, and she'd told me she was getting a new dryer.  Ms. V headed out for her morning walk and went over there to see the new arrival, and when i got there, we three ladies must have talked and laughed over husbands and phones and half a dozen other topics for a good thirty minutes.

It did us all some good.

In honor of Mr. L's obvious love of sailing, some funnies.

Have a blessed and beautiful Tuesday, everyone!

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Today is:

Dia del Amigo -- Paraguay

Father-in-Law Day -- unsponsored and unclaimed, but fathers-in-law deserve respect, too

Feast of the Throne -- Morocco; Western Sahara

Festival of Fortuna Huiusque Diei -- Ancient Roman Calendar ("Fortune of the Present Day")

Friendship Day/International Day of Friendship -- UN

Independence Day -- Vanuatu(1980)

Kronia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival of Kronos as god of the harvest; date approximate)

Martyr's Day -- South Sudan

National Cheesecake Day

National Support Public Education Day -- Change.org wants this to be an official day for support of US public education systems

Paperback Day -- anniversary of the 1935 publication of Penguin #1, Arial, A Life of Shelley, by Andre Maurois in London, the first successful series of paperback books

Sts. Abdon and Sennen's Day (Patrons of barrel makers and coopers; the ashes of ferns cut and burned on this day will keep away insects and unwanted guests)

Sumiyoshi Matsuri -- Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine, Osaka, Japan (Osaka's last major summer festival, through Aug. 1)

Anniversaries Today

Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, marries Michael Tindall, 2011

Birthdays Today

Hope Solo, 1981

Jaime Pressly, 1977

Misty May-Treanor, 1977

Hilary Swank, 1974

Tom Green, 1971

Simon Baker, 1969

Vivica A. Fox, 1964

Lisa Kudrow, 1963

Alton Brown, 1962

Laurence Fishburne, 1961

Kate Bush, 1958

Delta Burke, 1956

Ken Olin, 1954

Jean Reno, 1948

Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1947

William Atherton, 1947

David Sanborn, 1945

Paul Anka, 1941

Peter Bogdanovich, 1939

Buddy Guy, 1936

Allan Huber “Bud” Selig, 1934

Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, 1933

Thomas Sowell, 1930

Sid Krofft, 1929

Christine McGuire, 1926

Henry W. Bloch, 1922

Henry Spencer Moore, 1898

Casey Stengel, 1891

Henry Ford, 1863

Thorstein Bunde Veblen, 1857

Georg Wilhelm von Siemens, 1855

Emily Bronte, 1818

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Santa Barbara"(TV), 1984

"Death Valley Days"(Radio), 1930

Today in History

City of Baghdad is founded, 762

The First Defenestration of Prague, 1419

Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage, 1502

At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs, which set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years, 1608

In Jamestown, Virginia, the first European style representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time, 1619

An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills 10,000 people, 1629

Baltimore, Maryland is founded, 1729

Bartolomeo Rastrelli presents the newly-built Catherine Palace to Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers, 1756

First ascent of Grand Combin, one of the highest summits in the Alps,1859

Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, agreeing to stop the harassment of emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah, 1863

In Montevideo, Uruguay wins the first Football World Cup, 1930

Premiere of Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short, 1932

A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto, 1956

US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid, 1965

David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo Lunar Module module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon, 1971

Six Royal Canadian Army Cadets are killed and fifty-four injured in an accidental grenade blast at CFB Valcartier Cadet Camp, 1974

Jimmy Hoffa disappears, 1975

In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line, 2003

Israel and Palestinian officials agree to resume negotiations for a peace agreement, 2013

The first centenary of the WWI Battle of Passchendaele is marked at a ceremony at Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, 2017

NASA launches to Mars its Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter aboard a V 541 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 2020

Amazon becomes the second largest private employer in the US, after Walmart, 2021