Not What I Want To See (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.

For today the prompts are: 

Harvest

Golden 

Moon

Gentle

Cut

Stones

     and/or

Order

Panic

Quince

Roses

Soliloquy

Table

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

She never thought of her conversations with herself as a SOLILOQUY, but when the fancy struck her, she was quite amused by it.

It's true, she did have many conversations with herself, partly because she spent a lot of time alone, and partly because, as she used to say, "I like to talk to intelligent people and I like to hear intelligent people talk!"  

She always told people this with a sly grin, wondering if they'd get the joke.  The ones who did were few and far between, but she did seek out their company when she was in town for market days or errands.

Otherwise, she simply talked to herself, especially while in her garden.  From planting time to HARVEST, she could mostly be found outdoors working around her fruits and veggies and ROSES.  She grew produce from GOLDEN QUINCE to zucchini and took it to town on farm market days, having a TABLE at the market and regular customers for all her produce and the eggs her hens laid.  Some even liked to place a special ORDER now and then, especially when it was time to make the jams and preserves with her berries.

One day, out in her garden, she'd been deciding whether she was hungry enough to go inside and fix supper or if she preferred to wait and watch the sunset and see the MOON rise when she heard an unfamiliar noise.

It sounded like someone crying and yanking at her garden gate, which would be unusual as the nearest neighbor was down her lane, across the country road and up their lane, making it about a half mile walk.  Still, it was possible, as they had children, and she went and unlatched her gate.

A little girl of about five years, crying, stumbled in and was stammering what sounded like, "Oh, ma'am, please help! Please help!"

She knelt down and looked at the girl and said, "I'm glad to help, you need to not PANIC and tell me what happened."

The child was still crying and some of it was garbled, but the words "fell on the STONES" and "got CUT bad" were clear enough.  She stopped the child short with, "Let's get in my car and get over to your house quickly.  You're from almost right across the road, aren't you?"

The girl nodded and they went in through the back door, she grabbed her wallet and keys from the table next to the front door which always held them, and in just a couple of minutes they were pulling up at the other house.

As soon as they stopped the girl jumped from the car and ran, not to house, but toward the creek not far from it.  Following as quickly as she could while watching her step in the dim twilight, she saw a young teen boy lying on the ground.

"I've got her!" the girl cried and the boy's eyes flew open at first in surprise, then relief when he saw the neighbor.  He recognized her, though they'd never really spoken beyond hello.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, ma'am, but our parents are out for the night and I need help.  I was trying to catch one last fish for our supper when I slipped on a stone and have a nasty gash, plus I think my ankle is either sprung or broken."

Kneeling next to him, she took a Light Ivory handkerchief out of her pocket and started to daub at the cut, trying to be GENTLE.

"The cut's not too deep," she said, "but I don't want you to try to walk on it.  I'm going in the house to use your phone to call up Harv, he's in charge of the volunteer fire department, and they'll come out with the stretcher and get you to the hospital."

"Thank you, ma'am, little Cindy there has been practicing, but dialing the phone is still hard for her and I didn't remember the number to tell her for the neighbors house where our parents are.  It's their bridge night."

"Which neighbors?" she asked.

"The Lawrence's." he said.

She nodded and headed for the house, while Cindy stood by watching her brother with concerned eyes.

A few moments later she returned.

"I called Harv and they're on the way, and I called your parents at the Lawrence's place, they'll go straight to the hospital and meet you there.  I'm going to stay here with Cindy, feed her supper and get her ready for bed by the time all of you get back."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"This is what neighbors are for," she said.  A moment later, the volunteer firefighters came up the lane.  She waited until they were done, got Cindy fed and bathed and in her jammies, and let her nap on the couch until her parents arrived.

Her brother would stay in the hospital overnight, and his parents were most grateful for her assistance.

She waved them off with, "This is what neighbors do, and please, don't be strangers.  All of you come by soon to visit!"

They promised they would, and she went home. tired and having missed her sky show, but hoping she'd gained friends.

(I had no clue where the story was going when it started, and i imagined this from a time when my Papa lived in the country, the nearest neighbor was about a half mile walk across the road, and phones were rotary dial so you had to know how to dial them correctly and have the numbers written down or memorized.)

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Today is:

Air Conditioner Day -- the first modern electrical air conditioning unit, invented by William Carrier, began working on this day in 1902

Ashura -- Islam (optional day of fasting that ends at sundown, local observances and national holidays may vary)

Constitution Day -- South Korea

Feast of St. Kenelm -- saint mentioned in "The Nun's Priest's Tale" of The Canterbury Takes

Feast of the Clockless NowEver -- can't find any confirmation on what this one is, but it sounds like fun if i don't have to bother with a clock or schedule

Festival for Victoria and Virtus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of victory and god of bravery in warfare)

Gion Matsuri -- Yakasa Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (one of the largest and best Gion festivals)

King Letsie III's Birthday -- Lesotho

National Peach Ice Cream Day

St. Alexius Day (Patron of Alexians, beggars, belt makers, nurses, pilgrims, travellers)

Wear Crazy Socks to Work Day -- at your own risk

World Day for International Justice

Wrong Way Corrigan Day -- anniversary of the flight of Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, who was supposedly heading for California from New York and ended up in Ireland instead

Yellow Pig Day -- mathmatics festivals at various universities, celebrating the number 17 and the yellow pig with 17 eyelashes, created by mathematicians Michael Spivak and David C. Kelly

Birthdays Today

Tash Hamilton, 1982

Alex Winter, 1965

Dawn Upshaw, 1960

Mark Burnett, 1960

Aaron Lansky, 1955

J. Michael Straczynski, 1954

David Hasselhoff, 1952

Phoebe Snow, 1952

Lucie Arnaz, 1951

Camilla Parker Bowles, 1947

Diahann Carroll, 1935

Donald Sutherland, 1934

Phyllis Diller, 1917

Art Linkletter, 1912

James Cagney, 1899

Berenice Abbott, 1898

Erle Stanley Gardner, 1889

John Jacob Astor, 1763

Elbridge Thomas Gerry, 1744

Isaac Watts, 1674

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Yellow Submarine(Animated film), 1968

Punch(Magazine, first publication), 1841

Today in History

Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians, the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world, 180

Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China, 1402

Catherine II (the Great) becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia, 1762

Londoner Thomas Saint patented the first sewing machine, 1790

The first issue of Punch magazine was published, England, 1841

The Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston as the first dental school in the U.S, 1867

On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia, 1918

The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; 5 lives are lost, 1918

An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain begins the Spanish Civil War, 1936

After being denied permission to make a transatlantic crossing, Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan, 1928

Disneyland televises its grand opening in Anaheim, California, 1955

An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations, 1975

The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team, 1976

The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business, 1997

A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless, 1998

A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, 1998

South Korea develops a long range cruise missile, 2010

Astronauts, Sunita Williams of the United States, Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Aki Hoshide of Japan, arrive at the International Space Station for a three-month long mission, 2012

In an effort to curb obesity rates, the United Arab Emirates offers its citizens one gram of gold for every kilogram of weight they lose, 2013

The discovery of the oldest evidence of bread, made from wild grains, is announced by archaeologists in a dig at a 14,000-year-old site in the Black Desert, Jordan, 2018

Typhoon Talim makes landfall on China's Guandong coast, forcing the evacuation of nearly 230,000 people, 2023