Not the Usual in the Swamps (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Steve at BeThere2Day, Catsynth, 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 Elephant's Child is providing the prompts, and we thank her for continuing to herd the cats and facilitate our ability to enjoy Words for Wednesday.    

This week's prompts are:

• Kiss
• Hope
• Grinned
• Dark
• Shock 

 

And/or

 

• High
• Places
• Fiends
• Friday
• Why 
  

 Charlotte (MotherOwl)  has selected New Start Yellow as the colour of the month.

 As always, have fun

Believe it or not, it's something i always HOPE doesn't happen.  Snow in the swamps, that is.

WHY?  Because we aren't prepared for it.  Our wildlife doesn't know what to do it with it and it causes lots of native plants to suffer.

It's a SHOCK to our systems, as well, and you can KISS good-bye any possibility of going anywhere.  Grocery stores are DARK, convenience stores with gas stations can't get people to come in, and often don't want to ask employees to come, it's too dangerous.

Still, some people think they have PLACES to go and get out on the roads, only to slide right off and end up straining our emergency services.  We got Emergency Alerts, texts and emails begging us to stay off the roads because of the number of accidents.

There's a HIGH possibility the roads will be worse the day after, as the stuff does melt but then refreezes at night to become ice by the next morning.

While every child GRINNED at the possibility and is happy now, like the ones pictured above who tied a river tubing float to the back of the golf cart and are being pulled on a joyride, they'll be making up school days later and not liking that so much.

Another one not liking all this is Brother-in-Law.  His full story is complicated but it all boils down to lack of planning on his part does not constitute an emergency on our part.  We cannot risk our lives or our cars, which are not equipped to navigate in snow, to go get him, and although he brags about how he learned to drive in snow he is unwilling to risk his car, either, so he's stuck at his apartment and he did not buy groceries and plan to stay in for a couple of days.

He thinks we are FIENDS for refusing to come get him and i'm sure we'll hear about it for a long time to come, but the man never prepares for any emergency and expects everyone else to rescue him and it's time it stopped.

Meanwhile, if we are stuck at home until FRIDAY there will be little harm done to us beyond missing the income from a couple of days work and maybe he will be a little wiser about being prepared for such situations.

Oh, and no, we haven't seen any yellow snow, of the New Start Yellow variety or any other, and we know better than to mess with it if we do.

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It's Answer Your Cat's Questions Day!  Wellcat Holidays suggests you meditate on what your cat's question might be, then answer it.

(Thanks to Barb Kowalik and The Cat Blogosphere for the event badge.)         

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Today is:

Celebration of Life Day

Come in From the Cold Day -- somebody at an ecard company decided today would be a good day to do that

Dia de la Fundacion del Estado Pluinacional de Bolivia -- Bolivia

National Blonde Brownie Day -- i thought these were just called "blondies."

Polka Dot Day -- looking up why they are called "polka dots" gives lots of stories, but no concrete evidence; they were probably named after the dance craze that became fashionable around the same time the pattern appeared

St. Vincent of Zaragoza's Day (Spanish martyr and Patron of vine dressers, vinegar makers, vintners; Lisbon, Portugal; Portugal; vicenza, Italy; Vilamalla, Catalonia, Spain)

     a sunny day today indicates a good wine crop next season

Birthdays Today:

Christopher Masterson, 1980

Balthazar Getty, 1975

Olivia D'Abo, 1967

Steven Adler, 1965

Diane Lane, 1965

Michael Kelland Hutchence, 1960

Linda Blair, 1959

Steve Perry, 1949

John Hurt, 1940

Joseph Wambaugh, 1937

Seymour Cassel, 1937

Sam Cooke, 1935

Bill Bixby, 1934

Piper Laurie, 1932

Ann Sothern, 1909

Robert E. Howard, 1906

George Balanchine, 1904

Rosa Melba Ponselle, 1897

D.W. Griffith, 1875

Grigori Rasputin, 1869

August Strindberg, 1849

Richard Upjohn, 1802

Nat Turner, 1800

Lord Byron, 1788

Andre Ampère, 1775

Sir Francis Bacon, 1561

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Emergency!"(TV), 1972

"Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In"(TV), 1968

"The Crucible"(Miller play), 1953

"Our Town"(Wilder play), 1938

"Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"(Opera; Shostakovich Op.29), 1934

Today in History:

The first contingent of Swiss Guards arrive at the Vatican, 1506

Postal service between NYC and Boston is inaugurated, 1673

The Native American Iroquois tribes renew their allegiance to the British against the French, 1690

Spain ceded the Falkland Islands to Britain, 1771

A severe earthquake in southern Syria kills thousands, 1837

The Zulus attack the British Army camp in Isandhlwana, South Africa, 1879

The Ancient Egyptian obelisk "Cleopatra's Needle" is erected in Central Park, 1881

After 63 years, England stops the sale of Queen Victoria postage stamps series and begins King Edward VII series, 1901

First live radio commentary of a football match anywhere in the world, between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury, 1927

KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood, California, 1947

Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar module into space, 1968

The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service, 1970

The Singapore Declaration, one of the two most important documents to the uncodified constitution of the Commonwealth of Nations, is issued, 1971

The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous "1984" television commercial, 1984

Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet Computer worm, 1990

Kmart becomes the largest retailer in United States history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, 2002

Evo Morales is inaugurated as President of Bolivia, becoming the country's first indigenous president, 2006

Water vapour is detected on the dwarf planet Ceres, 2014

Winter storm conditions strand 500 motorists for 24 hours on the New Jersey turnpike in Pennsylvania, 2016

Netflix becomes the largest digital media and entertainment company in the world worth $100 billion, 2018

Australian surfer Laura Enever sets the world record riding the largest-ever wave by a woman at 43.6ft (13.3m) on Oahu's North Shore, Hawaii, 2023

The world's first mass vaccine program against Malaria begins in Yaoundé, Cameroon, after successful trials of RTS,S vaccine, 2024