Zillions, a Wordless and Words for Wednesday A to Z Post

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Keith, 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.    

Elephant's Child is supplying the words this month.  

This week's prompts are:

• Extra
• Wisdom
• Memories
• Corner
• Imposing 

 

And/or 

• Dark 
• Shoulder
• Femininity
• Strength
• Manners 

Charlotte (MotherOwl)  has selected Missing Green as the colour of the month

As always, have fun.

Every year,  the title of my final A to Z is Zillions for one simple reason:  It is my  Little Girl’s birthday, and we love her zillions.  The photo for Wordless Wednesday above is her with foster kittens from years ago.

She was my EXTRA bonus baby, the one i should not have had.

Looking at the list of Wednesday’s words this week, there are plenty of MEMORIES i could talk about but i will choose a few.

There were DARK times, like when she was a wee tyke and had been badly bitten by mosquitoes, then gotten impetigo, then had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic and was covered with hives on top of the bites and impetigo.  When i couldn’t hold her because i had to cook or clean, she would huddle in a CORNER, just whimpering.

Then when she was 12, her brother built a bike ramp and enticed her to use it, resulting in breaking her arm near her SHOULDER.  The sweet baby started her first period the next day.  Talk about some misery!

The same STRENGTH which saw her through harder times also got her through boot camp and as an Army medic, she was quite IMPOSING.  During the early Covid days, her unit was stationed at a testing site and med school students were assisting who didn’t know how to properly put on and take off their PPE (personal protective equipment).

She pitched a fit, but more she had the WISDOM to make them all come to a class she developed to teach them what to do, and received a special citation for it.

While she does look stern in a uniform, whether camouflage (which i’m sure has Missing Green in it, it has several shades) or dress blues, she also has FEMININITY and charm and is beautiful when all dressed up.  If you don’t believe me, ask her fiancé.  He’s as smitten as we are.

She's going to be graduating soon and they're planning the wedding for October.  We can all hardly wait.

Do i really need to say she knows how to use her MANNERS?  

We love you, our (Not So Little Any More) Little Girl, happy birthday.

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Today is National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day in the US.

It's also National Tabby Cat Day in the US.

Thanks to Barb Kowalik and The Cat Blogosphere for the event badges.         

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Today is:

Administrative Professionals Day -- US

Armed Forces Day -- Georgia

Birthday of the King / Konungens födelsedag -- Sweden (HM King Carl XVI Gustav; an official flag day)

Bugs Bunny Day -- while some consider his debut to have been in "A Wild Hare," released in July two years later, others say that Bugs was the rabbit in "Porky's Hare Hunt," relased this date in 1938

Camarón Day -- French Foreign Legion

Carnival Day -- Sint Maarten

Consumer Protection Day -- Thailand

Díá De Los Niños/Díá De Los Libros -- American Library Association (Children Day/Book Day; a celebration that emphasizes the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds)http://dia.ala.org/content/about-d%C3%ADa

Dia de Rincon -- Rincon, Bonaire

El Dia del Nino -- Mexico (Children's Day)

Faeriae Latinae -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Feast of the Latin League, a festival to honor Jupiter)

International Guide Dog Day

International Jazz Day -- UNESCO (originated with the New Jersey Jazz Society and sanctioned by the United Nations Jazz Society, the American Federation of Jazz Societies, and the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society, this year's live concert will be broadcast from Dubai)   

Liberation/Reunification Day -- Vietnam

May Eve -- eve of the first day of summer in many traditions, including

     Beltane/Samhain Eve -- Pagan traditions

     Carodejnice -- Czech Republic; Slovakia

     Maitag Vorabend -- Switzerland

     Mange les Morts -- Haiti (festival of the dead)

     Salus -- Portugal; Spain (festival of the dead)

     Valborgsmässoafton -- Sweden

     Walpurgis Night -- Ancient Celtic/Nordic Calendars

Mr. Potato Head Day -- the classic toy went on sale this day in 1952, and you used your own potato

National Honesty Day -- including Honest Abe Awards (Abies) and dishonorable mentions for those who have been particularly publicly egregious; celebrated today because we began the month with April Fooling and lies, so today is to celebrate the opposite*

National Military Brats Day -- US (Military Brats, Inc., wants the US Congress to set aside a day to recognize the sacrifices of the children of military service men and women)   

National Oatmeal Cookie Day

National Raisin Day

National Therapy Animal Day

St. Adjutor of Vernon's Day (Patron of drowning victims, sailors, swimmers, yachtsmen; Vernon, France; against drowning)

St. James the Great's Day -- Orthodox Christian

Teacher's Day -- Paraguay

Walk @ Lunch Day -- founded and encouraged by Blue Cross / Blue Shield

Yom Ha'Atzmaut -- Israel (Independence Day; through nightfall)

*to nominate someone for an Abie or a dishonorable mention, contact M. Hirsh Goldberg, founder and author of The Book of Lies, mhgoldberg@comcast.net)

Anniversaries Today:

Pele marries Assiria Seixas Lemos, 1994

The Organization of American States is founded, 1948

Louisiana becomes the 18th US state, 1812

Birthdays Today:

Dianna Agron, 1986

Kirsten Dunst, 1982

Johnny Galecki, 1975

Jeff Timmons, 1973

Carolyn Dawn Johnson, 1971

Adrian Pasdar, 1965

Michael Waltrip, 1963

Isiah Thomas, 1961

Stuart Mathis, 1960

Stephen Harper, 1959

Jane Campion, 1954

Perry King, 1948

Carl XVI Gustav, King of Sweden, 1946

Michael J. Smith, 1945

Jill Clayburgh, 1944

Burt Young, 1940

Gary Collins, 1938

Willie Nelson, 1933

Cloris Leachman, 1926

Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, 1909

Eve Arden, 1908

Ellis Wilson, 1899

Louise Dilworth Beatty Homer, 1871

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Barnum"(Musical), 1980

"The Dresser"(Play), 1980

"Inside U.S.A."(Musical revue), 1948

"Arthur Godfrey Time"(Radio), 1945

"Pelleas et Melisande"(Opera), 1902

"Dmitri Donskoi"(Opera), 1852

"Love for Love"(Play), 1695

Today in History:

Supernova  SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appears in the constellation  Lupus, 1006

Orbital calculations suggest that on this day, Pluto moved inside Neptune's orbit until July 23, 1503, 1483

Columbus is given a royal commission to equip his fleet, 1492

On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States, 1789

The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France, 1803

Nicaragua  declares independence from the Central American Federation, 1838

Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to

make up time on the Cannonball Express, 1900

Honolulu, Hawaii becomes an independent city, 1907

Peru becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty, 1920

Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, 1927

The animated cartoon short Porky's Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit (a prototype of Bugs Bunny, 1938

In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established, 1948

The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company's refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom, 1963

Communist forces gain control of Saigon and the Vietnam War formally ends, 1975

Accession of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, 1980

CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free, 1993

Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 1999

Two skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and one of his sisters, 2008

Chrysler automobile company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, 2009

Hailed as the largest World's Fair in history, Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai, China, 2010

Born without a trachea, a 2-year-old Korean-Canadian child is the youngest patient in history to receive a bioengineered organ made from stem cells; she received the transplanted organ at the Children's Hospital of Illinois, 2013

Willem-Alexander becomes the first male Monarch of Netherlands in 123 years, following the abdication of his mother, Queen Beatrix, 2013

The MESSENGER spacecraft is intentionally deorbited and destroyed, 2015

A new species of water beetle from the Malaysian Borneo’s Maliau Basin is named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio, 2018

The world's oldest known spider, a female trapdoor in Western Australia, dies at the age of 43 after being stung by a wasp, 2018 

Japan’s Emperor Akihito declares his abdication, effective the next day, 2019

Captain Tom Moore, who raised more £30 million for the National Health Service by walking in his garden, turns 100 and is made an honorary colonel by the Queen, 2020

After surviving Ewing's sarcoma and receiving a prosthetic leg, Jacky Hunt-Broersma sets a world record by running 104 consecutive marathons in 104 days, 2022

Yes, Carl Keeps Me Hopping, a Random and Happy Tuesday A to Z Post

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     

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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.  

The dryer balls have been coming and going lately. 

Last Thursday when i cleaned the house, there were only four, whereas there were five the Monday before that.  Yesterday, another turned up.

No, i cannot figure out where they hide.  Unlike the ice packs, which he simply stashes any which way in the freezer, making them almost unusable for his cold vest.  At least he puts those back in the freezer at all.

This week i also found two of his missing washcloths.  They were in a shopping bag, he'd emptied the car again and he had them out there.  No, there's no telling what he needed washcloths for in the car.

Carl has decided he likes to use the Shout Color Catcher sheets in his laundry, he's always concerned color from one item will get on another although all his clothing, that i can tell, is colorfast.

This means i can often now tell what clothes are clean by whether they have color catcher sheets stuffed in them, or in the middle of the pile.

When Carl got up, he said something about staying home and i asked if he had work.  He said, "Well, um, yes, I asked to be scheduled off for today 'cause I work Friday evening..."

And did they give you the day off? i asked.

"Still thinking about it," he said cryptically, whereupon i told him to go to work so he doesn't get in trouble.

Later in the morning he explained they are not so much scheduling him to work evenings as he's volunteering to go in and work extra because they have no cart pushers for the evening shift this week.  "And I never get it all done!" he said sadly.

Of course not, i told him, as long as there's a customer in the building, carts will be out, it's not about getting it done, it's about rounding them up enough people can find one when they come in.  I also explained the constant need to round up more was his job security.  He didn't look convinced.

His fridge was a study, but at least he'd made a sandwich.

He wanted to talk about his weekend, as always.  "I saw The Last Supper Movie," he told me.  "It was good..." at this point he said something about using flashbacks and the ending part which i couldn't quite get, but he finished with, "the guy who played the Roman Soldier part looked like the guy from Star Trek!"  He laughed over the memory.

We were both in the kitchen, he getting breakfast while i was packing his lunch.  He said something which sounded like, "Peas out there," but it could have been peace, with him you never know.

Then he talked about crows fussing at each other until the sky was full of crows, i believe it was a cartoon he'd watched and it amused him highly.

Carl had pulled out several boxes from the pantry, mostly cereal and his usual things but he also had a box of instant mashed potatoes on the counter.  When i asked why, he simply said, "What potatoes?'  They'd probably just been in the way of something else he wanted.

Then i noticed he had his food on top of the as yet unread newspaper.  His long-suffering parents are accustomed to heaven knows what on the newspaper after he gets done with it, but this time i snagged it and set it aside, asking him to keep it clean so everyone could enjoy it.

"It doesn't seem warm!" he told me, and i responded the temperature was supposed to get up to about 90 degrees, so it would be warm, then i saw him put something back in the microwave.  Once it was going again, he said, "I guess that means lots of sunscreen and lots of water?"

It certainly does, i told him and made sure i packed extra water in his lunch.  Speaking of, i'd noticed his newest and cleanest ice chest he uses for lunches was missing.  I later found it in the car, with everything but a lunch in it.  It got cleaned out.

"Is hazelnut chocolate cream good?" he asked as he finished up his breakfast and heading for the sunscreen and everything else.  I guess so, i said, and he showed me the back of the cereal box.  It seems the big thing now is to show  how you can jazz up your breakfast bowl with extras and one of them had a hazelnut chocolate cream as one of the ingredients.

Yes, i told him, that would be Nutella, and it makes everything taste better if you like the stuff.

After his last minute rush for gloves and the sunglasses he already had, he got out the door on time.  Another successful week begun.  

Time for some funnies.  

Have a blessed and beautiful Tuesday, everyone!

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Today is:

Arita Ceramic Fair -- Arita, Japan (finest porcelain in Japan; during Golden Week until May 5)

Cheng Cheng Kung Landing Day -- Taiwan (anniversary of the landing in Taiwan of Ming Dynasty loyalist Cheng Cheng Kung to oust the Dutch colonists)

Feast of the Secret Masters -- can't find any real info on this one, and why should i if it's such a secret, but it is fun to think about

Fish Cleaning Night -- sponsored by David Letterman (it's okay if you don't have an audience, or Mariel Hemingway)

International Dance Day -- International Dance Committee of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), a UNESCO partner

National Adult Public Skipping Day -- because somebody out there either wants you to feel like a kid again, or make a fool of you

National Shrimp Scampi Day

"Peace" Rose Day -- an explanation of this name for the Rosa 'Madame A. Meilland variety   

Remembrance of Victims of Chemical Weapons -- on the day chemical weapons were outlawed in 1997

Ridvan, Ninth Day -- Baha'i (one of the festival days on which work and school should be suspended)

Runic Half Month of Lagu (water) begins

Showa No Hi -- Japan (Showa Day, the birth anniversary of Emperor Showa, begins the Golden Week holiday period of four major national days, through May 5)

Solar Alignment at Teotihuacan, City of the Gods -- Teotihuacan, Mexico (the ritual cave opening aligns to the sunset on Aug. 12 and Apr. 29, the same horizon position of the setting of the Pleiades)

St. Catherine of Siena's Day (Patron of fire prevention, firefighter, nurses, nursing services, people ridiculed for piety, sick people; Europe; Italy; Theta Phi Alpha Sorority; Allentown, PA, US; Siena, Italy; Verazze, Italy; against bodily ills/sickness, fire, miscarriages, sexual temptation)

World Wish Day -- from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, marking the date in 1980 that local police let seven-year-old leukemia patient Chris Grecicius be an officer for a day, sparking the idea of the Make-a-Wish Foundation

Yom HaZiKaron -- Israel (Memorial Day; begins at sunset)

Zipper Day -- while i can't confirm it, the modern zipper was supposedly patented on this day in 1913

Anniversaries Today:

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, marries Catherine "Kate" Middleton, 2011

Mike Nichols marries Diane Sawyer, 1988

Princess Irene marries Prince Carel Hugo de Bourbon Parma, 1964

Birthdays Today:

Andre Agassi, 1970

Uma Thurman, 1970

Carnie Wilson, 1968

Eve Plumb, 1958

Michelle Pfeiffer, 1958

Daniel Day-Lewis, 1957

Kate Mulgrew, 1955

Jerry Seinfeld, 1954

Nora Dunn, 1952

Dale Earnhardt, 1951

Johnny Miller, 1947

Zubin Mehta, 1936

Lane Smith, 1936

Rod McKuen, 1933

Robert Gottlieb, 1931

Celeste Holm, 1919

Tom Ewell, 1909

Hirohito, 1901

Duke Ellington, 1899

William Randolph Hearst, 1863

Oliver Ellsworth, 1745

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Hair"(Musical), 1968

"ABC's Wide World of Sports"(TV), 1961

"Young Dr. Malone"(Radio), 1940

"There Shall be No Night"(Play), 1940

Roget's Thesaurus(Publication date), 1852

Violin Sonata No. 32 in B-flat major(Mozart K. 454), 1784

Today in History:

The Moors arrive at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, 711

Joan of Arc arrives at Orleans to relieve the siege, 1492

Francis Drake leads a raid in the Bay of Cádiz, sinking at least 23 ships of the Spanish fleet, 1587

Eleven Dutch ships depart for the conquest of Peru, 1623

The Ming Dynasty occupies Taiwan, 1661

James Cook arrives at and names Botany Bay, Australia, 1770

The French Fleet prevents Britain from seizing the Cape of Good Hope, 1781

Peter Roget publishes the first edition of his Thesaurus, 1852

The "Elektromote" – forerunner of the trolleybus  – is tested by Ernst Werner von Siemens in Berlin, 1882

Gideon Sundbach of Hoboken, NJ, receives a patent for the zipper, 1913

The North Sea floodgate at Ijmuiden, the biggest in world, officially opens, 1930

The telephone connection of England-Australia goes into service, 1930

The first U.S. experimental 3D-TV broadcast airs, and episode of "Space Patrol" shown over ABC affiliate KECA in Los Angeles, 1953

The first military nuclear power plant opens, in Ft. Belvoir 1957

A cyclone strikes the Chittagong  district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 mph, killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless, 1991

Oldsmobile  builds its final car ending 107 years of production, 2004

Syria completes withdrawal from Lebanon, ending 29 years of occupation, 2005

Economic losses mount and class action lawsuits are filed as the U.S. Coast Guard plans a controlled burn to remove spilled oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, 2010

The International Chemical Weapons Convention deadline for chemical weapon stockpiles comes into effect, 2012

German Measles is declared eradicated from North and South America, the first world regions to do so, 2015

The animated series “The Simpsons” surpasses the "Gunsmoke" 635-episode count to have highest episode count of any series on TV, 2018

A mile-wide asteroid, 1998 OR2, passes within 3.9 million miles of Earth, 2020

The world's longest pedestrian bridge (516 metres / 1,700 feet) opens inside northern Portugal's Arouca Geopark, 2021

The Bach Long (White Dragon) bridge opens in Moc Chau Island mountain park and resort, Vietnam, becoming the world's longest glass-bottom bridge, 2022