I'm Retired, Go Around Me (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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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.    

Much thanks again to Charlotte (MotherOwl) for providing the prompts last month. 

This month, yours truly is providing the prompts on my blog.

Please feel free to use some of the prompts, none of them, or all of them as you see fit.  The point is to get the creative juices flowing in whatever manner your muse leads you.

This week's prompts are:

district

slippery

feast

stop

paper

recruit

and/or

concede

threaten

screen

gain

enhance

gasp

As an additional prompt you may wish to use, Charlotte(MotherOwl) has chosen Straw Yellow as the color of the month.

Jensen looked up from his computer SCREEN to see Manny leading Mr. Zabriski in.  Manny looked sheepish and Mr. Zabriski looked as he so often did, grumpy.

"Tell your man to STOP treating me like a child!" Mr. Zabriski fairly bristled with anger.

Manny said, "Sorry to disturb you, boss, but Mr. Zabriski was trying to look through the windows of his new neighbor, Mr. Fellham.  I tried to explain to him, nicely, we don't allow such snooping..."

"It wasn't snooping!  I'll have you know, I think this new man is a spy!"

Jensen glanced at Manny and then the door, and Manny, quick to read his boss, took the hint.  He was glad not to have to deal with this directly, anyway.

"Okay, Mr. Zabriski, sit down and tell me what's going on," Jensen said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

"This DISTRICT has a spy, and I am almost totally convinced it's the new guy.  He's here to GAIN information to ENHANCE his own district's ability to get the jump on ours."

"How do you think he's doing it?" Jensen asked, playing along, although he knew poor Mr. Zabriski was talking total nonsense.  It was always best to let him talk himself out.

"He's trying to GAIN people's confidence here.  Remember the FEAST he gave when he moved in, inviting all the neighbors?  I was suspicious then, and while he was distracted, I had a moment to look into a couple of the moving boxes he'd put in the garbage bin.  He had wrapped things in what I first thought was regular newspaper, but the PAPER was an odd Straw Yellow color and covered with a foreign language!  It made me GASP to see it, but I tried not to let it show, you have to be careful.

"I just know he's here to RECRUIT people and gain more spies, as well as get information out of us.  These spies are SLIPPERY and won't let you figure them out easily, but I'm onto him.  We have to prove who he really is and who he's working for, or it will ruin us all!"

Jensen knew he had to pick his next words very carefully.  Mr. Zabriski was mostly harmless but could get his dander up and Jensen wanted to diffuse this situation.  He knew from experience Mr. Zabriski would soon forget this whole mess and be onto something else.  He really needed to get his brother-in-law, the lawyer, to give him some advice on how to take care of the older man, as he had no family and his mind was getting worse all the time, now to the point of thinking a new resident sharing home baked cookies was throwing a feast and that the poor guy was a spy.  Something would have to give.

Meanwhile, he had to say something to CONCEDE to Mr. Zabriski's current state of mind without putting Mr. Fellham in a position to be harassed by him.

Jensen suddenly had an idea.

"Mr. Zabriski, as a district manager, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Fellham is a spy."

"See!  I knew it!  I knew it!"

"But he's not a spy for another district, he's a spy for ours."  Jensen got up from the desk, moved toward his window, and looked out.  Yep, there was Manny, who always managed to hang around somewhere when Mr. Zabriski was on a tear about something.  Talk about a spy!

Mr. Zabriski was staring at him and he continued, "Fellham is our top man for ferreting out moles within our own district.  He's got a job nearby and is keeping his eyes and ears open and you really need to not blow his cover so he can do his job."

Mr. Zabriski straightened up in his chair and said, "Yes, sir!  If you're sure of him, and that's why he's here, you and he will have no trouble from me.  Moles need to be caught and taught a lesson, and I won't stand in his way.  Thank you for listening and letting me know, and I promise I won't breathe a word of it!"

Jensen opened the door and let Mr. Zabriski out, and Manny stood up at the open window.  He was shaking his head.

"A month ago it was robot bugs being let loose on the grounds and now it's spies and districts, Boss, what are we going to do for him?  He's getting worse."

"I know, Manny, and we'll do something, but I have to consult a lawyer first.  Meanwhile, we'll just have to keep an eye on him."

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Today is:

Accession Day -- United Arab Emirates (accession of H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan)

Feast of Everything Green Except Money -- Hooray for veggies! You'll need them before you have that root beer float.

Festival of Nut and Ra; Chief Festival of Thoth -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Festival Wednesday/East End Parade -- British Virgin Islands

Hiroshima Day

Independence Day / National Day -- Bolivia; Jamaica

National Fresh Breath (Halitosis) Day -- shouldn't that read, anti-halitosis?

National Root Beer Float Day -- A&W Root Beer really gets into this day  

Peace Festival -- Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima, Japan

Sts. Justus and Pastor's Day (Patrons of Alcala, Spain; Madrid, Spain)

Tanabata Festival -- Sendai, Japan (Japan's largest Tanabata 'Star Festival', through the 8th)

Teinne Festival -- Ancient Celtic Calendar (Teinne, the Celtic Holy Fire, sometimes called Tan; date approximate)

Transfiguration of the Lord -- Orthodox Christian

Wiggle Your Toes Day -- internet generated, and my suggestion is to celebrate it with a cool drink out by the pool if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, and by toasting your toes in front of a fire if you are in the Southern Hemisphere

Birthdays Today:

Romola Garai, 1982

Melissa George, 1976

Soleil Moon Frye, 1976

M. Night Shyamalan, 1970

Michelle Yeoh, 1962

Catherine Hicks, 1951

Dorian Harewood, 1950

Shirley Ann Jackson, 1946

Peter Bonerz, 1938

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob, 1934

Andy Warhol, 1928

Robert Mitchum, 1817

Lucille Ball, 1911

Clara Bow, 1905

Hoot Gibson, 1892

Alexander Fleming, 1881

Louella Parsons, 1881

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, 1861

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809 

Daniel O'Connell, 1775

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Help"(Album debut), 1965

Today in History:

Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada founds the city of Bogota, Colombia, 1538

Holland (The Dutch Republic) sells Brazil to Portugal and the two 

countries sign the Treaty of The Hague, 1661

The first private military school in the US, Norwich University, is 

founded in Vermont, 1819

The Russian Geographical Society is founded in Saint Petersburg, 1845

William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by the electric chair, 1890

Alice Ramsey takes three friends (none of whom could drive) to become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, 1909

Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel, 1926

Prometheus, a bristlecone pine and the world's oldest tree, is cut down by the US National Forest Service, for reasons even they cannot explain, 1964

The Federal Voting Rights Act is signed, 1965

A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney, 1986

The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, 1990

NASA makes the still disputed announcement that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms, 1996

The incoming coalition government of the United Kingdom discontinues the use of the controversial ContactPoint database of all children in that country, 2010

After a century of silence, Mount Tongariro in New Zealand erupts, spreading volcanic ash across the country's central North Island and affecting airports, 2012

The Curiosity Rover, controlled by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, lands safely on the surface of Mars, 2012

The world's largest ever Pinball tournament, "Pinburgh," is held in Pittsburgh, PA, US, with 700 machines, 2015

In an attempt to end 5 years of civil war, South Sudanese President Salva Kilr and rebel leader Riek Machar sign the South Sudan Peace Accord, 2018

According to the World Resources Institute, a quarter of humanity is running out of water, 2019

Director Greta Gerwig becomes the first solo female filmmaker to surpass US$1B at the global box office with the film, Barbie, 2023