Ms. G's Newest Toy (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.    

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Sean Jeating and they will appear on River's blog.

This week's words/prompts are:

1.become  

2.emigrate  

3.every  

4.reliable  

5.soonish

and/or:

1.disunited  

2.joining  

3.million  

4.referendum  

5.vote

use either list or both, or mix and match, just have fun.

Charlotte's colour of the month is Carmine.

Ms. G, who has cast a VOTE in every election and REFERENDUM since 1972, has long had a dream.

Like many of her generation, she dreamed of JOINING the MILLIONs of people who own an RV and drive across the country, seeing the sights.

She wasn't going to EMIGRATE from Louisiana permanently, just spend the hottest part of EVERY summer in a cooler part of the country.

The trouble, of course, is she used to be super woman.  She golfed, she fished, she did much of her own work when flipping houses.  She could do carpentry and some plumbing and electrical, could heft and lift as much as many men, and in doing all of it, she ruined her back, knees, and ankles.

Her grasp is DISUNITED, so to speak, from what she can actually reach and do.

Ms. G bought Patience, her camper, with the greatest of intentions, and did take a few trips to campgrounds within about a two- to three-hour drive.

It's BECOME increasingly obvious the amount of work it takes to hook the camper up to her truck hitch, the hefting and lifting and work involved in the whole process of setting up and breaking down at the campgrounds, and everything else in the maintenance, is too much for her now not-so-RELIABLE back and knees.

She's got a plan to sell Patience very SOONISH.  Meanwhile, she has already switched gears and the photo above is her new bag.

It's a pontoon boat, the smallest made.  Her favorite part of the camping trips she did take, and what she seems to miss most, is the fishing portion.  Her plan is to take this almost Carmine colored beauty and go fish.  It's supposed to be easier to hook up to her truck, and not hard to launch or put back on the trailer.

We'll see how this latest adventure pans out.

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Today is:

Fasching Carnival -- Munich, Germany (through Shrove Tuesday)

Festa del Tricolore -- Italy (Tricolour or Flag Day)

Harlem Globetrotters' Day -- anniversary of their first game in 1927

I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore Day -- declared by Bob O'Brien, Consumer Advocate, who encourages us to fight back

Nanakusa no Sekku -- Japan (Festival of Seven Herbs, dates back to the 7th century and recalls the medicinal herbs that were traditionally served to the emperor)

National Tempura Day

Nativity of Christ / Orthodox Christmas / Coptic Christmas -- Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians still using the Julian Calendar.

Old Rock Day -- a/k/a "St. Distaff's Day" or simply Distaff Day(the distaff, for spinning yarn, was also called a "rock"; today was the day women went back to spinning after the Christmas holidays)

St. Raymond of Penyafort's Day (Patron of attorneys, barristers, canonists, lawyers, and medical record librarians)

Usokae -- Kameido Tenmangu Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan (Bullfinch Exchange Day, Uso also means "lie" so when exchanging carved birds, it is considered a way of exchanging lies for the truth)

Victory Day over the Genocidal Regime -- Cambodia

Anniversary Today:

Princess Juliana of Netherlands weds Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, 1937

Birthdays Today:

Dustin Diamond, 1977

Jeremy Renner, 1971

Nick Cleg, 1967

Nicholas Cage, 1964

Katie Couric, 1957

David Caruso, 1956

Erin Gray, 1950

Kenny Loggins, 1948

Jann Wenner, 1947

Paul Revere, 1938

William Peter Blatty, 1928

Jean-Pierre Rampal, 1922

Vincent Gardenia, 1922

Charles Addams, 1912

Butterfly McQueen, 1911

Aristotle Onassis, 1906

Zora Neale Hurston, 1891

St Bernadette, 1844

Millard Fillmore, 1800

Jacques Etienne Montgolfier, 1745

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Video-Telephone, 1992 (US$1,499)

"Fame"(TV), 1982

"Flash Gordon"(comic strip), 1934

"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D."(comic strip), 1929

"Tarzan of the Apes"(comic strip), 1929

Transatlantic telephone service, 1927 (US$75 for 5 minutes)

Today in History:

Calais, the last English possession in France, is taken back by the French, 1558

Boris Godunov seizes the Russian throne upon the death of Feodore I, 1598

Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia, 1608

Galileo discovers the first 3 moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, and Ganymede), 1610

Francis Bacon becomes the English Lord Chancellor, 1618

A prototype typewriter is patented by Englishman Henry Mill, 1714

Battle at Panipat India: the Afghan army beats Mahratten, 1761

The Bank of North America opens in Philadelphia, the first US commercial bank, 1782

The first gas balloon flight across the English channel, by Blanchard and Jeffries, 1785

The modern Italian flag is first used, 1797

Liberia is colonized by Americans, 1822

The first railroad station in the US, in Baltimore, opens, 1830

Fanny Farmer publishes her first cookbook, 1896

The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS", 1904

The first steamboat passage through the Panama Canal, 1914

The Harlem Globetrotters play their first game, 1927

The first transatlantic telephone service is established – from New York City to London, 1927

"Buck Rogers", the first sci-fi comic strip, and "Tarzan," one of the first adventure comic strips, premier, 1929

Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast, 1931

The "Flash Gordon" comic strip (by Alex Raymond) debuts, 1934

President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed the hydrogen bomb, 1952

The first public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held in New York at the head office of IBM, 1954

Marian Anderson becomes the first black singer to perform at the Met (NYC), 1955

The Polaris missile is test launched, 1960

Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off, 1968

Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 1984

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union, 1985

The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public because of safety concerns, 1990

U.S. President Clinton goes on trial before the U.S. Senate for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, 1999

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics estimates at least 17 billion planets exist that are comparable to the size of the Earth, 2013

A terrorist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris kills 12 and injures 11, 2015

It snows in the Sahara Desert - up to 15 inches as reported in Aïn Séfra, Northwest Algeria, 2018

Puerto Rico suffers a 6.4 magnitude earthquake, its worst in almost a century, resulting in one death and 800 homes destroyed, 2020

A genetically modified pig's heart is successfully transplanted into a 53-year-old male patient in Baltimore, Maryland, US, 2022

The USDA approves the first ever vaccine for honeybees in the US, against the bacteria which causes American Foulbrood, 2023

Former US President Jimmy Carter lies in state in the US Capitol, 2025