How to Keep the Pipes Warm When Your Faucet Is Broken (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 lissa on her blog.

This week's prompts are: 

1. black eye

2. car wash

3. mud bath

4. jelly bean

5. duct tape

Charlotte's colour of the month is Electric Rose.

Our #2 Son, he of the BLACK EYE (slightly) after a run-in with a tool, was ready to fix our car.

It needed VVT solenoids, a valve cover gasket, new spark plugs and a fuel injector cleaning.

It's not something you can fix with DUCT TAPE, which is my favorite tool, so i wasn't much help, but Daughter-in-Law did help him a lot and i watched our little Annie in her Electric Rose shirt and brown pants with the horses on them.  She and i took a walk up the street, then back, then sat and played with the rocks in the gravel part of the driveway.  Some of the rocks almost look like JELLY BEANS, and you have to watch closely or she'll put them in her mouth.

Under the hood of the car, it looked like it had taken a MUD BATH and needed to go through the CAR WASH by itself.  A leaky gasket means oil getting out to where it shouldn't be, and it was everywhere.

Of course, you can't do that, wash it, that is.  It had to be cleaned with a wire brush after he took the cover off and got the spark plugs and solenoids out.  The remaining chunks of the bad gasket were especially hard to remove.

He did it, though.  Slow-Moe has new spark plugs, solenoids, and the gasket is holding firm.  He put a special treatment in the gas tank to clean the fuel injectors and there's no more sign of an oil leak.

As for the brakes, we have a couple of thousand more miles before they will have to be changed, so for right now, it's nice to have the car running again.

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Today is:

Biezputras Diena (Porrige Day) -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (date unconfirmed, some sites suggest it's always on a Sunday before Feb. 23 instead)

Create-A-Vacuum Day -- an internet generated celebration of the nothingness of vacuums

General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Day -- Poland (birth anniversary)

Homemade Soup Day

Independence Day -- Sri Lanka

King Frost Day -- London (Celebrated yearly until WWI, in remembrance of the frozen River Thames on this day in 1814.)

Liberation Day -- Angola

National Girls and Women in Sports Day -- US      

National Stuffed Mushroom Day

Quacker Day -- for those who love Quacker Factory clothes

Spoiled Cats' Day -- internet generated, and isn't this every day?

St. Andrew Corsini's Day (Patron of Carmelites; against civil disorder and riots)

St. John de Brito's Day (Patron of Portugal; Sivagangai, India)

Thank A Mailperson/Postal Worker Day -- because someone decided it would be a good day to do that, and put it on the internet

USO Day -- US (founded this date in 1941)

World Cancer Day -- International   

Anniversaries Today:

United Service Organizations (USO) founded, 1941

The University of Wisconsin is established, with one classroom and 20 students, 1849

Birthdays Today:

Natalie Imbruglia, 1975

Oscar De La Hoya, 1973

Gabrielle Anwar, 1971

Michael Goorjian, 1971

Rod Corddry, 1971

Clint Black, 1962

Lawrence Taylor, 1959

Lisa Eichhorn, 1952

Alice Cooper, 1948

Dan Quayle, 1947

George A. Romero, 1940

John Schuck, 1940

David Brenner, 1936

Gary Conway, 1936

Betty Friedan, 1921

Ida Lupino, 1918

Rosa Parks, 1913

Clyde W. Tombaugh, 1906

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906

Charles Lindbergh, 1902

Tadeusz Kosciuszko, 1746

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours"(Album), 1977

Today in History:

The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies, leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons, Caracalla and Geta, 211

The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song Dynasty period of China that would last more than three centuries, 960

Maximilian I assumes the title Holy Roman Emperor without being crowned, 1508

Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler meet for the first time near Prague 1600

In Edo (now Tokyo), The 47 Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) after avenging the death of their master, 1703

The worst earthquake in 8 years in Calabria, Italy, leaves 50,000 dead, 1783

The first Anglican bishops of New York and Pennsylvania are consecrated in London, 1787

George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College, 1789

The French National Convention proclaims the abolishment of slavery, 1794

An earthquake in Quito, Ecuador, kills 41,000, 1797

J.W. Goodrich introduces his rubber galoshes to the public, 1824

The Mormons of Nauvoo, Missouri, leave to go west, eventually settling in Utah, 1846

The Codex Sinaiticus is found at the Greek Monastery of Mount Sinai, 1859

The first rolling lift bridge opens, in Chicago, 1895

The first Winter Olympics games close at Chamonix, France, 1924

The first tieless, soundless, shockless streetcar tracks open, in New Orleans, 1930

Radium E is the first radioactive substance to be produced synthetically, 1936

The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops, 1941

Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft, 1967

After at first contesting the results, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic recognizes opposition victories in the November 1996 elections, 1997

Facebook, a mainstream online social network is founded by Mark Zuckerberg, 2004

The Federal Court of Australia's ruling in Roadshow Films v iiNet sets a precedent that Internet service providers (ISPs) are not responsible for what their users do with the services the ISPs provide them, 2010

The remains found the previous year in a dig at Leicester are confirmed to be those of King Richard III of England, 2013

Morocco's Mohammed VI switches on the world's largest solar plant near Ouarzazate, 2016

Denmark approves plans for world's first energy island in the North Sea to provide power to 3 million Europeans, 2021

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, whose crackdown on violent crime has taken El Salvador from being one of the most dangerous countries in Central America to one of the safest, wins re-election in a landslide, 2024

Zara Lachlan becomes the first woman and youngest person to slow row from Europe to South America, covering 3,600 nautical miles in 97 days, 2025