I'm Afraid to Ask (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Catsynth, Keith, 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 Hilary Melton-Butcher and can be found right here at River's blog.

This week's words/prompts are:

1.sculpture  

2.amendment  

3.timeline  

4.bog  

5.castle

and/or:

1.sword  

2.crew  

3.buffalo  

4.forest  

5.variation

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

Charlotte's colour of the month is Razzmatazz.

You never know where your family will drag you next for vacation.

Yes, it's that time of year again, the time to watch all your friends go off to cool amusement parks, national parks, or summer camps, or just get to hang around at home most of the time sleeping in.

Meanwhile, your family has to do something "educational" for a vacation every summer.

A few years ago, it was, "Let's go to our nation's capital, and while there, make the kids learn the TIMELINE of the presidents and all of the first ten AMENDMENTs."

Next it was, "Let's go to Europe and make them tour some CASTLEs and other places of historic interest!"  Some castles they were, most were just ruins, no guards with a SWORD or knights or anything.

The, "It's time for them to learn about different ecosystems and environments from BOG to desert to FOREST" could have been okay, but we ended up mostly in the car driving from place to place for hours with nothing to do, and when we got there, got lectures about flora and fauna.  The best part of the whole trip was when a BUFFALO got mad at the tour guide/lecturer and tried to chase him but he got back in the tour vehicle fast enough.

We can't forget "The Great Museum Run."  No matter how many famous paintings we saw, yellow is still yellow not corn and lemon and canary and saffron, and pink is still pink, not baby and bubblegum and Razzmatazz.  As for the SCULPTUREs, they were all either naked people or weird or both.

Last year, we went to the place where they have a CREW of people who re-enact being colonists from the early part of our country's history and had to learn all about stuff like making our own tools or chopping wood for a fire 'cause there's no other heat in winter and Dad decided to try his hand at chopping wood, thinking it wouldn't be hard, and sprained his shoulder and we had to come home early.

This year for a VARIATION, all of us but Mom voted for Dollywood ('cause after last year, Dad's tired of education, too) but Mom wants us to go see some Native American places carved into cliffs.  I don't get how Mom's one vote is more than our three votes, but it is.

Next year, I want to get adopted into another family for vacation time!

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Today is:

Broken Dolls Day -- Japan (all broken dolls are taken by their children to monks for burial)

Callynteria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (a service of atonement and cleaning Athena's temple; date approximate)

Chimborazo Day -- to publicize that while Mt. Everest may be the highest, the top of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest from the center of the earth

Clean Air Day -- Canada

Dr. Charles Drew Day -- honoring the man who made blood transfusions possible

Festival to Bellona -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of war)

Global Running Day   

Impersonate Authority Day -- at your own risk, i will not bail you out just because i noted an internet holiday and you decided to celebrate it ;)

Jack Jouett Day -- Virginia (the "Paul Revere" of his day and place, rode to warn Governor Thomas Jefferson that the British were coming, 1781)

Mabo Day -- Australia

Martyr's Day -- Uganda

National Chocolate Macaroon Day

National Egg Day

Opium Suppression Movement Day -- Taiwan

Pull Your Pants Up Day -- internet generated, various dates given, and some are trying to make it a national movement; to encourage young men to pull up their pants for 24 hours and see if they enjoy having both hands free

Repeat Day -- i said, "repeat day" (no, i don't know who comes up with this stuff, sometimes; if i do, i try to place the blame appropriately)

St. Clotilde's Day (Patron of adopted children, brides, disappointing children, exiles, parenthood, parents of large families, queens, widows; against the death of children)

St. Kevin of Glendaulough's Day (Patron of blackbirds; Dublin, Ireland; Glendaulough, Ireland; Ireland)

Tailor's Day -- the first Wednesday of June is noted on many sites as the day to thank your tailor

Turtle Races -- Nisswa, MN, US (Wednesdays through August 12th, go race a turtle, it's only $5 to adopt a turtle for the race and get a participation racing button, and you might even win a cool prize!

Anniversaries Today:

U.S. Air Force Academy first graduating class, 1959

The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson, 1937

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo founded, 17

Birthdays Today:

Lalaine, 1987

Rafael Nadal, 1986

Anderson Cooper, 1967

Charles Hart, 1961

Scott Valentine, 1958

Denice Williams, 1951

Suzi Quatro, 1950

Curtis Mayfield, 1942

Larry McMurtry, 1936

Norman Brinker, 1931

Raul Castro, 1931

Chuck Barris, 1929

Colleen Dewhurst, 1926

Allen Ginsberg, 1926

Tony Curtis, 1925

Leo Gorcey, 1917

Josephine Baker, 1906

Dr. Charles Drew, 1904

Ransom E. Olds, 1864

Jefferson Davis, 1808

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Dragnet"(Radio), 1951

“Casey at the Bat”(Publication date), 1888

Today in History:

French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy, 1140

Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain, 1539 

Construction of the oldest stone church in French North America, Notre-Dame-des-Anges, begins at Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, 1620

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo is founded in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, 1770

President John Adams moves to Washington, D.C., to live in a tavern (the White House wasn't ready), 1800

In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, which prompts the First Opium War, 1839

In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, Cree leader Big Bear escapes the North West Mounted Police, 1885

The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in the San Francisco Examiner, 1888

The coast-to-coast Canadian Pacific Railway is completed, 1889

One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, British Columbia, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa, Ontario, 1935

Launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew, which included the first space walk by an American, 1965

A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels of oil to be spilled into the waters, the worst oil spill ever recorded, 1979

SkyDome is officially opened in Toronto, Ontario, 1989

Aboriginal Land Rights are granted in Australia in Mabo v Queensland (1988), a case brought by Eddie Mabo, 1992

USS Carter Hall engages pirates after they board the Danish ship Danica White off the coast of Somalia, 2007

A pageant on London's River Thames marks the highpoint of a series of events celebrating The Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, 2012

Three of the most extremely well-preserved and most complete triceratops specimens ever found are unearthed in Wyoming, 2013

The Amazing world of Dr Seuss Museum opens in Springfield, Massachusetts, 2017

Guatemala's Fuego volcano erupts, causing widespread death and destruction, 2018

NASA launches 128 baby squid and 5,000 microscopic animals, to study effects of spaceflight, to the International Space Station aboard Space X's Falcon 9 rocket, 2021

Lee Jae-Myung of the Democratic Party is elected the 14th president of South Korea in snap election, 2025