I've Never Seen This Happen Before (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.baker  

2.canoe  

3.gable  

4.training  

5.rot

and/or:

1.lily-livered  

2.provisions  

3.barley  

4.arrow  

5.border

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

Charlotte's colour of the month is Razzmatazz.

"It's not that I'm LILY-LIVERED," she protested with a laugh at his choice of words.  "I'm just a bit cautious is all."

He smiled.  Her saying she was a bit cautious was almost like a ninja saying he was on the BORDER of being stealthy.

They were discussing what to do with the children come summertime.  Neither wanted the kids sitting around the house all day letting their brains ROT.  Both had gone to summer camps as kids themselves and believed in them.

The difference was she had always gone to what was called a "day camp," you were shuttled there every morning, just like you were taken to school during the rest of the year, and then came home in the afternoon.

He, on the other hand, had gone to "sleepover" camps where you went away for several weeks and just stayed there.

She remembered having fun, making friends, and being at home in her own bed every night.  He remembered having fun, making friends, and enjoying the fun of sleeping in a cabin in the woods at night.

Thus he was trying to talk her into sending the kids away, she was trying to convince him it was better to keep them nearby.

"Just look at this place," he said, glancing again at the brochure and information.  "They'd teach our son how to shoot a bow and ARROW properly, on an archery field.  It sure beats him making his own bow and arrows in the woods behind the house and practicing by shooting at our fence.  And they'd have TRAINING on how to paddle a CANOE, too.  You love the water, we could take a family vacation next summer, spend time on a river."

"I know," she said, looking out of the GABLE window with its Razzmatazz pink curtains over the fence at their son, way up in a tree again in what they called "the woods," a small treed area which led to a creek.  "But our daughter wants to become a BAKER.  Just yesterday she told me she found a recipe online that uses BARLEY and could I get her some.  The nearby camp has a cooking and baking session for those who choose it, and she'd love it.

"Also, you know what she said to me yesterday?  She said, 'I don't want to go on hikes where I have to carry my own PROVISIONS.  I'm like Grandmother, I think roughing it is a hotel with no room service!'"

They both laughed, and he said, "Well, there's another reason to send them both, he'd get some lessons in safety" -- glancing out the window at their son, now about to drop out said tree on purpose from a rather high distance -- "and she'd get a little more ready for the fact life isn't always going to be 'hotels with room service.'"

"Both camps have two summer sessions of four weeks each," he continued.  "We sign them both up for the first session at the overnight camp, then let our son stay for the second session and bring her home for the day camp cookery lessons for the second session."

She looked down, thinking, knowing it was really a good idea to do just that, but wondering how she'd break the news to their little girl, who was getting a little too fastidious for her own good.

"Deal," she said finally, and they both smiled, relieved the decision had been made.  Now to let the kids know they wouldn't be home sleeping in and doing nothing all summer long.

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Today is:

Abolition Day -- French Guiana

Alcoholics Anonymous Founders Day

    

Army Day -- Jordan

Ball Point Pen Day -- date, in 1943, Biro patented one of the early models of a ball point pen (it was as awful as the other early ones, though!)

Celtic Tree Month Duir (Oak) commences

Dia de Portugal e de Camoes -- Portugal (National Day)

Herbs & Spices Day

National Black Cow Day

National Iced Tea Day

National Time Out Day -- US, sponsored by The Association of Operating Room Nurses, which wants everyone involved in surgeries to take time out before the procedure to verify the surgery site, type, and patient and decrease OR errors  

Rape of Lidice/Lidice Memorial Day -- Czech Republic and Slovakia/New Jersey, US (in one of the most-remembered atrocities of WWII, the small town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, was invaded by Nazi troops who murdered every man, burned every house, and sent all the women and children for "reeducation.")

Reconciliation Day -- Republic of the Congo

St. Brigid of Ireland's Day (Patron babies/infants/newborns, blacksmiths, boatmen/mariners/sailors/watermen, cattle, children whose parents are not married, dairymaids/dairy workers, fugitives, midwives, nuns, poets, poultry farmers, printing presses, scholars, travelers; Douglas, Lanarkshire, Scotland; Ireland; Ivrea, Turin, Italy; Kildare, Ireland; Leinster, Ireland)

Where the Wild Things Are Day -- birth anniversary of Maurice Sendak

Anniversary Tday:

Alcoholics Anonymous is founded, 1925

Birthdays Today:

Joey Zimmerman, 1986

Tara Lipinski, 1982

Leelee Sobieski, 1982

Hoku Ho, 1981

Shane West, 1978

Doug McKeon, 1966

Elizabeth Hurley, 1965

Linda Evangelista, 1965

Jeanne Tripplehorn, 1963

Michael Burger, 1957

John Edwards, 1953

Jeff Greenfield, 1943

F. Lee Bailey, 1933

Maurice Sendak, 1928

Nat Hentoff, 1925

Judy Garland, 1922

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, 1921

Saul Bellow, 1915

Frederick Loewe, 1904

Hattie McDaniel, 1889

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Tales from the Crypt"(TV), 1989

"Paperback Writer"(UK song release), 1966

"Tristan und Isolde"(Opera), 1865

Today in History:

Frederick Barbarossa drowns leading his troops across the Saleph River to attack Jerusalem in the Crusades, 1190

The first American log cabin is built, at Fort Christina in Wilmington, Delaware, 1639

Bridget Bishop becomes the first person hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692

Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 1770

A landslide dam on the Dadu River created by an earthquake ten days earlier collapses, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China, 1786

The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris; a year later, it becomes the first public zoo, 1793

The first Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place, 1829

Myall Creek Massacre in Australia: 28 Aboriginal Australians are murdered, 1838

The first class of the United States Naval Academy students graduate, 1854

Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 153 people and destroying the famous Pink and White Terraces, 1886

Americus Callahan of Chicago patents the window envelope, 1902

The inaugural service for the United Church of Canada, a union of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches, is held in Toronto Arena, 1925

Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson, 1925

Six-Day War ends: Israel and Syria agree to a cease-fire, 1967

Apple ships its first Apple II personal computer, 1977

The Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, 2003

Twenty inches of rainfall in Escambia County, Florida damages roadways and bridges, and leaving parts of the Florida Panhandle and coastal Alabama under water, 2012

German authorities are forced to evacuate 10 villages as heavy rains swell the Elbe River, breaching its banks, 2013

Heavy monsoon rains cause the collapse of a partially-finished building on a residential block in Mumbai, India, 2013

Juan Felipe Herrera, age 66, is named by U.S. Congress as this year's national poet laureate, the first Latino to be given the title, 2015

According to a DNA study published in the science journal “Nature Plants”, grapes grown for some types of wine in modern France are genetically similar and, in some cases identical to grapes grown 900 years ago, 2019

The European Space Agency announces a new probe, the EnVision, to study Venus, 2021

Apple announces it will be using generative A.I. on its devices and in its update for Siri, in a partnership with OpenAI, 2024