Fake! (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 Charlotte and can be found here.

This week's words/prompts are:

1.ants  

2.sushi  

3.meeting  

4.miniature  

5.juniper  

6.leaves

and/or:

1.mushroom  

2.seagull  

3.windy  

4.glass  

5.knit  

6.safe

also this image of a dormer window:

Charlotte's colour of the month is Jade Green.

Use any or all of the words, or just use them as a springboard for something else, be creative and have fun.

The highlight of a day with my little one is when we are able to take a walk in the mornings.  On very hot days, we have to go early.  If it's raining, we can wear rain gear and have fun splashing unless there is lightening, and then we are out of luck.  If it's too cold, the same.

But most days have a time when we can have a walk, long or short, in the neighborhood.  We see such interesting things, at least to a grandmother and very young granddaughter.

One time, we saw ANTS congregated around a dropped piece of SUSHI.  It looked to me for all the world like a MEETING of the board of directors of a company in MINIATURE, and they were too busy eating what was on the menu to get back to discussing business.

We see all kinds of plants, in cooler months there are camellia blooms, then the azaleas, then ligustrums, and so on, JUNIPER, jasmine, and a couple of neighbors even have sweet olive trees.  We see greens in every shade from Jade Green to plain grass green, and she is fascinated by LEAVES of every shape, magnolia and oak and crepe myrtle.

Of course, if it's been raining, there are the MUSHROOM colonies, if that's what they are called, which are always of some poisonous variety or other.  Maybe toadstools would be a better word, they just spring up with a lot of moisture and are gone soon after.

She will say, "Tweet, tweet, tweet!" when she hears the birds, we have mockingbirds and blue jays, cardinals and doves, crows and even the occasional owl.  Once i saw a very lost SEAGULL, at least he was probably lost, we have no ocean here, just plenty of lakes and waterways and a few gulls hang out near them, but he was far from home.

When it's WINDY, we note the flags people put out flapping in the breeze, sometimes the nation's flag, sometimes decorative flags, and once in so often, one of those black and white striped flags with a yellow stripe in the middle, the Gadsden, I think it is called.

My little also loves to play with rocks and will sit down wherever they are, even on the edge of the road, and have a good time digging, throwing or just picking up and looking at various rocks.  One time a very nice lady stepped through her GLASS storm door wearing her KNIT jumper to ask if we were SAFE and if all was well.  I told her we were just playing with rocks and we'd be careful to watch for cars.  We have good neighbors.

There are houses of many varieties, the ones which fascinate me are those with dormer windows.

I always wanted one so as to create a reading nook out of it, but it hasn't happened yet and probably won't.

Then there are the gardens.  Big ones, small ones, some with just a couple of plants, some with dozens.  One day, there were such beautiful orange flowers in one garden we stepped closer so as to get a good picture and guess what!  The flowers were fake!  Yes, from the street they looked like perfect, beautiful blooms and no one would be the wiser unless he or she stepped close as we did.

The Wordless Wednesday picture above is them in all their glory!

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Today is Pet Fire Safety Day.  Make a plan to get yourself and your pets safely out of your home in case of a fire, it's important to be prepared.

Thanks to Barb Kowalik and The Cat Blogosphere for the event badge.        

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Today is:

Be a Dork Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays, which encourages you to wear goofy clothes and fall off a swingset today and be proud of Dorkiness

Cigarette Warning Day -- anniversary of the 1968 law passed in the US that requires health warnings on cigarette packaging

Feast of Rowana/Rauni -- Druid/Cornish/Flemish (rowan tree goddess; date approximate)

Festival of Castor and Pullox -- Ancient Roman Calendar every five years (celebrated with a cavalry and chariot procession)

Festival of Santa Rosalia -- Palermo; Sicily (remembrance of the Patron saint of the city on the date, in 1624, when she stopped the plague)

Gorestnici -- Bulgaria (fire festival of 3 days duration, honoring the ancient belief that these are the 3 hottest days of the year)

Gummi Worm Day

Hakata Gion Yamagasa -- Kushida Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan (festival of floats, dates back to the 13th century, includes dousing teams carrying one-ton floats with water as they race!)

Hundadagar -- Icelandic tradition, the "dog days" of summer begin, through Aug. 23

Ides of July -- Ancient Roman Calendar

I Love Horses Day -- all over the web with no specific reason given, but do you need a reason to celebrate horses?

National Tapioca Pudding Day

No-Hitter Day -- George Bradley of the St. Louis Brown Stockings pitched the first officially recognized no-hitter in MLB against the Hartford Dark Blues on this date in 1876

Respect Canada Day -- because Canada deserves it!

St. Bonaventure's Day (Patron against intestinal problems; of Bagnoregio, Italy; Cochiti Indian Pueblo; St. Bonaventure University, New York)

St. Swithun's Day -- Saint Swithun's Society Annual Celebration in Toronto, ON, Canada; the weather prognostication associated with this saint says if it rains today, it will rain for the next 40 days (Patron against drought; of Stavenger, England; Winchester, England)

St. Vladimir of Kiev's Day (Patron of converts, parents of large families, reformed and penitent murderers; Russia; Ukrainian Catholic Diocese of Stamford, Connecticut; Winnipeg, Manitoba)

Sultan's Birthday -- Brunei Darussalam

Birthdays Today

Tanner Maguire, 1998

Emily Roeske, 1991

Brian Austin Green, 1973

Beth Stern, 1972

Adam Savage, 1967

Irene Jacob, 1966

Forest Whitaker, 1961

Lolita Davidovich, 1961

Kim Alexis, 1960

William Aames, 1960

Terry O’Quinn, 1952

Jesse Ventura, 1951

Arianna Huffington, 1950

Richard Russo, 1949

Linda Ronstadt, 1946

Jan-Michael Vincent, 1944

Alex George Karras, 1935

Ken Kercheval, 1935

Julian Bream, 1933

Clive Cussler, 1931

Jacques Derrida, 1930

Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, 1850

Thomas Bulfinch, 1796

Clement Clarke Moore, 1779

Rembrandt Van Rijn, 1606

Debuting/Premiering Today:

MSNBC(Network), 1996

"One Life to Live"(TV), 1968

Today in History

Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege, 1099

John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, is hanged, 1381

Alexei Chirikov sights land and sends men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska, 1741

The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign, 1799

Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine to explore the west, 1806

Napoléon Bonaparte surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon, 1815

A fire destroys the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, 1823

Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union, 1870

The stratovolcano Mount Bandai, Japan, erupts killing approximately 500 people, 1888

In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing), 1916

Eighteen Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others, 1955

AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape Communications Corporation; the Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day, 2003

Entire villages are burned to the ground and 40,000 people flee their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2010

An 8-year-old girl finds a pre-Viking-era sword in Vidostern Lake, Sweden, and is jokingly proclaimed Queen of Sweden, 2018

Devastating floods linked to climate change sweep through towns in western Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, 2021

Italian and American scientists announce the discovery of a lunar cave, approximately 250 miles (400 km) from the landing site of Apollo 11, the Mare Tranquillitatus pit, 2024