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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday 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 prompts are being provided by Cindi and are being posted by Elephant’s Child.
This week's prompt is:
There is a door with a single keyhole - it will open regardless of what key you use to unlock it. All keys will open this door. What's on the other side, however, depends on the type of key. What key will you use, and what is on the other side of the door.
Approaching the door with an old timey skeleton key, the kind Great-Grandmother kept around but never really used to lock anything but the bathroom door (and that for privacy, not fear of burglars), she wondered why she had chosen it.
She'd been told the key she chose would end up being the right one, but that had not made the choice any easier. She was concerned she'd chosen poorly.
She approached the door in the semi-lit hallway carefully. Fitting the key in the lock, she gently tried it, afraid to break something. It turned easily, and the door swung open soundlessly.
For a moment, the sunlight pouring in made her put her hand up to shield her face. As her eyes adjusted, she was looking at the sun pouring through the windows and past the lace curtains of one of the rooms of her childhood, the room she missed the most.
Great-Grandmother was sitting on the couch with her knitting. Looking up with a huge smile as if it had only been since yesterday, not years and years, Great-Grandmother invitingly said, "Come in, child, and grab a book from the shelf. It's reading time!"
She slid into the room, eyes wide, and went to the familiar shelf. All of the favorites were there, and she grabbed the most worn one of all. Sitting tentatively at first next to the older woman, she felt herself slide into the story, and the next thing she knew she was leaning against Great-Grandmother's side, listening to her gentle voice, feeling safe and secure as she had once upon a time.
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Today is:
Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day (Buy your cheese that will be sacrificed on Cheese Sacrifice Day, and no, I never have found out why there is a Cheese Sacrifice Day anyway or to whom you are supposed to sacrifice it.)*
Chicken Wings Day -- Buffalo, NY, US (they want it to be a national day, and maybe someday it will be)
Feast of St. Martha, Virgin, Dragon Charmer, Sister of Lazarus (Patron of butlers, cooks, dieticians, domestic servants, homemakers, hotel keepers, housemaids, housewives, inkeepers, laundry workers, maids, manservants, servants, servers, single laywomen, travellers; Villajoyosa, Spain, which village she saved on her feast day by sending a flash flood to wash away the Moorish invaders in 1538)
Fiesta de Santa Maria Ribarteme (a/k/a Festival of Near Death Experiences) -- As Neves, Pontevedra, and Galicia, Spain (festival of Mary in which those who have come back from near death are carried to the shrine in open coffins, or walk there clad in shrouds)
International Tiger Day
NASA Day -- marking the day President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, creating NASA
National Anthem Day -- Romania
National Lasagna Day
National Thai Language Day -- Thailand (Wan Phasa Thai Haeng Chat)
Photograph Your Children When They're Not Looking Day -- get a good, candid shot to enjoy
Runic Half-Month Thorn begins (defense)
St. Lazarus' Day -- date given in the Martyrologium Romanum; celebrated on Lazarus Saturday by most Eastern Churches and on Dec. 17 in most Western Churches
St. Olaf's (Olav) Day (Norway's Viking king; patron of carvers, difficult marriages, kings; Norway)related observances
Olavsokadagur -- Faroe Islands (opening of Logting, or Parliament; a National Day, on the Feast Day of St. Olav)
Oslok Eve -- Norway (celebrating the valiant death of their hero on this evening at the battle at Stiklestadt in 1030)
sometimes associated with Thor's Day among the Norse and Thunor of the Anglo-Saxons
Territory Day -- Wallis and Futuna
Tisha B'Av -- Judaism (begins at sundown, through tomorrow; fast in remembrance of the destruction of the First Temple in 586BCE and the Second Temple in 79AD)
*"A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk's leap toward immortality." Clifton Fadiman
Anniversaries Today
Andy Taylor marries Tracey Wilson, 1982
Charles, Prince of Wales, marries Lady Diana Spencer, 1981
Mary, Queen of Scots, marries Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, 1565
Birthdays Today
Danger Mouse, 1977
Josh Radnor, 1974
Wanya Morris, 1973
Wil Wheaton, 1972
Julian McMahon, 1968
Martina McBride, 1966
Alexandra Paul, 1963
Patty Scialfa, 1956
Ken Burns, 1953
Tim Gunn, 1953
Marilyn Quayle, 1949
David Warner, 1941
Peter Jennings, 1938
Elizabeth Dole, 1936
Paul Taylor, 1930
Chester Bomar Himes, 1909
Melvin Belli, 1907
Clara Bow, 1905
Dag Hammarskjold, 1905
Stanley Kunitz, 1905
Benito Mussolini, 1883
Newton Booth Tarkington, 1869
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, 1861
Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Friday Night Videos"(TV), 1983
Help(Film), 1965
"Steamboat Willie"(Animated short, first appearance of Mickey Mouse), 1928
Today in History
King Olaf II fights and dies trying to regain his Norwegian throne from the Danes, 1030
James VI is crowned King of Scotland at Stirling, 1567
English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France, 1588
John Graves Simcoe decides to build a fort and settlement at Toronto, having sailed into the bay there, 1793
Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 1836
In Tipperary, an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put down by police, 1848
The First Hague Convention is signed, 1899
Sir Robert Baden Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England; this is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement, 1907
The International Atomic Energy Agency is established, 1957
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel, 1987
The film Cry Freedom is seized by South African authorities, 1988
Astronomers announce the discovery of Eris, the largest dwarf planet in the solar system, 2005
South Sudan becomes the 54th member of the African Union, 2011
Scientists reveal new research identifying a mechanism by which Earth-warming carbon is pulled deep into the Southern Ocean, and locked away, and scientists claim this process may be threatened by climate change, 2012
Microsoft launches Windows 10, 2015
