"Wishing that your grandparents had never found me plays havoc with the time stream," the Djinn answered his query with a very sharp look. "You probably could wish that right now, but it's a given that you have no guarantees where it would leave you, or anyone else in your family, including whether or not your children would even exist."
"As awful as that would be, I'm going to keep it in mind as a possibility," he said. "After all, if they'd never found you, everything would be undone from the time I was a child, so by this age, I'd never know I could have had a different life."
"It's still not something I think you want to try," the Djinn cautioned him, "it could have unintended consequences."
"As I've seen with my own family story, all wishes have unintended consequences," he answered, "and if it comes down to wishing that and taking the consequences or committing a murder, I think I'd prefer the former!"
Linking up with Uncharted Blog and Six Sentence Stories, where the cue is Given.
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Good Fences
Gosia, of Looking for Identity, has taken over Good Fences, and it's now Good Fences Around The World. Post a picture of a fence or gate, link back to her blog, and go visit others to see what interesting fences there are out in this big world.
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  |
| The wreath is a nice addition to the driveway gate, i think. |
Today is:
Australia Day -- Australia (National Day); Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Norfolk Island; (Commemorates Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival at Sydney Cove with the First Fleet, on January 26, 1778.)
Australia Day Cockroach Races -- Brisbane, Queensland (the greatest gathering of thoroughbred cockroaches anywhere, with competition proceeds going to charity)
Clashing Clothes Day -- "officially" (although i'm not sure who declared it) on the 4th Thursday of January, but some people seem to celebrate it every day
Dental Drill Day -- George F. Green, of Kalamazoo, MI, US, patents the electric dental drill, 1875
Duarte Day -- Dominican Republic
End of the Fifth Quarter of the Ninth Dozen of the Thirteenth Set -- Fairy Calendar
Get to Know Your Customers Day -- on the 4th Thursday of each quarter
Liberation Day -- Uganda
Lotus 1-2-3 Day -- released this day in 1983
Montana Winter Fair -- Lewistown, MT, US (from farm exhibits to a fiddler's contest, there's fun to be had here; through Sunday)
National Peanut Brittle Day
National Pistachio Day
Republic Day -- Delhi, India (pompous and splendid celebrations through the 29th)
Sailing of Anubis -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (celebration of the god of the dead; date approximate)
Spouse's Day -- an internet generated reason to tell your SO how much he/she means to you
St. Paula's Day (Patron of widows)
St. Timothy's Day (Patron against stomach and intestinal disorders)
St. Titus' Day (Patron of Crete)
Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement -- begun at Toad Hollow School in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the 1800s, a day to encourage your friends
Winter Carnival -- St. Paul, MN, US (a tradition over 100 years in the making; through February 5)
Anniversaries Today:
Establishment of Rocky Mountain National Park, 1915
Michigan becomes the 26th US state, 1837
Birthdays Today:
Kherington Payne, 1990
Kirk Franklin, 1970
Andrew Ridgeley, 1963
Wayne Gretzky, 1961
Anita Baker, 1958
Ellen DeGeneres, 1958
Eddie Van Halen, 1955
Lucinda Williams, 1953
David Strathairn, 1950
Gene Siskel, 1946
Angela Davis, 1944
Scott Glenn, 1942
Bob Uecker, 1935
Father George Harold Clements, 1932
Jules Feiffer, 1929
Paul Newman, 1925
Anne Jeffreys, 1923
Jimmy Van Heusen, 1913
Maria Augusta von Trapp, 1905
Bessie Coleman, 1893
Douglas MacArthur, 1880
Mary Mapes Dodge, 1831
Julia Dent Grant, 1826
Emperor Go-Nara of Japan, 1497
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Phantom of the Opera"(Musical), 1988
"The Dukes of Hazzard"(TV), 1979
"Duchess of Padua"(Oscar Wilde play), 1891
"Cosi Fan Tutte"(Mozart Opera), 1790
"Esther"(Racine play), 1689
Today in History:
The fifth recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet, 66
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazil, 1500
The Council of Trent issues its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing a distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, 1564
Isaac Newton receives Jean Bernoulli's 6 month time-limit problem, and solves the problem before going to bed that same night, 1697
The magnitude 9 Cascadia Earthquake took place off the west coast of the North America, as evidenced by Japanese records, 1700
The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent of Australia, 1788
The Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia, 1808
Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States, 1838
Hong Kong is proclaimed a sovereign territory of Britain, 1841
The first US income tax, passed to raise funds for the Civil War, is repealed, 1871
Muhammad Ahmed ("Mahdi") rebels conquer Khartoum, Sudan, 1885
The World's largest diamond, the 3,106-carat Cullinan, is found, 1905
The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III is officially introduced into British Military Service, and remains the oldest military rifle still in official use, 1907
Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane, 1911
Richard Strauss' opera Der Rosenkavalier receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera, 1911
Former Ford Motor Co. executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer, 1920
Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses, 1952
Danny Heater sets a worldwide high school basketball scoring record when he records 135 points for Burnsville High School (West Virginia), 1960
Ranger 3 is launched to study the moon, but misses its target by 22,000 miles (35,400 km), 1962
Hindi becomes the official language of India, 1965
The Great Blizzard of 1978, a rare severe blizzard with the lowest non-tropical atmospheric pressure ever recorded in the US, strikes the Ohio – Great Lakes region with heavy snow and winds up to 100 mph (161 km/h), 1978
Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations, 1980
An earthquake hits Gujarat, India, causing more than 20,000 deaths, 2001
President Hamid Karzai signs the new constitution of Afghanistan. 2004
The 41st World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland, 2011