***********************************
Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.
***********************************
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, i am providing the prompts. You can write your story on your blog and leave a link here, or write your story in the comments, your choice.
Pick words from one list, or both, use them all, or use none. The whole point is to get us writing, so please have fun with it!
The words for the week are:
mile
coverage
corner
throw
monarch
dump
and/or
paragraph
reduce
gate
confine
cruel
shiver
This week i am also adding the following archaic words which you may use or ignore:
mooncalf (a foolish person)
orts (scraps or remains)
fandangle (a useless or purely ornamental item)
"Whatcha doing with the binoculars, my little MOONCALF?" Gramps knelt on the couch next to the boy and peered through the window.
He was leaning on the back of the couch, the lacy curtains bunched aside so he could see. "I'm watching the MONARCH butterfly over there by GATE where we planted the milkweed. See, I told you if we planted some, they'd come!"
"Let me look...well, you are right! And here I thought they were so locked into always going back to the same place that they wouldn't care to wander a MILE to come from the neighbor's patch to ours."
"I knew they would. Now maybe we should plant other things to get other butterflies here. Why CONFINE ourselves to just attracting one kind?"
"You sound like Grams, and like your mama. Never knew a young one like you to be so interested in butterflies!"
"Well, I do want to grow up to be an entomologist," the boy replied very solemnly.
Gramps, who tried never be so CRUEL as to laugh when the boy used such fancy words, limited his mirth to only show in the crinkle in the CORNERs of his eyes.
"That you will, as long as you study hard," he said. No way was he going to THROW cold water on the boy's dream. "Speaking of study, don't you have a PARAGRAPH or two to write for homework?"
"Yes," with a big sigh. "But I don't like my word I was given."
"What word were you given?"
"I have to use the word 'FANDANGLE' in a short essay. What kind of word is that for a future entomologist to use? My friend Billy is lucky, he got the word 'COVERAGE'. He said he's going to write about how defense coverage works in basketball."
"I thought you didn't much care for basketball," Gramps said, again only letting his eyes crinkle.
"That's not the point," the boy patiently explained. "At least he doesn't have a sissy sounding word!" he added with a SHIVER.
"Do you even know what the word means?" Gramps asked.
"Yeah, it's like all the fancy stuff Grams has over in the parlor," he said, rolling his eyes thinking of his least favorite room in the large, rambling old farmhouse.
"So how about writing about that room and that fancy stuff? That ought to make it easier," Gramps suggested.
"Sure, I'll try," the boy answered, but without much enthusiasm.
"Well, it's time for me to DUMP the ORTS into the bucket so we can feed the pigs," Gramps said.
"I'm coming," the boy said, turning and reaching to pull himself off the couch and into his wheelchair. Then he perked up a bit. "Can we go past the gate and let me see if the butterfly laid any eggs while it was here?"
"Sure," Gramps said. Then in his thoughts he added, anything you want that will expand your world, boy, and not REDUCE it. Not in any way.
***********************************
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
Holiday of the Wan Thing -- Fairy Calendar (the Wan Thing arrived in Fairyland this day and has sat there looking wan ever after, so the Fairies decided to give it its own holiday)
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, travellers; Douglas, Lanarkshire, Scotland; Ireland; Ivrea, Turin, Italy; Kildare, Ireland; Leinster, Ireland)
Where the Wild Things Are Day -- birth anniversary of Maurice Sendak
Anniversary Today:
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