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Word-Wednesday for December 5, 2018

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, December 5, 2018, brought to you by the Greenbush WNtR~WKND, December 7-9.
  • Friday: Greenbush & Badger Lions Dinner and Bingo
  • Saturday: Holiday Vendor Show, Santa and Mrs. Claus, GMR BBZ Lunch, Christmas Crafts, Christmas Moving Showing, Chili and Fixings, Tree Lighting, Prairie Lights, and HAPPY Hour
  • Sunday:Country Jam Session and Christmas Jam Session with Darcy Reese and Friends


December 5 is the 339th day of the year, with 26 days remaining until the end of the year, 117 days remaining until April Fools Day, and 1,175 days until February 22, 2022 - a Tuesday.

Nordhem Lunch: Hot Ham Sandwich w/Potatoes & Gravy

Earth/Moon Almanac for December 5, 2018
Sunrise: 8:01am; Sunset: 4:28pm
Moonrise: 5:55am; Moonset: 3:56pm, waning crescent

Temperature Almanac for December 5, 2018
            Average      Record     Today
High        38               65          19
Low         23               -7           -5

December 5 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
  • National Sacher Torte Day
  • Bathtub Party Day
  • International Ninja Day
December 5 Riddle
What word starts with "e", ends with "e", and has only one letter in it?*

December 5 Pun
I'm pining for a good tree pun; wish they were more poplar.

December 5 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
  • 1792 George Washington re-elected as U.S. President
  • 1804 Thomas Jefferson re-elected U.S. President
  • 1830 Hector Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique premieres in Paris
  • 1832 Andrew Jackson re-elected President of U.S.
  • 1837 Hector Berlioz' Requiem premieres
  • 1868 1st American bicycle college opens
  • 1890 Hector Berlioz' opera Les Troyens premieres in Karlsruhe [run time 5 hours 40 minutes]
  • 1974 Final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs on BBC TV
December 5 Author/Artist Birthdays, from On This Day
  • 1443 Julius II, Italian Pope (1503-13) and patron of Michelangelo, Bramante, and Raphael
  • 1870 Vítězslav Novák, Czech composer
  • 1901 Walt Disney
  • 1911 Władysław Szpilman, Polish pianist
  • 1932 Little Richard, née Wayne Penniman
  • 1934 Joan Didion
  • 1935 Calvin Trillin
  • 1969 Morgan J. Freeman
  • 1973 Luboš Motl, Czech physicist
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
adduce: cite as evidence.
  • Athenaeum: used in the names of libraries or institutions for literary or scientific study.
  • bachata: a style of romantic music originating in the Dominican Republic.
  • baize: a coarse, feltlike, woolen material that is typically green, used for covering billiard and card tables and for aprons.
  • biriani: an Indian dish made with highly seasoned rice and meat, fish, or vegetables.
  • chilblain: a painful, itching swelling on the skin, typically on a hand or foot, caused by poor circulation in the skin when exposed to cold.
  • delectation: pleasure and delight.
  • dog-whistling: a type of strategy of communication that sends a message that the general population will take a certain meaning from, but a certain group that is "in the know" will take away the secret, intended message. Often involves code words.
  • houri: a beautiful young woman, especially one of the virgin companions of the faithful in the Muslim Paradise.
  • judder: [BRITISH] shake and vibrate rapidly and with force.
  • pato: a Spanish way of saying a person is gay.
  • picaro: a rogue.
  • quagswagging: the action of shaking to and fro.
  • susurration: whispering, murmuring, or rustling.
  • weir: a low dam built across a river to raise the level of water upstream or regulate its flow.
December 5 Word Wednesday Feature
adventure, /adˈven(t)SHər,ədˈven(t)SHər: noun, an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.

An adventure is surely one of the more personalized words in any person's vocabulary. Here are a few writerly takes on adventure. Find one that comes closest to your own experience, or name your own.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. G. K. Chesterton

Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually. E. M. Forster

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Helen Keller

Adventure is nothing but a romantic name for trouble. Louis L'Amour

There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won't. William Least Heat Moon

How narrow is the line which separates an adventure from an ordeal. Harold Nicolson

We learn what is significantly new only through adventures. However, going into the unknown is invariably frightening. M. Scott Peck

All adventures — especially into new territory — are scary. Sally Ride

The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek. Robert Louis Stevenson

Life ought to be a struggle of desire towards adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul. Rebecca West
Be better than yesterday, learn a new word today, and try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow.

*envelope

Comments

  1. Bob Stevenson's is a good one, and ditto for Harry Nelson whose idea about it makes me think of the "Traveling with Chairman Joe Adventure Series' with which I am and you are, intimately familiar. Then, as I peruse this listing, backwards ... Oh yeah, Bill Moon's too--has that Chairman Joe edge to it--the memories leap out at me, much quagswagging here and now, Uffda ... Continuing, lessee, okay ... Everett Forster's contribution has its merits too, but when I stop and ponder it, should adventures arrive punctually, you'd likely get more severely hurt because of the stress intrinsic to preparation -- like bracing yourself for the expected impact when, if you were non-rigid like a spaghetti noodle, all silly and the like--maybe intoxicated--you'd not likely be hurt at all, so no, it would be better if adventures catch you by surprise .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Singing Karaoke is my kind of adventure, with Sven for the groans. "Ride, Sally, Ride."

      Delete
  2. Speaking of Chairman Joe, and recalling the tall tales of adventuresome Bottle Runs past, brings to mind a classic Herman Melville quote:

    "I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She said, 'There is no reason'
      And the truth is plain to see
      But I wandered through my playing cards
      And would not let her be
      One of sixteen vestal virgins
      Who were leaving for the coast
      And although my eyes were open
      They might have just as well've been closed

      Delete
  3. A poem in memory of Andrew Jackson's re-election in 1832.

    I combed the Atheneum a week and a day,
    To seek the susurrations Old Hickory was gay.
    I read once some picaro had called him a pato,
    But Andy quagswagged him for daring to say so.
    Still juddering, the rogue dog-whistled a houri.
    "For your delectation, General, to show I am sorry."
    In spite of his chilblains Andy skinned the young fool,
    And made him the baize on his table for pool.
    The library café was serving biriani that night.
    They played a bachata for our dining delight.
    As I ate I considered how they once called him queer,
    But Jackson's long gone now: water over the weir.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Historian, Whimsic, and Poet - in the loriot sense of the word.

    ReplyDelete

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