Word-Wednesday for October 6, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, October 6, 2021, the 40th Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of fall, and the 279th day of the year, with 86 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for October 6, 2021
Lady Bugs
Coccinellidae /ˌkɒk-sɪ-ˈnɛ-lɪ-diː/) is a widespread family of small beetles visiting Wannaskan homes now, commonly known as ladybugs in North America and ladybirds in Great Britain and other parts of the English-speaking world. Entomologists prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as these insects are not classified as true bugs.

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for October 6, 2021
Sunrise: 7:31am; Sunset: 6:53pm; 3 minutes, 32 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 7:30am; Moonset: 7:19pm, new moon, 0% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for October 6, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             56                     84                     81
Low              36                     19                     37


October 6 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Coaches Day
• National Orange Wine Day
• National Mad Hatter Day
• National German-American Day
• National Noodle Day
• National Walk to School Day
• National Pumpkin Seed Day
• National Coffee with a Cop Day
• National Plus Size Appreciation Day

October 6 Word Riddle
Often we’re covered with wisdom and wit,
And oft with a cloth where the dinner guests sit;
In beauty around you and over your head,
We are countless, though numbered when bound to be read.

What are we?*


October 6 Word Pun
A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest.

After a moment or two, the vet shook his head and sadly said, “I’m sorry, your duck has passed away.”

The distressed woman wailed, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead,” replied the vet.

“How can you be so sure?” she protested. “I mean you haven’t done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador. As the duck’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room.

A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.” The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.

The duck’s owner, still in shock, took the bill. “$1500!” she cried, “$1500 just to tell me my duck is dead!”

The vet shrugged, “I’m sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $100, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it’s now $1500.”


October 6 The Roseau Times-Region Headline:



October 6 Etymology Word of the Week
matrix: /ˈmā-triks/ n., late 14c., matris, matrice, "uterus, womb," from Old French matrice "womb, uterus" and directly from Latin mātrix (genitive mātricis) "pregnant animal," in Late Latin "womb," also "source, origin," from māter (genitive mātris) "mother".


October 6 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1683 Thirteen Mennonite families from Germany found Germantown, Philadelphia.
• 1789 French Revolution: Louis XVI returns to Paris from Versailles after being confronted by the Parisian women on 5 October [ask The Chairman].
• 1853 The fourth National Women's Rights Convention opens in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 1869 Johannes Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer premieres.
• 1876 American Library Association organized in Philadelphia.
• 1889 Moulin Rogue opens in Paris.
• 1889 Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture.
• 1921 PEN International is founded in London.
• 1952 Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opens in London.

October 6 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1872 Mikhail Kuzmin, Russian writer.
• 1887 MartinLuis Guzman, Mexican novelist.
• 1889 Maria Dabrowska, Polish writer.
• 1904 Horst Lange, German writer.
• 1923 Yaşar Kemal, Turkish writer.
• 1926 Alan Copeland, American orchestra leader and singer.
• 1950 David Brin, American science fiction author.

October 6, 2021 Song of Myself
Verse 49 of 52
And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.

To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes,
I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting,
I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors,
And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.

And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish’d breasts of melons.

And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,
(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)

I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,
O suns—O grass of graves—O perpetual transfers and promotions,
If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?

Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk—toss on the black stems that decay in the muck,
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.

I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,
I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected,
And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:

• accoucheur: /ˌä-ko͞o-ˈSHər/ n., a male midwife.
• cataphysical: /ˌkæt-ə-ˈfɪzɪk-ə-l/ adj., perverse; contrary to nature.
• enciente: /änˈ-sant/ adj., pregnant.
• fustilugs: /ˈfə-stē-ləgz/ n., a ponderous clumsy person.
• lalochezia: /lal-uh-KEE-zee-uh/ n., the use of vulgar or foul language to relieve stress or pain; (example: cursing after hitting one’s thumb with a hammer); from Greek “lalia” (speech) + “chezo” (to relieve oneself).
• osculate: /ˈäs-kyəˌ-lāt/ v., to touch with the lips as a sign of love, sexual desire, reverence, or greeting; to kiss; to touch (of a curve or surface),  (of an organism or group of organisms) to be intermediate between two taxonomic groups.
• puttees: /poo-TEEZ/ n.pl., a gaiter of leather or other material, worn with or without spats, as protection by soldiers, riders, etc.
• sturm und drang: /shtoorm oont drahng/ n., literally, storm and urge, a style or movement of German literature of the latter half of the 18th century: characterized chiefly by impetuosity of manner, exaltation of individual sensibility and intuitive perception, opposition to established forms of society and thought, and extreme nationalism.
• tosh: /täSH/ n., rubbish, nonsense.
• zizzy: /ˈ’zɪi-zi/adj., characterized by or involving a buzzing or whizzing sound; vibrant, lively, energetic.

October 6, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
change
/CHānj/ v., make (someone or something) different; alter or modify; n., the act or instance of making or becoming different. 

It’s fall, change is all around us, and we steadfastly remain the same persons. The trouble of it all is that those around us never change, despite our many enumerations of the ways they might do so, or in defiance of the specific steps they would do well to follow along the way. Today Word-Wednesday features some choice words on this subject.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

The Bible, Matthew 7:3

Great mischief comes from attempts to steady other people’s altars.

Mary Baker Eddy

Even if there were only two men left in the world and both of them saints they wouldn't be happy. One of them would be bound to try and improve the other. That is the nature of things.

Frank O'Connor

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

John Kenneth Galbraith

A man marries a woman hoping she'll never change—and she does. A woman marries a man hoping he will change—and he doesn't.

Unknown author

When you are through changing, you are through.

Bruce Barton

There is, perhaps no surer mark of folly, than an attempt to correct the natural infirmities of those we love. The finest composition of human nature, as well as the finest china, may have a flaw in it; and this, I am afraid, in either case, is equally incurable; though, nevertheless, the pattern may remain of the highest value.

Henry Fielding

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

James Baldwin

Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change. This is a truth I never seem to learn.

Sue Grafton

Do not worry about what others are doing! Each of us should turn the searchlight inward and purify his or her own heart as much as possible.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Whereas I formerly believed it to be my bounden duty to call others to order I must now admit that I need calling to order myself, and that I would do better to set my own house to rights first.

Carl Jung

Changing ourselves is the most effective way to change others.

Marvin Marshall

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

David Sedaris

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

Thomas à Kempis

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

Carl Rogers

Every therapeutic cure, and still more, any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth, tears him from the cradle of his freedom of responsibility and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance.

Alfred Adler

All appears to change when we change.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

You can’t grow somebody else up.

Author unknown

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing his mind.

W. Somerset Maugham

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.

Author unknown

From A Year with Rilke, October 6 Entry
Every Turning, from Seventh Duino Elegy

Every turning of the world
knows some who are disinherited, to whom
neither the past nor the future belongs.
Even what is about to happen is still remote to them.

We should not be confused by this, but strengthened in our resolve
to preserve the still-recognizable forms.
In the middle of history, amidst all that annihilates
and the not-knowing whither, they stood
as if they had a right to be there,
under the stars of the constant heavens.



Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.



*leaves