Flash Fiction #113

PHOTO PROMPT © Amy Reese

THE LONG VIEW

Go do your homework!

Aw Mom, why? They’ll just give us more tomorrow.

Yes, and next week, and next month, and then you’ll go into your final high school year. If you do your homework, you’ll get good marks to get into your chosen college – where they will give even more homework.

If you work hard there, you’ll get a good job when you graduate. Nobody gets anything without hard work.  It may look like a long, difficult journey, but it will be worth it in the end.

….You’ll be able to pay for a good retirement home for us.   😉

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Alabama Internet

A POST WHERE WE FIND OUT WHERE SUPPORTERS
OF DONALD TRUMP GET THEIR INFORMATION

Bible Belt Computer Lingo

Log On – make the wood stove hotter
Log Off – don’t add no more wood
Monitor – keep an eye on that wood stove
Download – gettin’ the wood off the pickup
Floppy Disc – what you get from tryin’ to carry too much wood
Ram – the thing what splits the fire wood
Hard Drive – comin’ home from the bar after the KKK meetin’
Prompt – throw another log on the fire
Window – what to shut when it’s cold outside
Screen – what to shut in fly season
Byte – what flies do
Bit – what flies did
Mega Byte – what big flies do
Chip – munchies while monitorin’
Micro chip – what’s left after you ate the chips
Modem – what you did to the hay fields
Dot Matrix- ol’ Dan Matrix’s wife
Lap top – where kittens sleep
Software – them dumb plastic knives they give you at Golden Corral
Hardware – real stainless steel knives an’ forks
Mouse – what eats the grain in the barn
Main frame – what holds the barn up
Enter – fancy city talk for, “Y’all come on in now”
Web – the thing spiders make
Web site – where the spiders make ‘em
Search Engine – what you do when yer car dies
Cursor – somebody who swears a lot
Screen saver – a repair kit fer the torn screen door

I think about half of these are deplorable. C’mon Election, before more of these pop up!   😆
***

The wife and I are invading the Excited States again, and won’t be back for a few days.  Enjoy a few laughs on my tab while I’m gone.  I’ll be back with some real live comments, and perhaps a Flash Fiction soon.

Flash Fiction #112

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

BACK AND FORTH

Pick – a – pock –a – pick – a – pock – a ???!

What are you boys doing up there? You’re not getting into trouble are you?

No, Auntie Mame. We’re playing.

You know, I love you both as if you were my own children. It was challenging enough when I took Patrick in.  Since I found he had a brother, Robert, you two have kept me hopping.  Be careful with that table tennis game.  I’m either going to have to buy another case of balls, or hire someone to climb up and retrieve the ones you’ve lodged in my chandelier.

We will, Auntie Mame!

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

 

I Am A Challenge Too….Two

Now then, what was I saying writing, when I so rudely interrupted myself??  Ah yes, the 31-Day Challenge Magic Act, where I sawed a woman blog in half.

Why and when did you start blogging? My first post went out on November 21, 2011.  As to why, read my ‘About’ page, which includes the text to the post ‘If’.  Anything that doesn’t include, feel free to ask.

Advice on your area of expertise Since I am now successfully retired, my advice consists of, “Sleep in, have a snack, take a nap.  Rinse, and repeat if necessary.  Wage slaves, apply only on weekends.”

List 5 blogs you read on a regular basis, and why Many of the blogs I used to read ‘regularly’, are now dormant, or episodic.  One that I read regularly is Cordelia’s Mom because, as her tagline says, it’s ‘just good reading’.  Another we perhaps should all read regularly, is You’ve Been Hooked, tales from a bellman at a ritzy hotel in Niagara Falls.  (Caution, Humorous Adult Content)

What do you collect? Bills(notes/money – not utility), coins, knives, books, aches, pains, medical specialists, prescription drugs

What’s your greatest fear? I like to think that I keep my life well-ordered enough, that I don’t put me or mine in any position where I need fear anything.  I have no …phobias.  Fear/worry are counterproductive.  Either stay away from that which causes fear, or learn to face and defeat it.

Provide 5 easy steps to anything From my living-room chair, to the kitchen fridge/snack.  One….two….three….four….five – a pickled egg and some cheddar.  That was easy.

What do you do to save money? Not spend it.  While there are many who have less than us, I am/was a child of poverty.  Raised by a Depression-trained Scottish mother, I learned early to make a buck go a long way.  Once, while on an extended period of unemployment benefits, the Government office sent me home with a booklet on how to get the most from the least.  [Put soap bar ends in a mesh bag, and use it like a puff for hand and face washing, or soak and swish it in hot dishwater to produce suds.]  I took it back with 5 or 6 suggestions that they hadn’t thought of.

Describe your most embarrassing moment Like ‘fear’ above; I am careful/lucky enough, not to place myself in embarrassing situations.  Mostly, I just don’t give a shit – almost impossible to embarrass.  I could be a nudist.  I don’t wear clothing for my own modesty, but to protect the eyes and sanity of those around me.

Describe your city Germanic, and organic.  The entire area was settled 200+ years ago by Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants.  Waterloo, our twin-city to the north, has flowed to join my Kitchener, renamed a century ago from Berlin.  To our south, the small cities of Preston, Hespeler and Galt were merged in 1973, into Cambridge.  We have continued to flow together to produce a city of half a million, 5 miles wide, by 20 miles long, straddling Ontario’s major highway.  Streets and roads run hither and yon, confusing tourists, as told in my ‘You Can’t Get There From Here’ post.

What’s your favorite restaurant? With a Cordon Bleu chef/wife on staff, and wallets full of moths, we eat very well at home.  The occasional treat meal out is limited to the Golden Arches and its cousins.  Like the ‘favorite recipe’ in part 1, my love of Tex-Mex is so well known that, “What is your favorite restaurant?/Taco Bell” is a security question/answer on a website.

What’s your guilty pleasure show? With satellite TV costs soaring, we cancelled our subscription a year ago.  We moved the television from the basement den up to the living room, and linked to Netflix.  TV watching might be 2 hours a week.  It has led to a large increase in reading.

What’s your favorite season? As I wrote in ‘Location, location, location’, we live in a Goldilocks area.  It gets warm, but not too hot in the summer.  It gets cold, but not too frigid and snowy in the winter.  I wouldn’t want to live in Winnipeg or Atlanta.  Spring is great, with its burgeoning greenery and promise of rebirth, but, my birthday is in the autumn, and I love the harvested crops, and the colorful foliage.

Talk about your idea of a prefect date Wellll….it would have to be one that the wife is unaware of.  More and more, I get ones with people with MD after their name.

How do you normally spend your weekend? Ah, the joys of being retired.  If it weren’t for reading newspapers, I wouldn’t know what day it is – or month.  Weekends differ from weekdays in that, instead of going out to pick up a Toronto Sun newspaper, I might drive the wife to the Farmers’ Market, or the daughter to a Pow-Wow for fun and profit.

Explain what you liked most about this challenge It’s finished!  It gave me yet another chance to drop some (more) smart-ass comments that you’re still shaking your head about, and wondering if they’re really true.  And of course, it helps my stat numbers of published posts.

Thanx for visiting Crazyville Archon’s Den.  I hope to see you again in a couple of days.

A To Z Challenge – K

I’m going to kludge out another alphabetized blog-post, if that’s

O  

with you.

KARMA

noun

Hinduism, Buddhism. action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation: in Hinduism one of the means of reaching Brahman.

Compare bhakti (def 1), jnana.

Theosophy. the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person’s deeds in the previous incarnation.
fate; destiny.

Synonyms: predestination, predetermination, lot, kismet.

The good or bad emanations felt to be generated by someone or something:

Let’s get out of here. This place has bad karma. 

Like Christianity’s Heaven/Hell carrot/stick, karma is a concept invented by insecure people desperate to prove to themselves that they have some kind of relevance and importance. I just can’t buy it.  I am happy with me and my life as it is, and what may or may not happen to me when it is finished.

Whether you call it Life, or Karma, or the Universe, or God, there is proof that it is profoundly disinterested in you. All the being good, or praying, amounts to absolutely nothing.  One person prays for a sunny day, so that they can go to the beach.  A farmer prays for rain for his crops.  One will claim that his prayer was answered.  Whatever occurs, does so at the frequency of random occurrence.  There is no Karma!

KNOWLEDGE

acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition:knowledge of many things.

the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.

I have very few abilities – at least marketable ones. I continue to research things that will do me absolutely no good.  I like to think that I have a considerable body of knowledge, but the only thing I know for sure, is how little I really know.

KITTENS

There, I’ve put the word in my post, and I’ll put it as a tag to the post. No definition, ‘cause you guys all know what kittens are and love them.  (No, no, Rants!  Not for dinner, with some fava beans, and a nice Chianti. 😯 )  No photos, ‘cause my four cats are far from kittens.  If you want pictures, YouTube and the blogosphere are rife with them.  This is just an experiment to see how many hits and likes I get by mentioning them.  You can tell me how much you love them.  (Or not)

Okay! Okay!  Don’t yell.  You talked me into it.

KNITTING noun 1. the act of a person or thing that knits. 2. the act of forming a fabric by looping a continuous yarn. 3. knitted work.

Idioms

4. stick /tend to one’s knitting, to mind one’s own business: Don’t worry about my work—just tend to your knitting.

to devote oneself to one’s assignments or responsibilities: Years of sticking to his knitting finally paid off.

Knitting is a very Zen-like, or Yoga-type activity. Like pacing the floor, or twiddling one’s thumbs, it gives the body something to do while the mind relaxes.  Unlike the other two, at the end of knitting, you have something concrete to show for the time and energy you’ve spent.  The wife should soon have finished, a heavy, cozy, pair of bed-socks to keep my ever-aging feet warm, so that I can sleep.

Knitting can be so relaxing, that the wife usually only does it while we are watching TV, or the daughter is visiting. If she tries to do it without some sort of external mental stimulation, she often nods off.  If I take the daughter to a medical appointment where she might have to spend time waiting, instead of a book, she often brings some knitting.  She knits up 12” X 12” wash-cloths that she markets online.

I seem to have knit up the raveled sleave of care for this post. I’ll go get lost, till it’s time to publish my L post.  See you there.   😀

 

Flash Fiction #111

PHOTO PROMPT © Shaktiki Sharma

THE DAILY GRIND

Pablo couldn’t even remember the karmic twists that had brought him from an Ecuadoran coffee plantation, to this firm in New Hampshire.

He was lucky to have this job. He wasn’t lucky to have Robinson as a supervisor.  If he hadn’t stopped to tell Pablo exactly how to do this project, Pablo would’ve finished it already.  Wayne sure did like the sound of his own voice.

It reminded him of the corn-mills his mother had made him turn by hand as a kid – round and round, and round, and round, and nothing came out but a fine, dry, monotonous powder.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

New Shooter Comin’ Out

A young man, in the course of his college life,
came to terms with his homosexuality and decided
to ‘come out of the closet’. His plan was to
tell his mother first; so on his next home
visit, he went to the kitchen, where his mother
was busying herself stirring stew with a wooden
spoon. Rather nervously, he explained to her that
he had realized he was gay.

Without looking up from her stew, his mother
said, ‘You mean, homosexual?’

‘Well…yes.’

Still without looking up: ‘Does that mean you
suck men’s penises?’

Caught off guard, the young man eventually
managed to stammer an embarrassed affirmative;
whereupon his mother turned to him and,
brandishing the wooden spoon threateningly under
his nose, snapped:
‘Don’t you EVER complain about my cooking again!’

***

Support mental health, or I’ll kill you.

***

During a Papal audience, a business man
approached the Pope and made this offer: Change
the last line of the Lord’s prayer from “Give us
this day our daily bread” to “Give us this day
our daily chicken.” and KFC will donate 10
million dollars to Catholic charities.

The Pope declined. 2 weeks later the man
approached the Pope again. This time with a 50
million dollar offer. Again the Pope declined.

A month later the man offers 100 million, this
time the Pope accepts. At a meeting of the
Cardinals, the Pope announces his decision in the
good news/bad news format. The good news is…
that we have 100 million dollars for charities.
The bad news is that we lost the Wonder Bread
account!

***

A guy walks into a bar. He sits down and says to
the bartender, “I’ll bet you $100 that if you put
a shot glass at that end of the bar, I could stand
at the other end and fill it up with my urine.”

Well the bartender thinks, “That’s an easy $100.”
So he says “Okay.” So the guy gets on top of the
bar and pees everywhere, even on the bartender.
Well, the bartender doesn’t care, he just won
$100. So very happily the bartender asks for his
money. The guy very happily says, “Here you go!”
The bartender then asks, “Why are you so happy?”
And the guy says, “Well, do you see that guy at
the other end of the bar? I bet him $1000 that I
could pee on you and you would be happy!”

***

Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?

***

Always leave room to add an explanation
if it doesn’t work out.

 

HASH

About a year ago, I published a post titled Leftovers, where I showed and described some of the odd knives I had accumulated over the years. To get rid of leftovers, you chop them up fine, and turn them into hash.  This is a hash of some of the other edged and pointed tools and toys infesting our home.

The son’s knife made of glass c/w a skull in the butt.

The skull’s a bit hazy, but then, so is the photographer.

The wife’s letter openers;
$1.49 Wal-Mart special
steel blade with cast pewter hummingbird/flower handle
antique Victorian sterling silver, which someone ruined by grinding it ‘sharp’
$30 handmade c/w rosewood handles

My letter opener.  A birthday gift from daughter/grandson.  Miniature Eragon sword.

A grandson gift.  This letter opener is banded agate stone, with Scottish thistle pommel.  Blurry, as usual.  😳

The son’s excess work knives.  Numbers 1 and 2 were found in ’empty’ parts cases, returned from customers.  3, 4 and 5, he purchased, #3, at a Detroit knife show, #4 in Toronto, and #5 from Amazon….’cause he doesn’t have enough knives.

My EDC, (every day carry)  $100 Gerber in nylon/Velcro belt sheath.

The son’s assault knife, called the “Feral Siamese”.  More of a short sword c/w skull-breaker pommel & formed Kydex sheath.  Needs a big, strong hand/arm.

The son’s $2000 Katana, which he won for $20.  Shown with Kydex scabbard and the winning ticket.

The son’s ‘utility’ Katana, called the “2014 TiKat”.  A little less fancy, built by the same maker who produced the blade for the one above.  This one is made of titanium rather than stainless steel – half the weight, with twice the strength and edge-holding, with a snug wooden scabbard.  I really need to get someone else to take these photos.

A decorative skinner/caper with a cast pewter wolf’s-head counterbalance and wolf scene on the handle.

My dragon kriss, gift from the daughter.

A replica German officer’s dagger with cast/moulded metal scabbard.

One of the son’s titanium belt buckles, this one with a single skull motif.

Another titanium belt buckle, this one with a dragon surmounting the Earth.

A matching titanium folding knife and belt buckle combo, this one with multiple, smaller skulls.  (And my hands and camera sneaking in via reflection)

Not the son’s ‘falling star pendant’,  this one is a Maltese Cross, made of Damascus steel.  A knife with this patterning is awesome.

That’s about all the knife-related stuff we’ve got.  See you again (or you’ll see me) in a couple of days.

Flash Fiction # 110

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

LOOKIN’ SEW GOOD

Grandma had the best legs in town. (That didn’t sound creepy or perverted, did it?)

I asked her one time how she kept them so trim and muscular. With nine kids, she saved money by making clothes on the old, treadle sewing machine.

Grandpa saved, and finally bought her an electric model. The first time the power failed, the old antique got lugged back down from the attic.  “Besides,” grandma explained, “that wimpy little motor can’t handle leather or denim.  How do you think I got the most gorgeous gams?”

Grandpa just grinned.
I think I need some brain bleach.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

 

I Am A Challenge

Always searching for inspiration, and any lame excuse theme for a post, I downloaded the above ’31 Day Blog Challenge.’  I quickly saw that I could never do them all, in a month.  Having blogged for 5 years, and pumped dribbled out over 660 posts, it was evident that I’d already (over)done several items, and others simply don’t apply.  Here’s the 31-day series in a fast-forward, 1-post version.

Self-portrait, and 5 random facts about yourself
Check my gravatar, my ‘About’ page, or any/all posts in my ‘Awards Earned’ category.  I’ve revealed more than the girls at the nudie bar.

Favorite quotes
I have hundreds of interesting, impressive and inspirational quotes rattling around in my empty head, and run into more online often.  Only if I’m very lucky do I remember an appropriate one when I need it.

What makes you happy?
LIFE makes me happy – playing children, a sunset or rainbow, a well-turned phrase.  I am easily pleased.  However, I am also easily displeased.  That’s when I am happy to have this blog-site to bitch about, and hold certain facts and actions up, for ridicule and opprobrium.

Best childhood memory
ALL of them!  I was fortunate to live a long-ago, safe, innocent, happy childhood.  One of my blog-award posts mentions not being much impressed when jobs, taxes and family responsibilities came along.

Favorite movies you never get tired of watching
I knew people who watched ‘Titanic’ 8 and 9 times.  The boat sinks.  Everybody dies.  A movie is a visual story. Once you’ve been told the story, it doesn’t change.  Even epic movies like James Bond, or Star Trek, I can only watch twice, or perhaps three times, before my OCD yells, “Tell me a different story.”

Your last act of random kindness
What?  Today?  They are constant and ongoing.  Small things.  Everything from smiling and saying Please and Thank You (Which, sadly, is becoming viewed as an act of kindness, rather than mere good manners) to taking shopping carts out of parking spaces and arranging them neatly in the cart corral.  It assuages my OCD and sense of order, and prevents others from getting dinged cars.

What’s your dream job?
I’m retarded retired, and living the dream.  I’d like to dream with a little more money, but….

Biggest pet peeve
We all rant about dopey drivers and dealing with bureaucracy but, since such a large part of my life centers around reading and writing, my peeve is about poor English usage – especially by paid writers and authors. Teachers used to go to Teachers College to learn how to teach children.  Now they go to Universities to obtain two useless degrees, and neither they nor their students can read or write.

What’s on your bucket list?
I don’t have a pot to piss in, so there’s no money in my bucket to do anything.

Rate the last movie you watched
I recently saw Star Trek Beyond.  It was forced, fun and fast.  Written by Simon Pegg, the actor who plays Scotty, it contained a number of ‘McGuffins’, unnecessary/invalid plot devices to get the viewer to go along with the tale.  After (finally) suspending disbelief, it was a rollicking action movie.

The last book you read
See ‘kindness’ above.  What, today??  I’m currently reading E.E. (Doc) Smith’s ‘Spacehounds of IPC’, Tom Clancy (actually written by Mark Greany), ‘Command Authority’, and Robert Asprin/Linda Evans, ‘Tales of the Time Scouts.’

What is your favorite recipe?
We eat so many kinds of real good food….anything Tex-Mex.  I never got any when I was young.  They had barely invented pizza.  Nothing fancy, just filling.  Perhaps Potato pancakes.  Yum!

Create a photo gallery of your best pics
Old shaky-finger Phil??  I don’t take artistic shots.  Almost everything I’ve photographed, has already been included in my posts.

What’s on your favorite playlist?
I’m too damned old for ‘playlists’!  I occasionally go to YouTube when I recall a 60s or 70s song I can’t listen to on my cassette player any more.  For an upcoming drive to Detroit, the wife asked about a playlist for the trip.  Among others, I suggested Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, and The Chain, Valdy, doing Play Me A Rock And Roll Song, as well as The Moody Blues’, I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band).

Tips on travelling to a destination
Our journeys are restricted to car trips, so I have few tips.  Plan ahead, service and gas the car, make reservations!

What are your 10 must-haves for a vacation?
If you have 10 things, or more, that you must have, that’s not a vacation.  That’s a temporary move!  Take along twice as much money, half as many clothes, an open mind, a spirit of inquiry and adventure, and the determination to see things, learn things, and have fun, no matter what happens. ….and that reservation!

As usual, I’m too wordy. Please return soon for Act 2 of this one-act play.  😳