WOW #1

WOW is going to stand for – Word Of the Week

I’m always looking for an interesting theme to post about. I recently found one at SightsNBytes.  He vowed to post about a word a day, for 2017.  Of course, like many New Year’s resolutions, he’d only published 3 in the first two weeks.

To publish a post about a word a day would turn this into a dictionary site, but, a word a week seemed doable, perhaps even only when inspiration doesn’t strike with Rochelle’s 100-word Flash Fictions.  My OCD suggested that I go alphabetically, like the April Challenge.  Dictionary.com has an interesting word each day.  I’m sure I can find at least one suitable candidate each week.

Let us at least begin with an A word.

The first Word Of the Week is;
askance
Meaning – adverb 1. with suspicion, mistrust, or disapproval:
He looked askance at my offer.
with a side glance; sidewise; obliquely.

It looks like you’re ‘asking’ something, but, like many other English words, it actually begins with the French prefix ‘a’, meaning, ‘in, at or to’. The rest of the word would be more understandable, written ‘scanse’, incorporating the word ‘scan.’  It is pronounced (ah-skance), with the accent on the second syllable.

Probably like many of the words I’ll choose, this one is a bit archaic. When someone writes of one character ‘cutting his eyes’ towards another, our grandparents (Okay, your Great-grandparents) might have spoken of ‘looking askance.’

Does anyone object to learning about the occasional word? Be gentle with the words you use to describe me and my idea.  😉

 

A to Z Challenge – F

Chuck you, Farley!

  FIRE!

I was in fine fettle and feeling frisky last Friday. I felt it would be a fun and frivolous frolic to use my finesse and mental file full of facile facts, to fearlessly fabricate a folio featuring the letter F, to favor my many fine fans and faithful followers.

My first foray was merely a foolish façade. I found that I was a failure, a feeble fake, and felt like a fog-brained, fatuous, old fart, really full of foolish ego.

I had to flee from the feeling of frustration for failing to finish my finite little Flash Fiction feature. I felt that I had really fouled up, a facet I’d never fully faced before.  At least no-one gave me the foul fickle finger of fate, and told me to F… off.

This futile alliteration function has me feeling freaky. Fear not, friends.  I’m now finally free to flog a fresh foundation for the following letter, G.

I’m fully finished, and find I’m famished. I feel I should flit off and fix some filling and flavorful foreign food, for example, fajitas or frijoles.   😉

HELP!

Help, I need somebody!
Help, not just anybody.
Help, you know I need someone.
Help!

I could have used some help with this week’s Flash Fiction. I went to Rochelle’s site and examined the photo prompt.  It looked like a couple of beef leg bones in a clear plastic public garbage bag.  The only thought I had was about some greasy-spoon diner that served overly large chicken wings.  You’re better off without that story.

I decided instead, to request aid and succor from my readers. This week, in several different places, I have seen a post of 15 questions given to 8 to 10-year-old children to find out if they are geniuses (genii).  I took the test myself.  I got the right answers to 13 out of the 15 questions, so I can probably outwit some students, before they enter Middle School.

For most of the questions, when the correct answer is revealed, it’s obvious. For three of the remaining four, when the answer is shown, a note pops up to explain why and how.  I got two of these right, and two of them wrong.  One of my errors was explained, but the other one wasn’t.

I was going to leave a comment/question, asking for clarification, but found that the test is based on Facebook, and I don’t have a Facebook account to access it. Have any of my readers seen this test?  Do you know what I’m referring to?  Do you know the answer?  Do you have a Facebook account?

Here’s the question that stumped me. I guess I’ll never grow up to be an insightful genius.

Bing is to Ding
as Hug is to….
Hit/Bug/Enemy/Friend

Transposing initial letters, and answering ‘Bug’, seemed a bit too simplistic for a question searching for geniuses, but it’s the one I eventually settled for.

The correct answer is ‘Friend!’  I see how the word Hug relates to Friend, but now I can’t divine a similar relationship between Bing and Ding.

A little help – please!   😳

Minutia VI

I composed this post way back in the early fall, and tucked it away in a Word file.  Then I got distracted by the shiny 100-word Flash Fictions and failed to publish it.  Just pretend that it is still late October/early November, and you still have a cold, snowy winter ahead of you.  That way, this submission from the late Archon won’t seem as bad.   🙄

***

Everybody’s entitled to an opinion – so I’ll give you one of mine.  I have to get up earlier these days, just to have enough time to spread all of them around.

The voices in my head have decided that I’m imaginary.
I think paranoid people are following me.

My old eyes are still good enough to drive without glasses, but I do miss certain details.  Out driving with daughter LadyRyl the other day, I slowly overtook a motorcycle.  From a quarter-mile back, I knew there were too many wheels.  At first I thought it might be a Spyder motorcycle, which son, Shimoniac is considering buying. They have two widely-spaced wheels at the front, for greater stability.

As I got closer, I thought it might be a trike motorcycle, with two wheels at the rear, for carrying an extra passenger, but I could now see a single rear wheel….yet still, more than two.

Perhaps he’s got a sidecar – but a sidecar would be on the right – and I can see a wheel to his left.

As we finally overtook him, daughter, LadyRyl, snapped this photo.  Here’s a big, tough Harley-Davidson biker – with training wheels!  I’ve never seen anything like this, and can’t think of any possible use for this set-up.  I’m going to stop in at a couple of bike shops and ask.  Any of you have an opinion??

****

Cardinals (the birds) are almost as cautious and unseen as Blue Jays.  You hear them, but you very seldom see them.  A pair nests in the big pine trees near the daughter’s place.  This spring and summer they hatched and raised a batch of chicks, which are now ready to fly.  They’re not quite as skittish as the adults.  About to leave the daughter’s place recently, I noticed a fledgling in the Rose of Sharon bush right in front of her door.

She quickly grabbed up the camera, but, by the time she got in position, it had fluttered to the concrete.  Slowly, quietly, she edged to the door to get a shot….and just as she clicked the shutter, it took off.  I had hoped to submit it to the local paper, which prints cute wildlife photos each day.  This is more “artistic” than real life.  I hope you enjoy.  What do you think of it?

Flash Fiction #44

© Lauren Moscato

Watch That First Step

“Dey say dissa new, Pope Frank”…..

“Pope Francis!  Avva sum respeck, eh!?”

“Dey say heeza nice guy, a manna da peepul. Dey say he goze owt onna street at night, anna help da homeless.”

“Uh huh!”

“He doan like da fancy cloze, an he doan stay at da Vatican.  He live in some ratty hotel.  Heeze ‘sposed ta wave at alla da peepul from da balcony at St. Peter Basilica.  What he gonna do when dey all show up outside hiz hotel window?”

“Doan wurry about dat.  I got sum material an toolz, an datz all bin tooken care of.

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

 

 

Flash Fiction #43

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ©David Stewart

Tuba Or Not Tuba

“We can’t all be first-violinists!  Someone has to push wind through the tuba.”

“Take it easy, Bob.  We’re just a little brass band.  There are no first-violinists, and you’re the blowhard who volunteered to play the tuba.”

“Okay everyone, I know this is our first actual public concert, but we’ve been rehearsing for weeks.  You guys are ready; I know you are.”

“I’ll tell you what though, if any of you are unsure that you can do it, just fake the motions until you feel comfortable to join in.”

The conductor dropped his baton….and was greeted with a crashing silence.

 

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

Flash Fiction #40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNNY DISPOSITION

Wendy didn’t begrudge Bob’s monthly poker night with the guys, nor mind that he had a couple of beers, but last night he had overindulged.  She’d need to have a word with him about that when his head stopped pounding; they had a young child now.  Hung-over Bob was as petulant and demanding as the baby.

Ah, Sunday brunch on the deck – sunshine and fresh air.  Who demanded fried eggs as a sober-up meal??!

“I don’t like sunny-side-up!  I wanted over-easy!”

Wendy extended her hand toward the fence and inverted the platter.

“You want over-easy??  Okay Bob, you got over-easy!”

 

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

 

My parents used to winter in Florida, renting a trailer from a farming family.  They had three children.  While never drunken, the husband could occasionally become exasperating.  It was always quickly nipped in the bud by a ‘mother’s’ steely stare, and the words, “I didn’t take you to raise!”

Flash Fiction #39

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Had A Little – Fright

They asked, “Why does the lamb love Mary so?”
‘Tis that Mary loves the lamb, you know.

Mary didn’t have a lamb.  She had an old dog named Shep.  She could not bring herself to tie Shep up, but he followed her everywhere.

“I won’t fall down a well, Lassie.  I won’t crash through the floor of an old barn.  I’m just going to walk to school beside the tracks, like I do safely, every day.”

Until the day old Shep rushed at her, barking furiously, just in time for her to see the unscheduled freight, with the extra-wide load.

 

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

 

Flash Fiction #38

 

 

 

 

© Copyright Marie Gail Stratford

Breaking Bad

Now, we’d rehearsed for days and days,
A smash-and-grab to do.
“You throw da brick,” one bloke said,
“And I’ll leave da grab to you.”

The brick went through the window,
“Now grab,” they cried, “and quick!”
It wasn’t till we’d got away,
I found I’d grabbed our brick.

I stared and stared over another big pile of writer’s block, at Rochelle’s weekly photo prompt.  Suddenly, like a brick through a plate glass window, I had a flash of inspiration.  Tripping over the mixed metaphor, I saw it was only an anemic firefly.  “I know; I’ll resuscitate Lonny Donegan’s humor!”

 

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

 

 

Flash Fiction #37

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

–Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Grace Under Pressure

Once, it was enough if you could sing, dance or act.  Those who did it better than others became stars.

In the turbulent, rebellious ‘60s, Elvis Presley became a superstar, not for his less-than-stellar abilities, but because of those of his agent, who promoted the Hell out of him.

Paul Simon, another performer with perhaps as much talent, but less marketing, sang of going to his mansion, ‘Graceland.’  Decades after he died, Presley’s estate still makes more in a year than I did my entire life.

And so I am here, willingly, foolishly, adding my money to theirs.

 

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