Flash Fiction #200

PHOTO PROMPT © Linda Kreger 

THAT’S FUNNY

I’ve never heard of a scavenger hunt for jokes.

There’s a couple! Scoop them up.

What’s the difference between a porcupine and a Porsche?….
….The porcupine has the pricks on the outside

My doctor told me that I have insomnia….
….but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it

You find them everywhere. Grab that pair!

What did the fish say when he swam into the wall?….
….Dam

My girlfriend hates it when I joke about her weight….
….She should lighten up.

One more, then home.

What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50?….
….A politician

***

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

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve been at this long enough to have reached the FF #200 milestone. Thank you Rochelle for having the patience to herd all these cats, and thanx to all the rest of you who come to read my silly stories.

WOW #49

I’ve got another old-fashion-y word, as this week’s Word Of the Week. It’s

DANDLE

verb (used with object), dan·dled, dan·dling.

to move (a baby, child, etc.) lightly up and down, as on one’s knee or in one’s arms.

to pet; pamper.

Isn’t that a lovely old word, as warm and nutritious as Scottish oatmeal; as enfolding and supportive as a flannelette blanket? It’s not officially extinct, but it went on the endangered species list in the 60s or 70s.

Nobody dandles babies anymore! There’s no time! Instead, fit, young, Spanx-clad, Bluetooth-sprouting mothers race past, with bewildered, wind-burned children in $4000 Kevlar and Carbon-Fiber walkers, on their way to enrol the kid in pre-pre-pre-kindergarten, or snaffle the last spot in some preppy Day-Care.

I believe that I may have found a preventive for, at least some of, the multiple-killing gun violence. Perhaps if Mom (Or grandma – she remembers how) dandled her child more, he would be more likely to grow up to return love for love, instead of being estranged from society.

Please note that the word is dandle, not diddle. 😯 The Catholic Church seems to finally be getting the word, and that pedophile, Epstein has taken himself out of the game.

Stop back in a couple of days for some more comedy, and the beginning of my (hopefully) final dash for the 200^th Flash Fiction milestone.

Millennial

I will always remain a pre-Baby Boomer, but I now also qualify as a Millennial.  This is my

1000^th POST

Ta Da !!!

I dropped my first pitiful excuse of a retirement project post on Nov. 21, 2011.  Since then, at a rate of about 150 a year, it has taken me just over seven years to reach this point.  On November 20^th, the day before, I got this from WordPress.

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 7 years ago.

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

 

It seems like I have written about everything – and nothing.  Sometimes I feel that my offerings are just immaterial fluff, and wonder why anyone reads it, but then you lovely readers and followers comment to tell me that I have somehow touched a significant social meme.

Some themes are pretty much exhausted.  I have only one more interesting childhood/growing-up idea left, and not much likelihood of any more.  Like Will Rogers, I keep my eyes on the newspapers.  Some of that stuff just writes itself.

I very much appreciate your electronic company and support.  If any of you have an idea or theme that you’d like me to have a go at, I would be thrilled to hear about it.

When I’m all done with this self-gratification egotistical back-patting, I’ll get back to some honest key-tapping, and should have something more interesting for you in a couple of days.  See you then.  😀  😎  🌯

WOW #18

Just as the Gerry Seinfeld TV series was a show about nothing, so too, here is a word which is really also about nothing. The Word Of the Week is

ANOESIS

Definition for anoesis
a state of mind consisting of pure sensation or emotion without cognitive content.

And so, we have a word to describe the newly elected President of the United States, the all-powerful, Commander in Chief, Humpty-Dumpty Donald Trump….and most of the fools people who voted the fool into office.

It’s like Cassius Clay….uh, Mohammed Ali is back – “I am the Greatest!”  All feeling, all the time – no thinking.  No tact – no diplomacy – no restraint – no social graces – no executive ability – no plans, except that foggy, feel-good ‘Make America Great.’

It’s a shame that the Barnum and Bailey Circus has disbanded. As a Chief Executive….he’d make a great clown.  I just hope that, when I hear him say, “You’re fired.” he’s talking to Anthony Scaramucci, not the red ICBM launch button that he’s going to use, to teach Russia or North Korea a lesson.

Maybe I should use some anoesis, and just sit back and feel good, without thinking or worrying about what’s going wrong. Maybe not though.  There’s another ‘A’ word to describe people like that.  It’s ‘Asshole!’ 😯

***

And just to flesh out an otherwise anorexic little post – I’d like to mention that this one is another small milestone.  It is my 800th published blog.  My many thanks to all of you who have made it possible.   😀   😎   🌯

Flash Fiction #100 – Milestone

MILESTONE

This is my 100^th Flash Fiction, so it‘s a milestone – or is it??!

The first Flash Fiction I wrote, I did so as a challenge by my blog-friend, BrainRants, who had tried it. The blog-post of Rochelle’s that I accessed was not a F.F., and the photo I downloaded was that of her Grandmother, which I used to write a [pioneering story.]

That first one was 101 words, just to prove that I could do it. Every one since has been exactly 100 words.  It, and a few of its followers, I did just for personal satisfaction, and to extend my stat numbers.  I soon learned how to LinkIn, and joined the group.  Christmas/ New Years -2014/15, Rochelle didn’t post a prompt photo, but I felt a surge of creativity, and used one of my own photos, of a double rainbow, to write a [Sci-Fi short story] that didn’t get linked.

(Technology apparently still eludes me.  It’s FF #32  😯 )

Inspiration does not strike every week, but number 100 is just over two years from my first. Along the way, I’ve read some interesting stories, and met some creative writers and nice folks.  Thanx, to Rochelle and the rest of you for having me along.  This week’s submission follows.

Copyright -John Nixon

PIANO, MAN

There was something strange about this piano. He’d got it for a song.  A classical pianist had used it for practice, but had mysteriously disappeared.

He had tried to play upbeat lilts, but they always seemed to come out sedate and serious.

Today, while playing for the kids, in his Happy the Clown show, he had reached up to turn the page, and somehow caught his hand. When he reached up to free it, his other hand got tangled….  and he’d ended up – where??

How could he be inside a piano??  And who was this old guy with the tuxedo??!

***

Here’s what he was playing, on YouTube ‘circus march piano’

***

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

Happy 100

This is my one-hundredth post.  To some of the bloggers I follow, that would be ho-hum.  The way they pump posts out, that could have been accomplished in a couple of months.  It has taken me ten months to get this far.  I started slow, then tapered off.

I knew I wasn’t ever going to set the world on fire literately.  In fact, when I started, I wondered if I would attract any readers other than the few bloggers I had been bedevilling with comments on their posts.  Like other aspects of my life, I later found that I was doing the right things by instinct, to attract readers and followers.  Seldom able to keep my mouth shut, or my fingers still, I went further and further afield and made comments on a variety of blogs.  I later read from WordPress, that this is a good way to attract followers.  I’ve never actually been told to mind my own business, although there have been a couple of curt and dismissive responses.

I try not to antagonise anyone on their home turf, even when I disagree with them.  That’s not a problem with my core group.  For as much as we are all different, it is intriguing, how much we are the same.

I sit safely in the *average* slot, as far as bloggers go.  I visit other sites which have only a couple of followers and often several consecutive posts, before anyone makes a comment.  I’m not a Byronic Man, a BrainRants or a Madame Weebles, with hundreds, or thousands of followers, and a comment thread like a papyrus scroll.  I have managed to acquire almost 60 followers, a small cloud of *likes* on each post, and intelligent, insightful and supportive comments from a nice bunch of folks.  More ho-hum, but I’m closing in on 4000 hits.

I only post every two to four days, so my normal daily readership runs from ten to forty.  My best day was 71 hits, and that was for a little throw-away acceptance speech for a blog award.  I’m not worried by it, but I am perplexed that, after ten months on the WordPress scene, I recently had two days, just over a week apart, when no-one came to visit.  I’ve had onesies and twosies, but I really got lonely a couple of times.  I had to go bug some other bloggers.

Bloggers disappear from the scene all the time.  I’m sure some of them are like me; they have a limited number of things they wish to post about and just run out of ideas.  My wife recently commented that the number of letters-to-the-editor I submit has dropped.  Of course, six to eight op/ed pieces a year don’t add much when the blog count hits a hundred.  I still write down potential post themes when one penetrates my thick skull.  I know I’ll get to my anniversary blog, but may have to space my posts out a bit more.

I’m not a rabid numerologist.  I get a kick out of catching my digital watch at 3:33:33, or 11:11:11, or 12:34:56, but I’m enough of a realist to know that blog number 100 really is no more special than number 99 or 101.  It is a small milestone that I am happy to have reached, with the support of my select little cadre of readers and followers.

I’m typing one-handed right now.  No!  Not because I’ve been viewing porn.  I think I pulled a muscle in my shoulder, patting myself on the back for getting this far.  I’ve had four blog awards thrust upon me, but that’s like contracting mono.  There are so many awards drifting around at any one time, you’d have to be a blog-virgin not to get at least one, but it is nice to know that I am noticed and appreciated.

I just visited aFrankangle’s blog, and was treated to a large dose of reality.  It was tempered with a small platter of pleasure.  I got to Frank’s site just in time to see his 1000^th post.  I have got soooo far to go.  Frank also revealed that my grumpy American curmudgeon counterpart, the much respected, and until now, blogless, John Erickson, slipped and has finally fallen into the blog pool.  It’s thyme to visit the sage of Ohio at www.windycitywonderer.wordpress.com.

To all who have tolerated me, taught me, led me, and even encouraged me, I give again, a huge thank-you.  Since I have to live so much inside my head, it is pleasant to have such nice neighbors.