Day: June 21, 2019

Adding Insult to Injury

Fandango38 Comments

9BC1D069-73AC-47EB-AE93-0CD86E667F58I downloaded the lasted update to the WordPress app for iOS and was greeted with the normal graphical representation that shows how poorly my blog is doing in terms of views. But the so-called Happiness Engineers at WordPress also gifted me with some in-your-face statistics showing that my blog has received 42% fewer views today than it did yesterday. All I need, according to this new addition to the display of stats, is 151 more views today to match yesterday’s views, which, incidentally, were 144 views fewer (down 29%) than the day before that. That’s kind of depressing.

Come on, WordPress. Is it really necessary to give these stats in addition to the chart that tells me that nobody is reading my posts. I don’t like it. Not one bit.

And you call yourselves Happiness Engineers. Yeah, right.

#writephoto — Society’s Burden

Fandango18 Comments

A063B15A-5050-49BF-9AFF-07B9C59CAAA3First thing every morning, without delay, Doug would go to the tall stone wall. He’d take a deep breath and inhale the sweet fragrances carried by the breezes coming from the other side. The scents reminded him of his youth and the aroma from the rose garden in the backyard of his childhood home. The smells would only increase his desire to know what mysteries lay beyond the thick wooden gate. Always locked, though, that gate kept him inside of the perimeter of the old stone walls.

Doug had spent most of his life within the walls of the asylum. Society had deemed him, and others like him, to be too great a burden. The accident when he was five had cost him his mobility and confined him to life in a wheelchair. He was taken from his mother and father to be “cared for” by the State. It was in his and society’s best interests, his parents were told. They would have to sacrifice their son to the care of the State for the greater good of society.

It had been nearly twenty-five years since his confinement began. He was completely shut off from the outside world. They explained to him that, given his special needs, he would be too much of a burden to others and to society to be on the outside. The handicapped and disabled had unique needs and requirements, he was told, that could only be accommodated behind thick stone walls in asylums like this one.

But the State had limited resources and the law required that those who resided within the walls and who could not function on their own as able-bodied members of society by the time they were thirty would be humanely transitioned to the next world, where their spirits were not broken, as their bodies were in this world. In all of his time inside the stone walls, Doug had never known of any other “residents” who were reintegrated into the world outside.

Doug took one more deep breath and then slowly wheeled himself back to the residence building. Today was his thirtieth birthday and Doug knew that he would never again smell the scent of the roses.

Written for this week’s Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent. Also for these daily prompts prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (delay), Your Daily Word Prompt (inhale), Ragtag Daily Prompt (rose), The Daily Spur (increase), and Word of the Day Challenge (sacrifice).

Friday Fictioneers — The Last Straw

Fandango9 Comments

80071EF1-07BB-4FEA-B6C7-11F1BAF5A58AJoel glanced up at the electronic display that showed the status of all outbound flights. His flight home was delayed by at least two more hours. That meant that the kids, and maybe even his wife, would be asleep by the time he got home.

Joel’s job paid very well, but he’d grown tired of spending more time in airports and on airplanes than he did at home with his family. He was sick of spending more nights in hotel beds than in his own bed.

When he saw that his flight home was canceled, that was the last straw.

(100 words)

Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit goes to Rochelle.

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — June 21

Fandango13 Comments

Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year. I’ve had this blog for two years, so I have only 2017 and 2018 to draw from.

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer followers to some of you earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember?

Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 21st) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

It would be great if everyone who reads this post would scroll down to the comments and check out the posts that others provide links to.

I originally posted this one on June 21, 2014 in an old, now defunct blog of mine.

What’s Not To Like?

270BEAF3-F251-4D10-B969-C8B1BE3AAC36Like I was thinking the other day about the word “like.” And that, like, gave me an idea to, like, write a post not just, you know, using the word “like,” but to, like, write one about the word “like.”

But I wasn’t sure about it, so I, like, texted my BFF. I was like, “What do you think about me writing a post on my blog about the word ‘like’?”

She was like, “Oh yeah, I would be, like, down with that. You should, like, totally do it.”

So I was like, yeah, I think I might just write a post on my, you know, blog, about the word “like.” But then I, like, couldn’t really, you know, think of what I wanted to say about the word “like.” It’s, like, sort of a lame word, a filler word, actually. It’s not intense, like “love” or “hate.” It’s so, like, nondescript.

Like if I say I like something, it’s not that I, like, love it. It doesn’t, like, knock me over or anything. It’s, like, you know, not bad; it’s, like, okay. And like really, who would want to, like, read a post about a blasé word like “okay”?

So I texted my BFF again and I was like, “Would you, like, read my blog if I wrote a post about the word ‘okay’?”

And she was like, “Prolly not.”

So I decided to, you know, like, not write a post about the word “like.”

FOWC with Fandango — Delay

Fandango27 Comments

FOWCWelcome to June 21, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “delay.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.