Day: August 10, 2019

Backbreak Hotel

Fandango10 Comments

1E52D90C-0BD4-460D-ABCD-1FE45D02E65FJim Adams, host of this week’s Music Challenge from Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, gave us the song “Heartbreak Hotel” and asked us to focus on that song and use it for inspiration in any form of creative expression.

The song he gave us is about a guy whose girl left him and he finds a place at the end of Lonely Street called the Heartbreak Hotel, where he checks in and whines about how his “baby” left him and how lonely he is. Oh boo hoo!

I’m not going to lament about having a broken heart, but I am going to celebrate the fact that, since I retired two-and-a-half years ago, I have not spent a single night in a hotel room. Yay!

I used to have to travel a lot for my job and that meant spending many nights in hotel rooms. So many nights, in fact, that I qualified for Premium Gold Elite status, or something like that, with the Marriott rewards program.ACCA22D2-DF79-432D-870F-B9CCD8320470For the most part, the hotel rooms I slept in were decent enough, but no matter how often I stayed at a hotel sleeping on a hotel room bed, it’s just not the same as sleeping in my own bed.

I love my bed. My mattress is perfect. Not too soft. Not too hard. Just right. I wake up each morning feeling refreshed and free of back pain. But that wasn’t the case when I slept in hotel beds. My sleep was often restless and, as often as not, I’d have to pop a couple of Advils when I woke up because my back would be stiff and tight.

So, bringing this back to Jim’s Music Challenge, were I to write a song about a hotel, I’d probably title it “Backbreak Hotel.” Because, you know, hotel beds suck.

How Convenient

Fandango47 Comments

ECDAC94D-CA73-45B2-BE3C-B1C38BED2C79The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is pick up my iPhone and glimpse at the breaking news notifications that show up on my iPhone. What I saw this morning was a bunch of notifications that Jeffrey Epstein, the American financier and convicted sex offender, best known for his alleged sex trafficking of juvenile girls, and who had close connections with many of the world’s elite, had committed suicide in his cell in a Lower Manhattan prison.

Less than three weeks ago, Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell, with marks on his neck that appeared to be self-inflicted. As a result, since July 23rd, Epstein had been put on suicide watch.

How does someone who is incarcerated in a federal prison and who is on suicide watch manage to commit suicide? That just doesn’t make sense, does it?

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, given that Epstein was in a position to potentially release the identities of many of his rich, famous, powerful, and influential friends and customers of his sex trafficking operations, his “suicide” seems awfully convenient.

I also noted that some of the stories differed in their reporting of the incident. Some said that he was found in cardiac arrest and died in the hospital he was taken to. Others reported that he was found dead from hanging in his cell. I do hope that some intrepid investigative journalists will be able to get to the bottom of this story.

To me, it speaks volumes that we have reached the stage where nothing that happens, when there is any connection to Donald Trump, can be taken at face value.

Will we ever find out for sure if Epstein’s death was actually a suicide or if it may have been a conveniently timed homicide? I’m not holding my breath.

Written for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (glimpse), Daily Addictions (identity), Your Daily Word Prompt (juvenile), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (differ), Ragtag Daily Prompt (intrepid), and The Daily Spur (stage).

SoCS — Outside Lands

Fandango11 Comments

06B71C58-6BFE-41DD-8342-6BF9F7B8E09A“Where is that music coming from?” Larry asked. Larry is an old college buddy of mine who lives in Chicago. He and his wife are our houseguests while visiting San Francisco for a week. Larry agreed to walk with me while last night while I took our dog out for her final walk of the day. It was about 9:15 p.m.

“That’s the Outside Lands Music Festival,” I said. “It’s an annual outdoor summer event at Golden Gate Park. It runs through Sunday night.”

“Wow,” Larry said. “And you can hear the music from there all the way over here?”

“We only live three blocks from Golden Gate Park, Larry,” I said, “so of course we can hear it from here.”

“Do you ever go and watch the performers?” Larry asked.

“We have gone a few times, but it’s kind of a zoo and the three-day pass is expensive,” I said, “so we’ll pick one night, and head over to the park with some folding chairs and a cooler and set up just outside the perimeter of the festival and listen to the performances. It’s almost as good as being near the performers, but it’s free. If you and Judy are up for it, we can do that tomorrow night.”

“Definitely,” Larry said.FF601F4E-3FEC-433E-9377-839108740C34

Written for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill. Our challenge today is to “Start your post with the word ‘where’ and write whatever comes to you.”

FOWC with Fandango — Differ

Fandango30 Comments

FOWCWelcome to August 10, 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 “differ.”

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.