Day: April 2, 2021

Fibbing Friday — Rites of Spring

Fandango8 Comments

Frank (aka PCGuy) and Di (aka Pensitivity101) alternate as host for Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. Today is Frank’s turn to host and here are his questions.

1. Why is April Fools Day on April 1st?

It’s to celebrate the birthday of Tom Foolery.

2. According to the old adage, exactly what do April showers bring?

Flash floods.

3. What is a Haiku?

It’s when you say to your friend when you want to go hiking: “Hey, hike, you?”

4. How did the tradition of hiding eggs on Easter begin?

Back in the day there was a severe egg shortage, so people would hide their eggs to make sure there were enough to last through the spring.

5. Why is it a tradition to serve lamb on Easter?

Because turkey is reserved for Thanksgiving, ham for Christmas, and beef for the Fourth of July. So lamb was all that was left.

6. Why is the season between winter and summer called spring?

Because the cold of winter makes you feel stiff, and the heat of the summer makes you feel wilted, so in the season in between you feel like you’re springing between stiff and wilted.

7. Since March just recently ended, what is meant by the old adage, “In like a lion, out like a lamb”?

The guy who came up with that expression mixed up his zodiac signs.

8. What is meant by the phrase, “trial by fire”?

Back in the early days of human evolution, before there were indoor court rooms, they would conduct trials outdoors in front of large fires. If the defendant was found guilty, it was easy to just toss him or her into the fire.

9. What is the difference between fact and theory?

One is indisputable and the other is something you wish was indisputable, but it may not be.

10. What is a postulate?

It’s when you scheduled a post to be published in the middle of the wee hours of the morning, but when you scheduled it, instead of designating a.m., you mistakenly put p.m., so when you look for your post the next morning and don’t find it, you scratch your head and say to yourself, “Post, you late!”

Friday Fictioneers — Cookie Monster

Fandango20 Comments

“Hi little boy,” the kindly old lady standing in front of the town bakery with a tray full of gingerbread cookies said. “Would you like to try one?”

The little boy looked at the cookies on the tray, looked up at the old woman, and started to cry.

“Oh my gracious,” the old woman said. She looked at the little boy’s mother and said, “I’m so sorry that I made your little boy cry.”

“It’s not your fault,” the mother said. “Ever since we read him “Hansel and Gretel,” he associates gingerbread cookies with the witch who eats little children.”

(100 words)

Written for the Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit: Jennifer Pendergast.

B is for “Barney Miller”

Fandango33 Comments

Continuing in the theme of TV shows, I’m highlighting another classic TV sitcom, “Barney Miller.”

“Barney Miller” was an American sitcom television series set in a New York City Police Department police station on East 6th St in Greenwich Village. Created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker, the show  focused on the detectives’ interactions with each other and with the suspects and witnesses they detained, processed, and interviewed. The series was broadcast on the ABC Network from January 23, 1975, to May 20, 1982.

Unlike other cop shows of the time, there were no car chases, no dramatic arrests, and no shootouts. Virtually all of the action revolved inside the rundown offices of the 12th Precinct. Each episode usually involving two or three cases in each episode. It took place almost entirely within the confines of the detectives’ squad room and Captain Barney Miller’s adjoining office of New York City’s fictional 12th Precinct. A typical episode featured the detectives of the 12th bringing in several complainants and/or suspects to the squad room. Usually, two or three separate subplots were in a given episode, with different officers dealing with different crimes. Rarely an episode would feature one or more of the detectives outside of the walls of the precinct, either on a stakeout or at their homes.

Hal Linden played the title character, Barney Miller, the only stable person in an police precinct filled with off-the-wall characters. Also in the ensemble cast were Abe Vigoda as the crotchety Sgt. Fish, Max Gail, playing Detective Wohciehowicz, Ron Glass as Detective Harris, Jack Soo as Sgt. Yemana, Steve Landesberg as Sgt. Dietrich, Gregory Sierra as Sgt. “Chano” Amengal, Ron Carey as Officer Carl Levitt, and Barbara Barrie as Barney Miller’s wife, Liz.

I thought the show was a hoot and I rarely missed an episode.The only thing comparable to “Barney Miller” today might be a similar show, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” which also starts with a B (coincidence?). It’s an American police procedural created by Dan Goor and Michael Schur. Like “Barney Miller,” it’s set in the fictional 99th Precinct in Brooklyn, NY. Also like “Barney Miller,” the ensemble sitcom follows a team of quirky detectives.

“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” premiered on September 17, 2013 and the eighth and final season is set to to run in the 2021–22 television season.

Previous BATZAP 2021 posts: A

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — April 2

Fandango26 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? 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 2nd) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on April 2, 2014 on my old blog.

It Ain’t Over Until the Fat Lady Sings

I know that someday I will die. We all will.

I don’t know when it will be. I don’t know how it will happen. And despite my firm belief that heaven and hell don’t exist, that this is all there is, and that once I die I will cease to exist in every sense, I know that I don’t know that to be a certainty.

I used to give little thought to what happens after death. But now that I’m getting closer and closer to the inevitable, I do wonder about it a little more.

Would I want there to be life after death?

Well, given that, if I’m wrong, I would most likely spend eternity in a rather hot and undesirable venue, I think I’d rather not want there to be an afterlife.

On the other hand, perhaps reincarnation — getting another chance at life on earth — might not be such a bad thing. Of course, it would depend upon what I came back as. Perhaps we come back in the form that most suited us during our lifetime, in which case I might come back as a donkey — as in ass.

No, I think I’m happy with my belief that it’s over when it’s over and there ain’t no more.

I just wonder where I’ll be when the fat lady sings.

FOWC with Fandango — Wordsmith

Fandango19 Comments

FOWCWelcome to April 2, 2021 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 “wordsmith.”

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. Please 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.