Day: September 18, 2021

Weekend Writing Prompt — Ramshackle

Fandango10 Comments

“My great granddaddy built that place by hand in his youth,” Billy said, pointing to the ramshackle log cabin. “It was once a thing of beauty, but, between neglect and the ravages of time, it’s crumbling.”

“Is it beyond repair?” Sara asked.

“I think it’s a teardown,” Billy said.

“That’s so symptomatic of what’s wrong with society,” Sara said. “Rather than trying to hold onto the past, we choose to raze it and build something new in its place. That’s such a shame.”

Billy swallowed hard and said, “Fine, I’ll do my best to salvage the place.

(Exactly 97 words)

Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where the word is “ramshackle.”

Also for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (between), Word of the Day Challenge (symptomatic), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (swallow).

SoCS — Puzzle

Fandango14 Comments

My mother used to have these huge jigsaw puzzles spread out on our dining room tabletop and she would spend countless hours putting them together. Then, once she successfully finished with her puzzle, she’d toss all of the pieces back into the box and put the box on shelves that were already crammed full of other completed puzzle boxes in a closet in the basement of our house. I don’t think she ever did any one puzzle twice.

My wife is into crossword puzzles. There are two of them each day in our daily newspaper and she spends a good portion of each morning working on them. And she does them with a pen!

I never had patience for jigsaw puzzles and I’d rather spend my mornings on WordPress than working on crossword puzzles. But I do enjoy reading mystery novels and watching detective shows on TV. I always try to figure out the puzzle of the crime or to solve the mystery before the protagonist of the book or the main character in the show can. I’m thrilled when I can do that, but then I think that maybe the solutions to these puzzles were too easy and would have been obvious to anyone paying attention, which makes me feel disappointed.

Yeah, I know. That’s kind of puzzling.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where she gives us the word “puzzle.”

Speaking About Climate Change

Fandango12 Comments

When my wife and I moved from San Francisco to the East Bay in January of 2020, a distance of only about 30 miles, we were shocked. We quickly learned that the climates in our former and new locations are quite different.

San Francisco is known for its relatively mild winters and cool summers. In the winter, it’s rare for the temperatures to dip into the 30s (Fahrenheit). In the summer, the high temperatures on most days are in the mid-60s to upper-70s. There are times it gets into the 80s and even occasions when it reaches the low 90s, but those very hot days are the exceptions.

Where we live now on the East Bay is a totally different story. While temperatures never really dip below freezing in the winter, it comes close enough that we occasionally wake up to see a light frost on the ground. And in the summer, temperatures in the 90s and even the low 100s are the norm, not the exceptions.

Don’t get me wrong. I love where we live now. Well, except for the deer and the gophers who are destroying my trees, plants, and lawn. But the climate just 30 miles east of San Francisco is not ideal like it is, as far as I’m concerned, in San Francisco, which is close to perfect. Climate-wise, anyway.

Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Tale Weaver prompt.

FOWC with Fandango — Between

Fandango20 Comments

FOWCWelcome to September 18, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “between.”

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.