E.M. Kingston has started a new weekly prompt called The Sunday Ramble. It is based upon a certain topic. She asks five questions about that topic, that we can ramble on however we wish. Today’s topic is “pets.”
1. Do you have any pets? If you do, tell us about them (name, kind of pet, etc.)
I’ve had pets all of my life. Mostly dogs, but also some others, ranging from rabbits, snakes, turtles, and tropical fish. But for purposes of E.M.’s prompt, I’m going to focus on our two most recent pets, our dog and our cat, pictured below.
2. What nicknames do you call your pet(s)?
Our dog, Shadow, who we lost in November 2020 at age 15, was a black, mixed German shepherd and Labrador retriever. She was a rescue and the sweetest dog ever. Our cat, Colby, is still with us, but he’s almost 16, so he’s a senior citizen. He is a black cat with green eyes and was a stray who adopted us by hanging out on our front porch and refusing to leave until we gave him a proper home. In both cases, their names are what we called them.
3. Do your pet(s) like to travel with you in the car?
Shadow loved to travel by car and accompanied us on half a dozen cross country drives. Colby absolutely hates going in the car, which is why we use a vet that makes house calls.
4. If you had to imagine, who would your pet(s) be if they were human?
I don’t know that could name a specific person, but our dog was a lover and a people pleaser and if she had been human, she would have been a Democrat. Our cat is aloof and is the kind that has no qualms about biting or scratching the hand that feeds him, so he’d be a Republican.
5. What does your pet(s) do for you?
Our pets have always brought us companionship, warmth, comfort, and unconditional love.
The idea behind Who Won the Week is to give you the opportunity to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.
I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.
This week’s Who Won the Week winners are Dead Scottish Witches. Before the Scottish Witchcraft Act was repealed 300 years ago, an estimated 3,873 Scottish people were put on trial for practicing witchcraft, 84% of whom were women. Two-thirds of them, 2,148 women and 410 men, were found guilty of supernatural crimes and were usually strangled to death then were burned at the stake so as to leave no body to bury. Fun times, huh?
To put that into perspective, in the infamous Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, 300 people were accused and 19 people were executed.
The literal witch-hunt in Scotland ran from 1563, when the Witchcraft Act was enacted, until 1736, when it was finally repealed. An advocate group, Witches of Scotland, ran a two-year campaign aiming for posthumous pardons and their bill looks like it will finally come to pass in the Scottish parliament. The move follows a precedent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the U.S. that proclaimed the victims of the Salem witch trials innocent in 2001.
So to all of those thousands of executed Scottish witches, congratulations, you’ve been pardoned. Sure, it may be a little late, but at least it’s something.
What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?
For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme, Jim Adams has once again tapped Amy Braun’s suggestion for songs that feature lyrics of Anger, Frustration, Furious, Irritated, Mad, Provoked, and Revenge. My selection this week is Phil Collins’ song of angry, bitterness, and frustration, “I Don’t Care Anymore.”
“I Don’t Care Anymore” was written, performed, and produced by English drummer Phil Collins. It was the third single from Collins’ 1982 solo album, Hello, I Must Be Going! It was released as a single in early 1983 and is one of the Collins’ most recognizable songs. The song earned Collins his first Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1984.
“I Don’t Care Anymore” is a rather dark song with angry lyrics directed at Collins’ failed first marriage to Andrea Bertorelli. In the song, Collins takes out his frustrations over their split and ultimate divorce.
Andrea couldn’t stand it when her ex-husband released songs laying bare their relationship troubles. Her side of the story was that Collins had a “short fuse and preference for arguing,” and that he left to tour right after their second child was in 1976, choosing his career over his family.
She added, “When I asked him to stop talking and writing songs about our relationship, he said he had ‘the artistic licence to write about whatever he wanted.’ Basically he was making too much money out of his divorce to worry about my feelings or his children’s feelings.”
Meanwhile, Collins told Rolling Stone that he was getting letters from her lawyers asking for unbelievable things. This made him bitter and he was resigned to put it behind him. In this song, he makes it clear that even though he’s being dragged through the mud, he doesn’t care anymore. When he wrote this song he had already begun dating Jill Tavelman, who would become his second wife.
Here are the lyrics to “I Don’t Care Anymore.”
Well you can tell everyone I’m a down disgrace Drag my name all over the place I don’t care anymore You can tell everybody ’bout the state I’m in You won’t catch me crying ’cause I just can’t win I don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore
I don’t care what you say I don’t play the same games you play
‘Cause I’ve been talking to the people that you call your friends And it seems to me there’s a means to and end They don’t care anymore And as for me I can sit here and bide my time I got nothing to lose if I speak my mind I don’t care anymore, I don’t care no more
I don’t care what you say We never played by the same rules anyway
I won’t be there anymore Get out of my way Let me by I got better things to do with my time I don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore I don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore
Well, I don’t care now what you say ‘Cause every day I’m feeling fine with myself And I don’t care now what you say Hey, I’ll do alright by myself ‘Cause I know
‘Cause I remember all the times I tried so hard And you laughed in my face ’cause you held all the cards I don’t care anymore
And I really ain’t bothered what you think of me ‘Cause all I want of you is just a let me be I don’t care anymore, d’you hear? I don’t care no more
I don’t care what you say I never did believe you much anyway
I won’t be there no more So get out of my way Let me by I got better things to do with my time I don’t care anymore D’you hear? I don’t care anymore I don’t care no more You listening? I don’t care no more No more!
You know I don’t care anymore! Don’t care no more! No more, no more, no more Don’t care, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more No more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more
Welcome to December 26, 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 “mindful.”
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.
This, That, and the Other 