Day: August 29, 2022

Henry’s List

Fandango14 Comments

Henry was certain that after his wife died, he’d wind up as just another old man, a grouch that no one wanted to be around. He didn’t want that to happen to him, so he decided to put together a list of what he needed to do to avoid that fate.

At the top of his list was to find himself a winsome younger woman, figuring that someone like that would motivate him to stay in shape, make him happy, and enable him to lead a vigorous life.

Next on his list was to find a hobby, one that could keep him busy, especially one that he could share with his winsome younger woman. Something that would engage them both in mind and body.

Third on his list was for him and his winsome younger woman to find a place by the sea where they could live and work together on their shared hobby.

Alas, Henry soon learned that checking off the items on his list was not going to be a walk in the park. Henry was, in fact, old, rather unattractive, and a bit of a grouch. Finding a winsome younger woman who wanted to spend quality time with him was easier said than done.

Henry was also having trouble finding a hobby that engaged him enough to keep at it for more than a few weeks. He just didn’t have the patience, and that made him even more of a grouch.

And when Henry saw how expensive it would be to buy a even a modest home by the sea, he knew he’d never be able to afford such a place.

Depressed, disheartened, and despondent, Henry was sitting on a bench at a local, municipal park, when a large black bird with shiny, raven-colored wings alighted on the same bench that Henry was sitting on. Henry looked at the black bird, sighed, and asked aloud, “Will I ever find happiness again?”

Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (certain), The Daily Spur (grouch), Your Daily Word Prompt (list), Word of the Day Challenge (winsome), My Vivid Blog (hobby), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (sea), and E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (nevermore).

Blogging Insights — Walk Before You Run

Fandango16 Comments

It’s Monday and Dr. Tanya is back with her weekly Blogging Insights prompt. She provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and asks us to express our opinion about said quote.

This week’s quote is from American journalist Jeff Jarvis.

“The first step in blogging is not writing them but reading them.”

This quote reminded me of that old piece of advice that you need to learn to walk before you run. Back before I started blogging, I told an acquaintance that I enjoyed writing for fun. He suggested that I start a blog. He said it’s writing but you publish what you write and it’s out there forever in what he called “the ether.”

I asked him what people write about in blogs and he said they write about whatever they want to write about. I thought that was a cool idea so I asked him how to go about starting a blog and he referred me to blogspot.com (now commonly known as Blogger).

I opened an account at blogspot and followed the instructions on how to create a blog. It was pretty simple, and before I knew it, I had actually published a few blog posts. I asked my friend to read my posts and let me know what he thought.

In as a constructive way as possible, he suggested that I spend time reading other blogs to see the kinds of things other bloggers were doing. Not only what they wrote about, but how they wrote about their topics.

Reading the blogs of other bloggers, especially those who had decent followings, helped me quite a bit. I was able to discern what I especially liked or didn’t particularly like about the various blogs I read. And all that reading helped me define my own style and voice for my blog.

So yes, I fully embrace this quote. Take the time to read other blogs and then use what you learned. Don’t plagiarize or try to replicate another blogger’s style. But incorporate what you liked and think would work best for you. And then do your thing…on your blog.

TMP — Mob Rules in the U.S.

Fandango52 Comments

Every Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve prompt, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off. Today’s peeve is about politics. Of course it is.

The United States Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, above, said if Trump is prosecuted for mishandling classified information “there will be riots in the streets.”

Make no mistake, Trump did, in fact, mishandle classified information. He also broke the law. In 1978, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act, which established public ownership of all presidential records and required every president, beginning with Ronald Reagan, to archive their official records with the National Archives and Records Administration. The act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Trump took a boatload government property and documents home to Mar-a-Lago when he left office and has resisted returning them.

So is Senator Graham is suggesting that the government should refrain from prosecuting Trump, regardless of whether investigators conclude that the facts add up to evidence of crimes, just because his supporters will go nuts and riot? Is that the measure Graham believes prosecutors should use to determine whether or not a crime is worth pursuing? Mob rule?

Apparent Senator Graham believes so. He came right out and said, “Most Republicans including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law.”

Graham’s threat is just another attack on the rule of law. It’s an effort to discredit the idea that the law can be applied to Trump at all. And as we all know, Trump is not above inciting a mob to violence when it suits his purpose. Graham is basically setting the stage — or at least providing an excuse for — another insurrection-like riot, something Trump’s rabid supporters will willingly resort to as their messiah’s legal perils continue to mount.

When did the concept that no man is above the law become obsolete in America?

Share Your World — 08/29/2022

Fandango15 Comments
Share Your World

Di, at Pensitivity101, continues to serve as our host for Share Your World while Melanie, at Sparks from a Combustible Mind, continues her recuperation.

1. Which of the following could you do without? TV, Computer, Mobile Phone.

I definitely could not do without my mobile phone. I can watch TV shows and movies on it, so I could get by without a TV. And there’s not that much that I do on my computer that I can’t also do on my mobile phone.

2. Do you have a lot of old photographs in a box, or did you put them in albums?

We have tons of old photos in boxes in the closet of our guest room. None are in albums. Of course, pretty much all of the photos I’ve taken over the past 15 years (at least) are digital and are stored either on my laptop’s hard drive, on my iPhone, or in the iPhone cloud (iCloud), which backs up virtually everything on my iPhone.

3. What was the first thing you bought for yourself when you started work?

I have absolutely no idea. Possibly some comic books or five baseball cards that came packaged with a piece of stale bubblegum.

4. What is the biggest thing you have bought that did not require finance?

I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

Gratitude

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #182

Fandango11 Comments

Welcome to Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge. Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenging bloggers to write a flash fiction piece or a poem inspired by the photo. There are no style or word limits.

The photo below is from shutterstock.com.

For the visually challenged writer, the photo shows a young couple lying on a rug working together on a jigsaw puzzle.

If this week’s image inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post, use the tag #FFFC, and link back to this post. I hope it will generate some great posts.

Please create a pingback to this post or manually add your link in the comments.