Ever since his cast was removed after the operation to repair a fractured wrist, Kevin had experienced an intermittenttwitch in his right hand, and it was making him miserable. “My conjecture,” Kevin’s doctor said, “is that you’re probably experiencing muscle weakness due to having worn a cast for the past four months.”
The doctor suggested that Keven undergo physical therapy or acupuncture, but since Kevin couldn’t stand the idea of needles that pierce the skin, he decided to go the physical therapy route. Within a matter of two weeks, his twitches, while not completely gone, had dropped in frequency quantitatively, which made Kevin a happy camper.
Written for these Daily Prompts: The Daily Spur (operation/miserable), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (intermittent/twitch), Your Daily Word Prompt (conjecture), Word of the Day Challenge (weakness), Ragtag Daily Prompt (pierce), and E.M.’s Radom Word Prompt (quantitative).
John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. I thought this might be fun so I decided to join in.
This photo below was taken with my iPhone when I was walking my dog. She spotted something “interesting” on the sidewalk and started to investigate. When I saw it, I pulled my dog back and bent down to take a closer look. It seemed to be an insect, like a cricket, but it looked like it had been dipped into some sort of gold coating. It was weird, which is why I leaned in to take this photo. Then I gingerly touched it and it didn’t move, and that’s when I realized it was just an empty exoskeleton.
I was curious because I’d never seen a bug like this before so I took my photo and did a Google reverse search. Turns out that the bug was a Jerusalem cricket. But despite its name, it’s neither true cricket nor true bug. It’s not even native to Jerusalem. And while they are not venomous, they can emit a foul smell and are capable of inflicting a painful bite.
Who knew?
If you wish to participate in this fun cellphone photo prompt, please click on the link to John’s post at the top of my post to see his photo and to read his instructions.
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.
This week’s recipient of Who Won the Week recipient is not a who, but a what. It’s green burials. Green burials, also referred to as human composting, or natural organic reduction, is an environmentally friendly type of burial. And California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, recently signed into law a bill allowing human composting.
Natural organic reduction is an alternative to conventional burial and cremation. It offers less of an environmental impact. In general, it avoids direct use of fossil fuels like in cremation and takes up less space than conventional burial. It also avoids the use of materials like concrete and non-biodegradable caskets often used in conventional burial. Cremation, which accounts for more than half of “burials” in the state, is an energy-intensive process that emits chemicals such as CO2 into the air. Through a green burial, the body is naturally broken down into soil.
The process involves placing the deceased in an 8ft-long steel box with biodegradable materials such as wood chips and flowers. After 30 to 60 days, the body breaks down into soil that can be returned to relatives.
Of course, the California Catholic Conference opposes natural organic reduction, saying the composting process “reduces the human body to simply a disposable commodity.” Well, yeah. Whether you bury the body or cremating it, you’re disposing of the body, aren’t you? I thought the Church was focused more on the soul than on the body.
I, for one, am going to change my death directive from from cremation to natural organic reduction.
So who (or what) do you think won the week?
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.
For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge, Jim Adams has given us the option to choose whatever we like. This was harder than I expected it to be because there are so damn many songs that I love. But Jim said he might make it an annual thing, so if I’m still around next October, I’ll get to choose again. Anyway, my choice this year is the song from Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Wooden Ships.”
“Wooden Ships” was written and composed by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Paul Kantner. Kantner was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, which also recorded the song. It was written and composed in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a boat named the Mayan, owned by Crosby, who composed the music, while Kantner and Stills wrote most of the lyrics. It was released in February 1969 on CSN’s debut album, Crosby, Stills & Nash. It was also released by Jefferson Airplane in November 1969 on their fifth album, Volunteers. The two versions differ slightly in lyrics and melody. I’m including both versions below, but I’m partial to CSN’s version.
“Wooden Ships” was written as an anti-war song at the height of the Vietnam War, when the U.S. was also locked in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It describes the apocalyptic consequences of nuclear conflict, a terrible vision that was on the forefront of everyone’s minds at the time. The trio “imagined” themselves “as the few survivors, escaping on a boat to create a new civilisation.”
The lyrics of “Wooden Ships” detail the potential horrors confronting the survivors of a nuclear holocaust, where both sides have totally eviscerated each other. In the lyrics, a survivor stumbles across a survivor from the other side and asks, “Can you tell me, please, who won?”
In the song, the two survivors eat “purple berries,” iodine pills, which protect them from the highly radioactive iodine-131 that comes as part of nuclear fallout.
Elsewhere in the lyrics, the survivors beg the “silver people on the shoreline” to “let us be.” These mysterious silver people were later described by Crosby as “guys in radiation suits.” The wooden ships are devoid of metal because of the risk of becoming radioactive, and they carry the survivors away from the terrors of the shores.
Unfortunately, those who do not make it aboard are exposed to radiation and die. The lyrics paint a grim picture: “Horror grips us as we watch you die / All we can do is echo your anguished cries / Stare as all human feelings die / We are leaving you don’t need us.”
Here are the lyrics to “Wooden Ships.”
If you smile at me, I will understand 'Cause that is something Everybody everywhere does in the same language
I can see by your coat, my friend You're from the other side There's just one thing I got to know Can you tell me please, who won?
Say, can I have some of your purple berries? Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now Haven't got sick once Probably keep us both alive
Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be Silver people on the shoreline, let us be Talkin' 'bout very free and easy
Horror grips us as we watch you die All we can do is echo your anguished cries Stare as all human feelings die We are leaving, you don't need us
Go, take your sister then, by the hand Lead her away from this foreign land Far away, where we might laugh again We are leaving, you don't need us
And it's a fair wind blowin' warm Out of the south over my shoulder I guess I'll set a course and go
It’s October 9, 2022. Welcome 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 “intermittent.”
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. Show them some love.
This, That, and the Other 