Day: December 23, 2022

TGIF — My Feet

Fandango18 Comments

Paula Light, at Light Motifs II, has this prompt she calls TGIF. She encourages us to take this opportunity to openly chat or jabber about anything we want.

There is a brand of casual shoe I have embraced over the past few years. It’s called Kizik. It’s literally a hands-free sneaker. You stick your foot in it and it essentially wraps around your foot. And for a lazy bastard like me who doesn’t want to have to tie and untie laces or even sit down to put them on, they are perfect. But they’re only available online.

I got my first pair of Kizik sneakers about two years ago. I wear them every day and they have finally reached the point of needing to be replaced. The only issue I have with my old pair of Kiziks is that they feel a little snug in the toe area. Either my toes have grown longer over past two years or I’ve gotten more flatfooted in my old age. I decided to order a new pair through Amazon. Since my old pair was a 10 1/2, I ordered my replacement pair in size 11 from Amazon.

A few days later I was excited when my new Kiziks arrived. I opened the box, put on one shoe, and it felt smaller than my old pair. I looked at the box and it was labeled size 11. But the actual tag inside the shoe said they were size 10. Bad on you, Amazon. I immediately returned them.

Instead of reordering from Amazon, I went to the Kizik website and ordered from them. The price on Amazon and on the Kizik site are the same. As I browsed the site, I decided upon and ordered a different style than my old pair. I ordered size 11 and when the arrived a few days later, I tried them on. My feet, which are narrow, swam in them. The shoes were also too long. They, too, had to be returned.

I spoke with someone at Kizik and explained my dilemma. Size 10 1/2 shoes were not long enough, but the size 11 were both too long and too wide. She acknowledged that the style I ordered was cut large and recommended a few styles that were more narrowly cut. She suggested ordering two pairs of that style, one size 10 1/2 and one size 11, keeping the one that fit best, and returning the other one.

So I did order the two sizes. Both pairs arrived yesterday and I tried them both on. The size 10 1/2 were too tight in the toes, but the size 11 fit great. Today I dropped the smaller pair off at the UPS store to be returned. Hurray for free, no hassle returns, by the way.

So that is my boring TGIF “chat” for the day. And before anyone asks, I did not receive any compensation from Kizik for this post. Although if someone from Kizik happens to read this post….

And on that note, happy TGIF, everyone. And Merry Christmas, too.

Friday Faithfuls — New To Me

Fandango23 Comments

For this week’s Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Friday Faithfuls, Jim Adams has asked us about the latest disease making the rounds, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV.

Jim asks these questions:

How long you have been aware of RSV? I first heard about this disease this past October when my one-year-old granddaughter was diagnosed as having RSV. Then, in early November, my local newspaper had a headline about this winter’s “triple threat” of the flu, COVID, and RSV.

Did you or any one you know get RSV? Yes, as mentioned above, our granddaughter.

Do you think that life expectancy will continue to decline, or do you feel that better health care and hygiene, healthier lifestyles, diet, and improved medical care will reverse the trend? I am afraid that, between climate change being unabated and new and mutating diseases on the loose, the life expectancy trend will likely continue to decline.

If a scary new pathogen is lurking right around the corner and there’s not much you can do to stop it, do you want to know about it? I certainly think it’s important to know about these threats to our health and welfare. I’m willing to potentially isolate myself if that is the only way to stay safe.

Do you feel that anti-vaxxers are responsible for the reemergence of infections that were once well-contained? You’re damn right I do. What a bunch of selfish, ignorant jerks they all are. My son-in-law refused to get the latest COVID booster shot because it made him temporarily lose his equilibrium, he claimed. Oh boo hoo! He just tested positive for COVID, thus putting my daughter and the rest of us at risk.

What are your thoughts on antibiotic-resistant bacteria that have developed the ability to defeat the drugs that were designed to kill them? Unfortunately, I think these viruses and bacteria will continue to evolve and mutate in order to survive and thrive. Thus, medical science will continually be playing catch-up and these viruses and bacteria will continue to cause havoc on humanity.

Sorry for my relatively pessimistic outlook, but that’s the way I feel.

Fibbing Friday — Carols and Songs

Fandango6 Comments

Di (aka Pensitivity101) hosts 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. As Christmas is just two days away, Di is asking about Christmas carols and songs.

What were these carols about?

1. Away in a Manger — This is about taking a vacation and, due to a mixup by the travel agent, the only place in town available for the family to stay for the night was a horse barn.
2. Hark the Herald Angels Sing — This is a mondegreen, or a misheard lyric. It’s actually about two teenage boys, Mark and Harold, who have voices like angels when they sing.
3. O Little Town of Bethlehem — This is the official song for the town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and it is sung at the beginning of every town council meeting.
4. Silent Night — This is about a man who has suffered from tinnitus in both ears for years, and then one night, like a miracle, the ringing in his ears suddenly stopped and he experienced his first truly silent night in decades.
5. While Shepherds Watched — This is the sad tale of a bunch of shepherds who watched one of their fellow shepherds have sex with a ewe.

What were these songs really about?

6. Mistletoe and Wine — This is a song about how a mother responded when her child asked how he was conceived.
7. Jingle Bell Rock — This is a song about an erotic dance move made by a stripper named Jingle Bell.
8. Walking in a Winter Wonderland — This song is about a guy who lost control of his car during a snowstorm and got stuck in a snow bank. He abandoned his car and walked home that wintry night.
9. Santa Baby — This song is about what the mother named her child that was conceived as a result of mistletoe and wine. (See #6 above.)
10. Frosty the Snowman — This was the original working title to a song that was eventually recorded by Fleetwood Mac and featured the late Christine McVie as lead singer. It was renamed “Over My Head” before being released. The song’s opening lyrics are “You can take me to the paradise/And then again you can be cold as ice.”

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — December 23rd

Fandango22 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 23rd) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on December 23, 2014 on my old blog.

Cleaning Up My Act

WARNING: This post is peppered with a word that some of you might find offensive.

If you are offended by a certain four-letter slang word for sexual intercourse, making love, bumping ugly, hiding the salami, boffing, shagging, the horizontal hula, burying the bone, dipping the wick, the lust and thrust, the bump and grind, threading the needle, feeding the kitty, or the bedroom rodeo, I urge you to stop reading this post now. If you continue to read this post, do so at your own risk.

I have been reading over some of my old posts seeking inspiration for new ones. I’ve noticed that I use the word “fuck” a lot, whether as a standalone word (as in “fuck that”), or as a root word (as in “that guy is really fucked up” or “he’s a fucking idiot”).

Personally, I think fuck is a perfectly good word to express a wide variety of emotions or intents (or activities). But some tight-assed people might take offense at my use of that word. Additionally, my blog can be viewed by anyone of any age at any time. So maybe I should try to clean up my act a little.

For example, instead of writing “fuck you,” maybe I should instead write “screw you” or “bite me.” Same sentiments, right? And there’s nothing wrong with writing “screwed up” instead of “fucked up.”

I have also started to substitute the word “flock” lately. As in “what the flock was I thinking?”

My concern, though, is what the best substitute word for “fuck” should be. And, tangentially, how to handle adding the “ing” ending to the root word. For example, if I want to call someone a “fucking asshole,” should I refer to him as a “frigging” asshole, a “fricking” asshole, or as a “freaking” asshole?

Or maybe just “asshole” would suffice.

And when doing so, I wonder if the proper protocol is to replace the “g” at the end of the word with an apostrophe, so that frigging, fricking, and freaking become friggin’, frickin’, and freakin’.

Still, there are times when the word “fucking” might appropriately be the word of choice for a particular situation or circumstance. But so as not to offend those fucking assholes who would be offended by my use of the word “fuck,” I am going to make a concerted effort to replace fucking with friggin’, fricken’, or freakin’ (or maybe with their counterparts with the “g” instead of the apostrophe at the end).

Here’s my question to my readers — or at least those of you who haven’t stopped reading because I’ve offended you with my crude language: what do you think is the best word choice to substitute for the word “fucking”?

  • Freakin’ or freaking
  • Frickin’ or fricking
  • Friggin’ or frigging

Or maybe I should just stop being a pussy and just use the words fuck and fucking.

In fact, fuck it. Never mind. I don’t give a flying fuck what any of you fucking fuckers fucking think.

Hey, chill out. I’m just fucking with you. Don’t be such fucking tight asses.

I wonder how many followers I will lose as a result of this post.

FOWC with Fandango — Diplomatic

Fandango18 Comments
FOWC

It’s December 23, 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 “diplomatic.”

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.