Day: January 13, 2023

The Term Paper

Fandango13 Comments

There’s a limit to how much a person can take
I hadn’t really considered what was at stake

I thought I’d be able to carry out a diabolic plan
But I ultimately realized that I had to take a stand

I just wasn’t ready to use an AI-generated content app
For my paper because it would surely turn out to be crap

I went to my room, smoked a joint, and got high
Thought about how to give a reversal a try

I am feeling vindicated for doing what is right
Now I just have to figure out for my paper what to write

Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (limit), Your Daily Word Prompt (diabolic), The Daily Spur (ready), Word of the Day Challenge (room), My Vivid Blog (high), JusJoJan (reversal), and Fandango’s One Word Challenge (vindicated).

And before you ask, as bad as this poem is, it was actually written by me, not by a chatbot.

Friday Faithfuls — And In The End

Fandango13 Comments

For this week’s Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Friday Faithfuls, Jim Adams has asked us about the inevitably of our own deaths. Well, isn’t that an interesting topic for a Friday the 13th?

Jim asks these questions:

Do you hate talking about your death and are you planning to postpone all the decisions and leave them up to somebody else?

I do not particularly like talking about death, but I know it’s inevitable, so my wife and I are prepared, at least legally. We have living wills documenting the distribution of our assets, and we have our home in a revocable trust deed with our children as beneficiaries. So we are prepared in that regard.

Have you made any arrangements that will determine what you would want to happen when you die?

As far as our assets, yes (see answer above).

If you can no longer take care of yourself, would you like to live in a nursing home or receive in-home care from a caregiver?

I’d rather be at home with a caregiver, but if it ever gets to the point where I’m either physically or mentally incapable of caring for myself, I’m glad I live in a state that permits death with dignity.

Do you have a will, and do you know how you want your assets to be distributed?

Yes. See my response to the first question.

If you have pets, have you figured out what will happen to them?

It will be up to our kids to make that determination.

Do you have life insurance, and do you think it is enough to take care of your final expenses?

We have small life insurance policies, but I am confident that the money in my retirement savings should be more than sufficient to cover such “final” expenses.

Do you want a big funeral?

I don’t want a funeral at all. Just a simple farewell with my immediate family.

Have you decided where you will be buried, or if you want to be cremated, or if you are donating your body to science?

I had decided to be cremated, but now that human composting, or natural organic reduction, is legal in California, I’m thinking about going that route.

Will you be writing your own eulogy?

No. My eulogy will be this:

TGIF — Almost Over

Fandango10 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.

Unless you’ve been in a coma since the end of the year, you’ve probably heard about what’s going on in California. You’ve probably heard terms like “atmospheric river,” “bomb cyclone,” and “pineapple express.” What it all boils down to is that the state has been battered since New Year’s Eve by storm after storm after storm coming at it from the Pacific Ocean, causing flooding, downed trees, power outages, evacuations, and deaths.

When I woke up this morning I was greeted by this on my newsfeed:

And that next round of storms has arrived. It’s been raining here all day and will continue to rain tomorrow as well. But the heaviest rains and the strongest winds will be arriving on Sunday through Monday. The ground is so saturated from two solid weeks of heavy rain that it can’t absorb any more, and that means it will just run off into streams and ponds, which are already overflowing.

But there is some good news. After Monday, there’s no more rain in the forecast for at least a week, so we’ll get a bit of a respite. And while the drought in Northern California is not over, as you can see from the graphic below, much of the state has improved from an exceptional, extreme, or severe drought status back in October, to a mostly moderate drought status.

And on that note, happy TGIF, everyone.

Fibbing Friday — Why Is it?

Fandango23 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. For this week’s Fibbing Friday, Di wants to know…

1. Why were people given middle names? Because back in the day, as the population grew, there weren’t enough names to go around, so people began adding a middle name in order to create a unique name for each individual.

2. Why do we cover our mouths when we yawn? So flies won’t fly into our wide opened mouths.

3. Why do we say ‘Bless You’ when somebody sneezes? I don’t. I say “kazoo.”

4. Why do we wear a wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand? Because if the ring was worn on the middle finger, it might be mistaken for a rude gesture when showing off your wedding ring to a friend or family member.

5. What was the original use of wind chimes? To let people know to bring in the wash that was drying on the line outside before gusts of wind blew them away.

6. What was the original purpose of bridesmaids? To be there to apprehend the bride in case she got cold feet at the last minute and tried to run away.

7. What is the significance of the first butterfly of the year you see being white? If the first butterfly you see is not white, that means that there will be six more weeks of winter weather before spring-like weather arrives.

8. What does it mean if your right ear itches? That you have a mosquito bite on your right ear.

9. Why is Good Friday a good day to cut your hair? So that you will have a good Saturday and a good Sunday.

10. What should you give a friend who gives you a knife as a gift? A fork and a spoon.

Maggie’s Blogging Survey

Fandango12 Comments

Maggie, over at From Cave Walls, has a blogging survey she’d like us to take. Sure, Maggie, I’d be happy to.

1. How many times per week do you post? Do you post multiple times a day? If so, how many? I generally post between 3 and 5 posts a day.

2. How many blogs do you follow? A little over 200.

3. Do you read all the blogs you follow every day? If not, how often do you read other blogs? I try my best to read (or at least skim) posts from every blogger I follow that shows up in my Reader.

4. Do you seek out new blogs to follow? If so, how do you find them? Not very often. I’m pretty much tapped out as far as the number of blogs I can follow. If someone new (to me) comments on one of my posts, I will likely go check out their blog and if what I sample looks interesting, I may start to follow them.

5. Do you comment on the blogs you read? If not, why? Do you respond to all the comments left on your blog? There are not enough hours in the day for me to comment on all of the posts from all of the bloggers I follow, since most of them post multiple times a day. I comment on those that I can and like them as well. As to commenting on comments on my posts, I read them all and comment back on probably around half of them, but I like them all (unless they’re spam).

6. Do you ever close comments on a blog you post? If so, why? My comments close after 45 days from the date the post was published in order to minimize spam.

7. Do you ever unfollow someone? If so, why? I will periodically go through the blogs I follow and if the blogger hasn’t posted anything in four or more months, I will unfollow that blog. Other than that, I have only unfollowed one blogger because of comments she made. Of course, sometimes I discover that WordPress has inexplicably unfollowed random blogs I’d been following. I don’t know why that happens.

8. What content inspires you to follow a blogger? Engaging, entertaining, witty, well-written content.

9. What content turns you off from following someone? Content that is not engaging, entertaining, witty, or well-written.

10. How important is it to you that you add a photo to every post? Very important. Sometimes it takes me longer to find just the right photo or image than it does to write the post. Of course, when I respond to photo prompts, another blogger has taken care of that for me.

11. Leave me a link for one blogger (other than yourself) that you think I should check out. Ooh, this is a tough one. Paula Light picked me, and I appreciate that, but I think I’m going with Di, at Pensitivity 101. She stepped in when Melanie was sick to pick up three prompts, Share Your World, Truthful Tuesday, and Fibbing Friday, and keep them going and has continued them after Melanie passed away. So kudos to Di.