For this week’s Mindlovemysery’s Menagerie Friday Faithfuls challenge, Jim Adams asks us to write about cicadas, whether you have ever seen then, or if you find them annoying.
I was raised in the suburbs of Washington, DC. When I was around 10 years old, the 17-year locust — yes, everyone at that time incorrectly called cicadas “locusts” — emerged and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever experienced in my young life. Suddenly the ground was covered in these brown insects that would crunch beneath your sneakers as they made there way to trees to which they attached themselves and then molted into winged adult cicadas, leaving their exoskeletons attached to the trees. The cicadas literally darkened the skies as they flew by the millions and created an unnervingly loud racket in their wake.
Richard Ellis / Getty Images
I would take my mother’s mason jars and pick the exoskeletons from the trees and collect them in the jars. I would also try to catch live cicadas in jars, but with air holes in the top and then I’d let them go each night.
So I loved it when the invasion of the 17-year “locusts” came to town. But by the time the 17-year casadas returned, I was in my late twenties and collecting bug carcassses was not exactly how I wanted to spend my disposable time.
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, and be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. For this week’s Fibbing Friday, Di is using words she found on a site recommended by fellow blogger Archons Den.
1. Groak — A term used to describe when a pirate or sailor has too much grog to drink and the falls over dead (or croaks).
2. Nefelibata — The name of the younger sister of the ancient Egyptian queen, Nefertiti.
3. Paranymph — The name given to women who volunteered to be parachuted to the front lines during World War II to raise the, um, spirits of the soldiers.
4. Flummery — This is the name of a training academy for clowns.
5. Sirenize — An electronic device that converts a bicycle’s bell ringer into a siren-like sound.
6. Carker — Someone who is entrusted to take care of a wealthy person’s automobiles in their absence.
7. Smatchet — A dating site for psychopaths and sociopaths.
8. Shivviness — An inability to stop shivering even in warm or hot places.
9. Sprauncy (Sproncy) — Someone who always seems to walk with a bouncy motion and a spring in their steps.
10. Druxy — The brand name of cannabis-infused prunes that get you high while serving a as a laxative for those who are constipated.
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.
If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on any day this past year and link to that post in a comment.
How about it? 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 Flashback Friday 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.
This was originally posted on April 5, 2018 on this blog.
MLMM — It Cures All That Ails You
Ah yes, the old snake oil salesman. Who can forget all those stories about the con man who tries to sell you some sort of magic elixir that will make you feel good again?
Apparently there are a lot of gullible people in the world who are susceptible to such nonsense. In fact, about 46 percent of American voters bought into that crap in November 2016 and around 40 percent are still lapping it up.
Yes, many Americans are still clamoring for their daily doses of Trump Oil.
Are you tired of all those rapists, drug dealers, and bad hombres flooding across the border from Mexico? Try a spoonful of Trump Oil.
Concerned that too many white, Christian citizens are being unfairly persecuted? Rub some Trump Oil on the palms of your hands twice daily.
All those costly regulations designed to ensure that you breathe clean air, drink pure water, and that are designed to mitigate climate change getting you down? Take yourself a nice warm Trump Oil bubble bath.
Concerned about how unfairly autocrats, dictators, and strong men around the globe are being treated? A little Trump Oil on your ice cream will make you feel much better.
Tired of all that fake news being spewed by the mainstream media? Try Trump Oil Alternative Facts Syrup on your pancakes.
Worried that all those gays, lesbians, and transgender weirdos will cause you to have to marry someone of your own gender? Try a Trump Oil cocktail. That will set things straight.
Are all those militant feminazis out there in their pink pussy hats demanding the right to control their own bodies and make their own choices driving you crazy? Spray them with some Trump Oil mist and watch them melt like that wicked witch.
Don’t believe that all of the “fine people on both sides” are getting the kudos they deserve? Try a peanut butter and Trump Oil sandwich.
Think that large corporations are paying too much in taxes? Chug a bit of Trump Oil and watch those tax corporate dollars evaporate.
Afraid that someone is going to take away all of your AR-15 military-style, semiautomatic assault rifles? Mix a little Trump Oil with your NRA brand Kool-Aid, and everything will be okay.
Yes, friends, step right up. For just the price of your eternal soul, Trump Oil will drain the swamp and take care of everything. It cures all that ails you, real or imagined. Especially imagined.
I am unofficially participating in this year’s A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is girlfriends.
E is for Eileen K.
My sister, the one nine years older than me, had a best friend named Phyllis. Phyllis had a younger sister, Eileen, whom I only met once when were both around 12. I wasn’t too impressed with her at that time. She was a petite and seemingly a bratty little girl.
Flash forward eight years, when I was in my sophomore year at college. I got a call from my sister asking me if I’d want to be fixed up with her friend’s Phyllis’ little sister, Eileen. I was reluctant at first, but my sister told me that Eileen had grown into a stunning young woman.
I gave in to my sister’s pressure, called Eileen, who was attending the same college I was going to and asked her if she wanted to go to one of our college team’s basketball games and then to get a bite after the game. She agreed and I made arrangements to pick her up in her dorm shortly before the game at 1:30.
Eileen had, indeed, grown up to be an attractive woman. She was very exotic looking, with long, almost black hair, dark eyes, and a very tanned skin. She was still petite, maybe only 5’3, but had a very sexy body. I was pleasantly surprised.
I noticed, though, that she’d had a nose job, which was notable because she had the exact same nose as every other girl I knew who had a nose job. But that didn’t bother me at all because she really was pretty.
So we get to the field house to watch the college basketball game. I’m really into it and late in the second half, one of the players on our team made an amazing slam dunk, giving our team the lead. I jumped up, did an enthusiastic fist pump, and when I brought my arm back down, my elbow hit her hard right on her nose. And broke her nose! I just broke her relatively new and probably expensive nose.
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 “ash.”
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, ÿplease 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 