Day: June 1, 2024

Don’t Bother

Fandango13 Comments

It’s June 1, 2024. In just over five months, there is going to be a presidential election in the United States, and between now and then I will be publishing a number of political posts in which I shall be expressing my strong negative opinions about Donald Trump and about anyone who supports him, including most Republican politicians and anyone who wears a red MAGA hat, makes excuses for Donald Trump, or tries to justify or rationalize his illegal, unethical, amoral, sexist, racist, narcissistic, egomaniacal, anti-democracy statement or actions.

It’s my right as the owner of this blog, to express myself, and it seems that close to half of the people in the U.S. don’t share my opinion. And that’s fine. That’s your right.

But, I’d prefer that you not waste your time or mine commenting on my political posts. If you are a Trumpster and wish to criticize my antipathy toward him or otherwise try to explain, justify, or support him, please don’t bother. I will not delete your bullshit comments, but I will also not engage with you because there is nothing you can say that will change my thinking and I know there is nothing I can say that will change yours. I will simply respond with this emoji: 🙄

My Last Photo — May ‘24

Fandango10 Comments

Brian, aka Bushboy, posted his monthly Last on the Card prompt, where he asks us to…

  • Post the last photo from your camera’s SD card or the last photo from your phone taken in the month of May.
  • No editing — who cares if it is out of focus, not framed as you would like, or the subject matter didn’t cooperate?
  • No explanations needed — just the photo will do.
  • Create a pingback to Brian’s post or link in the comments.
  • Use the tags “The Last Photo” and #LastOnTheCard.”

I have two photos I took yesterday to share with you today. As a reminder, these photos, taken with my iPhone 15 Pro Max, have been resized (shrunk) to make them load more quickly and take up less space in my WordPress media folder.

This first photo deserves an explanation. Here in Northern California, there is always a threat of wildfires in the hot, dry summers. That is why there is a weed/vegetation abatement program throughout the region. Residents are required to cut back dry weeds and vegetation on their properties in order to create firebreaks in the event of wildfires. The deadline for completing the weed abatement was yesterday, May 31.

Our home is situated on top of a hill and behind our property line is a very steep hill that leads down to a house on the next street. The steep hill up to our property line belongs to the house behind and below ours. It is too steep to be useful and so the owners let it go, never cutting the grass, which quickly turns to brown straw-like weeds once the rainy season is over.

So yesterday I took this photo below of our back fence to illustrate our neighbor’s very overgrown weeds and attached it to an online violations form from our local fire protection service for the weed abatement program. I hate to be a tattletale, but I don’t want to put our home at risk in the event of a local wildfire.

I also took this photo below when I came inside to escape the 90° heat we had yesterday. Our dog followed me into our air-conditioned house and plopped down onto her bed in our family room. She immediately rolled over and assumed her favorite relaxing position.

Weekend Writing Prompt — That’s a Relief

Fandango8 Comments

“Oh my God, it’s Monday,” Harold said. “I’m going to be late for work.”

“It’s Saturday, Dad,” Susan said. “And you’re retired.”

“That’s a relief.”

(Exactly 25 words)

Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where the challenge is “Monday” in exactly 25 words. Photo credit: freestockphotos.biz.

SoCS — Recipe for Disaster

Fandango5 Comments

I can grill burgers, hot dogs, and steaks on our backyard grill. I can “cook” virtually anything frozen that has very specific directions on the package explaining how to prepare it by sticking it in a microwave or an over.

I can fry and scramble eggs, bake potatoes, saute onions and mushrooms, cook pasta, heat up bottled pasta sauces on the stove, and prepare Shake ‘n Bake pork chops.

But when it comes to preparing anything that requires following a recipe, that’s my wife’s department. She often refers to a well-worn, close-to-falling-apart cookbook from Joan Lunden, and a few other cookbooks, or a bunch of loose-leaf recipes that she got out of magazines or has downloaded and printed off the intetnet that she keeps in accordion file divided into various food-type sections. Fortunately for me, she is a really good cook.

But there’s an alternate use of the word recipe that I have used in an expression throughout my life and all too frequently these days and it has nothing to do with preparing or cooking meals. That expression is “recipe for disaster,” and it refers to something — an activity, behavior, or method of doing something — that is very likely to cause a negative or detrimental outcome.

Take, for example, a 75-year-old man getting up on a ladder to clean out the clogged gutters just after a rainstorm without asking his wife to be his spotter turned out to be a personal recipe for disaster.

Or if Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November and returns to the White House, that will be a recipe for disaster for around 340 million Americans.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where Linda has given us the word, “recipe” and use it anyway we want.

FOWC with Fandango — Bottom

Fandango19 Comments
FOWC

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 “Bottom.”

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.