retired

Truthful Tuesday — Happy Meal

Fandango6 Comments

Frank, aka PCGuy, has published another one of his Truthful Tuesday posts. This week Frank wants to know about our favorite holiday treats. He asks us us:

What was your favorite holiday treat growing up, and has that changed over the years, or is it still your top choice for holiday eating?

A little background first. I come from a mixed family, Jewish on my mother’s side, Catholic on my father’s side. When I was growing up, we celebrated both Chanukah and Christmas, so I had the best of both worlds. Kinda funny that I grew up to be an atheist, right?

But I digress. My favorite holiday treats come from my mother’s side. They are noodle kugel and potato latkes.Noodle kugel is a baked pudding-like casserole commonly made from egg noodles. Its ingredients, in addition to the egg noodles, include butter, cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, eggs, ground cinnamon, and raisins. It can be served either as a side dish or as a dessert.

Potato latkes are sort of like potato pancakes or fritters, but latkes are usually made with shredded potatoes and onions, eggs, a little milk, flour or matzo meal, and baking powder, and are fried to a delicious golden brown. Most people top off the latkes with a dollop of either sour cream or applesauce.

If you’re interested in making either of these great treats, there are plenty of recipes available on Google.

Truthful Tuesday — Hobbies

Fandango13 Comments

Frank, aka PCGuy, has published another one of his Truthful Tuesday posts. This week Frank wants to know what we do to pass the time. He asks us us:

With the exception of blogging (assuming it’s a hobby and not your profession), do you have any unique hobbies or pastimes?

Well, to be honest, with the exception of blogging, I have no hobbies nor pastimes.

I retired almost four years ago. A few weeks ago I got a call from a former work associate who is about to retire. He asked me how I like being retired and what I do to pass the time. I said, “I love being retired and I blog.”

He said, “But what do you do to pass the time?”

I said, “I told you. I blog.”

He said, “Don’t you have any hobbies?”

I said, “I blog. That’s my hobby.”

“That’s it?” he asked.

“Well, I watch TV, I read, I play cards and backgammon and Yahtzee with my wife, I eat, I sleep, but mostly I blog.”

He said, “Hmm. What do you blog about?”

I said, “Oh, this, that, and the other.

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — June 12

Fandango13 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of you 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 12th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally published on June 12, 2010 on my old blog.

Another One Bites the Dust

D4A65C8F-7FAE-463A-BB08-C575CE5192A6🎶Another one bites the dust / And another one gone / And another one gone / Another one bites the dust.🎵

Okay, I’m reasonably sure that Queen, the 70s and 80s British rock group featuring Freddie Mercury, did not have the thinning of the auto industry herd in mind when it released this song, but the fact is that yet another storied auto brand is biting the dust.

Yes, they’re dropping like flies, these car brands are. A couple of years ago GM dumped its Oldsmobile division. Then, last year, it disposed of the Pontiac and Saturn units. Back in 2001 Chrysler dropped the venerable Plymouth brand.

And speaking about Freddie Mercury, the news now is that Ford is dropping — finally — the Mercury brand.

For other than car buffs or those directly involved in these brands, from manufacturing to marketing to the dealerships and car salesmen, the passing of these brands is barely a noticeable event. After all, for the most part, these cars were just slightly different versions of other car brands in the auto-makers’ stables.EFAF10B5-89C7-4517-9F33-BAD080B5B108Was Mercury, in a transparent attempt to make it seem a bit more upscale, anything more than a slightly gussied-up Ford? Didn’t both Oldsmobile and Pontiac pretty much share everything with Chevrolet, except for some extra trim (and higher base prices)?

Still, it is kind of sad to see the passing of these venerable, albeit redundant, car monikers that I’ve known since childhood.

Friday Fictioneers — Old School

Fandango29 Comments

85E5FE2C-7310-4960-99F8-B501DE6E150FHaving recently retired and with time on his hands, Clark decided to fulfill his life’s greatest ambition. With a head full of ideas, interesting and compelling characters, and intricate, twisty plot lines, he would write the great American novel.

Clark was old school. It wasn’t that he was a technophobe. He just liked the feel of using a manual typewriter. So he put aside his laptop and took out his old, antique Underwood, slipped a piece of paper on the roller, and started pounding away on the keyboard.

Before he finished the fourth page, though, Clark stopped typing. “Damn arthritis.”

(100 words)

Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit: Jeff Arnold.

SoCS — Going Postal

Fandango10 Comments

For today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has asked us to write about “the last piece of mail you received.” She goes further by instructing us to “talk about the subject of the last piece of physical mail you received.” In other words, if it’s a gas bill, for example, she wants us to write about gas, not about the bill.

My daily snail-mail delivery consists mostly of bills, catalogs, and promotions or solicitations. When I checked my mail late yesterday afternoon, one of the pieces of mail I received was a job solicitation from the U.S. Postal Service.904290FA-B733-4D8C-8215-EED2CE232866It asked whether I might be “looking for a fast-paced, challenging, and rewarding job with career advancement opportunities.” Woo hoo!

How exciting. I could be a mail carrier, a mail handler assistant, an auto mechanic, a tractor-trailer operator, a motor vehicle operator, a clerk, and, best of all, “more!”

Now I have nothing against the U.S. Postal Service. I don’t know my mailman (or mailwoman), but I appreciate what they and their fellow postal workers do. That “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” motto is really inspiring.

The thing is, I’m retired. And I kind of like being retired. And I was able to put enough away during my working years that, unless I live as long as Methuselah, I should have enough money to survive on so that I won’t ever have to work again.

So I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass on this kind invitation to join the ranks of the U.S. Postal Service. But if any of you out there are interested in going postal, I’m sure your local postmaster would be happy to chat with you.