Saturday Mix

MLMM Saturday Mix — No Nonsense

Fandango8 Comments

I know that I’ve written a lot of posts in the past two months about falling off a ladder, busting a hip, fracturing my right arm at the shoulder, undergoing hip replacement surgery, and having to spend the next three or four months of 2023 going through rehabilitative physical therapy.

I’m not doing this in order to get your pitication. The last thing I want is to be pitied. I’m posting about this for two reasons. First, it’s obviously top of mind for me. I’ve been dealing with it every day for the past two months and will continue to have to deal with it for the next three to four months. It affects my life in numerous ways, particularly when it comes to my activities of daily living.

Second. I’m going on this journey of recuperation and recovery and some of you have thanked me for sharing this journey and have encouraged me to continue do so.

But this is not what my blog is all about, so I am trying to mix it up with flash fiction and responses to prompts like this one, the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Saturday Mix, which today gives us a nonsense word, in this case, “pitication,” and asks us to come up with our own definition and use it creatively and in context, in our response. Pitication: the act of feeling pity. Done and done.

MLMM Same But Different

Fandango7 Comments

I didn’t rip your blouse
I didn’t steal your money
I didn’t pour out your milk
Why do you always leap to conclusions?
Why do you always shed tears?

Written for Mindlovemisery’s Same But Different Saturday Mix. The object is to take the five challenge words (below on the left) and NOT use them in our writing. The words on the right, below, are my substitutions

cut:rip
jump:leap
cry:shed tears
take:steal
spill:pour out

MLMM Saturday Mix — Final Days

Fandango18 Comments

He sat on the ottoman and stared down at what his wife called her inspired carpet. He looked out of the window toward the thick forest behind his house. The sky was starting to turn dark, which matched his mood perfectly.

Maybe he should text her. No, better yet call her so they could speak with one another. Yes, the doctor had given them bad news, but the affect it had on their relationship was wasn’t in keeping with how they’d interacted in the past. It was as if someone had completely rewritten the transcript of their lives together.

He’d paid the tithe through the years, and now, when it was time to reap the rewards, this happened. And it was devastating to him. He got up, walked out to his car, and headed for the hospice. He needed to be with her, by her side, holding her hand, every minute that she had left.

Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Saturday Mix prompt, “Same But Different,” where we are supposed to use synonyms for the following words:

chair — ottoman
floor — carpet
tree — forest
black — dark
talk — speak

Also for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (inspired carpet), My Vivid Blog (doctor), The Daily Spur (affect), Word of the Day Challenge (keeping), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (transcript), and Hour Daily Word Prompt (tithe).

MLMM Double Take — The Last Will and Testament

Fandango11 Comments

The old man was having trouble keeping his horse stationary as he rode up in front of the saloon. The skin on his face visible above his scraggly white beard and below the rim of his worn hat was leathery and I could tell that the man was in a lot of pain. In a hoarse voice asked me to help him get down off his steed, and I obliged him.

Even once he was on the ground, he was unsteady. “Help me inside,” he said, nodding toward the swinging doors of the saloon, “and sit me down at a table.” Again, I obliged the old timer.

After he was situated, he said, “Now fetch me a pencil and some stationery. I’m dying and I need to write down my last will and testament, and if you hurry, I’ll give you a piece of my inheritance.”

I stepped over to the bar and asked the barkeep for a pencil and some paper and then walked over to the table where the old man was seated, only to find him slumped over dead as a doornail. I figured that I earned my inheritance, which as far as I was concerned was the old timer’s horse and whatever I found in his saddlebags. Hell, I helped the geezer out in his dying moment. It wasn’t my fault that he died intestate.

Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Double Take—Saturday Mix, where we are asked to use these homophones in our post: horse/hoarse and stationary/stationery.

SoCS — Opposing Forces

Fandango13 Comments

“What difference does it make?” he asked her.

“Are you kidding me?” she said. “It makes a world of difference. It’s as if you want to imprison me when all I want is to be free.”

“But if you leave me, it will break my heart,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sure that tart of a receptionist you’ve been running around with behind my back will help mend your broken heart quite nicely.”

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where the the word is “difference.” Also for the the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Saturday Mix prompt, where the opposing forces are “imprison/free” and “break/mend.”