Stream of Consciousness Saturday

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — February 10th

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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.

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 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.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 10th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on February 10, 2018.

SoCS — A Dog’s Tail Tale

For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill, she’s asked us to use “tail” and/or “tale” in our posts — one, the other, or both.

To that end, I’d like to tell you a tale about a dog’s tail. Our dog’s tail. Well, our old dog’s tail, that is.

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Our dog was a chocolate Lab by the name of Cocoa. Cocoa was a lovable dog, a real sweetheart of a dog. But she was a nervous dog and kind of ditzy. Her nervousness manifested itself by her continually and quite vigorously wagging her tail. And if she was near any object, like the base kitchen cabinets, the dining room table, or even just a wall, her tail would whop, whop, whop against whatever object it came in contact with.

Cocoa would wag her tail so vigorously and whop it with such force against whatever it hit, that it caused the tip of her tail to bleed. If we were away from the house for a few hours, she’d be so excited to see us when we got home that she would leave blood spatter on the cabinets and walls.

So we took Cocoa to see the vet, who wrapped her tail in some sort of soft protective material and bandaged it all up. But within a day, she had wagged the bandage and protective material right off of her tail.

The vet ultimately said that the tip of her tail was so banged up and covered with scabs that the only course of action was to surgically remove about an inch from the end of her tail.

But even with the shortened tail after the surgery, Cocoa continued to whop her tail to the point of bleeding. Long story short, we ended up having to remove about half of the poor dog’s tail in order to finally stop the bleeding.

People would ask us about her tail, noting that it seemed quite short for that of a Labrador retriever. At first we’d explain what I just explained to you. But after a while we were sick of telling that long, drawn out story and getting “looks” when we talked about having cut off half of Cocoa’s tail. So instead we made up a tale about how Cocoa was a rare, special breed of stubby-tailed retrievers.

People seemed to handle that tale better than the truth about what actually happened to half of our ditzy dog’s tail.

SoCS Badge Contest

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I’m a regular when it comes to participating in Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, so when she put out the call for a new SoCS badge, I searched my photo library for something I though might be suitable.

I came up with this photo of a family of ducks floating along a stream on Stowe Lake in Golden Gate Park. Per Linda’s instructions, I added the “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” banner and my name and blog address to the photo. Here it is:SoCS Badge EntryAren’t those ducklings the cutest little things?

Anyway, Linda will be posting all submitted badges on her blog on Thursday October 24th, along with a poll that will close the next day, on Friday the 25th. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go to Linda’s blog next Thursday and vote for my badge. This blog post will self-destruct in five seconds, Mr. Phelps.

So, easy peasy, right? Thanks for your support and for your vote!

SoCS — The Audition

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7A7886EB-6957-490B-903E-1B211A7BBE89As the next wannabe actor stepped out onto the stage, the casting director, Charles Stone, sitting a few rows back in the auditorium, called out, “What’s you name?”

“Good morning, sir. My name is Andrea Rankinoff,” the woman said.

“All right, Andrea,” the casting director said. “What role are you auditioning for this morning?”

“Well, sir,” Andrea answered, “I’m just going to roll the dice and try out for the lead role.”

“The lead, huh?” Charles said, with a little bit of a chuckle. “We have already cast that part, my dear. Is there another role you want to try out for?”

“No sir. Just the lead. I know you’ve given that role to someone else, but I honestly believe I would be a better fit,” Andrea said.

Charles turned to someone sitting behind him. “Honey, can you fetch me another sweet roll and refresh my coffee? We might be here for a while.” Then he turned back to the woman standing on the stage. “You said your last name is Rankinoff?”

“Yes sir,” Andrea said.

“You know that the name of the author of this play is Andrew Rankin,” Charles said. “Is it just a coincidence, Andrea, that your name resembles that of this play’s author?”

“No,” Andrea answered, “it’s not a coincidence. Andrew Rankin is my pen name. I’m the author of the play and the story is somewhat autobiographical. So who better to be cast in the role of the protagonist than the writer who created her?”

“Interesting, Andrea,” Charles said. “But as I said, the lead role has already been cast. However, if you’re willing to audition for a secondary role, and if you’re good enough to get that part, I’ll let you also understudy for the lead.”

“Well, it’s a little disappointing, sir,” Andrea said, “but I guess I’m willing to roll with the punches, so fine, I’ll do it.”

Written for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill. Linda has asked us to write a post using “role” and/or “roll.”

SoCS — A Means to an End

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20C6073F-F930-4AEA-9243-02C86A0F48B2“It’s just a means to an end, that’s all,” Ed said aloud, but more to himself than to his wife, who was sitting next to him on the sofa.

“You always use that expression and I don’t really know what you mean,” Karen responded.

“What are you, stupid or something?” Ed lashed out.

Tears began to form in Karen’s eyes. “Why do you have to say mean things like that, Ed?”

“You’re right,” Ed said softly. “I’m sorry, babe. That was a mean thing for me to say.”

“Thanks, I accept your apology,” Karen said. “Now tell me, what does a means to an end mean?”

“It means it’s something you do only to produce or achieve a desired result,” Ed explained. “It’s like when you have to work at a job you hate, but you have to do it in order to put food on the table. The job is the means and the end is that you have enough to eat.”

“Okay, I understand that, but what were you referring to just now when you said it?”

Ed sighed. “Sometimes, Karen, you gotta do what you gotta do and the end justifies the means.”

“So does that mean that a positive outcome excuses or justifies any wrongs committed in order to attain it?” Karen asked, as a concerned expression appeared on her face.

“Don’t worry, babe,” Ed said. “I’m not planning to do anything unethical, immoral, or technically illegal.”

“Then what is this means you are talking about,” Karen asked, “and to what end.”

“Well, babe, it was going to be a surprise,” Ed said, “but since you can’t seem to let this go, I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me what, Ed?”

Ed leaned in close to Karen and whispered in her ear.

Karen jumped back. “Oh my God, Ed, no!”

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. We are asked to use the word “mean(s)” with or without the “s,” any way we’d like.

SoCS — Point Taken

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CBDA963C-B68B-40D0-B4B5-97B4219E0024Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt this week is less of a word than an action.  She wrote, “Your prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is ‘point.’ Open a book on your lap, close your eyes, and put your finger on the page. Whatever you land on, whether it be a word, a phrase, or a sentence, write about it.”

This challenge proved, um, challenging for me because I no longer have any physical books. Every book I currently own is an ebook that is in my Kindle app on my iPhone. So I couldn’t exactly open a book on my lap, close my eyes, and put a finger on the page, could I?

Instead, I opened up the Kindle app, handed my iPhone to my wife, and asked her to randomly pick a book, open it up, pick a page in that book, and then pick a word, phrase, or sentence on that page, highlight it, and copy it. She did, and I pasted it below:

“One day he rose from his arm-chair, and went to his library in search of a book.”

This sentence came from the Victor Hugo classic, Les Misérables. It can be found in “loc 442 of 27004.” That means it’s fairly early in the book. In the first one percent, actually. I can’t tell you what the page number equivalent would be in the print edition because I don’t have a print edition of the book.

I asked my wife why she chose that particular sentence to copy. She told me that she thought it was apropos for the prompt that asked us to select a book and to choose a line from it. And she also thought that it held some irony in that I don’t have a physical library with actual books, but instead have a virtual library with electric books. Very clever, my wife is.

As to the context of the specific sentence she selected from the book, I have no idea. It’s been quite a few years since I read Les Misérables, and I’m pretty sure I’d have to go back and read at least a chapter or two before that sentence to figure out who “he” is and why he went in search of a book.

But I don’t want to do that. So instead, I am writing about the process of finding a random sentence in a random book so that I can respond Linda’s rather random prompt in a randomly stream of consciousness way.