Month: May 2019

Another Clown Show

Fandango12 Comments

 

F1A2D0EE-B615-4D19-972B-97B1751FF7AB“He’s doing another rally somewhere tonight,” my wife complained. “It’s like he thinks he’s a rock star going on tour.”

“That’s exactly what he thinks,” I responded. “Just ask him. He’s not at all bashful when it comes to telling anyone who will listen how great he is, how he’s an ‘an extremely stable genius,’ and not merely a ‘stable genius.’ He’s a moron.”

“Yes, and then he starts reciting verbatim the things he heard Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham on Fox News say,” my wife added, shaking her head.

“Right,” I said, “and as if following some sort of invisible prompt, the lemmings in the audience applaud whatever he says, no matter how incoherent, idiotic, inane, or uninformed it is.”

“I’ll turn on the TV, you go get the popcorn, and let’s watch him,” she said.

“Yeah, another one of his clown shows should be good for a few laughs,” I said.

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (tour), Your Daily Word Prompt (bashful), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (verbatim), Ragtag Daily Prompt (prompt), and Word of the Day Challenge (applaud). Caricature by Niall O’Loughlin.

50 Word Thursday — Always in a Hurry

Fandango12 Comments

B9C54A9B-38A6-4AE0-B344-11B1062D3FB6“Have you ever been to the Island of Rügen on the Baltic Sea before?” the old woman with a heavy German accent asked us.

“This is our first time,” I responded. “It’s beautiful.”

“Would you like to rent a Umkleide?” she asked.

“A what?” I asked.

“You change into your swimming suits. It’s a, what do you call it in English, a dressing room,” she explained. Then she pointed to what looked like a gypsy wagon on wooden wagon wheels.

“Ah,” I said. “No, danke schoen. We’ll be leaving in a little while.”

“Oh, that is too bad,” she said. “Rügen has one of the finest beaches Germany has to offer.”

“I can see that,” I said, “but we really must be going. We have other places we need to see. We never stop anywhere very long.”

“Americans,” the old lady muttered as she walked away. Always in a hurry.”

(150 words)

Written for this week’s 50 Word Thursday prompt from Teresa at The Haunted Wordsmith. The idea is to find our muse within the photo above (from cocoparisienne at Pixabay) and the line, “We never stop anywhere very long” (from Darren Shan, A Living Nightmare), and write a story or poem between 50 and 250 words, in 50 word increments.

Friday Fictioneers — The Blowing of the Conch

Fandango39 Comments

AA23BE06-29D7-44E7-8CE2-AD081F895F59At the same time every afternoon, he would shimmy up the bent trunk of the palm tree.

He would work his way out on the palm’s trunk just high enough to get a wide angle view of the horizon.

He would survey the sea, his eyes scanning from the south to the north and then back again.

And he would patiently wait until he saw the first signs of the outriggers breaking the horizon.

Then he would pick up his conch shell and blow loud to notify the villagers that the fishermen would be arriving home with the day’s catch.

(100 words)

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

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — May 31

Fandango3 Comments

Time for something new…for me, anyway. Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year. I’ve had this blog for two years, so I have only 2017 and 2018 to draw from.

If you’d like to reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year, please write a comment with a link to that post. If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 31st) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

Be sure to tag your post #FFF.

I originally posted this one on May 31, 2017 and it was the first time that I responded to one of Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompts.

handshake

“Each president gripped the other’s hand with considerable intensity, their knuckles turning white and their jaws clenching and faces tightening.”

Philip Rucker, a reporter for the Washington Post, was in the room for the now somewhat infamous handshake between French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump at last week’s NATO meeting in Brussels. The sentence at the top of this post is how Rucker described that handshake.

I suppose it could have been worse. Instead of competing with an intense handshake, these two world leaders could have had an actual pissing contest!

FOWC with Fandango — Verbatim

Fandango19 Comments

FOWCWelcome to May 31, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “verbatim.”

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. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.

The Big Idea

Fandango21 Comments

AE9425C1-CB10-494D-AA51-9AF373D770A9This was not how Henry wanted his life to go. He didn’t want to sit around playing bingo, waiting for his life to slowly drift off into the setting sun. He needed a big idea that would enable him to escape the humdrum life of retirement, to add a some excitement and even a little drama to the few remaining years he had left.

Henry believed he had come up with such an idea and when he revealed it to Harry, his best friend, Harry enthusiastically embraced Henry’s idea. “I wager that we can actually pull it off,” he told Henry.

The two men lived in a senior home in a relatively small town in Iowa. There was one bank in town and Henry had seen enough movies about amateur bank heists to enable him to hatch a scheme to rob that bank and for the two of them to abscond with a few bags full of money.

“Easy peasy,” Henry told Harry. “I’ll slip Frank, the security guard at the bank, who’s probably closer to death than we are, a C-note to go out back and take a cigarette break. Then we’ll hand Mildred, the teller, a note, hand her two large cloth bags, and tell her to fill them up with cash.”

“But she’ll recognize us,” Harry said. “She’ll rat us out to the cops.”

“Who cares?” Henry said. “We’ll take my son’s car and hightail it out of town. We’ll take the money, head to Chicago, go to the train station, and grab a train to the coast with our bounty. Boom, the good life!”

As it turned out, the heist went exactly according to Henry’s plan. The two old men stole the money, drove to Chicago, got a cheap hotel room near the train station, and planned to get up early to take the first train headed west. But when Henry woke up the next morning, Harry was gone, and so was the money. Then Henry found the note from Harry.

“Loved your big idea and great plan, Henry,” the note said, “but you failed to take into account how selfish I am. The money will last me twice as long if I take it all for myself. Besides, when you get nailed for the bank robbery and thrown in the clink, you’ll get a bed and three squares a day. You won’t need any money. All the best, Harry.”

Written for Paula Light’s Thursday Inspiration post, where the theme is “gone” using the image above from Enrique Lopez Garre. Also for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (drift), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (humdrum), The Daily Spur (drama), Word of the Day Challenge (wager), and Your Daily Word Prompt (abscond).

Tale Weaver — Reflection

Fandango14 Comments

102F6D24-BA34-41A1-B729-9A87842C8D5FI don’t look in the mirror all that much. In fact, the only time I really look into the mirror is when I wake up in the morning to wash my face and brush my teeth.

And it’s always a bit of a shock when I look at my reflection. Who’s that? I wonder. Who’s that old fart looking back at me? That’s not me. I’m in my prime. How did that old man get in my bathroom mirror?

I feel as if I’m not looking at my reflection in that mirror, but at a Dorian Gray-like picture. Only it’s me, not my painting, that has aged.

In my mind’s eye, I’m no older than I was when I was a younger man. I don’t really feel older, save for a few more aches and pains, perhaps. It just doesn’t feel to me that I’ve been alive any longer now than it felt to me when I was in my twenties or thirties.

In my dreams, I’m always way younger than I actually am. And smarter. And better looking, too. And sometimes I can fly! Ah perchance to dream.

But then the cold, hard reality hits me when I step into the bathroom, splash water on my face, and look at my reflection in the mirror.

Seriously, where did I go? What happen to that luxurious head of wavy brown hair I used to have? What’s with all those random little hairs growing out of my ears? Will putting some black shoe polish on my gray beard make me look any younger?

And when the hell did my eyebrows start to resemble Andy Rooney’s?

Okay, time to face up to the truth. I really am the person I see reflected in the mirror. But that image staring back at me doesn’t define who I am. It merely reflects how long I’ve been at it.

And dammit, I’m still young at heart.

Written for this week’s Tale Weaver prompt from Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. We are asked to consider the concept of reflection.

#100WW — It’s Perfect

Fandango5 Comments

2074D702-4B51-4CD1-B793-6E7242027004“I know she’s in rough shape,” the man said, “but I got a mechanic who can tow her to his shop and get her up and running again. Prolly take him three or four days.”

“What do you want for it?” Jesse asked.

“Hmm,” the man said. “For the tow, the parts and labor, and for new tires, prolly cost about two grand. Eight more for the bus for an even ten.”

“I’ll take it. It’s perfect,” Jesse said.

“Are you planning to take a road trip?”

“Nope. I’m going to convert it. You’re looking at my new tiny house.”

(100 words)

Written for this week’s 100 Word Wednesday prompt from Bikurgurl.

3-2-1 Quote Me! — Happiness

Fandango16 Comments

EC31D7DA-9816-46E6-ABB7-DD9A591594C9The indefatigable Rory, over at A Guy Called Bloke, has tagged me for his latest 3-2-1 Quote Me! game. This time the topic is Happiness.

As a reminder, what I’m supposed to do is:

  • Thank the selector — Thanks, Rory
  • Post 2 quotes for the dedicated Topic of the Day, “Happiness”
  • Select 3 bloggers to take part in ‘3-2-1 Quote Me!’

Okay, here are my two quotes:

E3E32A8C-5056-4524-B7E4-65C681DC0C11FB0B0849-C2D3-4BE7-AFDA-10EC8D3D57FBOkay, now to tag three other bloggers to come up with two happiness quotes.

FOWC with Fandango — Humdrum

Fandango29 Comments

FOWCWelcome to May 30, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “humdrum.”

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. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.