calling

Get To Know You — This or That

Fandango11 Comments

Kymber Hawke wants to Get To Know Us. She poses three questions and asks us to respond to them. So let me help Kymber and you get to know Fandango…whether you want to or not.

Here is round 40:

1. Calling or texting?

Most people I know prefer texting over calling. As do I. I will only answer a call when I see the name of someone I know or I recognize the number of someone I’m expecting to hear from. Otherwise, I let the call go to voicemail. My iPhone transcribes an audio voicemail into text if someone actually leaves a voicemail, but most of the callers are people trying to sell me something or to try to get me to donate to some cause and they usually don’t leave voicemails.

2. Fancy dinner or takeout and a movie?

The only time we eat at a restaurant these days is if we’ve been out doing something with our grandkids (e.g., going to a park or a museum) and stop by afterwards at a diner to get a bite to eat, and those diners certainly are nothing fancy. So our preference is takeout (or delivery) and a movie or binging watching a crime/detective series on BritBox.

3. Acknowledgment or anonymity?

I’m retired and I don’t do much of anything that requires or warrants any form of acknowledgment from others. But I am a blogger, and even though I blog anonymously, I do appreciate the acknowledgment from other bloggers in terms of views, likes, and especially comments on my posts.

This past summer when my blog was stolen and replicated on a series of bogus news roundup blogs, I was seriously thinking about throwing in the towel on blogging. But I was genuinely touched by the encouragement I received from this blogging community. That gave me the motivation to establish this new blog and to go through the tedious effort of migrating my old blog posts, image files, and comments from my old blog to this new one. And I appreciate those who were following my old blog and who have subscribed to this new one.

That’s all the acknowledgment I need.

The Skepticism of Roger

Fandango19 Comments

sandcastleThroughout his young life, Roger was required to read the Bible and to review it daily, chapter and verse, with his mother and father. He was taught that God’s laws, as expressed in the Bible, were unbreakable and must be obeyed. To disobey them would condemn Roger to eternal damnation.

Much to the chagrin of his parents, who were extremely religious, Roger had reached the age where he was beginning to question everything. He accepted nothing at face value and became very skeptical of his parents’ belief in a supernatural supreme being.

One Christmas Eve, after attending Midnight Mass with his parents, Roger announced that he was rejecting the dogma of the church. He told them that it couldn’t hold up under the scrutiny of an intrepid mind like his, and that, like sandcastles, it will ultimately be washed away by the waves of time.

His father was angry. His mother was distraught. They gave young Roger an ultimatum. “Either you return to the word of God, or we will disown you,” they told him. But Roger was unready to yield to his parents’ demand. He waved them off in a perfunctory manner and scurried to his room where he packed his suitcase.

“I’m leaving,” he announced to his parents. “I can’t deal with the sexism, racism, homophobia, and superstitions of the church. I need to find my own path, my own way, my own purpose. I may be back after my journey of self-discovery. Or I may be gone forever. I love you both and I thank you for everything you’ve given me and done for me. I genuinely wish you well. I hope you will also wish me well as I seek to find myself and my calling.”

Written for these daily prompts: Jibber Jabber (review; return), Word of the Day Challenge (unbreakable; racism), The Daily Spur (midnight; suitcase), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (dogma; perfunctory), Your Daily Word Prompt (intrepid; scurry), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (sandcastle; unready).

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — December 20

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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 20th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on December 20, 2017 in response to the WordPress Daily Prompt, “calling.”

Is There Something You Want To Tell Me?

Dave was fixing a quick dinner for his kids, since his wife, Maggie, had worked late again and had just gotten home a few minutes earlier. That’s when Dave’s cellphone rang. “Honey, can you answer that?” he asked his daughter, Darla, who dutifully got up, ran into the living room, and answered the phone.

As Dave was setting out the plates on the kitchen table, Darla handed him the phone. “It’s your lawyer calling,” she said.

“My lawyer? I don’t have a lawyer.” Dave put the phone next to his ear, “Hello, this is Dave. Who’s calling?”

“Hello Dave,” the voice said. “I’m sorry to bother you at dinnertime, but I’m Clarisa Ridgeman, attorney at law. I’m calling you because your wife has engaged an attorney, Daniel Dorfman, to represent her in your divorce. He contacted me and suggested that I call you, since you should engage your own lawyer.”

“What?” said Dave in shock. “You want to be my lawyer in a divorce case? My wife never mentioned wanting a divorce.”

“Yes,” said the lawyer. “And that’s why I’m calling you. You need to be represented.”

Just then Maggie came walking into the kitchen. “Hi hon, sorry I was late again,” she said.

“Hold on a second,” Dave said into his cellphone. “Maggie, is there something you want to tell me?”

#writephoto — The Apparition

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549D5FE6-461F-4A4B-AB7D-9A517CA9C204Sean came back to this site every year since the incident five years earlier. As it was almost every time he came here for that auspicious anniversary, there was a thick mist hanging in the air. He stared at the point where he had last seen her and tears of regret filled his eyes.

His last view of Wendy was etched into his brain. She had walked to the land’s edge and was staring down at the waves crashing into the rocks far below. “Be careful, hon,” he remembered calling out to her. “Don’t get so close to the precipice.” And then she was gone.

I can’t believe how oblivious I was, Sean thought. I totally missed all of the signs. Her sister had warned Sean that something was wrong, but Sean thought her sister was a drama queen and was seeing things that weren’t there. But her sister was right all along. Clearly Wendy was suffering from a serious depression and Sean, preoccupied by his own issues, was distracted.

Sean heard a voice calling his name. It was Wendy’s voice, calling him to come over to her. He looked toward the edge of the bluff and saw Wendy standing there in the thick mist, looking down at the water far below. “Sean,” he heard her say. “Sean, come to me, come be with me.”

In a trance-like state, Sean walked toward Wendy. As he approached the cliff’s edge, Wendy was gone. Sean moved cautiously toward the edge and he heard Wendy’s voice calling him from below. He peered over the edge and saw her standing in the surf. “Come to me,” he heard her say to him. “Come be with me for eternity.”

Written for Sure Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt.

Song Lyric Sunday — Don’t Lose That Number

Fandango14 Comments

This week’s Song Lyric Sunday from Helen Vahdati is about “phone calls/calling.”

That to immediately brought to mind one of my favorite songs, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” from one of my favorite rock/pop/jazz fusion groups, Steely Dan.

“Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” was a single released in 1974 and was also the opening track of Steely Dan’s third album Pretzel Logic. Written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, it was the group’s most successful single, peaking at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1974.

Rikki of the title is supposed to have been Rikki Ducornet, a New York writer and artist. Donald Fagen met her while both were attending Bard College, a small liberal arts school located in upstate New York. Ducornet said they met at a college party, and even though she was both pregnant and married at the time, he gave her his number, although not in the same context as the song. Ducornet was intrigued by Fagen and was tempted to call him, but she decided against it.

Here are the song’s lyrics.

We hear you’re leaving, that’s okay
I thought our little wild time had just begun
I guess you kind of scared yourself, you turn and run
But if you have a change of heart

Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home

I have a friend in town, he’s heard your name
We can go out driving on Slow Hand Row
We could stay inside and play games, I don’t know
And you could have a change of heart

Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home

You tell yourself you’re not my kind
But you don’t even know your mind
And you could have a change of heart

Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home

Something You Want to Tell Me?

Fandango5 Comments

Dave was fixing a quick dinner for his kids, since his wife, Maggie, had worked late again and had just gotten home a few minutes earlier. That’s when Dave’s cellphone rang. “Honey, can you answer that?” he asked his daughter, Darla, who dutifully got up, ran into the living room, and answered the phone.

As Dave was setting out the plates on the kitchen table, Darla handed him the phone. “It’s your lawyer calling,” she said.

“My lawyer? I don’t have a lawyer.” Dave put the phone next to his ear, “Hello, this is Dave. Who’s calling?”

“Hello Dave,” the voice said. “I’m sorry to bother you at dinnertime, but I’m Clarisa Ridgeman, attorney at law. I’m calling you because your wife has engaged an attorney, Daniel Dorfman, to represent her in your divorce. He contacted me and suggested that I call you, since you should engage your own lawyer.”

“What?” said Dave in shock. “You want to be my lawyer in a divorce case? My wife never mentioned wanting a divorce.”

“Yes,” said the lawyer. “And that’s why I’m calling you. You need to be represented.”

Just then Maggie came walking into the kitchen. “Hi hon, sorry I was late again,” she said.

“Hold on a second,” Dave said into his cellphone. “Maggie, is there something you want to tell me?”

Written for today’s one-word prompt, “calling.”