At the beginning of my life’s journey, I followed the straight and narrow path.
But then life, as it is wont to do, threw some nasty curves at me.
I had no choice but to bend in order not to break, and to follow that winding road wherever it led me.
I ended up where I am now and I believe this is where I would have arrived in any event.
I wrote this post for two prompts. First, for the Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge from Sue and GC, where the theme was “straight or narrow.” Second, for a newly minted daily word challenge from chellebee53 at My Vivid Blog. She gave us the word “beginning.”
Midnight at the oasis The scene of our dalliance Making love in the weeds Not the most insidious of deeds A measly way to meet our needs Don’t read this the wrong way It’s just a tumble by the bay
Also for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (dalliance), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (insidious), Your Daily Word Prompt (measly), The Daily Spur (read), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (tumble).
For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill, we are asked to take the last photo we snapped and to think about the first word that comes to mind when we look at it. And that word is our prompt for today.
Alrighty then. Here’s the last photo I took, which I took in my backyard yesterday morning.
It’s a plant in my backyard with purple flowers. I might have used the word “backyard” or “purple” or “flowers.” But the word I chose was “bees.” Why bees? Well, the reason I took this picture was because there were bees flying around the plant. Can you see any of them? No? Well maybe this will help.
Can you see them now? Not yet? Okay, how about now?
See? Bees? There were about a half a dozen bees around this one plant, but by the time I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, got close to the plant, and snapped this photo, most of them had flitted off to neighboring plants.
Anyway, Bees. That was the first word I thought about when I looked at this photo. Bees doing whatever bees do when they are investigating the purple blossoms on a flowering plant in my backyard.
What was the first word you thought about when you saw this picture?
Welcome to July 31, 2021 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 “insidious.”
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. Please 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.
“Deal. Call it.” Mike called heads. Jason flipped the coin. It was tails.
“Damn,” Mike said. “Now it’s my turn to flip,” he said, grabbing the quarter from Jason.
“Tails,” Jason said. Miked flipped it and it was heads. Jason gabbed the quarter back from Mike. “Okay, this flip is for all the marbles.”
“That’s kind of a mixed metaphor, but whatever. I call heads on the final flip.”
Heads it was and Mike was thrilled. The two guys got up off their stools and headed over to where the two girls — the blonde and the brunette — were seated.
“Shit,” Jason said.
“Just our luck,” Mike said, and the two of them headed back to the bar seats they had just abandoned.
Meanwhile, Christie and Maryanne started giggling. “That was a great idea you had for the two of us to embrace with a passionate kiss,” Christie said. That definitely curtailed the plans of those two losers who were back there flipping coins over us.”
“Yes, it worked great,” Maryanne said. “We dodged a bullet, for sure.” Then Maryanne licked her lips, looked deep into Christie’s eyes, and said, “And I liked it.”
Written for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (curvaceous), The Daily Spur (minimum), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (coin), Ragtag Daily Prompt (over), and Your Daily Word Prompt (curtail).
Tricia burst out laughing. She held her phone up so her husband, Rick, could see the screen. “What the hell is that?”
Tricia smiled. “Since the kids haven’t seen Grandpa in almost two years due to COVID travel restrictions, I asked him to take a selfie and email it to me so that I could show the kids. He must have used the front camera instead of the rear one.”
“Or he did it intentionally,” Rick said. “He hates having his picture taken and it’s actually a very artistic photo.”
“You give him way too much credit, Rick,” Tricia laughed.
(100 words)
Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit: Roger Bultot.
Frank (aka PCGuy) and Di (aka Pensitivity101) alternate as hosts for Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. Today is Di’s turn to host and here are her questions.
1. What is a skiff?
It’s what you do between a hoph and a jumph.
2. What is a liner?
It’s what women wear in their panties when it’s that time of the month.
3. What is a ferry?
It’s a derogatory term that straight guys use to refer to a gay guy.
4. What is a destroyer?
It’s a term used to describe the 45th President of the United States.
5. What is a cruiser?
It’s what they used to call teenage boys who would drive around the parking lots at drive-in restaurants trying to pick up girls back in the Fifties and Sixties.
6. What is a galleon?
It’s a type of cyst that often appears on one’s wrist.
7. What is a pedlow?
It’s a pillow you put underneath your feet to elevate them.
8. What is a kayak?
It’s a bird that makes an annoyingly loud yakking sound.
9. What is a schooner?
It’s the opposite of schlater.
10. What is a coracle?
A group of pus-filled bumps forming a connected area of infection under the skin.
Are you pleased to meet me? Do you know my name? No? Well let me help you.
But first, I want you to know that I am everything they say I am. A son of a bitch. A bastard. A cad. A racist. A sexist. A liar. A cheat. A con artist. A criminal. I am deliciously wicked.
That doesn’t matter though. It doesn’t seem to bother most of you. You still love me. You worship me. I can say anything and you believe me. My wish is your command. If I ask you to storm the citadel, you’ll do it. Without question. Without hesitation.
I am very smart, you know. I have a big brain. I know the best words. I know more than the generals. More than the scientists. More than the doctors. More than the pathetic politicians.
The lemmings, they flock to my rallies. They hang on my every word. They kiss my ass. They lick my boots. They do my bidding. My enemies — the opposition, the press, the disloyal — are their enemies. Isn’t that something?
On my say so my minions will gleefully destroy democracy, topple the institutions. They will even kill for me if I ask them to.
But while some call me corrupt, wicked, evil, and even delusional, to my supporters I am a hero, a god. And they will do what I tell them to do.
I hope by now you guessed my name. It shouldn’t be puzzling you, because you know the nature of my game.
And it’s a deadly game, isn’t it?
Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Tale Weaver prompt. I was inspired by Stephanie Colpron, who has recently taken over this prompt from Michael. I was also inspired by Jim Adams’ response to this same prompt.
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 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 30th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
This was originally posted on July 30, 2017.
Blog Snobbery
Sandi over at Flip Flops Every Day wrote a post yesterday called Snobs in which she discussed, among other things, blog snobbery. I had not really given the notion of blog snobbery much thought until I read her post. Now I’m haunted by it. Thanks a bunch, Sandi.
“My name is Fandango and I’m a blog snob,” is what I imagine I would say when asked to introduce myself at my first meeting of Blog Snobs Anonymous (BSA). By the way, Blog Snobs Anonymous should not be confused with the other BSA (Boy Scouts of America). The BSA I’m talking about would never invite Donald Trump to address our group.
But I digress. I am a blog snob because there are certain types of blogs that I choose to not read. That’s not to say that such blogs are not perfectly fine blogs and that the bloggers whose posts are found on those blogs are not excellent bloggers. I choose not to read them simply because they’re not to my taste.
For me — and probably for most of you who are reading this post — blogging is not a full-time activity. In fact, there are relatively few hours each day that I can devote to blogging. Therefore, I have to diligently manage my limited “blog-time.”
Because time is finite, there simply isn’t enough of it to compose one or more posts a day, to read and respond to comments, and to read and comment on a bunch of other bloggers’ posts.
Hence, I must be a discriminating blogger. I have no choice but to pick and choose which posts to read and which bloggers to follow.
I know what I like and I know what I don’t like. I choose to spend my finite blog-time on what I like over what I don’t.
So yes, I am a blog snob, born more from necessity than from desire. And I bet most of you, if you think about it, are also blog snobs.
Let me know if you want details about the next meeting of Blog Snobs Anonymous.
Welcome to July 31, 2021 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.
Facts, Fictions & Fantasies 
