Candles on Shore
Beautiful moon
hidden from the wooded path
can not light the way.
Shade trees
cast midnight shadows.
Dark water moving slow
like molasses in the night, sluggish and dark
where daylight had shown clear but deep.
Wading across seems longer now.
So easy to be turned around, lost,
Until a friend arrives with a candle.
The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a story in exactly 55 words. Click on the badge to go to the hub.
13 Books
1 Wilderness Girl by Cate Masters
About a wild, camping-oriented sexual encounter. I’m still reading this one. It’s an ebook that got caught in my computer melt downs. I quoted too much from it here.
2 Practice makes Perfect by Julie James
Lawyers in love. Fun read. I quoted from it here and here.
3 The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross
Woman flees just about everyone. Didn’t finish. Seemed like it should by my thing, but wasn’t.
4 Spring Collection by Judith Krantz
Five women in the modeling industry find love. Not always true love. Not bad.
5 Too Good to be True by Kristan Higgins
Ex-con neighbor and History teacher with imaginary boyfriend flirt. Quoted here.
6 Bonk by Mary Roach
A study of scientific investigation into human sex. Still reading. Quoted from it here. Can I say this may be too much of a good thing? I’m getting tired of parts.
7 Tempted by His Kiss by Tracy Anne Warren
Historical Romance involving a young lady stranded at an estate by a snowstorm. I generally like Beauty and the Beast types, but I lost interest in this one and gave up on it.
8 Don’t Bargain with the Devil by Sabrina Jeffries
Historical Romance, Spaniard looks for missing heiress in English school. He finds her, too. Quoted here and here.
9 The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman
Political intrigue and drug smuggling comes to the Navajo reservation. I quoted from this one here and here.
10 The Ghostway by Tony Hillerman
This one takes Jim Chee all the way out of the reservation.
11 How to Engage an Earl by Kathryn Caskie
Historical Romance, trumped up engagement. I’m still working my way through this one.
12 McKettricks Luck by Linda Lael Miller
Western. Someone censored this one! I got it second hand from a bookstore. Someone ripped out the pages with the love scenes. Humph! Quoted from it here.
13 The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato
Quoted from this one here. Great fun, but I’m not far in yet.
Ah Maria, Stuck in the Middle with Who?
In order to save Austria, Queen Maria Theressa entrusted her diplomat, Kaunitz, with a lot of power, even encouraging his partying. Meanwhile she turned her attention to the shambles of her empire.
As late as 1754 all of Europe wanted peace. Kaunitz knew that a war would be required to recover Silesia, but not right away. The ground had to be prepared. As long as France was allied with Prussia, attacking the Prussians in Silesia was out of the question. That some sort of arrangement with the French would have to be made was clear to Kaunitz. But how to achieve this without upsetting England would require some thinking.
At this point, France and England were at war over British raiding of French Atlantic shipping. England was very anxious that Austria remain in the Austrian Netherlands, modern-day Belgium, for the sake of keeping Hanover secure. Austria was ready to write this off as a territory that could not be defended, which cost real money to administer and returned little.
But they couldn’t tell the English that. Maria told Prime Minister Newcastle that she would gladly provide troops for the defense of Hanover. All England had to do was sign a treaty with her, and Russia, promising to attack Prussia and put down Frederick once and for all.
283/365 Quick Shot
I have to remember the camera on the cell phone isn’t as good as my other digital cameras. Not that it’s bad. For a cell phone.
282/365 Thumbs Up
Thumbs up from my new cell phone. It has a camera built in. Only problem is it’s taking me forever to learn how to use it.
281/365 Lots of Stinky Flowers
These flowers grow on a hoya plant, the family hoya.
Ages ago, my great grandmother smuggled a start from a two-story hoya plant in a restaurant in Mexico into the US. At the time there was a complete embargo on plants. She did it by putting a sprig of it in her corsage. She gave a start to my grandmother, who gave one to my mother, who gave one to me. Being the kind of casually paranoid individual I am, I took starts off of my plant and got them going so that I now have five of them! And they flower at the same time! And produce several bunches of flowers at a time! And and the flowers were designed to attract flies rather than bees! Poor me.
Association
Play the Association game between now and May 31st, enter your post on the Association Meme page of this site, and I’ll put you in the hat to win a silver ingot.
1. Anyone can play, whether they have been tagged or not.
2. Include the rules and logo in your post.
3. Copy out all the responses that were made before you.
4. Link to each of the people who responded before you.
5. Put in your response. Your response can be as little as a single word or as much as 100 words. It can be a word, a phrase, an image, a song, a video, a story, or a short rant.
6. Tag anyone you would like to challenge to play this game. You do not have to tag anyone.
7. You can do this any time you run across it, even if you were one of the previous responders.
Alice said excitement
Hootin’ Anni said thrill
Mari said ride as in roller coaster
Alice said I remember riding the “Batman” roller coaster in Great America. You dangled from it with your feet hanging down. There was a pile of shoes under it and a sign warning that if you lost them, you wouldn’t get them back. So my response is “shoes”.
I challenge Jingle to give this a try.
Add Diction
Jack: I’m tired of you ragging on me about the drinking. it doesn’t happen all that much, right? So it’s fine. I’m not a drunk.
Jill: Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it anymore either.
Jack: If someone has an addiction in this house, it’s you. You and this Sudoku thing.
Jill: Silly. That isn’t an addiction. It’s addition.
Today’s theme is addiction
Previously in Jack and Jill: Rolling In The Dough
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Be sure to visit the home page.
Suzie’s House 161: Fine. Really. Totally Fine.
“Quiet!” Suzie snapped at the boys, one hand covering the receiver on the phone. “It’s Drew.”
Gene, Ben, and Lisa stopped arguing over the last slice of pizza and looked to the corner of the kitchen where Suzie had the house line mounted to the wall. She put her back to them and hunched over the phone.
“Where are you? Who is that woman talking in the background?”
