Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
Jack: Theodor? Her name is Jill, right? Where are you?
Previously in Jack and Jill: Shades
The theme for this week’s Jack and Jill is “Adirondack” as suggested by Alice
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Silos
Alicia, Sally, and Liam walked along the dirt road from Sally’s house to Liam’s. Along the way they passed the grain silo that Liam’s father had tried to build. Before it was complete the money ran out. There had never been a roof.
“What a waste of money,” Sally said. “He’d have been better off just building a roof than building the walls but not the roof.
“You’re the only family without one,” Alicia said.
“But we do have one. It’s brought us more money, too.”
“Where?” Alicia looked around.
“Underground behind that little fence.” Liam pointed.
“He means the missile silo,” Sally said.
“Oh.”
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Marie Gail Stratford
13 Places Where a Cough is Unwelcome
I have had a persistent cough most of my life. Most of the time I don’t really pay attention, but lately I’ve found that it has probably closed a lot of doors that I didn’t realize were being closed by my cough. Here are 13 places where people would not want to see someone coughing.
1. In the kitchen, particularly of a restaurant.
2. In an operating room.
3. In a nursery school.
4. In an old folk’s home.
5. In a research lab.
6. Back stage during a performance.
7. On a sound stage.
8. In church.
9. Before a kiss.
10. In a movie theater
11. In an airplane
12. In an electronic parts factory
13. In a florist shop
For more lists of Thirteen, visit Thursday Thirteen
Suzie’s House 406 : The Connection Between Old and Young
Walter loved to walk down State Street. Especially on days with such clear blue skies. Of course, plenty of other people liked to come here on a nice day, too. That was half the fun. He could simply shuffle along; looking like the old man he was and enjoying the sights.
Progress
I guess I’m in a progress type mood. On Thursday I looked at my New Years resolutions and considered how I was doing on them. I bit off more than I could chew, but I already knew that.
I’ve made tolerable progress on the writing front, but clearly bit off more than I can chew. There’s no way I’ll get all five books revised this year. I’m still going to shoot for two, but I’ll probably let the rest slide into next year.
On the health front I’m both doing better than expected and doing worse. I’ve been sticking to the Lifestyle Balance diet. It’s seriously paying off. I feel healthier over all and am more mobile, but I’ve learned that my hips were even worse than I thought.
It just means I’m going to have a harder time coming up to snuff, but at least I have every reason to think I CAN get my health back. For a while, I wasn’t so sure.
So I guess for the most part I’ll just keep going.
Shades
Jack(to himself): Yep, I’ve got it made in the shade. I don’t want to change a single thing about myself. I’m not lonely at all. There’s no point in thinking about something that never ever happened. All that time travel stuff is just crazy talk. My wife was never born because her mother accidentally killed her great grandfather? Hah! As if. It’s not like I’ve ever seen….. (turn) Eeek!
Previously in Jack and Jill: Blowing Smoke At the Smoke House Bar and Grill aka Denial
The theme for this week’s Jack and Jill is “shade” as suggested by Jannie Funster
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The Tell Tale Faucet
“Sure, Honey. Have a good time.” Fred didn’t think twice about it when his wife told him to turn the sprinklers off. He changed channels on the TV and completely forgot about the water.
“Dear, did you turn the water off like I asked?” She came home late at night and crawled into bed with him.
“Yeah, yeah.” He rolled over.
“But I keep hearing water dripping.”
First thing in the morning his little “white” lie was quickly revealed, and their basement flooded.
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Madison Woods
13 Resolutions
Now and then I like to stop and check my progress.
1. I am down more than 15 pounds since February.
2. I have set up an appointment for a full hip replacement in October.
3. I routinely go out walking or bicycling for half an hour a day.
4. Sometimes I eat salad. 🙂
5. I am on page 82 of revisions on Beautiful Spanish Hussy.
6. I still visit the blog of everyone who leaves a usable link in their comments on this one, but my posts aren’t quite as regular.
7. I haven’t touched Remember Me, but I have been thinking about the plot.
8. I haven’t touched Crazy About You, but I made some decisions about how I’ll approach it.
9. No Progress at all on Attack of the Killer Airheads.
10. No progress on Boys Will Be Boys. I don’t have to get this done all at once, do I?
11. NaNo isn’t until November. I already have a rough outline for it.
12. I’ll wait until Beautiful Spanish Hussy is published to promote it. Probably next year at this rate.
13. New computer is up, running, and already collecting bugs.
For more lists of Thirteen, visit Thursday Thirteen
Suzie’s House 405 : Clear Blue Sky III
On impulse, Emma looked straight up at a clear blue sky, but her mask slipped a little so it was hard to see. She reached up and shifted it, and the buildings of State Street came into view, but feathers obscured the sky.
To think somewhere out there her father was doing his best to come home. They would finally be a family again. She couldn’t wait to see him.
Social Justice
The Girl is a self proclaimed Social Justice Warrior. She’s been haranguing me about racism, sexism, homophobia and the like for a couple of years now. It reminds me a great deal of the kind of lectures I was treated to from friends and acquaintances when I was in my twenties. Only then we called them Political Correctos.
In the last few months her fervor has mellowed a little. She’s starting to see the extremities of the movements and the occasional lack of compassion. She’s getting a bit more practical. As a result, she’s less inclined to lump herself in with the other Social Justice Warriors out there.
So wouldn’t you know now is when she received this letter. Yep. Her social justice-ness has finally been officially recognized. Too bad it didn’t come when she was more interested.
Blowing Smoke At the Smoke House Bar and Grill aka Denial
Raoul: We should have gone to a bar with chicks.
Mike: Yeah. Chicks. I need a chick.
Raoul: Doesn’t it seem like it’s getting harder and harder to get chicks?
Mike: Yeah, well, we aren’t getting any younger.
Raoul: If only there was something we could do about it.
Mike: We’d have to time travel to make a difference.
Raoul: Hey, what do you think, Jack? You’ve been awfully quiet all evening.
Jack: I’m good. Yep. Totally fine.
Previously in Jack and Jill: Give Me a Break
The theme for this week’s Jack and Jill is “smoke” as suggested by Brian Miller
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Your Choice.
“Ugh. More clouds?” Jane’s frown lines deepened. “Who knew Barcelona had a rainy season?”
“Name a place that doesn’t.” Marge tried to take a picture around Jane’s head.
“India. Anything is better than this.”
“I’m pretty sure India also gets rain. You should have done more research before you picked Barcelona.”
“As much research as you did last time?” Jane gave her a snide smile.
“I can’t control climate change,” Marge said mildly.
“Then where do you want to go next time?” Jane glowered at everything around them.
“I don’t think it’s so much a question of where as with whom.”
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Dee Lovering
13 Pictures of Flowers
It’s Spring! I’ve been seeing pretty pictures of flowers all over, not just on Heather’s blog. For over a month I didn’t have any flowers to take pictures of. Then my first attempts were awful because I used my new cell phone on a cloudy day. Then I got stubborn and insisted on using my cell phone so I could learn how to do it and because I didn’t want to go wandering around the neighborhood with my excellent but clunky DLSR. Anyway, it took me a while, but here they are. My Spring hot off the cell phone.
1.
Suzie’s House 404 : Clear Blue Sky II
Ethan Zempel couldn’t find a pay phone anywhere. What had the world come to when you couldn’t even call home for want of a simply phone. Not that he was sure the change in his pocket would be enough, even if he could find such a rare beast as a pay phone in the wilds of Kentucky.
