Tag Archives: flowers

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Fibbing Friday #318

Pensitivity101 had a mixed bag of daftness last week. Your input on these please.  My output on these, thanx!

1. What is a tandem?

That’s how/when I disappoint two women in the same bed

2. What is a periwinkle?

Rip van Winkle’s metrosexual grandson

3. What’s the difference between a pitcher and a ewer?

A pitcher is a guy who throws the ball in an American game, so I assume that a ewer is a ball-hurler in the British sport.  Their games take so much longer because spectators need more time to figure out just exactly what a Silly-Mid-On is.

4. Who was Penelope Pitstop?

She was/is the female Transformer – Optimus Prime’s girlfriend.  A guy needs a lube-job and a refueling, after saving the planet.

5. What is pigeon toed?

It’s why they have to land and walk around on the ground, instead of lighting on power, or telephone lines.

6. What is a toupee?

It’s an alien creature from the planet DuPont, which came to Earth, landed on Donald Trump’s head, and is psychically controlling him.

7. What is carrion?

It’s a small tote bag, containing all your important personal items, that you try to cram into the airplane’s overhead compartment.

8. What is a milkshake?

A cow with the shivers

9. What is a cockle?

A guy who lives down around Beau’s belles

10. What is a chouz bun?

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s the new haircut/style that the Chavs are sporting.

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’25 A To Z Challenge – L

The Prince of Procrastination – the Potentate of Put-It-Off – the Poohbah of postponement, has struck again.

You must have noticed a distinct lack of blog-publishing on Monday.  Since I didn’t have anything for today, I couldn’t just switch, so this is a rather obvious, two days late.

Back in the Turn On – Tune In – Drop Out, peace, love, and rock and roll days of the Hippies, the word

LACKADAISICAL

would simply have meant a shortage of flower-power.  More recently, it seems to be the measure of my composing and posting.

without interest, vigor, or determination; listless; halfhearted, lazy; indolent, idle, sluggish, slothful, casual, careless

So many meanings for a word that means, essentially doing nothing – or very little – or doing it poorly.  13 letters!!?  A word that long could be a Bridge Over Troubled Waters.  This post is a bridge to Fibbing Friday.  CU there.

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Getting To Nosy Neighbors

Does your property have a garden?
If so, do you prefer a lawn or paving slabs, hedges or walls?
If not, do you wish it had one?

I have mowed so many lawns, so many times – when I finally ended up owning one of my own, I was willing to just pave it over and paint it green.  However…. it’s a little tough on the grandkids and, She Who Must Be Obeyed has always been a gardener.  She has always been pleased with all the pretty plants and flowers – after I work my ass off to prepare for them.

When we moved in, 20+ years ago, there were small gardens on either side of the back deck.  They had been ignored by the previous owners for three years.  It took us two years to strip out all the weeds and dead plants.  I dug, and turned over, and mixed with compost and fertilizer – and she planted flowers.

She wanted a shade-garden beneath the rear-facing living-room window.  I built a concrete-slab retaining wall, added several bags of topsoil, turned it….  You’ve heard this song before!  🙄  She planted flowers.  Recently she I planted a Japanese maple there.
It’s a tree, dear.  It will grow, and block the window.
Oh, it’ll stay small.
It’s not a bonsai, dear.  It has grown to block the window.

Beyond the front walk, beside the end of the garage, I prepared another garden.  (All together now – I dug, I turned….)  She planted flowers and a twig that turned into a magnolia bush, which has flourished and sun-starved the grass beneath it, as well as all the flowers.

We have eight-foot wooden fences between us and our neighbors.  I dug in a garden beside the front walk.  I dug in a narrow garden beside the house.  I stripped sod, dug down two feet to remove heavy clay, added topsoil, etc. etc. etc. for 200 square feet beside one fence.  I laid waterproof wooden beams for a 4’ X 16’ garden beside the other fence – Second verse – I dug, turned, composted….

When I was a youth delivering newspapers, I visited properties which were overgrown like a Jurassic Park set.  This was because the owners got too old, too weak, too tired, to maintain their land.  Forty years ago – thirty years ago – even twenty years ago, we both had the strength and stamina to do all this manual labor.  Now our place is beginning to look wild.

People – passers-by – deliver drivers, can’t see our house from the street.  Soon, we will not be able to see our back yard.  That may be a blessing.  All these gardens are abandoned now.  All that digging, and turning, and top-soiling, and composting, and fertilizing, has produced the most fertile homes for weeds.

Where Echinacea and bee-balm once flourished, we now have four-foot tall goldenrod.  Where tulips and Hosta daisies once blessed us with their bright colors, now stand six-foot tall Scottish thistles.  Last year I grew a Guinness Record, nine-foot tall dandelion.  It used a monkey-plant on the wooden fence for support, and topped the wall.

They were pretty and rewarding when we could take care of them.  Now, the resale price of our home diminishes by the day.  😦

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Smitty’s Loose Change #23

Snippets

 

Some frazzled, forgetful kindly, thoughtful person just contributed another $8.55 to my retirement fund.  I just extracted eight Loonies, two quarters and a nickel from the overflow chute of one of those in-store coin-counting machines.  It doesn’t compare to the $76 that I found last year, but every little bit helps.  I went back to the store two days later, for something I’d missed, and got another two dimes, a nickel, and a $1 token for releasing chained-up shopping carts.

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Let us not think of Freedom as the right to do as we wish, but rather as the opportunity to do what is right.

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If you had to change your name, what would the new one be?
Joe Shitz – instead of Bill.

How do you want to retire?
First, I’d wash and shave, then put my jammies on, then hop into bed.

List ten things that you know to be absolutely certain.
That there is only one thing, and this is it.

Which activities make you lose track of time?
Stopping at a jewelry store to get a new battery for my watch.

What are your future travel plans?
I don’t plan to travel to the future.  It’s difficult and quite expensive.  Besides, The Apocalypse is right around the temporal corner.  I’m just gonna stay right here now.

How would you describe yourself to someone?
Seriously undecided as to whether to say uninterested, or disinterested.

Describe your life in an alternate universe.
I’ve never been in an alternate universe.

Describe a family member.
It hangs off my right hip, and is just long enough to reach the ground.  You thought I was going to describe its neighbor to the left.  Sadly, that’s a very short story.

Where is your favorite place to go in your city?
Well…. The newest Wal-Mart has a nice clean washroom.

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I had hoped for a blog-theme prompt from my Muse, but I’m drawing a blank.

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Long-Stemmed Rose

The wife planted this beside our front walkway.  It hasn’t produced a flower, but it’s grown higher than the garage eave, and is reaching for the second-story window.

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Three Things Challenge – Names

There are two things that burn my ass, about parents who give names to their children – people with no imagination, and people with too damned much imagination.  If Elon Musk didn’t own a company that can do things that NASA can’t, he’d be in a small room somewhere, with plastic scissors and paste.

I expect his Seventh son – of 11 children – X Æ A-XII along with siblings Nevada, Kai, Saxon, Griffin, Damian, and Exa Dark Siderael, to sue his father and change his name as soon as it is legally possible.

On the other hand…. A woman in my home town had 5 boys, who she named Douglas, Darcy, David, Dwayne, and Derrick.  Even Alan, Bruce, Charlie, Dahlia, and Eddie would mix things up a bit.  Then there is Mama Kardashian – Kris – who gave girl K names to all five of her daughters.

Recently, Pensitivity101 posted the Three Word Challenge – POPPY, ROSE, VIOLET.  Over the years, we have probably watched as much imported British ‘telly,’ as we have American TV.  There was a Brit-Com titled Keeping Up Appearances.  The show centered around one of four sisters, who desperately wanted to improve her social standing.  Among other things, she insisted that her husband’s lowbrow surname – Bucket – be pronounced Boo-Kay.

A ‘60s flower child-mother had named them Hyacinth, Rose, Violet, and Daisy.  Apparently, there was a fifth, Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell daughter/sister named Poppy.

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’23 A To Z Challenge – L

I will never be a commercial writer.  I would like to think of myself as reliable and reputable, but experience proves that I’m as flighty as a dragonfly.  Schedules and deadlines and story themes are cast aside as quickly and easily as New Year resolutions.  My stick-to-it-iveness, too often comes unstuck.

Case in point – with more than two weeks of lead-time, this post should have been completed and in the bag.  Instead, I’m lollygagging around, composing a two-part response to some anti-gun nut.  It’s good stuff, if I may say so myself – and I do, but it’s the type of reason that a couple of these A To Z Challenges have been published on Wednesday, rather than their scheduled Mondays.

It’s because I am, in a long, complex and antique word

LACKADAISICAL

Without interest, vigor, or determination; listless; halfhearted: lazy; indolent

It does not mean that I have a shortage of pretty, bright flowers.  He’ll get it finished on time.  He won’t get it finished on time.  He’ll get it….  To paraphrase Roger Miller – I don’t Knuckle down, Buckle down, Do it!  Do it!  Do it!
To thine own self be true, and then thou canst not be false to any other man.
But I can’t even do that.  I want to write about what I want to write about, and I desperately want to do it while the Muse is upon me, before I forget it.  You wouldn’t believe the number of great posts that you haven’t got to read.  I believe in Quantum Entanglement.  It’s where a lot of my great ideas go.  😳

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MAID Service

DON’T CUT ME OFF!

1Jaded1 recently asked about local views, and my opinion and views, on medically assisted suicide.  There’s very little mention, or pushback, here.  After all, we’re safe, sane Canada, not the Bible-thumping Southern Excited States.  Do whatever you please, just don’t scare the horses.

The issue does exist here.  Locally, it’s been given the cutesy acronym MAID – Medical Assistance In Dying.  I don’t know how far that label extends.  The very day she asked this question, an Op-Ed letter demanded that “death with dignity” access should be legally guaranteed, as a right.

I stand foursquare behind that.  I believe in the maximum of personal freedom.  I don’t feel that my bodily autonomy, or anyone else’s, should be violated by some do-gooder’s trumped-up morals.

HOWEVER!!!….

Be (VERY) careful what you wish for.  I can appreciate some people’s worry about the thin edge of the wedge, or the slippery slope.  Two days later, another Op-Ed letter arrived.  17 years ago, a man’s family and doctor fought him tooth and nail, to prevent him from accessing MAID.  With medication and psychotherapy, he is now a reasonably-functional citizen.  He was never promised that he would recover, but he now has hope.  He admits that he really didn’t want to die, he just didn’t want to live his nightmare any longer.

I am all for informed personal consent, but to ensure that cases like this do not occur, is going to require some administrative oversight. – a three-doctor panel?  This is where the bigots and the bureaucrats get their hooks in, and have a field day ruining running other people’s lives – as they see fit.

The same applies for gender-reassignment therapy.  INFORMED personal consent is paramount.  If little 8-year-old Billy wants to grow his hair down to his shoulders, and wear hair-bows, nylon panties and dresses, and call himherself Suzie – let IT!  Even non-bigot observers are rightly concerned when WOKE parents are authorizing treatments for pre-pubescent children.  You’re not even supposed to get a tattoo until you reach the age of majority – the age of informed personal consent!

Let Billy/Suzie live with the public fallout of the temporary decision for a while.  If he/she/it/they are still determined to go ahead, we can be reasonably assured that the choice is valid and duly considered.  Both these decisions have offices on a one-way street.  Once you start down it, there’s no turning back.  Considerable contemplation should be displayed, before a doctor is authorized to prescribe an overdose amount of Nembutal or Propofol, or before they lop Billy’s wiener off, and start pumping hormones in.

Pragmatically, especially on the suicide issue, I say go ahead – unless they’re directly related to me.  Earth’s population is now over 8 BILLION!  The overcrowded rats are beginning to nip at each other.  I can see you, Vladimir Putin.  I fear that a drastic reduction in population is going to occur anyway.  I can see you, COVID19, and all your mutant cousins.  A bunch of suicides might help reduce the social pressure by eliminating the emotionally inadaptable from the gene pool.

A lad from Montreal committed suicide on his 16th birthday.  On the next anniversary, his distraught mother also committed suicide.  On the third anniversary, his bereaved father also committed suicide.  I don’t wish to appear hard or uncaring (Oh, go ahead) but, apart from cleaning up the mess, and the confusion and sadness of friends and relatives – perhaps we are all better off without their contagious weakness.

A representative of the Council of Canadian Academies wants all levels of government to do something about the profusion of scientific misinformation which has caused many preventable COVID deaths.  In addition to regulating social media platforms and private messaging apps, Ottawa needs to support the production and distribution of science-based, factual information.  Science communication is facing an uphill battle.

This is one of the things that most irks me most about some Christian Apologetics debaters.  They ask, “Even if Atheists could prove that there’s no God, (That’s not our job – or our aim!) what’s wrong with believing something that’s false?”  Because it can get you killed!!  Worse yet, you can take your family, your neighbors, your friends, and even ME along with you.  I see you, Jim Jones, and David Koresh.

That’s when and why I begin to care – deeply, strongly!  In the movie, Spy Game, Robert Redford played an old agent, training a new agent.  At one point he advises, “If it comes down to between you and him – Send flowers.”  I’m sorry that you are so dumb and gullible that you will believe internet/religious conspiracy theories.  Please accept this lovely bouquet of Chrysanthemums.  We’re all probably better off without you.”

Despite those who see only in black and white, there is no perfect world, and there is no one-size-fits-all, perfect answer to either of these problems.  We’ll just have to live (or die) with imperfect humans – and keep your nose out of other people’s business, lest someone use it as an exclamation point.  😳

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Substitute Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 said thanks to Marla for providing our words last week.

What do you think these are/mean?

  1. Bumfuzzle

It’s a great word to describe some of the more inept police officers.  The type who drops his doughnut in the car park, and then drives off with his paper cup of coffee on the roof.

2.  Gardyloo

With two Scottie dogs, and two cats, we have to latch the WC door during periods of constipation contemplation.  It’s difficult to concentrate on the business at hind, with two pair of beady eyes staring at you, or trying to Stand and Deliver with a cat stropping your ankles.

3.  Taradiddle

When I should have been doing research to find the meaning of this word, I was busy not cutting down the cherry tree, and I was attacked by a purple Koala with a kumquat.

4.  Snickersnee

This is the new roller-coaster ride at the Brighton Beach amusement park.  After a huge loop-the-loop, you go through a dark, tunnel section where they spray you with nitrous oxide – laughing gas.  You come out scared shitless spitless, but giggling your face off.

5.  Bumbershoot

That’s a good feed of albino asparagus – with cheese sauce.

6.  Snollygoster

Luckily, it was a type of extinct (If you’ll excuse the expression) flower.  Historical records indicate that its aroma was enough to make a corpse plant pull up roots and leave the neighbourhood.  The last example was crushed by a charging hippo in Mali, in 1874, and the only people who miss it are etymologists.

7.  Brouhaha

That’s when you think that you’re absolutely hilarious after a dozen beers, but no-one else does.  It’s not wry wit – more like rye wit.

8.  Wabbit

I was researching Scottish dialect, to try to get some inspiration for this word, but I just got so tired.  I was absolutely exhausted, so I lay down for a little nap, and by the time I woke, it was time to publish.

9.  Pandiculation

The batteries in my hearing aids went dead, but I think they’re talking about a Heinz catsup/ketchup commercial from the ‘70s.

10. Borborygm

Borborygm was the tribe of natives in Mali where that last snollygoster was found.  They were a strange people, dressing in feathers and flowers, with lots of strange makeup.  Elton John is said to have purchased the rights to their story.

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I Am Crabby

What better treat to sweeten up a Grumpy Old Dude like me, than some lovely Crab-Apple jelly?

As an occasional treat, on nights that I post a blog, I have come to like a couple of Costco croissants, warmed in the toaster-oven, with crab-apple jelly and a mug of hot chocolate.

Several times in the course of our marriage, I have helped the wife make a batch of crab-apple jelly.  She initiates it, organises it, and gives directions, while I do most of the donkey-work, since I am so admirably qualified.  With a little luck, and some greed, I often get all or most of a batch.  It’s okay.  The wife prefers strawberry or red currant.  With some self-control and rationing, a batch lasts me several years

Crab-apple jelly is almost impossible to find in a grocery store, and when you do, it’s three or four times as expensive, because of shortage of crab-apples, and extra labor.  Near where the daughter once lived was a Mennonite church.  On the boulevard of the side street, they had planted four crab-apple trees.  At harvest time I just went over and picked enough.  A couple of years later I returned, to find that the city had widened the street, and destroyed the trees.

The home the daughter moved to, backs onto a community trail.  A block away, one house whose property also edged the trail, didn’t have a back fence – but they did have a crab-apple tree.  The owner graciously allowed me to harvest all I wanted – because then, he didn’t have to pick them all up.  A couple of years later I returned…. to find that the Region had widened and paved the trail, and removed the tree.

An occasional Mennonite at the Farmers’ Market MIGHT have a few six-quart baskets of crab-apples, if you get there at the right time, (I only had four baskets, and I sold the last one an hour ago.) but I might as well be paying for black truffles.  Two women offer jams and jellies of many flavors.  The wife bought a jar of red currant – which included some of the little twigs that the currants grow on.  I passed on their apple jelly.

Another man also offered a wide variety, including crab-apple jelly – at a merely outrageous price.  Real crab-apple jelly should be so clear, that you could read a newspaper through its red/gold beauty.  This stuff was more apple sludge, full of unfiltered apple fiber.

This is the cost of old age – having to live in the big city, close to all the medical support.  I’ll bet if I lived in my small home-town, I’d know someone with a crab-apple tree or two.  How about you??  Do you have a particular treat that you like?  Is it readily available?

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Chapter 2

Almost 20 years ago, when we first moved in, at the back of my property were a spruce tree, and a lilac bush, for added privacy and noise attenuation.  Back then they were barely as tall as the six-foot sound-berm.  Now they both tower 15/20 feet.

This summer, I was mowing the lawn, and stopped to catch my breath and look at the lilac…. and I lost my breath again.  There were crab-apples growing on my lilac.  WTF!!  Close inspection (the lawn can wait) showed that two of the lilac’s trunks (?) were actually a crab-apple tree.  This is the first year that it has produced fruit, so I’d never previously noticed that the two were intertwined.

How did it get there??  A squirrel burying an apple??  Some idiot in the neighborhood puts out peanuts for them.  We find peanuts buried in our planters and flower beds – along with dead flowers from the digging.

I’ll be discussing Theology with Saint Peter before this tree matures.  There are only half a dozen bunches of apples this year.  I couldn’t get six quarts/liters.  I will do well to get six cups this fall, but the wife says that she/we can make a mini-batch of one or two jars for me.  I’ll still be grumpy – just better fed.  😀  😎

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Flash Fiction #182

Valentines

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

A THORNY PROBLEM

Sure I know what day it is. It’s Thursday.

What else??…. Well, it’s the 14th.

Annnd…. What? Valentine’s Day??! Damn! How can it be Valentine’s Day already? I just paid off the Christmas bills.

A Rose by any other name, is going to be a little prickly, if I don’t get her something. I’ll bet the chocolates and flowers are all sold out by the time I get off work. What to do??

Wait! That pretentious boutique in the mall has glass roses. A half dozen of them aren’t much more expensive than six real ones.

“Love ya, Honeybun!”

(Saved!)

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Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Friday Fictioneers