Category: Uncategorized

I had a few for this week but here’s my choice, continuing with Sean Connery: “The Untouchables”. So many great actors in this movie, including Sean, Kevin Costner, Robert DeNiro, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, and more. Al Capone and Elliot Ness were real people but the movie takes liberties with the truth. However, I think it is very enjoyable to watch.

***

After building an empire with bootleg alcohol, legendary crime boss Al Capone (Robert De Niro) rules Chicago with an iron fist. Though Prohibition agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) attempts to take Capone down, even his best efforts fail due to widespread corruption within the Windy City’s police force. Recruiting an elite group of lawmen who won’t be swayed by bribes or fear, including Irish-American cop Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), Ness renews his determination to bring Capone to justice.

***

https://rugby843.blog

Ever wonder about how people really think of you? As I was answering questions posed by Sadje I thought about one of my answers – most of my friends don’t even know I write. Think about it, do your friends or family know you like to write and do they read it? Really read it?

A couple of relatives asked about when my grandson was going to the World Series as a guest of Sharon Robinson and the MLB. I had written an email about it already so sent a copy of that recent post that said pretty much everything. I preface this with most of us don’t write actual letters anymore, just on birthdays. Maybe that’s the reason? I just received a response today from an old friend who asked what the essay was about. Is it me or what? Doesn’t the post explain it clearly?

I’m not ranting, really I’m not. I guess I’m disappointed that an old friend couldn’t take the time to read the letter. I do not expect anyone to read posts, especially my friends. I would like to be anonymous in my writing here on the blog, to people I grew up with. I write a lot of personal stories and sometimes add fiction, and write a lot of fiction in the first person. But saying that, I thought, why respond to the letter when you haven’t even read it?

I get that here on the blog, and it’s certainly not surprising. I write a lot, probably too much. I usually write without thinking about how other people interpret it. That’s happened with my commenting and I’m trying to be more careful responding. Sometimes I only post a like but sometimes I feel I need to comment because it touched me in some way. I love, love comments. It means you took the time to read something I scribbled.

I hope I’m explaining this right. All of us can look at a piece of blank paper and see something different. That’s one reason I love prompts–pictures and words. Reading the different interpretations is fun and interesting, and gives insight to the writer’s personality. That’s the basic reason I’m here. To express myself and learn about other people around the world.

I think I was disappointed in my friend and had to talk about it. Blabbing about things here helps me deal with stuff. 😐

So how ’bout them Red Sox?

https://rugby843.blog

In sympathy with Michael, I have written my answers to Sadje’s searching questions.

🍁🍁

How long have you been blogging?

Since 2015, encouraged by a loving friend

Do your friends and family support you in this?

Most of my friends don’t know I write anything

Which is your favourite time of the day?

Most any time. I do love mornings when it’s sunny.

What would be your dream vacation?

Staying in the mountains and woods

What genre of movies you like best?

All except horror and gore. Action, great car chases, antiheroes, yup

What do you wake up to?

An empty room

Are you a morning person?

Yes, to the dismay of my family when we lived together

What motivates you?

Life, in general.

How do you think your friends see you?

I have no idea. Terrible if they saw the latest photo someone put on FB. Omg!

What would be your idea for saving the environment from pollution?

I saw a building in China that was a skyscraper with living plants all around it to filter the air in the city. What a great idea and it looks cool too!

Happy or peaceful, what is more, important?

Both. If you’re not at peace you can’t be happy.

📝📝📝📝

Written for: Sadje @ https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/

Sitting there in the dark

In the office chair, parked

The screen was bright

Unusually so

He was on the prowl

She didn’t know

She was taking a snooze –

His mother who didn’t use

Computers or cells, not her style

Knew no modern items or style

Meanwhile his fingers moved really fast

Knew his secret time wouldn’t last

He explored the macabre every night

He was one of the trolls of twilight.

👨🏻‍💻👨🏻‍💻👨🏻‍💻👨🏻‍💻

October Writing Prompts

Kids wild, the day was rainy

Kept inside they were plainly

Running around causing a rumpus

Furniture, dishes catawumpus

Cat in the Hat came to visit

With Dr. Seuss and his whosits

Kids were finally happy

Went to bed tired and sappy.

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/weekend-writing-prompt-77-rumpus/

What is this?

Well, I’m tired!

Tired of what?

Tired of waiting for that damn insurance guy to come take care of this.

The tree? What are you talking about?

I’m talking about being on hold with the insurance company for hours, talking to four different people, about this tree.

So you decided to bring it here?

Yes! Now they’ll have to remove it like they should have removed it from my living room!

Oh my gosh! What happened?

The storm caused a tree to break my window and the limbs crashed into my living room! I’ve been on the phone with the insurance adjusters for two days trying to get someone to help me.

What do you think they’ll do now?

They already did it.

What?

They said I was belligerent, calling repeatedly to have an adjuster check my claim, and discontinued my policy.

https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/sunday-photo-fiction-october-21-2018/

You walk by my chair

Nonchalant

I’m sitting

Deciding what I want

It doesn’t seem to be on the menu

I glance around the cafe venue

And there you are, all handsome and fresh

Beard trimmed neat and clothing pressed

Something immediately clicks

My heart leaps, loudly ticks

You look up and glance my way

Be still my heart don’t give me away

Our eyes lock, it’s almost magnetic

Hopelessly drawn to his aesthetic

Surprising that today would be awesome

A possible romance waiting to blossom?

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Magnetic – Word of the Day Challenge

As children we always referred to North as up. If you looked at a map right side up, northern areas were on the top. So if someone lives above you, they live up North.

When I moved from VT to TX I must admit I was looking forward to “the big city”. And it was, Houston. I was also unaware that being a “yankee” was looked down upon. I had a funny accent, no one could understand me and unless someone from the West or North was around, I was at a loss.

Of course it never occurred to them that I was fascinated by the idea of the South as I had read or seen stories of TX, LA and other places and I was anxious to see the real thing. I had seen New England cold seas and rocky beaches and wanted to see the Gulf with its warmer waters.

It was in the sixties, my first encounter with the South, and some parts were disappointing and revolting. The civil rights demonstrations were scary, but I believed necessary. However, we never went into the fray with our small children. The most disgusting were the separate bathrooms and water fountains for whites and blacks. I’m sure there are still some existing today. I felt instantly ashamed of my race.

Grocery shopping was the same. If a black person came into the line, people moved to a different line. I was shocked at first. Even in the late eighties when we lived near Dallas for three years, I still saw the same segregation.

That is the main reason we moved back to CO to raise our kids in a better environment. I have acquaintences and relatives in TX now and some are still prejudiced.

I don’t hold out hope things will change in the North or South, East or West until people start finding a way to accept the inside person, not just their outside appearance. And it’s not just race. I am in a wheelchair and it is assumed I am therefore disabled in mind and body, talked down to, ignored and in the way.

**I of course realize there are prejudices all over the US and the world in general, for every reason.

Come on guys!

***

https://thehouseofbailey.wordpress.com

I had to chuckle reading this prompt. Most of the people in my close family have allergies. Maybe that’s the reason their noses don’t pick up what mine does or I’m just supersensitive. Either way I was usually the one who said, do you smell that?

I also have very good hearing– it is usually my voice saying, did you hear that, or what was that noise?

However now that I spend most of my time alone, I don’t say either. A whiff of something in a small apartment is enough to set my eyes watering. If I cook, even in the oven, like last night’s dinner with garlic and herbs on baked chicken, it stays with me all night. Use a fan you say? Well my lovely apartment designer put a holder and vent for the fan above the stove but no fan, no light, and no switch to turn it on. Yup, another missing part along with so many others. But I digress. . .life gets teeejus, don’t it? : ))

https://rugby843.blog

Spiders. I know you’re not supposed to “hate” anything, but I do. And as sure as Murphy’s law exists, as soon as I write it, or think it, I’ll see one. But it’s a challenge, so:

Growing up on a farm, we had hay barns. We grew it, cut it, bailed it and forked it to feed animals. We also played in it, a lot. We had sleepovers in it. The hay barn was a delight for children, not always a safe place, but fairly so. We liked to play Tarzan by using ropes to swing from one part of the barn’s hay lofts to another. Luckily my mom’s not alive to read that! But there were lots of creatures in the form of big, and I’m not talking just big, but huge hairy spiders in the rafters.

My two best friends didn’t seem to be as frightened of them as I was and one sleepover in the loft they brought flashlights and delighted on focusing those lights on the spiders. Even though I had a friend on each side during the night, I was petrified.

This lasted all of my life until my husband passed away in 2013. Living in an old house in CO, I had to dispose of these creatures myself. No more yelling for my husband to come kill it. If he heard a shriek he knew instantly what it was about. One funny memory I have mentioned here before was him on all fours, looking for a spider that had me trapped on the bathroom stool in the middle of the night. You gotta love a guy like that☺️

Now, don’t listen to this, Murphy, but living in a new sounder structure, I rarely see any creatures. If I do I dispose of them myself, no shrieks. 🤞🏻🎃

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/daily-writing-challenge-20/