Tag: life

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Surprise – Week 2

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mouthguard required

One of Across the Bored’s blogger friends made a comment regarding this week’s theme that reminded us of Elmore Leonard’s novel-turned-film “Get Shorty” starring John Travolta, Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito among a raft of other Hollywood A-listers. A crime-comedy-thriller about gangsters and decoys, death and deception, cons and canards, the story carries both its own characters and the viewer along on a joy ride that has more twists and turns than a 5 star amusement-park roller coaster.

The critical acclaim it received comes partly from the leads’ stellar performances but more importantly from the exposition of well-crafted personalities and how they manifest when thrown into sometimes wildly explosive circumstances. Every cinematic opportunity is taken to play off the unexpected against basic human nature and the plot capitalizes on this to unravel and unfold the drama to the next level. The lead-up to poor mob boss Momo’s birthday extravaganza highlights the notion that we default to that which we are accustomed to, that way of living and reacting that becomes the pattern for our existence going forward.

Life has a warped sense of humour that seems to say “let’s see what happens if…” at every turn. Like even the most well-intentioned family and acquaintances, it takes pleasure in fooling us. As our friend wryly pointed out, there is no doubt that some social situations, especially the ones that are thrust upon us, the ones for which we are totally unprepared for or seem to come out of left field, that leave us not only shocked but mortified. This fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme – Surprise – knows that when it comes to the crunch, really, anything can happen. Hold on to your hat….

Last week, Across the Bored pondered  – “How does surprise look to you?” – Awkward or elated, with a bang or for the bin, elegant or understated, sweet and delicious, with a side of sin…  We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Silly – Week 2

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silly old duck! where we learned to rhyme…

Once upon a time, we would sit ourselves down at 5:55 every Sunday evening in anticipation of that magical moment when the Disney theme song would come crackling out of the television set. The hour’s entertainment was always a surprise for there was no TV Guide to tell us what to expect – not every show was a thriller but those nights that were more than made up for the “educational” instalments. Our favourites, like most little kids, were the cartoons and it didn’t really matter who took centre stage for they each had a repertoire guaranteed to generate a few laughs.

Ludwig Von Drake was the odd bird in the Disney Duck family: it might have been that he was a little high-brow, had an odd accent or just wasn’t slap-stick enough for most but our pre-school mind-in-formation saw that here was a fowl who knew his way around science, classic literature and music and had evidently seen a thing or two of the world and come back to tell everyone about it.  As much as we craved to be the miniature tornadoes of trouble that were Huey, Dewey and Louie, the Professor who knew something about everything was more our type of role-model. Besides, he had a warped sense of humour and was a whiz at constructing a bad pun…

This fortnight the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge recommends that we all remember what it is like to be – Silly – lie in the grass and look at the clouds, go kick a can, eat an ice cream cone with sloppy abandon like a five-year old but let yourself do something frivolous for a change.

“What is silly?” – A cartoon character or politician’s gaff, a two year old’s antics, a joke or a laugh, a funky fad or fashion craze, an old-timer’s tale or those newfangled ways…  We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Expectations – Week 2

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shoe expectations

a running shoe for every occasion

Our city of the perpetual pothole takes great pride in its public transit system and we availed ourselves of the services today (at $3 a clip I might add) to get to a months-long-awaited dermatologist’s appointment. It is still cheaper than parking in a lot where the valet figures our ride is a better choice for doing a few quick errands than that new Mercedes and a good way to force ourselves to sit back and find out what is really going on in the world. The only thing that seems to have really changed since we used to do this on a daily basis is that everyone is either plugged in or glued to a small device. Those who weren’t looked dazed and tired – maybe it was the time of day or perhaps just the times.

The return rush hour trip entailed a quick scramble to make the connection and we were lucky enough to park ourselves quite comfortably in one of the last available seats. End of day commuters, students, shoppers and old people all filed in silently, anxious to get home. Our urban melting pot gets a lot of visitors starting around this time of year and many arrive without much more than a basic knowledge of either official language: this makes deciphering our unnecessarily complex ticketing system problematic. Doing so with kids in tow is even more of a party game.

We watched two very small children wander up and down the aisle, twice. It didn’t seem to phase them that they couldn’t see the parent for the knees and we could hear the driver trying to explain that only one ticket was needed (under-sixes ride free) before a woman made her way back with her charges. The thought of them swaying back and forth, with her trying to hold onto both without losing one to sudden stops and swerves was just too much. I got up and offered her my seat. She shook her head to decline but we prevailed and could see the visible relief on her face.

The crux of this tale lies not in doing the right thing ourselves but in how many people don’t. The man with the good tie and mediocre suit years younger than us could easily have gotten up before us or even offered the mother his own seat so she could sit beside her two children now crammed into ours. Looking around we realized that there were any number of people who could have stepped up, but they didn’t. So we hung off the strap like the well-seasoned traveller we are until the unconscious hordes thinned out and we could sit down again. This fortnight the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge realizes that sometimes our – Expectations – what we think is a given in society about how people should act, actually have no basis in reality. We can only hope that our own actions may have made them think.

“What do expectations represent for you?” – A quick response or satisfying result, respect for an effort made or just a gentle thank-you, the bloom of a spring bulb, bark of a dog at the postman, the sun to come up in the morn or the stars to shine at night…  We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Lost – Week 2

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lost 2

when every step leads further away from where you started

Everyone misplaces stuff. The old joke about Grampa looking for his spectacles when they are perched on his head isn’t the material of urban legend, it is a fact: our own mother uses her sunglasses as a headband and then asks straight-faced where they may have gotten to. Such are the vagaries of age but they are also a greater indication of a pre-occupation with other things at hand that might be more interesting, important or just distracting. It is a given that the more stuff one has, be it material or what we carry around in our heads, at some point or another we are going to drop bits without even knowing where or when. Our metaphysical file cabinets can get so jammed that the drawers don’t close anymore. Remember that really significant, sentimental, valuable (insert appropriate adjective here) thing that suddenly loomed large, clear as day, in foggy 2AM insomniac brain wanderings?

Gone.

So you retrace your steps to the source. Or try to, but sometimes it has been a very long journey indeed since said thing has been reassigned to a new location. Organizational skills aren’t very helpful in this kind of situation, in fact, they can be a huge hindrance for what seemed like a really good idea at the time can make no sense at all later. Oh, I’ll just put it here and no, I don’t need to write that number down – I’m positive they said 4pm… Thankfully, many of these quandaries can be solved with a little detective work. Like Jack and Victor looking for the disappeared scone (oh, here it is next to the phone…) they can end in success  – or the sad realization that, like the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge, they are irretrievably – Lost. 

Last week we wanted to know “Have you ever been lost?” – In a great book or symphony, in love or grief, in the magic of a sunset or the gaze of a newborn, in traffic or far from home…

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Abstract – Week 2

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ear art 2

I did this with my ear and thought you might like it

Across the Bored is sure that at some point in all our lives we have looked at our pets and wondered what was really going on in their heads. We look at people and think the same thing so it’s not much of a stretch to extend it to those furry partners we wander through life with.  Reams of paper have been filled with wise words and theories about the nature of the way we reason, be it concrete or logical, creative or emotional but the subject of animal cognition is still a subject of debate.

We know for a fact that our own smelly dog wishes he had squirrel superpowers – we can tell by the way he stares wistfully out the window when they taunt him from the lawn and the way he leaps up the side of the tree when in hot pursuit. Such desire is evident in the way his paws flex and rotate in very undoggy-like fashion when he lies dreaming upside down in our favourite chair.  If he had opposable thumbs things might be very different around our house and that he forces us to stop what we are doing and stare deeply into his eyes until we know exactly what he wants would certainly indicate that there is more going on in his fuzzy noggin than “eat, sleep, bark, pee, eat, sleep, chew on something…”. The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme this fortnight, therefore, puts forth that – Abstract – thinking is not solely the realm of those who stand upright. 

Last week we pondered “What is abstract for you” – A concept or theory, an artwork or query, a math problem, a description, philosophy or music, the very universe  …

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Grateful – Week 2

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watches for grateful

it’s all relative

Thanks goodness there is finally a reprieve from the longest winter ever with the delivery of the first thunder and lightening storm of the season. We usually moan about heavy rain and how it adds that extra bit of fun to the logistics of getting out and about but April showers are actually a blessing in disguise for city dwellers. One day of unseasonably warm weather reduced the last of the nasty frozen black detritus on our front lawn to a mix of gravel and unmentionables, relieving us of the temptation to go at it with a pick-axe and revealed in the flower beds where our procrastinating green thumb had turned brown late last fall. Most unkempt and while there is not much to be done about that but get out the shears and gardening gloves and hack down the offending mess, it remains a blatant reminder that we will be spending some time en plein air and off the keyboard. Then the rains came…

Mother Nature must feel much the way we do – that everything is looking a bit sad and worn around the corners, dusty, fingerprint-tagged, dog-nose snuffly window smeared and in need of a good scrub. The outdoor inundations wash away the mess of the passing seasons on a grand scale, too bad it’s not as easy in our little nest. The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme this fortnight, therefore, is – Grateful – for the excuse to stay indoors and pass a few hours putting things in order.

Last week we asked “Are you grateful”? – For socialized medicine, healing rotator cuffs, a like on your post or tribulations tough, family, friends, the children next door, muddy paws of loved dogs that muck up the floor …

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

So much for Sunday

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ouch

We feel very much the April Fool now that a shoulder injury has taken us out of commission for at least the next week. No joke that we won’t be posting until then – in the meantime, we’ll be visiting you and catching up…

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Bliss – Week 2

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happiness is

it used to be just that simple

When we were very young, Charles Schulz was very much the epitome of truth-sayer: he had grasped all the important bits of being six, summed them up in very few words and then illustrated the profound with the relatable. In our mind, he knew very well what he was talking about because he had given Linus glasses (we shared his pain) and had concluded that there was not much that was better than ice cream. The Peanuts Gang had its trials and tribulations but on the whole they lived in a universe where having 18 different colours in a box of crayolas was very close to being in heaven.

Today Across the Bored wonders whether our capacity to be content has become tainted; not the “that’s nice, we’re feeling pleased, so happy to see you” range of emotion but rather that all-encompassing warm and fuzzy, push all other thought out of our heads feeling that happens less often as time goes by. Over-satiated by information and input, overwhelmed by emotion, experience and the seemingly endless drama of living life often at full-tilt for too long, simple joys appear to be hard won. Is it that we are too full of too much or is it just a 21st century version of the grass being infinitely greener on a larger monitor?  Some of us have to work longer at it than others, some make a life’s work of making others happy, there are a few who seem to float smiling along in their own rapturous bubble, lucky them. Perhaps we are looking too hard or in the wrong place and, like they say of love, should stop looking for it altogether and let it come to us unbidden. The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme this fortnight suggests that – Bliss – is much like treasure, find it where you may.

“Describe your own form of bliss” – In a box or under the sun, in a soft smile or sweet song, in a bath full of bubbles or a night on the town…

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.