Tag: post a week 2014

Fiction in 50: Into the Great Beyond

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yul15atb

I told you to stop feeding that thing – one of these days it’s going to want to come inside and then what are you going to do? It’s gotten bigger since you’ve been giving it Fliblets, with that appetite it will zot us all willy-nilly into the great beyond…

The Bookshelf Gargoyle curates a Fiction in 50 mini-narrative challenge – this month’s prompt is Into the Great Beyond! Take a chance, step out of your comfort zone, leap right into writing a piece of short, short fiction: send it in and then go have a peek at the other entries – GargoyleBruce writes wonderful reviews on all sorts of kid lit (big and small) with a cheeky tone guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Wander through the stacks, you are sure to find something you’ll like.

Click on the icon in the sidebar for previous entries…

Fiction in 50: If at first you don’t Succeed

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succeed

I want to do it. I can do it. I ate the bow but I can do it. I buried it in the garden all this time, tell me that you never knew. Nope, I can’t do it…

If at first you don’t succeed, get someone with thumbs to help…

The Bookshelf Gargoyle curates a Fiction in 50 mini-narrative challenge – this month’s prompt is If at first you don’t succeed! Taking a break on the pre-holiday rush, pour yourself something tasty and scribble a bit of short, short fiction: send it in and then go have a peek at the other entries – GargoyleBruce writes wonderful reviews on all sorts of kid lit (big and small) with a cheeky tone guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Wander through the stacks, you are sure to find something you’ll like.

Click on the icon in the sidebar for previous entries…

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Lunch – Week 2

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carrot soup

half way there

There is a huge snowbank in our front yard telling us that it is soup season again. Miss Z has gone to all the trouble of googling a healthy recipe for the 5 pounds of carrots in our fridge and so we set to work this afternoon. We are not really a fan of sweet soups but a large amount of ginger, garlic and onions seemed just the ticket to take the edge off what could otherwise be cloying and unpalatable. Some simple chopping, a little simmering in the dutch oven, a whir in the blender, a toasty baguette on the side and voila… tomorrow’s midday meal.

We much prefer when someone else does the cooking. No matter how tasty the creation we have concocted, it just doesn’t seem as appetizing to us as it does to everyone else. Perhaps because we have lingered too long over it, inhaled the aromas until we no longer have the need to actually eat it. No matter, there are plenty of hungry monsters in the house to devour the potful.

“What do you do for lunch?” – brownbag or five-star, sandwich or soup, miss it completely, go with a group, left-overs or made from scratch – 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.

The Big 5 – “When” do you get annoyed? – Week 2

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download

I swear it wasn’t there 2 days ago

It seems to take a lot of fancy dancing on our part just to keep up with all the innovations that Apple and the 400 or so app providers we use keep churning out, so we’re not always completely pleased when notified that it’s time to upgrade to the “latest version”. Half the time something really nifty and easy to use is gone, disappeared with no explanation, leaving us to Google and in worst case scenarios, search support (which more often than not doesn’t provide an answer).

We upgraded to Yosemite and had to spend way more time reconfiguring things we really don’t know much about than should be necessary. We’re more of the “turn it on, it works, let’s go” type of user, accustomed to having things where they are supposed to be and in working order.  Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the download icon was gone. Not there. It used to have it’s own pride of place with a lovely dropdown menu that you could track all that stuff you just had to have in one place. Endless navigation and clicking ensued to find out just what were we supposed to do now. And as much as we searched, all we could find was that it was no longer a familiar part of our browser window. No explanation, no logic for its removal. We finally figured out to set our preferences to desktop rather than a downloads folder just to make sure we were actually getting what we wanted.

This morning we noticed that our happy little icon is back. Let’s see whether it has the full functionality of its parent. We do love change, of sorts, but the Big 5 Challenge is not a fan when things that are supposed to streamline our workflow and make our lives easier are just dumbed-down. Don’t assume we don’t need those features that worked beautifully and were a part of what drew us to you in the first place – hello Apple… is there anybody actually out there that is not trying to justify their salary by fixing stuff that isn’t broken?

“When do you get annoyed?” – on the bus or in the car, up close and personal, way too far, by too much noise or too much talk, by things that stick on shoes when out for a walk… We would love to know when you get your knickers in a twist.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this challenge can be found here: Need more info, want to browse past themes or get the badge for your blog? See HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Lunch

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coffee

the latte that wasn’t

Our metropolis has one of the largest underground cities on the continent and is filled with, among other things, innumerable tiny restaurants from sushi joints and burger heavens to artisanal bread bars and vegan fast food. We had forgotten just how many people keep this industry alive and well until we got caught in the swell of office workers pouring out of their hives at full noon. The thought of standing too long in line for sub-par snacks didn’t appeal to Miss Z so we came up for air and headed towards a little hipster café. Situated on the main floor of a building in the old fur district on a side street blocked by construction vehicles, we walked right by it. No sign on the window, just a couple of numbers because we were supposed to know where it was.

Sitting in the back at a communal table seemed a better alternative than at a windy table for two awfully close to the front door, or so we thought. Relatively decent prices and a interesting enough menu were over-complicated by a server who, after asking us if we were familiar with the café, just had to explain what the sizes of the portions were on the “pizza” and “salad”. Uh oh. Sounds of a jack hammer started to vibrate through the wall – weren’t they unionized? 15 minutes. Full on rush hour of lunchtime. The hardhats doing the renovations next door had thankfully stopped for their mandatory break. We wondered what they had in their thermoses…  20 minutes. Good thing we didn’t have to get back to a real job where someone was actually counting the minutes we were away from our desks. 22 minutes. The girls jammed in to the right who had arrived ten minutes after us were served. Their complete meal. No sign of anyone at the open kitchen prepping our food. 25 minutes. Waiting is not our forte and we started to twitch. Just as the urge to walk out kicked in, our two lunches arrived on a single wooden cutting board with one duck and feta slice cozied up close enough to kiss Miss Z’s all-veg order. Nice. Definitely not politically correct.

It wasn’t famous as far as meals go and we said as much to the server when she asked if everything was great. No, it wasn’t. The portions of duck were microscopic and looked as though they had been stripped of the carcass of someone’s dinner from the night before. The crust literally had to be sawn through which is probably why it was served with a steak knife on the side. The salad which had definitely been batch made quite a few hours, say 24 or more, previously was predominantly beets with all of 2 walnuts, no pears, one green that looked like lawn clippings and a blob of goat cheese that had the texture of sour cream. Good thing the kombucha was bottled because the barista didn’t seem to know the difference between a bowl of latte and the double-strength cappuccino that arrived at our table.

Did we want something else? Nope. Perhaps a slice with a different meat on it? Definitely not. In the end, being ravenous and afraid to be struck by lightning for wasting food, we did eat the whole thing. The salad just sat there until we could doggie bag it. Not in any rush to get us our bill, they comped us the $5 for the duck “pizza” – wow – and hoped we would come back again for breakfast or supper when the crust was thinner. Mmmm, no, we don’t think so….

“What do you do for lunch?” – brownbag or five-star, sandwich or soup, miss it completely, go with a group, left-overs or made from scratch – We would love to see your vision…

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

  1.  I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
  2. Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
  3. Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
  4. The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
  5. ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.

 SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post

  1. Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
  3. If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
  4. Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
  5. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Chores – Week 2

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dog choreslooks like he’s found a project

Nature has been playing fast and loose with the thermostat recently. We’ve had bouts of intolerable cold book-ended by mini heatwaves, festive flakes followed by dreary drizzle and it all adds up to muck. The kind of gooey, clinging black gold that our dog seems to take great joy in getting up close and personal with.

Most days it’s in and out at least fifteen times for little nature jaunts that last around 5 – 10 minutes with the requisite call and return of barking to the neighbourhood pooches. Whether sitting on the deck sending esp messages to his friend to come out and play or sniffing around the bushes to check whether the children next door have lobbed another ball over the fence, there is always some indication that he is on patrol. This particular day we were otherwise occupied – so much so that we forgot where he was because it was too quiet.

Not a digger by nature, the wild variations in temperature must have brought an incredibly tantalizing smell to his attention: there he was belly to the ground in the flower bed, face buried up to the eyebrows under the stone wall. Varmint! We could hear him thinking. Critters!  We now have a small trench beside the rhododendrons, one that gets progressively deeper every time the sun comes out and things warm up enough for excavation.

He is thrilled. Us less so as it means a doggie hose-down a few times a day. This must be one of the few times we can actually say that we will be pleased when things freeze over…. “What do you think is a chore?” – milking cows or shucking corn, stuck in traffic tooting your horn, laundry, yard work, going to school, sorting, saving, lists of rules – 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: Chores

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rosie the robotStill waiting

A recent conversation with some ladies in one of our FB groups suggested that we may very well be one of the last people on the planet that actually irons. The topic, like most, came about quite haphazardly, rising out of a pleading request from the notoriously last-minute Miss Z to press a shirt as she was running late. Now if you’ve been following along, you’ll remember that we went on strike in the domestic duties department some months ago in an attempt to create awareness about basic life skills. Not to say that we have tossed the washer out with the rinse water so to speak but we have not felt the obligation to iron jammies and t-shirts that don’t belong to us quite like we used to.

We still take great pains with our own laundry because there’s not much point of putting it back in the cupboard if it looks like it has been twisted beyond recognition in the spin cycle. Hence a few episodes of Donut Wars and some ironing board aerobics. We want to be able to just reach in the drawer, pop on (insert clothing item here) and go without having any wrinkles or unseemly creases cast aspersions on our character. Other people don’t seem to have this problem. They have magic dryers that make their linens things of beauty. Or they are just too busy with other things to care whether the seams are flat or collars are rolling just so.

A few too many years in the garment industry still haunt us when we see a puckered hem or bunched lapel. We blame Rosie the Robot and a whole host of generational influences for creating unrealistic expectations and no small amount of anxiety when we don’t measure up. Our mother and grandmothers before us were quite persnickety about their domestic duties and were quite explicit in their instructions on how to press a shirt “properly” or fold a sheet so it didn’t look like you’d pulled it out of someone’s throat before smoothing it over the mattress. Apparently, it does not matter anymore but we suspect it is indicative of a larger issue where skill, pride and attention to detail are falling by the wayside in favour of quick results. And all that other stuff.

“What do you think is a chore?” – milking cows or shucking corn, stuck in traffic tooting your horn, laundry, yard work, going to school, sorting, saving, lists of rules – We would love to see your vision…

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

  1.  I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
  2. Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
  3. Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
  4. The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
  5. ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.

 SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post

  1. Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
  3. If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
  4. Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
  5. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.