Up To Date At Last With The Prompts!

Looking back at Post a Day 2011 — how’d you do?

I did okay.  I have posted 880 times so far this year; and people are still coming back for more.  Who’d have thunk it?

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Why is it hard to admit to a mistake?

It isn’t.  Here, I’ll show you:

Wearing an Alice band in my thirties was a huge mistake.  I have Perpetua from Bridget Jones’ Diary to thank for pointing out that particular fashion faux pas (not my first and definitely not my last).  I watched that film for the first time and immediately threw away my extensive Alice band collection.

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Would you rather have $50 million or live for an extra 50 years?

I’ll take the dosh.  Getting old hurts; what’s the point of all that extra time if you can’t even afford a pretty male nurse?

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Who is the most patient person you know?

The Hub.  He’s been sick forever.

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Sometimes you can make a topic appear out of nothing at all. Do the following.
Make sure you are somewhere safe.
Guess how long you can keep your eyes closed.
Close your eyes.
Start counting.
See how long you can go.

Write about any or all of:

How close your guess was to your actual performance.
What thoughts did your mind wander to while you were counting?
Did you feel any fear? Why or why not?

Speechless.

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Write a post honoring veterans

No jokes here.  I have written about our brave military, past and present, several times.  I am always moved and honoured by their courage.

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If you could change how schools work, what would you change?

Permission to leave at fourteen for the world of work; have the option to go back up to the age of nineteen to complete your studies for free.  No state benefits in between. 

Teenagers don’t want exams, they want money and fun.  Let them work for a few years and discover what they really want out of life.  At least they’d be productive.

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Find a word you don’t know, but like, and use it in a short, paragraph length, story, or a clever sentence. This satispassion should indemnify your vocabulary’s indigence.

What an example of aureateness this prompter has come up with!

Image via Wikipedia

Write a sequel to your favorite movie.

Terminator 5: John Connor finally nails those buggers.

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What was the best book or movie of the year?

Serenity. 

You didn’t say which year.

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Would you rather have have the ability to slow down time whenever you want, or to speed it up?

Only when I’m answering daft daft prompts.

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How do you define your identity?

Blogger!

What else?

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Terminators And Conditions

Image via Wikipedia

Do you believe machines will be smarter than humans?

Already happening: I can’t work my phone, my dvd player, my cooker, and almost all of this computer.  Fortunately, it’s not a problem: I have a technosavvy family to operate them for me; and John Connor is hiding somewhere in America right now, waiting to deal with that naughty Skynet when it tries to kill us all.

You won’t know who he is, so don’t try finding him: he has looked different every time I’ve seen him.

Describe a perfect meal.

I can’t pick just a few things, because I like food too much to choose between it.  I’ll settle for a buffet of everything I’ve ever liked

My one stipulation: there must be sprouts.  And roast potatoes.  Steak, egg, chips, at least sixteen different vegetables, a baguette with real buffer, hot, crisky chicken, a milk cuddy, a greem salad, a ga,,on (not too salty), a pran cocktail starter, because I’m a child of the Seventies, a fruit platteau wit los of strawfaierries…sorry, my fingers keep slipping off the keys because of the drool.

I’ll settle for a buffet of all food, from everywhere.  And perhaps a guest, to hold my head over the toilet when I’m done.

Write about your earliest memory.

3 a.m., getting up to drive to Zimbabwe from Johannesburg.

Sometimes, the prompter just asks for it.

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Hair Of The Dog

Image via Wikipedia

Arts Jobs – Wig Mistress

This email was in my inbox this morning.  I didn’t bother opening it: I didn’t want to lose the mystery of what it might be: a request from Donald Trump, perhaps?

Is that real hair?  Does anybody know?  With all of his money, he could afford a better rug, a full hair transplant or even a new hairdresser.

Words are funny, the way they conjure images.  ‘Hippopotami’ always makes me laugh, though they’re nasty creatures who kill more people than lions do.  An animal that round and ugly has no business being grumpy…oh, wait…

I was sad to discover that about hippopotami; almost as sad as when I discovered cheese & onion crisps are not considered one of the major food groups. 

Lord Goldsmith once said, ‘A man who marries his mistress creates a vacancy.’  What a jerk.  I wonder if he and Arnold Schwarzenegger know each other?

Arnold Schwarzennegger…now there’s a man who ought to be given a Brazilian by the cheated wives of America…I’ll be waxed.

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No Thanksssssss

Image via Wikipedia

If you got a tattoo, what would it be?

News to me.

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Make a prediction about life in 2021.

I will be posting 105 times a day.

You have been warned.

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Describe your first job interview.

Boss: Your Mum says you’ll work hard; is she right?

Me: Yes.

Boss: Here’s your desk.

Who says nepotism’s a bad thing?

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What film have you seen more times than any other?

The Terminator.  Sigh.  The greatest romance ever.

What?  We’ve had this argument before: he came across time for her.  I rest my case.

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Write about what you see.

Instructions: 1) Stand up 2) Turn to your right 3) Count objects you see, and stop at #3. 4) Write about whatever item #3 is.

… … … … … … … … *

 

*I can’t write about what I see: all I see is a door, so there isn’t even a #2, never mind #3.

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What’s the most interesting news headline you saw today? 

‘Competition to rethink python design.’

 I had visions of evil cobras ganging together with a boa constrictor scientist to change a python’s DNA. Then I looked again: 

‘Competition to rethink pylon design.’

 

Okay, Time To Panic

Image by jlseagull via Flickr

Tory Boy phoned me.  Today is Judgement Day.  But don’t panic, it will probably change – it’s been Judgement Day four times before:

• 4 August 1997
• 25 July 2003
• 25 July 2004
• sometime in 2005
• and today, 21 April 2011

You can check for yourself, here.

I hope you’ve made a will.  Not sure who you’ll leave it to, though, because anyone not wearing two million sunblock is gonna have a real bad day.

Have you got a hat?

PS: Relieved

Sony, intimidated by my threat to mobilise the world, have fixed the problem. Or, to be strictly accurate, the PS3 has fixed the problem itself. Just what we need: intelligent computers. A few tiny steps from sentience and then we’ll have Arnold Schwarzenneggers all over the place.

Let me terminate this topic by telling you that Spud is at this very moment catching up on last night’s playing; I can hear him muttering parent-approved swear words under his breath (blast/fart/crap). He reminds me of his father, who would come home from work in the early days of our marriage and play games on his monochrome screened, 20 megabyte hard driven computer, and scream the foulest language at it. When I asked him why he played them when they had such a deleterious effect on his mood, he replied, ‘Because it relaxes me,’ proving that even back in the Eighties computers were already smarter than some people.

The Day The Boy Nick Knocked

It’s all about the dignity with me…

As usual, it’s gone as fast as it came; the cupboards are still full and the wallets still empty.  We had our usual quiet but lovely Christmas.  The Hub and the boys like it when it’s just us.  They get to play with their toys and sit around in pyjamas all day.  I prefer a full house but I have to say I like not running around after guests and just enjoying myself.

We went to the cemetery on Christmas Eve, as usual.  My Dad died on Christmas Eve, 2000.  He was a lifelong smoker and lung cancer was inevitable.  Thankfully, he had a short illness – three weeks from start to finish.  He was 64.  He is buried next to a week-old baby and that always reminds me to be grateful for the time he had.  I save one flower from his bunch and we go round to the other side of the cemetery, and lay it on the grave of one of Tory Boy’s best friends, who died in his sleep at sixteen, from an epileptic fit.  I look at my boy and I’m grateful he’s fit and well. 

My Dad, like me, was a scouser and tormented the life out of my husband for coming from Manchester.  He always teased the Hub that ‘lots of people come from Manchester but nobody ever goes there.’   The Hub likes that he had the last laugh – Dad is buried here in Greater Manchester.

We usually come home then, and crack open the wine; but this year we have a dog, so we took him for his walk to Abney Hall Park, which is just up the road from us and is famous for its Agatha Christie connection (see the link for details; this post is going to be long enough without historical asides thrown in). 

A new form of fly-tipping

The Hub and I walked around the frozen ponds while the boys went sledding, then ambushed us with snowballs.  To be accurate, they ambushed me with snowballs because they respect their father too much to attack him i.e. are terrified of him, as you can see>     The Hub had forgotten his walking stick so we couldn’t stay out as long as we’d have liked to, but I was ready for my wine so I didn’t mind.  On the way home we saw a snowman in an unusual place: .

In the evening, I went to the Christingle service at my church, where it was my job to cut the red tape and stick it on the oranges.  We were also encouraged to make plasticine animals to add to the nativity scene.  Perhaps because of the wine, my animal started out as a dog and finished up a dinosaur (a rather fetching stegosaurus, if I do say so myself).  The curate was very gracious and told me that all animals were welcome at the nativity, and no-one wondered at the paradox of a dinosaur worshipping at the manger.  Mind you, it was a purple dinosaur; and we all know they sing songs about love.

Someone reminded me of Spud’s first Christingle service, when he was three: he started crying when the candle was lit because ‘my orange is on fire.’   This year was the first one that I didn’t have a child with me: Spud has finally outgrown it, and Tory Boy gave it up long ago.   I don’t understand how they have outgrown the Christingle yet I still have to read them ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas’ before they go to bed on Christmas Eve.  One of those traditions that will always be a part of their Christmas experience, I suppose.  On our first Christmas together in 1982, the Hub bought me an expensive card with the poem inside and I kept it and displayed it each Christmas.  I started reading it to TB on Christmas Eve when he was two, and I have done so ever since.  These days, there’s a lot of messing about and joining in, especially the last line, but my thirteen year old son and his nineteen year old brother refuse to have Christmas without it.

We got to bed at a reasonable time (after midnight) and Spud had strict instructions not to get us up before seven.  Adhering to the letter of the law, it was 7:05; what he didn’t tell us until much later was that he had set his alarm for 6:59. 

The gift-giving ceremony was a little shorter than usual because the presents were more expensive, but there were no complaints from the crowd (hold your breath now because I am never a pretty sight in the mornings, and worse on Christmas mornings):   

 Netting a netbook from Santa:             An HD Ready Spud:       

I Have The Best Family In The World

Merry Christmas!

I am writing this on the new notebook that was a gift from my lovely husband; surrounded by Maltesers that my menfolk were too terrified of me not to buy; and with the intention of bathing today with one of the eleven toiletry gift sets that my friends and extended family seem to think should be an essential part of my life. I will listen to my favourite music on my new mp3 player, while massaging my legs with my battery-operated massager (not a coffeed-up Hub, as I know you are thinking) and trying out My First Knitting Set. I spotted it in the pound shop a couple of weeks ago in the children’s section and hinted to the Hub that he should tell one of the boys to buy it for me. I took up knitting in my twenties but it was too violent for me: how many people do you know who can snap steel knitting needles while making baby bootees? That was me. But I am a lot less tense these days (ha!) so I thought it was worth having another go.

Later on, I will watch one of my new dvds – everything from Santa Claus the Movie to Terminator: Salvation – or listen to my new cd of Stevie Nicks’ Bella Donna, which I have been after ever since the copy made for me by my friend’s dad died of exhaustion; and to get which the Hub had to mortgage Tory Boy because copies of it are as rare as roof sightings of Santa at Easter. Before retiring to bed, I will find the perfect spot for the beautifully enlarged and framed photograph of my graduation that one of my best friends had done for me – a truly kind, thoughtful and generous gift.

As I sit here, surrounded by thoughtful, funny, expensive, inexpensive gifts, I have been struck by the uncharacteristically sentimental notion that the greatest gifts I have been given are the beloved family and friends who gave these things to me.

Thank you all. I love that you are in my life.

<Faints, overcome by allergic reaction to extreme sentimentality>