Tag: prompt

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Legendary

Daily writing prompt
Do you ever see wild animals?
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For our cats and dogs, the “Big Game Days” will be forever legendary. It was years ago, but I’ve told the story to Marcus, Sabrina, and Max countless times- Eagle Day and Moose Day.

Eagle Day

It was just an immature bald eagle, but it was a bald eagle. It was making a ruckus in the sanctuary behind our house. Her Imperial majesty, Xenia ( Empress of all she surveyed), was lounging in the yard. I could see the calculation in the cat’s pose: big stupid baby bird. It seemed to be flopping around. Just peachy, perhaps I should “assist” it. Then, the bird took wing and flew off. Within a moment, there was a turbulence in the woods, a squack, and then silence. The eagle returned with a mature squirrel in its claws.

The young eagle dropped onto the stone wall separating us from the sanctuary and proceeded to tear into its prey slowly. All of a sudden, the calculation shifted in Xenia’s mind. She seemed to all at once gain consciousness of how alone and exposed she was, and how near the eagle was.

She looked about for her trusty henchdog, Sam. Sam, Xenia’s henchdog, was watching the eagle enjoy its meal with more than a bit of fear. But from a safer distance.

The young eagle tried to fly off with its squirrel, but only managed short hops. The eagle was young, and the squirrel was large. The eyes of the watching pets grew larger, and they slowly backed towards the safety of the house. The eagle perched on the rocks and completed its dinner.

Her Imperial Majesty and loyal servant did not approach the site of the kill for several days.

Moose Day

Deer we have lots of in the woods of Central Massachusetts. Moose, not so much. The state says that the populations are increasing, but sightings are still rare. A few years ago, we had one looking over the short fence between our yard and the wildlife sanctuary. It was curious. The part of our yard adjacent to the refuge has been re-naturalized. When we moved in, it was full of failed lawn and invasive vines. Slowly, we reclaimed it with native plants and a program of removing the vines. The moose probably noticed the small pond and attractive foliage plants. It could have easily jumped the plastic net fence and the low stone wall; those were more to keep Xenia and Sam in than the woods out. It just gazed peacefully into the yard and towards the two.

Usually, Sam and Xenia counted themselves as lords of all they surveyed. But they recognized that they were outclassed by the moose and beat a retreat towards the house, glancing back periodically to observe the moose.

We’ve replaced the little plastic net fence with an eight-foot-tall wooden one, not to keep the wildlife out, but to keep people crossing through the woods from entering our property. Since then, hares, rabbits, birds, and squirrels are about the only things entering or leaving.

Still, I’ve told Max, our cattle dog, and the cats, Marcus and Sabrina, about the great days of yore when giant moose and ferocious eagles were in the backwoods. I don’t think they believe me.

“Father is old and senile, lets go inside and get a treat!”

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Oh, NO! Updates!

Daily writing prompt
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
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The little balloon of text just appeared in the upper right-hand of my monitor – you have updates to install! Whoopeee! Here I am scratching my head over this prompt, and along comes the darned updates. I rapidly deferred them until later.

Suppose it’s just the usual “security” updates, OK. But recently, there have been “enhancements” to the system. Think twice before installing because the newest, best, and updated app can be a problem when you want to avoid it.

To the developer, it’s gorgeous, but to you, it’s the latest sign of increasing perversity in the computational realm.

Try to shut it off. Go ahead and try. Reading through the release notes it seems to be easy enough until you try to actually do it. I’ve had this issue on Mac with something the developers kindly referred to as Focus. I’ve tried deleting it, turning it off, and making it less offensive. Forget about it! It wants you to develop Focus schedules…just too much time for me to involve myself in their damned app.

I had no choice about installing it. It came with a system upgrade about six months ago. And periodically, it annoys me to think about downgrading the system to an earlier version (if it will allow me) or getting a Windows computer.

I like computer systems that enable me. That makes my life and jobs easier, not more frustrating.

So anyway, I am avoiding the updates, especially if I find out that there are new and “improved” ways to do things. Except for essential security elements, I like to decide for myself if I want the latest bells and whistles addition to my computer.

There’s a quote that I find apropos to the computer people fencing us in: “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.” Charles Peguy

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Which?

Daily writing prompt
What podcasts are you listening to?
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Of course, everyone listens to podcasts, right? Wrong. I do not. I just do not know where I’d fit it in. I write, work in the shop, work outside, and do as my doctor says get plenty of walking in to keep fit. I also play the guitar. Oh, and now that winter is coming, there will be physical therapy. On top of this, I still work.

For a podcast, I’d have to fit it into the schedule with something else. Let’s see. It was suggested that I begin my Iaido practice again for general body flexibility. Iaido is a Japanese sword art, and I happen to be a third-degree black belt in it ( San Dan). I can also answer yes to the fact that at my level, I practice with a real and very sharp Japanese sword.

Hmmmmm. If the podcaster made me mad enough, I’d fear for the safety of the iPad it was playing on. It’s not nice to antagonize someone with a long and very sharp sword.

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Going Over Town

Daily writing prompt
What was your favorite subject in school?
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During my undergraduate years, I had the same issues that all students have with course distribution. You have your major, but you need to have a balancing series of courses beyond the major for a distribution that introduces you to a broader education. In my case, as an anthropologist, I needed classes in the sciences. I had plenty of English and Foreign language courses, but I required the sciences. I opted for courses in Geography and Computer Science. My advisor agreed with me that they might be helpful and complement my anthropology major nicely.

Economically the Computer Science classes paid off enormously. I made money in grad school running to the computer center for proffesors who wanted to do statisitcal analysis, but lacked computer skills.

But my love was the geography courses.

I lucked out with a professor of Geography whose special area was cultural geography, which meshed well with my anthropology. But my general geography course was an absolute dream. I could slip away into the world of landmasses, river systems, tectonic plates, and other mysteries that had fascinated me as a child. In my imagination, I could picture ages of erosion, deposition, uplift, and “mass wasting.” It could be a bit transcendent.

I had chosen wisely. Doing research in Coastal Maine, I was happy to find that the post-pleistocene (post-glacial) geography of the coast had huge ramifications for travel, the economy, and town development. The geography background helped clue me in to the things that the maps explained.

The geography even included influences on language. Instead of going to town, you went over town or over to town. This was because you didn’t travel by land but by water. So you got into a boat and traveled across the water to town.

All my geographic courses paid huge bonuses, and I tend not to have a lot of sympathy for those who complain about having to take classes outside their major.

We all have to choose, but maybe they did not choose wisely ( I love to get my Indiana Jones quote in!!!)

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Da Tube

I have little choice. For most of every week, I am glued to a monitor. It’s been an important part of how I make my living for many years. Doing video production ensures lots of screen time.

A bit of history

It started when I was working as an anthropologist. I found that videotaping ( and it was tape in those prehistoric times) was a good way of preserving and presenting what was going on in the multi-ethnic community I was working in. Hours were spent in front of monitors as we “pulled down” edits on the now ancient editing machines. There was nothing digital about the process. A half-hour documentary could eat up a hundred hours of edit time. It was a time of sweet dreams, working in anthropology, and creating programs that benefited the community.

This all phased out as I moved on to working again as a woodcarver and at UPS. In those years, my only screen time was playing games and watching movies with the kids.

Then, for fun, I produced a short documentary on a dairy farmer I knew in the small community where I lived at the time. It proved very popular. Soon, I was approached by the local Access TV people to do some work for them. One thing led to another, and I eventually was offered a full-time spot with them. I didn’t waver long in accepting, and video and lots of screen time became a big part of my life.

Managing screen time

These days, I only work part-time, but it’s still a large dose of time three days a week in front of the monitors, recording, editing, reviewing, and doing downloads and uploads. I have my methods for dealing with it. I break the time up by going out for walks and working in the garden. This time of year, I am chopping wood for kindling and hauling wood in for the woodstove. My cats and my dog are big disrupters of screen time. The cats, Marcus and Sabrina, parade in front of the monitor when they want attention; often. They also jump down from the plaant shelf and make “edits” when they land on the keyboard. This results in a “keystone cops” sort of chase that gives me a break from work. Max, the dog, has his own methods of breaking into the work, which result in trips outside.

By nature, I am not a person interested in sitting for long periods of time, and I enjoy activity. So I don’t see the amount of screen time as a problem. Perhaps if I didn’t have so many physical activities to break it up it would be. For a more sedentary individual than I am, my amount of screen time would probably be an issue.

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Judy’s Number Game, Number 97

And the number is: 219

A wooden sailboat sculpture displayed on a light wooden background.
Found at Charlie’s Place Place in Gloucester, MA
A close-up view of a fireplace with flames flickering and logs burning inside it, with a visible piece of wood labeled 'SKIFE'.
A wooden carving with tools including a chisel, toothbrush, and a pair of glasses placed on top.
A schooner carving in process
A piece of a carving recoveered from the Titanic
One of my cherry bowls
The Cunard liner Servia
Cherry sails for carved ship portrait
  • This interesting piece was on the wall at a great casual restaurant in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
  • I often do practice pieces before I actually start work on a commission. It allows me to see how fonts and composition will look before I start the actual job. Many wind up afterwards as fuel.
  • One of my schooner carvings in process.
  • this exquisite piece of carving was recovered from the Titanic.
  • One of my cherry bowls. This one sold days after I had finished it.
  • The Cunard liner Servia.
  • The suit of sails I carved for my portrait of the Cunard Liner Servia.
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Campfire Stories

The crew all sat around the campfire. The conversation was about monsters and spooks.

Anticipation ran high after each selection as the crew detailed their humorous, and scary choices. The Stay Puffed Marshmellow Man got several mentions. Also listed were: vampires, mummies, the Holy Ghost, their in-laws, and former husbands and wives. It was all in good fun. 

I remained silent. “Wes?”

The Tall Tale

“Well, it’s not going to mean much to folk’s who’ve never been to sea, but we used to call it Mr. Wakey Wakey. You see, there’s always someone who’d come around on board ship to wake you up for a night time watch. But once in a rare while, you’d go to wake them, and they’d be dead. Dead with a grimace on their face. 

I knew a shipmate who survived. He said it was an old petty officer who shook his shoulder while whispering in his ear, “Wakey Wakey!” right after that, they took him to sickbay with appendicitis. But he survived. Other shipmates compared notes, and Mr. Wakey Wakey was known on lots of cruises and ships. Always after midnight. So yeah, I’m afraid of Mr. Wakey Wakey.

The only other former Navy person there that night was Mike. No one was as superstitious as Mike, especially after more than a few beers. So I made sure to elaborate about ships we both knew and drop names of former shipmates. Mike had served two enlistments and had lots more sea duty than me; he knew the watch standing routine. By bedtime, he was primed. Just to set the hook, I piped Word Passed through my lips and then announced to all, but specifically to Mike: “All hands turn in your bunks. Turn out all lights. Keep silence about the decks. The smoking lamp is out in all berthing compartments.” We all turned in.

Wakey Wakey!!!!!

A bit before midnight, I dipped my hands in the nearby stream to get them wet and cold. I slipped beside Mike’s tent and carefully unzipped the fly. There he lay asleep and snoring hard. I tossed a large towel over his head, grabbed him by the neck with cold, wet hands, and hoarsely whispered, “Wakey Wakey! You have the mid watch!” then I rushed to my tent to watch the reaction.

Mike didn’t seem to realize at first that his head was completely covered. He floundered about hollering out loudly, ” I’m not ready to die!” As the entire campsite erupted, he took the towel from his head and looked out into a campground lit by flashlights. Several loud “what the hell’s going on?” rang out. Mike’s flashlight came on and caught me in its glare. I was lying in my tent, howling with laughter. “Wes, I’m so going to get you for this!”

And I did too, but that’s another story.

a bit of history:

First presented in October of 2020 as my Halloween offering. The idea for Mr. Wakey Wakey actually came from someone I knew who served in the Royal Navy. But the tradition of cutting the hammock cords of those who fail to wake for watch is an old one that I first heard about from my Merchant Marine father.

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Jermial Tale

Daily writing prompt
What historical event fascinates you the most?
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After the Fall

Preface

There is a sort of ignorance about the “Fall” that the mortal world ignores at their own peril. What they should know is that the Vampires, hoodoos, screaming ghosts, and apparitions do not exist. No, it’s much worse than that.

But let’s not diminish the sheer impact and importance of the Fall in the course of human events. It’s a record that all should be studied intently. Who knows, they might learn something.

The Coming of “Jerry”

Jeremial was numbered among the Fallen angels. Unlikely as it may be, Jeremial (Jerry to his mortal friends) had grown bored with evil. An unlikely situation for a Fallen angel.

It had crept up on him sometime around the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. It was the same old thing, over and over and over. For a few centuries, he ignored it and just carried on with the normal sorts of temptations. The round of seducing wives from husbands. Husbands from wives, abandonments, criminal behavior, followed by possession. It grew trite. He carefully hid his growing disdain from his peers. Wouldn’t want word of it to get back to the boss, would we?

I’m soooo bored!

At last, around 1964, he admitted it to himself. It was a rotten way to spend eternity. He confided in some of his colleagues at the Hell Fire Club and was assured that it was a phase that would pass in a century or two. He shouldn’t take it too seriously.

At a Starbucks one afternoon, he spotted one of his opposite numbers. Letting caution go to the devil ( so to speak), he sat down and tried to discuss the issue with what appeared to be a young man in a three-piece suit, but was actually one of the Elect. Looking carefully around to make sure they weren’t being overheard, the angel hissed that he knew what he meant. He’d had temptations for centuries to trip some of the goody two-shoes. So damming full of their rectitude, piety, and goodness that it made him want to retch.

No Way Out?

The angel did advise Jeremial that he didn’t know of any means by which the current Elect of God could Fall. Nor how any of the Fallen might be Redeemed. “We’re just plain stuck, and have to make the best of the situation!”

Jeremial stopped performing expressly evil actions. He found pleasure instead in ordinary mischief. Tasteless jokes and assisting family cats to get into the cream while their owners slept. More than one kitty found out where mommy left her earrings at night with Jeremial’s aid. It was fun to watch the chase in the morning and the hunt for the missing earring.

Eventually, these activities paled. And one day, Jermial found himself sitting in the Boston Common reading the Boston Globe’s help wanted pages. It was early October, and there was the perfect job. A local downtown department store was hiring actors for their Halloween “Carnival of Evil.” Who could scare the bejesus out of a visitor than a real former resident of the PIT? He’d have a good time get some mischief in, and who knows, maybe relive some old memories.

Carinval of Evil

Getting hired was easy. He swept in wearing a cape, and scared the hell out of the production supervisor. Soon, he had cornered the prime spot portraying Satan himself. He’d sit on the throne, and “condemn” the damned visitors to their torment. It would all be in jest, however, but he’d have some fun and mischief, literally scaring the hell out of visitors.

Jerry, as he now was called on the job by his fellow fake demons, was very good at his job. Too good. On day three of the Carnival of Evil he was visited by one of the higher up Fallen. He was scaring people on the verge of being evil into going the other way. Tone it down!

But Jerry was having a good time. He argued that if they could be “scared straight” that easily, they were poor recruits to the cause of evil. Besides, every time they laughed at the absurdity of the “Carnival of Evil,” their resistance to real evil was lowered. Make an actual holiday out of Halloween? You had to be kidding! Unfortunately, the Fallen did not see it that way and told Jerry that he’d been warned.

Life for Jerry continued to get complicated. He began to socialize after hours with his co-workers, and was asked for tips on how to appear more evil, scary and haunting. He got a kick out of their efforts. But also, found himself enjoying their company, socializing, and simply getting together and “shooting the shit,” a term that he had trouble understanding at first because no shit was actually ever shot. Mortals! They were a puzzle.

A Romance Made Where?

The day before Halloween, things spun out of control. The store threw a cast party for the crew, and he found himself cornered by one of his female coworkers, a young woman named Jezzy, Jessa Belle. She twisted her fingers into his hair and told him that he was cute – “Why don’t we grab a bite to eat after the party?”

Over dinner that evening, she admitted that she found him appealing, so unlike the young men she met at the church where she went. He replied with a smile that he certainly hoped he wasn’t like the church going type. He’d really get into trouble with the boss. This, she thought, was a joke, and told him that it was alright for him to break character off the set. They laughed.

Halloween was a big commercial draw for the store, and the entire cast received small bonuses and the assurance that the next year they’d be welcome back. For Jerry, it was a big let-down. He had a great time, made actual friends, and had dates with a mortal female who found his persona as a Fallen “adorable.”

New Directions

After Halloween, he was bored. Making petty mayhem grew too easy. Making politicians say and do stupid things incredibly easy – been there, done that. No challenge. Nothing seemed to work. Then a contact at the department store called him about a new company that was going to specialize in producing holiday-themed display items. Would he be interested? Sure.

Soon, he was in charge of their Halloween-themed products division. After all, who better to come up with ersatz horror than him?

Things were stirring in other areas as well. Jezzy was not one to give up easily. She convinced him to come home to her family’s home for Thanksgiving. Then she hunted him down in his digs on the backside of Beacon Hill and almost physically dragged him to her church’s Advent party. Thanksgiving was fun; it was just a big meal. But he felt queasy about Advent, too much like rooting for the opposition. Finally, she nailed him to the matrimonial cross when young Daemon came along. Jerry refused to stand in front of a minister, so they had a civil ceremony at the courthouse. Her family maintained that she was living in sin, which gave Jerry a great amount of pleasure.

Time Rolls On

By 1980, Jerry and Jezzy had three children, and the Halloween thing was now an all-year-round profit maker for the company. Jezzy said that their three kids were hellions, but didn’t quite realize how true that was. Life was good, uh, I mean wicked good. Jerry had recruited some of the same people who’d started with him in the sixties to form an entertainment company specializing in the macabre, wicked, and bizarre. They called it Hellspawn Productions. Their parties, presentations, and spectacles were big around Halloween.

Jerry was also no longer alone in being fed up with the status quo of good versus evil. He ran a support group for Fallen and Elect called The Middlers. They believed that somewhere in the middle was just about right. Most agreed that there was just something very tedious about the concept of an eternal war between Heaven and Hell. Forever? Come on, get a life for….well, you know what I mean.

So as of 2025, that’s where things stand. Oh. One more thing, Hellspawn Productions? Well, they are planning on producing a movie, The Inferno. Supposedly, they have an inside track on the real story. It has great special effects and some very talented and knowledgeable actors lined up.

It’ll be a hell of a great movie.

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RIFF with Sarcasm

Daily writing prompt
What’s something you believe everyone should know.
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Introduction

A long, long time ago, I was a government employee. In the first round of government madness – the Reinvention of Government ( REMEMBER THAT?) I was one of the ones reinvented. I wrote this story about that experience about six years ago. It seems much more relevant now than when I wrote it. I edited my original a bit but at the core it is as it was

The following has been fictionalized to protect the not-too-innocent, the gullible, and some of the guilty.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, I was functioning as a field ethnographer. I ran around with a camera, tape recorder ( remember those?), and notebook in hand. For me, this was living large. I was loose in an ethnographer’s candy shop. Talk to people about their craft, art, or occupation, write it up and turn it into a program or exhibit.

Eventually, I acquired staff, a facility, collections, and programs – my own little shop to run. Someone had to write all the memos, document the budget, argue with competitive peers, let contracts, and do procurement in the required fashion. Me. Work stopped being fun. Then along came the “Reinvention Of Government.”


The Rock in the Road

It took about two years for us to run hard into the rock in the road. Even then, it took time to cease existing. Despite what the movies show, it’s not just running down the hall to the paper shredder. Some of my stuff may be in the big warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant guarded by the government equivalent of demons. But after I left, most of it probably got deep-sixed ( thrown in the trash for you non-sailor types.)

As this process wore on, I became depressed. The depression turned to anger the day I turned in a massive binder with all my memos in it to the executive secretary. Flipping through it, he tossed it back to me, saying, ” Can’t accept this Carreras. It’s not referenced correctly with agency topic codes. Take it back and fix it.” Agency Topic Codes I said? “Sure, didn’t you ever get a copy of CCY 129?” Huh? “Look, take this copy. It’ll make your life easier. Just get it back to me before your program termination date in a month.”
There I stood with the massive binder of the memos in one hand, the massive binder of CCY 129 in the other. I desired to find a large shredder and shred both. But, no, I was an obedient federal employee. Off I trotted to my office to survey the agency’s topic codes.

Creative Use of Codes

As I’ve explained, the little corner of the governmental universe that my agency occupied was a part of a much larger entity. CCY 129 reflected the needs of that larger universe. So, codes dealing with volcanic eruptions, solid waste disposal, or the proximity of hazardous wastes existed side by side with the ones I needed. The ones I needed were hard to find because my corner of the universe was so far out of the way in terms of the more significant; we were microscopic.


That night, I went home anxious and worried about how I should proceed. As sometimes happens, I had a dream. In my dream, my old friend Bill (Captain Zero) was talking to me about tying a knot in the devil’s tail. Tying a knot in the devil’s tail always referred to our doing something to an annoying authority figure that was embarrassing. When I woke up, I felt great. I knew what I was going to do.

In the office, I quickly went to work on my Macintosh (Did I ever tell you how I was the only program within my agency to have Mac’s…no? It was an earlier successful effort to tie a knot in the devil’s tail). First, the phony logo; close enough to the real one, but reversed and just off enough; you knew it wasn’t real. Then the false names, telephone, fax numbers, and addresses. At last, the body of the memo – with appropriate memo code from CCY 129.
It ran something like this:

Memo From On High:


It’s come to our attention that CCY 129 has fallen into disuse among the bureaus, agencies, and commissions peripheral to the Departments Core Mission. CCY 129 was carefully composed to cover the most extensive variety of possible circumstances staff within the Department might encounter or envision. Therefore a committee of specialists was convened to analyze how CC 129 should be utilized going forward by those entities exterior to Departmental core activities. The following are examples. However, they exemplify the objective of increasing the utility of CCY 129. *
( Clearance for novel usages should; however, first be referred to the CCCCY 129 C (Committee Coordinating CCY 129 Compliance))
EXAMPLES:

CCY 129 0pt408 ( Volcanic Activity) – while ostensibly meant for a memo detailing the effect of volcanic activity, this gem can easily be reinterpreted for use in those cases where you are detailing the interaction with an abusive visitor to one of our facilities.

CCY 129 PX29 ( Solid waste disposal issues) originally for detailing massive problems with pollution problems like hog lagoon ruptures on leased federal land, the creative GS12 can use this for problems with the septic system at one of our urban facilities.

The overarching purpose of these suggestions is to connect all the diverse activities of the Department into an entire and uniform whole.

After Shocks

My entire document went on to about eight absurd codes. Chuckling over my wit, I decided to make ten copies and place them in the mailboxes of people I thought might get a laugh out of it. At the end of the day, I went home satisfied with my day’s work.


The next morning, I was less satisfied. The entire two administrative floors were in disorder. Someone, enjoying my little joke, made thirty more copies. One of those thirty decided it was too good not to share with Todd in the Regional Office. It was duly faxed there. By noon, it was all over half the Department. The Regional Director wanted answers. We were all being interviewed. The usual suspects were duly marched into the superintendent’s office. I was one. By the way, I do bemused innocence well.


The fact that the ancient Windows computers available to our corner of the universe ( third-generation hand me downs) would never be able to do the graphics and typography needed for this made all suspect an outside job. Everyone thought my Macs were a joke. I slowly walked to my office and disposed of all the files relating to my joke, just in case.
It was my most significant effort to tie a knot in the devil’s tail, and I couldn’t take credit for it. I couldn’t share my victory. But, somewhere, my friend Bill is still laughing his ass off. And somewhere, someone took my pseudo-memo seriously and has duly issued memos referenced and coded as I specified. Sweet!

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Ahhhh Youth!

Daily writing prompt
What does it mean to be a kid at heart?
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Young at heart? Or just juvenile? Some people’s description of this condition seems to shuttle between two very different takes on life. When I was younger, I assumed that many of the older people whom I enjoyed working with continued to have a sharp sense of humor, an interest in new things, and an ongoing ability to grow and change.

On the other hand, there were those whose ideas of being a kid at heart meant childish behavior. These were the folks who found amusement in behaving with a lack of courtesy while blaming others for being thin-skinned or lacking a sense of humor.

Having some good examples, I’ve matured into the first category.

Well, OK, there are the occasional immature, idiotic, and just plain stupid jokes, but I’m going to grow up. Really. Let’s see…I’m seventy-nine. Maybe by ninety.