writephoto: charmer

Silicon Valley Charmer

 

Think you can’t afford a home in Silicon Valley?

Check out this beauty! So close by in the Santa Cruz mountains, just off Leprechaun Parkway. Steve Jobs wanted it but it wasn’t available while he was still alive.

Priced to move! Tired of those several-million-dollar-plus pricetags? Offer a single, solitary million and be prepared to haggle! Owner returning to the auld sod. Must sell.

Bedrooms/bath/kitchen/playroom/dining room/living room/rumpus room/library/studio all in one! Schools close by, two hours by bus.

All the amenities: running water (during the rainy season); firewood and kindling nearby (except post-forest fires); food (deer, squirrel, etc.). Loads of parking space – right up to the cliff.

Diverse neighborhood: Trolls, dwarfs, elves, mountain lions, burnt-out coders, the homeless.

The area isn’t gold country, but dig and ye shall find! Pots of it! (Just don’t keep it!)

 

For Sue Vincent’s Writer Prompt. WritePhoto.

butterfly effect

one dimension over

i chose a different college

different major

different job in different city

met a different woman

married

different kids

different travels

different grandkids

many of the same mistakes    same choices    same outcomes

the butterfly flew    out    out    out    back    back    back

 

For Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

meander

my blood pressure was high. my mind was confused.

you’re stressed, said my doctor. reduce your stress.

you should leave the city, said my shrink. take a vacation. get away from your job. go back to your roots. meander in the countryside.

so i booked passage to southern turkey.

there I found the ancient maiandros (mαίανδρος) river, whence comes the word meander. by strolling along the banks of this winding river, i would by definition be meandering. the river’s modern name is büyük menderes, the turks having owned it these last five hundred and fifty years or so.

where to start, the river’s source (dinar, where are found the ruins of celaenae-apamea) or mouth (on the aegean near samos)? i couldn’t worry about this, as it would cause stress, which i was to avoid at any cost, so i flipped a coin (a turkish lira, 1989; atatürk’s head) and began my meander at dinar.

the river being 341 miles long, it took me some time to negotiate it at a slow pace (i never took more than ten steps without pausing to contemplate the water and my life).

by the time i was done, i felt a lot better.

 

For The Daily Post

arches

I had a  wonderful life. Just didn’t realize how much of it depended upon my health. You’ve only got one body. Your body is all you’ve got.

My wife and I would go out dancing. She loves to dance. I noticed that my feet were getting tired easily.

I’d play basketball with my boys and the bottom-insides of my feet would become painful and swollen.

Reaching to a higher shelf, it was hard to stand on tiptoe.

Then one day after a shower, I noticed my wet footprints on the floor. The whole foot was there, heel to toe.

I knew in a flash that I had fallen arches.

I used to have high, beautiful arches. I could run like a deer. Now, flat feet.

The thing is, my wife has always been a foot person. It’s mostly a guy thing, interest in the feet. Women will focus on the shoulders of a guy, or his hands or forearms, or his hair or eyes or chin. The feet, not so much. But Beatrice from the beginning zeroed in on mine. She’d run her fingers back and forth on my arches and… I’ll draw the curtain there.

All our kids have beautiful arches. Beatrice has beautiful arches, although I’d love her just as much if she didn’t. Just so long as she doesn’t have cankles. I don’t like cankles.

Now I wear slippers around the house. I never used to. I gloried in my naked feet.

I keep my orthotics, my shame, hidden.

I have some ungents but I don’t use them because you can smell them.

I joined a support group but I tell my family I’m going out for poker night.

I drink to ease the pain and heartache but I just claim to be an alcoholic.

I wear socks to bed, even in the summer.

At the public pool, I wear “pool shoes.”

I am consulting a podiatrist about having my feet removed, to gain sympathy, support, and acceptance from my spouse.

Say a prayer of thanks every day for the good health you enjoy.

 

For Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo

fabric

what is all this talk about the fabric of spacetime?

in the books and movies the fabric is always endangered. somebody is always tearing it. how can that be? hasn’t spacetime been around since God made the world or since the world evolved, if you’re a non-believer. Who thinks you can go around tearing it?

when I was a kid growing up in New York, the only time you heard about fabrics was when your sister talked to her friend about sewing or buying a new dress or if you knew a boy who was a tailor’s son or whose dad repaired car upholstery.

talk about fabrics on the street corner and everybody would think you were a… a… whatever. tho i did have a friend from Philadelphia who would call the rear part of a girl her fabric. he’d say, some nice fabric out on the street today.

i also knew a boy from London who called his underwear his fabrics which made everyone hoot.

my mom made my shirts but she didn’t ask me what kind of fabric i wanted in them.

also, come to think of it, the sign on my dad’s shop had the word fabricate in it.

 

For Daily Post

My Core Belief

My core belief is that I’m ok.

Nobody knows me better than I do, so I’m pretty sure that I’m right.

Full disclosure: I’ve been convicted of two felonies.

In the first case, I thought she was an adult. I didn’t have a legal leg, or foot, to stand on, but I knew what I thought, so doing time did not shake my faith in myself.

If I had it to do over, I would be more careful about the warning signs, but making mistakes is how you learn. I won’t go into the warning signs, as I do look pretty foolish in retrospect, as well as in the video that went viral.

In the second case, I needed cash for an operation for my wife. I don’t fault myself for trying to take it from someone who has more than he needs. His children were not hurt in the plot. They went without food for a couple of days but I was doing them a favor with respect to their weight, in my opinion.

My heart was pure and my wife would have got her new nose if I had not been  foiled.

Who among us is without fault? Not me, but I’m ok with that. It’s in the Bible.

They say that the dumb don’t know they’re dumb and the wicked don’t know they’re wicked, but I know I’m not wicked, so that saying wouldn’t apply to me.

When I get out, if I ever do, I’m not going to change a thing.

 

For Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

devotion

The lake is beautiful and so is your cabin, but watch out for that stray dog coming there.

Aw, that’s just old Shep. He’s ours.

I though he lived down at your house.

Yeah, we leave him there but he always runs the twenty miles up here anyway.

Jeez, that’s devotion.

 

For Five Lines or Less

imagination

I’ll leave this one to your imagination. I want to confess but I don’t want to admit.

My friends don’t care what I did, most of them, but my parents would care if they knew.

I probably won’t ever do it again but I don’t regret doing it once. Well, ok, this morning I’m feeling a little sorry. For myself but also for doing it.

It didn’t hurt, not too much. I wasn’t scared. Nervous. Anxious. Maybe a little scared.

It wasn’t fun, but I didn’t expect it to be. I just wanted to get it over with. Now it’s over with.

I’m not going to talk about it with anyone. I’m also not going to talk about what I really wanted to do, not what I did. My friends would probably care about that.

The sun is up. I’m still me. Time to go to school.

 

For Daily Post

my woods

 

I grew up on the edge of woods. It was extensive and I spent a lot of time in it. When I headed off to college, my parents left their empty nest and moved to the city. I didn’t revisit my beloved woods for years.

Out of school, I went to work. I had ideas. I made a lot of money. Three-hundred billion dollars, in fact, which is… a lot of money.

When I finally returned to my woods, I found a subdivision. Average price of the midwestern homes in it, three-hundred thousand dollars. That is, one thousand homes per billion dollars.

Over a decade, I bought thirty-billion worth, thirty thousand homes. I built a twelve-foot wall around them. Removed the homes and built one for myself.

With the tracts for about forty-four homes per acre, the wall enclosed about one hundred and fifty thousand acres, or two hundred and twenty square miles. In the portions of the wall facing still-existing woods, I added portals that could be opened from sunset to sunrise, for the wildlife.

I had a new forest planted, and added a plank path that ran through it.

Now, in my dotage, I ride a golf cart out into my domain every morning.

 

Photo: Mike Vor
For Sunday Photo Fiction

Compromise

“Let’s work this out.”

“I want to work it out but I will not compromise my principles.”

“Me neither. Do we agree that we’re equals.”

“Yes. Not exactly equal in every way, but added up, yes.”

“So when it comes to cooking?”

“You do the cooking, but cooking is part of the bigger picture.”

“And cleaning up the kitchen afterwards?”

“You also do that. Just part of the bigger picture.”

“And shopping to buy the food to cook?”

“It’s all part of the same thing. We’re not equal in every little detail.”

“Raising the kids?”

“I helped make them ha ha… But seriously, I take them to school.”

“Making their breakfast? Putting up lunches for school? Picking them up after school? Planning their time after school?  Afternoon snacks? Helping them with their homework? Play dates? Buying their clothes? Keeping them clean? Dentist? Pediatrician?”

“I took Timmy to Dr. Goldman that time.”

“Changing the sheets? Vacuuming? Keeping in touch with both our families? Sending out Christmas cards?”

“Look, Honey. It’s not a compromise but I’ll clean up my work area in the garage.”

“For the first time this decade?”

“I’ll pick up that stuff at the dry cleaners.”

“You mean your extra suit and your shirts with the stains from the pub?”

“I go to work every day. I earn my share. I’m not compromising, but what else do you want?”

“We both go to work every day. Counting my royalties, I actually make more than you do. I’m also thinking you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“But I’m good looking ha ha… Listen, I will not compromise my principles but I will come to an agreement. Tell me what you want.”

“Let’s start with these dirty dishes.”

 

For Daily Post