Life in progress

Yearly Archives: 2017


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#SoCS – Why bother?

I spend so much time reading, editing, and (occasionally) writing fiction these days, I sometimes find myself narrating my movements around my house. Usually only in my head … usually. So I have to ask myself, why bother with ink? I do suppose it helps convey my narration to other people … but seriously, do you need to know I need to buy more toilet paper? My narration is incredibly interesting, as you can see.

Speaking of ink, I’ve recently discovered the joy of gel pens. Particularly Papermate InkJoy gel pens. They’re fantastic to write with. They make me want to write … well, pretty much anything. Shopping lists, permission slips to send my son off on field trips, notes about other people’s books … Hey! I should write a book of my own! Yeah, I should get on that.

I’m sitting here looking at my inky black cat. Why in heaven do we think of black when the word “inky” comes along? Ink comes in so many different colours now. We’re not living in an age where we have to use a feather to write with. And a pot of ink … can you imagine? Having to do that? Our computer screens would be a mess!!

Casper

On that note, I think it’s time to call it a day.

It’s a day!

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link to find all the other posts in the comments. Read some, write one – it’s fun! https://lindaghill.com/2017/11/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-25-17/


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86. Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right

Saturday, November 25th, 6:00pm
Herbert (and Georgette)

 

Herbert sits at the window. Georgette takes the seat beside him.

Herbert: I saw you running for the bus.

Georgette: I almost missed it.

Herbert: I’m glad you didn’t.

Georgette: Oh yes?

Herbert: You remind me of someone. Someone I loved a long time ago.

Georgette: That’s funny–I was going to say the same thing. You remind me of someone too.

Herbert: I’m Herbert. (holds out hand) What’s your name?

Georgette: (smiles and takes his hand) Georgette.

Herbert: Georgette. That’s a lovely name.

Georgette: Thank you.

Herbert: I’m getting off in a couple of stops. Can I buy you a coffee?

Georgette: Tea. I drink tea.

Herbert: I can buy tea.

Georgette: Then I’ll go with you.

Herbert: I’m so glad …

 

 

Next stop: Sunday, November 26th, 5:00pm

Click here to learn all about this series, how it works, and where to find your favourite characters.


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85. Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right

Note: Adult theme

Friday, November 24th, 9:00pm
Drommen (and Holly) (and Hillary)

 

Drommen sits at the window. Holly takes the seat beside him.

Drommen: Hey!

Holly: Hi!

Drommen: How are you? You look cheerier than the last time I saw you.

Holly: I’m much better. I don’t know what you did, but that guy with the fangs laid off.

Drommen: (smiles) Great!

Holly: And I got my own place for me an’ my baby (pats her growing stomach) so we’re all good.

Drommen: That’s wonderful.

Holly: Thanks again for your help. I don’t know if I coulda done it without you.

Drommen: You’re welcome.

Holly: I’d like to return the favour somehow … (bats eyelashes)

Drommen regards her silently.

Holly: (rubs his knee) Whadda ya say?

Drommen: (grins) Well now that you mention it … (reaches into his coat for his fly and sees Hillary board the bus. The smile leaves his face)

Holly: What? Did you want to show me something?

Drommen waves to Hillary, who is waving to him.

Holly: Friend of yours?

Drommen: Can I take a rain check?

Holly: (looking annoyed) She must be special.

Drommen:  She’s just a nice girl.

Holly: And I’m not?

Holly moves to another seat in a huff. Hillary sits beside Drommen.

Hillary: Who was that?

Drommen: A missed opportunity.

Hillary stares at him.

Drommen: (smiling) But I’m happy to see you.

 

Next stop: Saturday, November 25th, 6:00pm

Click here to learn all about this series, how it works, and where to find your favourite characters.


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Elder Abuse

Abuse of the elderly–seems like the definition of that would be easy. Don’t abuse them physically or verbally, don’t take advantage of them, and have patience for their failing memories. Simple, right? Apparently not.

Going back a few months, you might remember my mention of my mother not being well. She lives in a retirement home just up the street from where I live, apart from the six weeks she spent in the hospital from last June until August. She fell and broke her neck. I’m not exaggerating–she actually fractured the vertebrae at the top of her spine. It didn’t for a minute stop her from walking, but I was cautioned that if she turned her head a certain way, she might finish herself off. Since she couldn’t be trusted to keep her neck brace on, she was confined to a hospital bed.

Since then, she’s been told that when she goes out for a cigarette (because she can’t smoke inside, naturally), she has to take good care to keep her walker with her and watch where she’s going. Fast forward to last week.

She fell, yet again, this time breaking her ribs. Will she stop smoking and stay inside? Of course not. She’s been smoking since she was fourteen years old. Seventy-four years ago.

I started off by giving her cigarettes to the nursing staff, in hopes that she’d have someone to go out with. This, of course, was far beyond my better judgement to take them away altogether because of the risk of pneumonia with broken ribs. That worked for a while, until she started to complain to both myself and the staff that we were treating her like a twelve-year-old.

So, she got them back. And guess what? She’s fallen two more times, hitting her head both times.

So I’m stuck. She can’t remember from one minute to the next that going outside is a life-or-death situation. When I explain it to her, she says all right, she’ll wait for a nurse to go out with her. Less than two minutes later she’s asking why there are no cigarettes in her room. What do I do? What is the worse abuse? Denying her what is arguably the one pleasure she has in life to save her life, or letting her kill herself because she doesn’t remember?

Abuse of the elderly. It feels inevitable.


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 25/17

A very good Friday morning to you! It’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. I hope all my friends in the US are having a lovely holiday weekend. Be careful in the stores! They must be madhouses today.  Here’s your prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “ink.” Use it as a noun or a verb. Have fun!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

To make your post more visible, use our SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!


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84. Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right

Thursday, November 23rd, 5:00pm 9:00pm
Maurice (and Stuart)

 

Maurice sits at the window. Stuart takes the seat beside him.

Maurice: Finally! What the hell happened to you?

Stuart: Oh man, you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. First, I missed the five o’clock bus, then I was running to catch a cab and I tripped and landed on top of this old woman walking her dog.

Maurice: My God! Is the woman okay?

Stuart: Yeah, but it was her dog leash I tripped over. Strangled the poor thing half to death. So then I felt so bad, I had to take her dog to the vet, and … it died.

Maurice: No way!

Stuart: Yep.

Maurice: So what did you do?

Stuart: The only thing I could do. I bought the old lady a new dog.

Maurice: She must have been pleased.

Stuart: Nope. Dog ran away. Turns out when I tripped over the leash, I tore it. Leash broke, dog ran away.

Maurice: Holy hell. So then what?

Stuart: We settled on a cat.

Maurice: Sounds like a solution.

Stuart stares at Maurice.

Maurice: No … What happened to the cat?

Stuart: Nothing. Turns out the old woman’s deathly allergic to them.

Maurice: She didn’t …

Stuart: Nooo. No, no, no. But she’s in the hospital.

Maurice: So, where are you off to now?

Stuart: Buy a litter box. Damned cat peed all over my rug.

 

Next stop: Friday, November 24th, 9:00pm

Click here to learn all about this series, how it works, and where to find your favourite characters.


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83. Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right

Note: Strong language

Wednesday, November 22nd, 10:00am
Lacey and Kevin

 

Kevin: I’m real glad we live close.

Lacey: (sounding unenthusiastic) Yeah.

Kevin: And now that we work at the same place, we can take the bus together.

Lacey: Uh huh.

Kevin: I wasn’t surprised I got the job.

Lacey: Really.

Kevin: I won an award for selling the most shoes at the place I worked in, in Kingston.

Lacey: Uh huh.

Kevin: Kingston, Jamaica.

Lacey: You mentioned that yesterday.

Kevin: It was a lot different there. Spending time on the beach all day, playing volleyball …

Lacey: Uh huh.

Kevin: It was real nice there. And it never rained.

Lacey: Never?

Kevin: Well only at, like, 2am when no one was out sunbathing anyways.

Lacey: No shit.

Kevin: No shit. It was perfect.

Lacey: So why’d you move here?

Kevin: This guy gave me all this money and said if I wanted to keep it, I had to move to Canada.

Lacey stares at him.

Kevin: Seriously! I had to stash it in my house where no one would find it.

Lacey: Your house where you live with your mom.

Kevin: Yeah. I can’t exactly go around spendin’ it. People would wonder.

Lacey: Uh huh.

 

Next stop: Thursday, November 23rd, 5:00pm

Click here to learn all about this series, how it works, and where to find your favourite characters.


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One-Liner Wednesday – Connecting

It’s a lame one-liner this week, but I’ve just discovered how much fun Instagram is: join me? https://www.instagram.com/linda.g.hill/

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If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

#1linerWeds badge by Dan Antion


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82. Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right

Tuesday, November 21st, 6:00pm
Amber (and Geeves)

 

Amber sits at the window. Geeves takes the seat beside her.

Geeves: Good afternoon.

Amber: Hey.

Geeves: (taking a sandwich out of his bag, he lifts the top piece of bread) Oh no, not again. (to Amber) Excuse me.

Amber: Huh?

Geeves: Have you any Grey Poupon?

Amber: Any what now?

Geeves: (lifts corner of lip in disgust) Ugh.

 

Next stop: Wednesday, November 22nd, 10:00am

Click here to learn all about this series, how it works, and where to find your favourite characters.


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81. Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right

Monday, November 20th, 3:35pm
Sylvester and Harry

 

Harry: I can’t believe the bus was half an hour late.

Sylvester: I know.

Harry: So, you going out on the prowl tonight?

Sylvester: Thinking about it. Wanna come?

Harry: Nah, chicks aren’t my thing these days.

Sylvester: (regarding him closely) I thought you were over Ththally.

Harry: (wipes spit out of his eye) Sally and I weren’t really together in the first place. We met, she got weird in a restaurant, then you know, we just went our separate ways. What’s it to you anyway?

Sylvester: You don’t have to get all catty…

Harry: No, that’s your job.

They sit quietly, both thinking for a moment.

Sylvester: Do you ever wonder if you’re jutht in the wrong plathe thometimeth?

Harry: (pats him) There there…

Sylvester: (mumbles) Thuffering Thuccotash

 

Next stop: Tuesday, November 21st, 6:00pm

Click here to learn all about this series, how it works, and where to find your favourite characters.