Daily writing prompt

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

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I don’t have such arrogant views about this silly little blog. No, this is not meant to change the world in any way imaginable. This blog exists so that I can send secret messages to my wife, and so that at some point in the future I can ask myself, what was I doing on August 11, 2023 and then actually look up the answer.

That’s it. I am not out to change the world. I am not out to make money. I am just doing this because I think blogging is fun. That’s it, gentle readers. This doesn’t mean anything more than that.

Daily writing prompt

Describe your life in an alternate universe.

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The multiverse theory. The possibility that there are an infinite number of parallel universes where an infinite number of possibilities all exist at the same time.

Based on the parameters of this theory there therefore exists a universe where I am Batman. That’s pretty much all you need to know about this question.

I will add that, while an infinite number of possibilities exist, I suspect that I still have red hair in all possible universes. The key word being “possible” in this statement. It is not possible for me to have existed any other way. I mean, can you imagine a blonde version of me? No, you cannot. The laws of physics in all possible universes would prevent such a horror.

QED.

Daily writing prompt

What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

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This is a tough one. I can give you what the meal was, and a few options on where it was, but I can’t recall how much it cost.

It was definitely a steak dinner. We went through a phase where we liked going to really fancy steak restaurants and blowing the monthly dinning out budget in one shot. They were always steak places. Near home it was usually The Capital Grille in Burlington, MA though it could also have been Ruth’s Chris Steak House in the old state house building in Boston. There was also our first Ruth’s Chris visit which was in San Diego on our honeymoon. We had been at the beach and were sweaty and gross and just stopped at a restaurant for dinner, not realizing it was a super high end place. We felt massively under-dressed in our shorts and t-shirts, but oh my goodness was the meal spectacular. One other possibility was a place in Kissimmee, FL called Charley’s Steak House. We went there a few times and it was always excellent. The exception being an appetizer we had on our first visit. It was a year before we were married and we went with our friends Larry and Nawal. Larry and I were feeling adventurous and ordered an appetizer called Alligator Bites. I mean, it was Florida… why not eat some alligator, right? I had one bite and managed to get it down. It was absolutely vile. Larry tried one bite but had to spit it out. That was the end of our alligator culinary experience. The steak was incredible though.

For the question of how much we spent… I really don’t know. It was a lot. Like, a ridiculous amount. Like maybe $30 a steak, or possibly $40 a steak. Something like that. It was the kind of thing you do once a year at most, and we haven’t spent that much on a meal since pre-pandemic. We’ve probably come close at a couple of higher end Disney World resort restaurants, but I don’t think we’ve ever matched one of those Steak Houses. Jen has a better memory and she might correct me if she gets a chance to read this masterpiece of a post. I’ll add an addendum if she does.

Was it worth it? Oh, hells yes. It was absolutely worth it for the quality of the food, but also for the overall experience. You’re bill includes paying for the level of service you get at a place like that. The staff treat you like royalty. It’s really amazing. It’s fun to be a middle class, white collar flunky and pretend you’re upper class, upper crust types for one evening. It’s practically pampering. The whole experience is just as impressive as the ultra-impressive meal.

I definitely recommend giving a place like these a try if you can, just be prepared to blow a huge chunk of your monthly meals budget in one stop. Save up for a while if you need to. Good luck.

Daily writing prompt

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

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I’ve been posting this blog in one form or another for years. There are entries dating back to 2006, but the nearly daily posts go back to November 2008. In all that time if I were to count posts that are uninteresting I would guess that the total count would be exactly equal to the total number of posts that exist… know what I mean? My stuff ain’t that interesting unless you’re… me.

Now today, the daily writing prompt is asking me to find an uninteresting story and write about it. So it wants me to find a fellow uninteresting thing and then choose to write an uninteresting post about it.

Okay, I guess. I can dig it. To the Google News I go.

I set the search field for stories posted within the last 24 hours because I figured I should make sure we’re keeping things current and relevant and stuff. This is the world beater I came up with:

Solid Waste Container Replacements for Kingman

Now the gist of the prompt is to read the article, figure out how it relates to me, and then write about it. Okay, I can do that.

The article is about city trash pick up where the city is providing the barrels, right? Well, as luck would have it today is trash pick up day in my neighborhood, and my city provided trash and recycling barrels are on the street awaiting pick up.

Other than that, this doesn’t relate to me at all… which I have to believe was actually the point of this exercise. Right? Sure feels that way, doesn’t it?

Okay then… daily writing prompt post written, breakfast eaten, morning exercise finished, really nasty gastric bypass stomach issues that I woke up with dealt with and hopefully passed for the day… Okay. I guess we’re good to go for the day then. Happy Tuesday, planet Earth.

Daily writing prompt

List 30 things that make you happy.

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Damn, wordpress.com, or jetpack, or whomever comes up with these daily writing prompts… you wanted us to put some time into this one, eh? A list of 30 things?

Okay, let’s see what I can come up with. These will be in no specific order, though the first few are going to be the biggest hitters. Also, a lot of them are going to feel like repeats but they are more like different flavors of the same thing, know what I mean?

Okay… here goes nothing…

1. My wife Jen
2. My step daughter Bellana
3. My step son Harry
4. Playing the guitar
5. Playing guitar in a band with friends
6. Playing guitar in a band with friends on a stage in front of other people including more friends
7. Visiting my father and having a moment or two when he seems happy
8. Music. Almost all of it. Just not country music. Ugh, I can’t stomach that crap
9. Good movies
10. Good books
11. Good TV shows
12. Cooking dinner for my family and hearing them tell me it was really good
13. Flake days at home. Just me and Jen and the kids (when they are here) hanging in the living room watching something on TV, just being together doing nothing much. I love days like that
14. Traveling
15. The drop at the end of Splash Mountain
16. When you know you want to listen to some music but you don’t know what you’re in the mood for so you bring up your iTunes library and it’s 30,000 files and you hit shuffle and the first song it plays is exactly what you needed to hear, even though you didn’t realize you needed to hear it
17. Closing all three activity rings on your Apple Watch. Yeah, that’s a silly thing but it gives me the warm and fuzzies
18. Road trips to nowhere with Jen. Basically any long drives we take together
19. Visiting with my niece and nephews
20. I loves me a good board game with friends and family
21. This is a post-gastric bypass thing that may not make sense to anyone who hasn’t had their insides rearranged. Feeling hungry, then eating a small amount of food, then not feeling hungry anymore. That makes me happy. It used to be I would need to eat a mountain of food to not feel hungry, and even when I stopped feeling hungry I would eat a second mountain of food just because I could. Not anymore
22. Another post-gastric bypass entry, but this one might be understandable. Having energy makes me happy. Like, say, having enough energy to walk from one end of a Disney World park to the other without having to stop and rest every 50 yards or so
23. Okay, eight more… you can do this Robert, just keep plugging away… Hockey, especially when my team wins
24. Baseball, especially when my team wins which seems to be happening less and less often this season, though they do have a habit of getting into winning streaks that are fun
25. Writing songs and recording demoes of said songs, whether it’s part of an internet challenge thingie or not
26. Photography. Taking pictures, messing with cameras, lining up a shot and having it come out the way I hoped it would, getting film back and having the images look the way I had hoped they would look
27. Photo-walks, as in going to Disney World with Jen and the kids and taking pictures of everything around me as we walk from one end of the park to the other
28. Sunrises over the ocean. Also, less common given my geographical location, sunsets over the ocean
29. Nazi or nazi adjacent candidates losing elections
30. Meeting new people and learning that they are not nazis, nazi collaborators, or nazi sympathizers

And there you have it! 30 things that make me happy! Goodness me, I need a nap after this one.

Daily writing prompt

Describe one habit that brings you joy.

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Wait, a habit that brings you joy? That isn’t how habits work, is it? Also, didn’t we just have a question about routines? Isn’t that the same question we have here, more or less?

Habits that bring me joy… is spending time with my wife, Jen considered a habit? That’s the thing that brings me joy. Spending time with my step kids as well, but they live far-ish away now so I can’t call that a habit either. Not if I actually know the definition of the word.

Technically speaking, what is the definition of, “habit?”

noun

1. an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary:the habit of looking both ways before crossing the street.
2. customary practice or use:Daily bathing is an American habit.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/habit

Do things that are almost involuntary give one joy? I don’t know. I don’t think I like this question. Daily bathing isn’t something that brings me joy, but not smelling like rank B.O. might. Is that a good enough answer?

Daily writing prompt

What are you curious about?

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• I don’t know why, but I am curious about vegetarianism. Not really, just sort of. Where do vegetarians get their protein? I’ve done some Googling and the answers I’ve found don’t make me want to try it, but a small part of my already teeny tiny brain wants to spend a week test driving. I think the idea of Impossible Burgers, or whatever they are called, are part of the attraction. Could I go veggie if I trick myself into thinking I am eating meat? Does that defeat the purpose? I am betting that going that route would be too expensive anyway.
• What did I eat last night that triggered stomach pain this morning? Is yesterday’s migraine somehow involved? I can’t imagine how, but this is the second migraine in a row that was followed by stomach issues the next day.
• Can I get my two Doctor Who binge watches to the point where they both switch Doctors this weekend? The NuWho probably can. I’m mid-way through season seven and it switches from #11 to #12 at the start of season eight. The original series will be tougher. I have half of season three to get through, and the switch from #1 to #2 happens on the third serial of season four. I might be able to do it… probably not.
• When we go to Bar Harbor next weekend will we be able to pull off a sunrise from Cadillac Mountain? That’s the first spot in the continental United States to see the sun rise, but it hits really early and it involves driving to the top of a mountain. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get there in time and still get some sleep.
• We are going to Bar Harbor next weekend (as just stated) and back to Orlando next month. Where else should we travel to? Probably nowhere as it’s all too expensive, but there are so many places still to see.
• How long will I keep playing this wordpress.com daily writing prompt game? No clue.

Daily writing prompt

Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.

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I looked up today’s question last night before I went to bed so that I could think on it a bit. Unfortunately, nothing is springing to mind that doesn’t involve money, and that feels kinda icky to me. We’ve done the occasional thing like paying for the people in line at the drive through behind us, or at the toll booth behind us, or little surprise things like that. Nothing really important, just petty little money things.

I would say the best thing we’ve done, that also involves money, used to happen at Christmas time. The pandemic has put an end to the tradition over the last few years, but eventually we’ll do it again. We used to pick a restaurant at random, a week or two before Christmas, and go out to dinner. We would then leave the waiter/waitress a massive tip. Like a 200-300% tip, depending on the dinner bill itself. We would then dash out as quick as we could so that we’d be in the car and gone before the waiter/waitress would see what we left.

Do random Christmas gifts to hard working people count as random acts of kindness? I think so, in the true sense of Christmas, but in the actual Christmas spirit of gross consumerism? I don’t know. It works for me, I guess.

Daily writing prompt

How would you describe yourself to someone who can’t see you?

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Didn’t we just do a writing prompt to describe ourselves? Like… three or four days ago?

So the answer is simple. You can’t see me, right? Picture Stephen Hawking’s brain, Jimmy Carter’s emotional range, and a youngish Brad Pitt’s body… only a lot taller.

That’s about as clear a picture* as I can give you without visual assistance.

*yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket. Not sarcastic at all. Crystal clear.

Daily writing prompt

What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?

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There aren’t a lot of family traditions that my parents kept that I do not. The big one that comes to mind is religion. My parents were raised catholic and they raised the three of us to be catholic. Somewhere along the line I realized I didn’t believe any of it. Even when I was going to church every Sunday as a kid, I don’t think I believed any of it. I went through the motions, but I never felt it. My brother is still faithful. My sister… I don’t really know one way or another. Me? Atheist. The tradition I don’t keep is going to church.

Rant beginning

I thought the whole priests-systematically-raping-children-then-covering-it-up-for-each-other thing would have brought more people to my way of thinking, but I also thought fascists running the government would have brought people to my little corner of the political spectrum (closer to it at least) but that didn’t seem to happen either, so what do I know.

Rant over. Sorry.