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Monthly Archives: May 2013

Quarry

03 May

house of bonesPhoto copyright Kent Bonham

She had trailed her quarry carefully through the raucous throngs, but in a moment of distraction he had slipped from sight. Estrella was terrified—her safety depended on shadowing his every move. Anxiously, she scanned the crowd from the cover of a building that also seemed masked for Carnival. Her costume camouflaged her among the revelers; could he still find her?

Familiar cologne penetrated her fear just as a strong arm snaked around her waist. Estrella struggled mightily in the vise-like grip, loosing herself just enough to twist and throw her arms around her captor’s neck.

“Papá, there you are!”

After a couple weeks off, it feels good to be back in the swing of Friday Fictioneers, trying to capture a story inspired by the week’s photo prompt in only 100 words!

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Posts I commented on today:
A Roof with a View (anelephantcant)  new blog of the day
3 May 2013 (Rochelle Wisoff-Fields–Addicted to Purple)
Handling Rejection (castelsarrasin)

 
13 Comments

Posted by on May 3, 2013 in Challenges, Fiction

 

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Tabs

02 May

102_1385
Question 187
In a nice restaurant, after getting the check for an excellent meal, you notice that you were not charged for one of the items you ate. Would you tell the waitress?

Yes, I’d absolutely tell the waitress. In fact, not too long ago, the hubby and I had dinner at the local pub and our drinks had not been added to the tab. I didn’t realize the omission at first, because the pub owner just tells us the amount due and we never see an actual bill. But by the time he handed over the change for the total he had quoted, my mental calculator had finished tallying what I thought the approximate cost of our meals should have been, and I mentioned that I thought the total had been too low for what we had ordered. He checked, and sure enough, the drinks had not been rung up. As I turned over the cash for the remaining balance, the owner thanked me profusely and repeatedly for my honesty; it had never crossed my mind to walk out knowing I hadn’t paid for something I had consumed.

On the other hand, I would just as quickly tell the waitress if we had been overcharged for our meal. Just a couple weeks ago, we dined at a Mexican restaurant in Amsterdam (if you are looking for good Mexican food, Amsterdam is not the place to get it). Overall, prices in Amsterdam were steeper than we are used to (which is saying a lot, because England isn’t cheap), so I expected the bill to be high. But when the check came, I glanced half-heartedly at the total as I laid down our credit card, and nearly dislocated my shoulder snatching the card back–the bottom line was twice what I had roughly estimated it should have been! Looking closely at the itemized tab, I discovered that the entire meal ordered by the neighboring table had been entered into the register along with our items. While I dream of someday anonymously buying a restaurant meal for a randomly selected stranger/family, the gluttonous couple at the next table did not fit the profile I had envisioned as the beneficiaries of a free meal. We flagged the waitress over and she immediately and profusely apologized when I pointed out the extra charges. With the owner’s help, the bill was corrected and we settled our tab, then walked out into the cold Dutch night vowing not to cross the thresholds of any more Mexican restaurants until we leave Europe.

Now that my mom has returned to the States, I’m back on my normal blogging schedule, which means today is Deep Thought Thursday. Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions provides the inspiration for this weekly feature. 

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Posts I commented on today:
The Old Fire Hydrant (Cee’s Photography)
Best Beware the Sting (Rendezvous with Renee)
At the House of Bones (Sandra’s Scribbles)  new blog of the day

 
3 Comments

Posted by on May 2, 2013 in Deep Thought Thursday, Observations

 

Rumination

01 May

survivor_[2013]

Whoo hoo! I did it, as did hundreds of other bloggers. We accepted the challenge to post every day in April and to somehow, someway incorporate the letter of the day into said posts (we earned Sundays off for good behavior–some, like me, used it as a free-post day, while others simply took the day off to let their brain cells recharge). Now that May has begun, I’d like to take a moment to ruminate on the past month’s challenge, my involvement in it, and what I hope to improve next year.

I stumbled upon The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge quite by accident. Joe Owens has his finger on the pulse of the blogosphere, and I’ve learned of all kinds of challenges and opportunities by perusing his posts over at Joe’s Musings. Following his lead, I went over to the A to Z Challenge site and added my name to the linky list; by the time the sign-up period closed and illegitimate blogs had been purged by the challenge organizers, I landed at 1187 in a field of 1656 participants. One of the best aspects of the challenge, and the reason I think it draws so many bloggers, is that there are no restraints on the content. As long as the theme of a post–be it a piece of flash fiction, a recipe, a personal observation, a travelogue, a photograph, a poem, a letter, or a painting–matches the day’s letter, it is acceptable. This means that no one is excluded from the challenge based on the established theme or structure of his/her blog, and no one is forced to abandon his/her chosen medium in order to join.

Since I had already committed on 1 January to blog every day in 2013, the April A to Z Challenge did not present a daunting posting regimen for me. However, I really enjoyed trying to fit my own self-chosen routine of themes to the challenge’s prescribed letter of the day–well, at least until mid-April when my mom arrived, at which point I bailed on my daily schedule and posted willy-nilly for the duration of her visit.

The point where I fell short, and the key area where I will make a concentrated effort to improve next year, is reading and commenting on other A to Zers’ blogs. Well, not the reading so much, as several times I got lost for hours in an amazing array of blogs, going past the A to Z posts and deep into the archives on several. But I was VERY lax in posting comments on those blogs. I’m bad about this in daily life as well; it wasn’t an aberration during this challenge. I’m not sure why I allow this to happen, as I know how much I value comments on my own blog as proof that there really are people out there reading my ramblings. In fact, I am so ashamed, that I am setting myself a personal challenge for May: I will comment on three blogs each day, and one of those will be a new blog I have not previously visited. At the end of my regular post each day, I will make a note of the blogs I have commented upon (linking to the specific post), both as a way to hold myself accountable during my little May challenge, but also so you can check out some of the wonderful offerings out there in the blogosphere. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a new second-favorite blogger to follow (if it turns out you find a new first-favorite, don’t tell me I’ve been replaced, okay?).

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Posts I commented on today:
juggling mice with both paws  (helenjameson)
Zen like a Zebra  (An Expat’s Journal) new blog of the day
Zen  (Phenomenal Lass)

 
3 Comments

Posted by on May 1, 2013 in Challenges, Observations, What's She On About?

 

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