Tag Archives: optimism

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60% Fibbing Friday

Last week Pensitivity101 was asking for our definitions of these, please:

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I had four responses completed, and ideas for three more of these words, but I let daughter Lady Ryl have a look at the unfinished six.  Sure enough, the next morning, as reliable as a six-slice toaster, she popped up six crisp and tasty definitions.

Cachinnate

When your barista replaces your espresso shots with Decaf for being a total POS/Karen to them.

Cacoethes

The belief that there is no caffeine in hot chocolate.

Callipygian

“That” actress who played in Golden Girls.  You know the one.  The one who was the opposite to Steve Tyler’s song – Lady Looks Like A Dude.  Crocodile Dundee met her in a bar once.

Confabulate

Join a Taylor Swift fan club

Cankerblossom

What you call a person with STD (Socially Transmitted Dumbassery).

Chicanery

A significant part of a municipal plot to protect Darwin Award candidates who are too stupid to look both ways before they cross their own living room.  First, we’ll drive over here.  Then we’ll drive over there – cones and curbs and K-rails, spring-mounted pennants in the middle of the roads, traffic-calming, slow-down lumps, and bumps, and humps.

I begin to see the attraction for work-at-home.  If this keeps up, the average travel time will soon be back to 1890s’ levels.

Cloff

That half sneeze/half cough that people get.

Canorous

That person who is so dang perky and “You can do it!”, they are like a roaring dino in your face.

Coxcomb

What a fancy man uses to manscape the hair around his other head.

Clishmaclaver

She’s the new (although she seems well-used) Irish ‘working-girl’ who’s set up at the local pub, and is blowing more than a breeze up Scotsmen’s kilts.

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’23 A To Z Challenge – C


By the year 2050, the entire world’s skin tone will be beige, and religion will be just a memory.

While I think that the first part of this prophecy is inevitable, I feel that the prophet who claimed it was optimistic – or pessimistic – that it will occur so soon – and the second part will come to pass, only when, as Freud said, The last human loses their fear of Death.

This past century has been one of inclusion and amalgamation.  Widespread, free movement of people, things, ideas, and information is finally breaking the grip of tribalism, isolationism, and the extensive US vs. Them mentality.  “Seasonal” fruits and vegetables have become a thing of the past, with daily airplane flights from Chile and Australia.

Immigration and tourism has opened so many narrow minds to the facts of other races, other religions, other moralities, other social customs, other legal systems, and other languages.  Language is the easiest and most often absorbed.  Here in Canada, because of the Province of Quebec, every citizen, from Inuit to immigrant, must have at least a working knowledge of the poutine that the locals claim is French.  Many French words, phrases, and place-names have crept into the “English” language, because of French explorers in Canada and northern United States.

Spanish exploration and conquest in Central and South America has resulted in the insertion of many Spanish words and terms into the, especially South and Western United States, ‘English’ language.  ‘Lazo’, the Spanish word that also gave the word ‘lace’ to English, and means noose, or bond, became ‘lasso’.  His cousin, la reata – the rope – became the cowboys’ lariat.

All of which deviously brings us to the word of the day

CALABOOSE

An Americanism dating back to 1785–95; through Louisiana French calabouse, from Spanish calabozo “dungeon,” of obscure origin

From the same base comes ‘calabash,’ an organic little dungeon of a gourd, with all the little seeds held prisoner within – the inspiration for Jimmy Durante’s girlfriend, Mrs. Calabash. Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

Good night!!  Isn’t this fool done prating yet??

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’22 A To Z Challenge – U

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What word or phrase – beginning with the letter U – will I choose as a theme, this time?

As the singer, Tom Jones says, It’s Not Unusual.  But then, can you really trust a man who was willing to lop off his last name, to take advantage of a movie presentation of an old, smutty novel, to help kick-start his career??  😕

Words in the dictionary, beginning with the letters X, Y, or Z, are not terribly plentiful.  Words beginning with U, seem a bit more abundant – until you realize that most of them are un-something – the negatives of a bunch of positive words.

I am willing – I positively revel – to be G.O.D. – the Grumpy Old Dude blogger, grumbling about this and that.  But I don’t want the entire, overarching theme of my website, to be negative.  I don’t mind bitching about certain foibles of society, but overall, I want it to be

UPBEAT

A musical term which has come to mean; optimistic, cheerful, happy

I am positive that Donald Trump, and many other politicians, are total, and complete ASSHOLES!  Perhaps we should try to choose political leaders who are UN-assholes….  Are there any??!  😳  Maybe we could issue a UKASE – edict, order, directive, ruling, decree, fiat, proclamation, that no assholes are allowed.  Now that would be positive!

On my way out, I’d like to introduce you to my new, non-sequitur pet, an

URUBU

A Portuguese, vulture-like turkey buzzard.  Handsome little devil, isn’t he??!  😉

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Flash Fiction #291

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

HAPPY  NEW YEAR!

With the fervent hope that that wish may be better realized than last year’s similar one.

2022 exits as it entered, with many of us still exiled and isolated in our homes.  The streets and shops are empty.  Merchants pray for trade, and only the likes of FedEx and Door-Dash delivery drivers, courting sickness and death, keep the economy limping along.

Things will improve.  Here’s a happy helping of confidence, and an optimistic quote from the Little Engine, who says, “I know we can!  I know we can!”

Let’s make it a great year, fellow Friday Fictioneers.

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If you’d like to join the fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site, and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100-word story.

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Looking At More One-Liners

A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall….
….Police are looking into it

I would tell you a COVID joke….
….But it would take you two weeks to get it.

If you jumped off a bridge in Paris….
….You’d be in Seine

No matter how much you push the envelope….
….It will still be stationery

The fattest knight at King Arthur’s table was Sir Cumference….
….He got that way from too much pi

Two silkworms had a race….
….They both ended up in a tie

When the cannibals ate the missionary….
….They got a taste of religion

Einstein developed a theory about space….
….And it was about time, too

I saw a dwarf climbing down a prison wall….
….I thought, that’s a little condescending.

I went into a book store, and asked if they had anything on turtles….
….”Hardback?”

I like to have my cake, and eat it too….
….I’d also like to have your cake and eat it too.

An Optimist laughs to forget….
….A Pessimist forgets to laugh.

I am a mental tourist….
….My mind wanders.

The closest to perfect a person ever comes….
….Is when they fill out a job application.

Statistics say that 1 out of 3 people in a relationship are unfaithful….
….I need to figure out if that’s my wife or my girlfriend.

A store clerk fought off an armed robber with a pricing gun….
….Police are looking for a man with a price on his head.

I know the voices in my head aren’t real….
….But sometimes they have great ideas.

My girlfriend said she got a tattoo of a chameleon….
….I don’t see it

I haven’t lost all my marbles….
….But there’s definitely a hole in the bag.

How many general-relativity theoreticists does it take to change a light bulb?….
….Two.  One to hold the bulb and one to rotate space.

Why can’t you take electricity to social outings?….
….Because it doesn’t know how to conduct itself.

What did the male magnet say to the female magnet?….
….Seeing you from the back, I thought you were repulsive. But seeing you from the front, I find you rather attractive.

What did one uranium-238 nucleus say to the other?….
….Gotta split.

I was gonna go on a diet….
….But I’ve got too much on my plate right now.

The technical name for a coffee at work….
….is, Break Fluid.

 

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Giving Thanx For Comedy

Since so many people like a drumstick at Thanksgiving, geneticists developed a six-legged turkey.  No-one knows what it tastes like because they can’t catch one.

A collection of quotes about Thanksgiving, from people you may know.

I celebrated Thanksgiving the old-fashioned way.  I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had a big feast, and then I killed them all and took their land.
Jon Stewart

Thanksgiving is an emotional time.  People travel thousands of miles to be with people they see only once a year – and then discover that once a year is way too often.
Johnny Carson

Cooking tip: Wrap turkey leftovers in aluminum foil – and throw them out.
Nicole Hollander

Thanksgiving, man, not a good day to be my pants.
Kevin James

I took me three weeks to stuff the turkey. I stuffed it through the beak.
Phyllis Diller

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
Erma Bombeck

The Thanksgiving tradition is, we overeat. ‘Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?’ ‘But we do that every day!’ ‘Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us?
Jim Gaffigan

If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkey. There’s turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. Someone needs to tell the turkey, man, just be yourself.
Mitch Hedberg

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.
Jim Davis

If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then it will be managed—like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese.
Ted Nugent

Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before.
Rita Rudner

Last Thanksgiving I shot my own turkey. It was fun. That shotgun going, Blam!  Everybody at the supermarket just staring. Why track them when I know where they are?
Kenny Rogerson

We’re having something different this year for Thanksgiving. Instead of a turkey, we’re having a swan. You get more stuffing.
George Carlin

Even though we’re a week and a half away from Thanksgiving, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Richard Roeper

You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.
Jay Leno

If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Carl Sagan

I got to go home for Thanksgiving and sit at the adults’ table. That’s ’cause, you know, somebody had to die for me to move up a plate.
Andre Kelley

Thanksgiving is America’s national chow-down feast, the one occasion each year when gluttony becomes a patriotic duty.
Michael Dresser

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.
Irv Kupcinet

I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just another Thursday with more food. And I’m thankful for that!
Howie Mandel

Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise obesity statistics.
Stephen Colbert

Here in my city, the Canadian Thanksgiving becomes the first weekend of a 9-day Oktoberfest, where over-drinking and overeating go hand-in-hand, like Hansel and Gretel.  I am thankful that I don’t have to drive through that insanity anymore.  If you’ve seen one drunk guy with bare legs, in leather shorts – you’ve seen one too many.

 

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WOW #60

Weeping

I am greatly saddened that I will sadden you.  I weep, that you will weep, when I introduce the triplets of unhappiness.

ELEGY – THRENODY – MONODY

Elegy – a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.
a sad or mournful musical composition.

Threnody – a poem, speech, or song of lamentation, especially for the dead; dirge; funeral song.

Monody – a Greek ode sung by a single voice, as in a tragedy; lament.
a poem in which the poet or speaker laments another’s death; a threnody.
Pretty much just a solo of threnody

The optimist thinks that we live in the best of times. 
The pessimist fears that that is true. 

In these days of COVID 19, it is easy to believe that we have things rough, but society, and life in general, must be improving, if we no longer have these three words around to use regularly.  I hope that none of my readers have lost anyone close to them.

There will always be doomsayers, and wet blankets, who can knit a grey cloud from a silver lining, with much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  I prefer to always look on the bright side, even if people think that I’m none too bright for doing so.  I feel it’s a good idea to laugh at being sad.  To prove it, here’s some of the old gang from Hee-Haw to show you how.  https://youtu.be/BkzE23pyME4

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A Perfect One-Liner

Comedy

To my mind there’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist….
….but they’d probably find something

I’m not fat….
….but my 100 meter dash record is about 54 meters

People told me not to smear glue on my hands before going to the firing range….
….but I’m sticking to my guns.

My girlfriend asked me to name all my sexual partners in order….
….I probably should have stopped when I got to her name

Dad, how do stars die?….
….Usually an overdose

Did you know the first French fries weren’t cooked in France?….
….they were cooked in Greece

What’s black and rhymes with snoop?…
….Dr. Dre

My top 3 assumptions when the doorbell rings….
….1 – a murderer
….2 – police telling me my wife and kids were killed in a crash
….3 – delivery of that book on positive thinking I ordered

Why was the archaeologist so depressed?….
….because his life was in ruins

I just saw an Apple store being robbed….
….so the policed called me as an I-witness

These days, the ‘grade’ in ‘Catholic grade school’….
….is a lot like the ‘grade’ in ‘weapons grade uranium.’

I was telling some sheep jokes the other day…
….but none of them laughed, and one ran away saying ‘baa’.

I just burned 2000 calories….
….that’s the last time I leave brownies in the oven while I nap

How do Mexicans feel about Trump’s wall?….
….they’ll get over it

If I died right now….
….my life would be complete

I wonder what Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin tasted like….

It cost me $500 to fly economy class, and what a waste of money….
….I still know nothing about economics

I’m against gay marriage….
….for the same reason I’m against straight marriage.

What gets bigger the more you take from it?….
….the lower class

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2017 A To Z Challenge – O

Challenge2017*

I am an Optimist.  Not a cockeyed optimist.  Not a naïve, ‘everything will turn out right’, optimist.   Not a wide-eyed, slack-grinned, Pollyanna, ‘everything is great’, optimist.  Not a Little Orphan Annie, ‘The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow’ optimist.  Not even one of those Optimist guys who goes to monthly urban-improvement meetings.  I just always hope for the best from people and society.

letter-o

On the other hand, I’m also a flint-hard-minded, cynical realist. I hope for the best, but expect the worst from people, and I’m seldom disappointed, Trust – But Verify.

The optimist thinks that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
The pessimist fears that that statement is true.

During my childhood, alone in my neighborhood, I sometimes reached out to other children (guys) living blocks away, to show them things I’d discovered during my solitary explorations. Almost without exception, whatever was not stolen, was destroyed, preventing further enjoyment by them, me, or the rightful owner.  It’s still an all-too-common attitude in the world today, which I just don’t understand!  😯

I would like to believe that, with the information age, and increasing education and technology, the world is slowly rising to be a better place.  Certainly, within the more civilized sections, torture and arbitrary executions have mostly disappeared.  Then I see militant Islam terror attacks against Christian countries, and one type of Muslim killing and driving out another.

Islamofascists are trying to control/prevent the dissemination of information and concepts that they do not approve of, especially via the internet. That genie (if you’ll excuse the expression) is already out of the bottle.  I hope that the tipping point has been reached, and, no matter how many AK-47s or Semtex explosive they use, knowledge and social freedom will still continue to spread.

In the western world, it seems restricted to acts like a local LGBTF-friendly church recently having its entryway sidewalk graffitied, “The Church Shall Remain Holy.” Since they are welcoming the same sort of social rejects that Christ did, they feel that they are holy, and plan to have another artist ‘frame’ the graffiti, and seal it with a transparent coat, turning it from an act of hate, to an inclusive act of love.

So much of life has become polarized – Blue States vs. Red States – White Supremacists – tear down historical statues – Fundamentalists trying to drag society back into superstitious days.

I hope!
I hope!
I hope!

I don’t think that I will live long enough to see very much total improvement. I’d like to say, ‘Two steps forward – One step back’, but often it seems like 12 steps forward, 11 steps backward.  I hope that progress will continue.  I hope that my children and grandchildren will live in a better world than the one that I did.  I am optimistic!

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This is the closest that I’ve finished a blog composition before posting, since I wrote my first 13 directly into WordPress. It was completed only a half an hour before my self-imposed schedule said that it was to be published.  I don’t even think it was because of my procrastination – more like, I just couldn’t organize my thoughts, and decide where it was going.  Since I’m supposed to have three, in a Word file, ready to go at all times, I’d better get going at P, Q, and R.  😳