2325 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

This week has turned out to be a mixed bag. The solstice has come and gone ushering in summer in the northern hemisphere. Now the days begin getting shorter as we hurtle back toward the cold of winter. That said, I will enjoy the warmth for as long as it lasts.

Just as I was getting over a painful couple of months with plantar fascitis in my left foot, I was scheduled to attend training wearing heavy safety boots. My current job doesn’t require that I wear them regularly. However, to re-certify the training must be completed in full uniform. Now after one-half day, the foot is back at square one. It didn’t help that the next two days were spent standing on a baseball diamond.

That was the good part of the week. The standing didn’t help my foot, but watching my little guy play in his season-ending T-Ball tournament was fantastic. He played well even through normal kid focus issues and a love for the dirt on the infield. Making an out at third and hitting the ball hard. Honestly, all the kids look so damn cute out there.

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The beginning of summer had me listening to one of my favourite summer driving songs. The Kings are a great Canadian band hailing from Oakville, Ontario. Literally one town over from where I grew up. They have some great music in their catalogue but only one commercially successful hit, charting in both Canada and the U.S.A. That hit consisted of the first two tracks which are normally played together. “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide” was taken from the band’s 1980 debut album “The Kings Are Here.” Take a listen and tell me you can’t feel the wind whipping through your hair as you drive much too fast along that lake road or up the coast.

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The week in review…

Locked Diary
Revisiting a memory of Paris lifted from the pages of a diary written by Rockstar Girl at Is It Real or Fantasy.

The Calling
Did Dana find salvation? Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean wasn’t there. A delightful alien (almost) abduction story by Paula at Light Motifs II.

New World Order
Be wary of the man in a fedora preaching a better future.

Out of It
Fandango manages to craft a short poem even though he was out of everything.

Grandad, where are the wires?
Sometimes the old ways captured a labour of love that is lost in today’s technological world. Be sure to check out Diana’s take on the prompt on the Writer Ravenclaw blog.

4 Line Fiction
Nicole Smith at Momoetry captures that feeling when you can’t find the words to own up to something terrible you’ve done.

Amazingly, Unexpected Happenings
Dare to dream and you never know what might happen. A success story by Sadje at Keep It Alive.

More highlights from Greg’s Blog…

I Didn’t Do It | A story of heartbreak written for Fandango’s Story Starter and One Word Challenges.

T-Shirt Wisdom Wednesday | Another bi-weekly installment of this humorous graphic design segment.

Next week…

Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction and the official launch of the Creative Writing Month challenge although the preview for the first month came out at the beginning of June. Have a great week everyone,

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2324 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

Happy Father’s Day.

While there has been a trend in this country to eliminate gender-specific holidays I believe it is important to honour those who brought us into the world. Many schools and school boards have stopped the practice of celebrating Mothers and Fathers for fear of not being inclusive. This of course is about as ridiculous as it sounds.

As such my son did not have a hand-drawn tie or some other cute kid artwork for his Dad this year. I have to give him credit though, he knew it was Father’s Day and trumpeted in the occasion with a loud and boisterous Happy Father’s Day at 7am as he jumped on me in bed!

My Dad will celebrate his 84th in September. We didn’t always see eye to eye when I was younger. I remember making him feel like crap as a teenager because I was smarter and going to go places his blue-collar life could never have gone. Of course, I was wrong. My Dad was a great father and provider for our single-income family. We lived within our means but my sisters and I never wanted for anything. He and my Mom raised us the best they could and they did a great job, with my sisters at least. I’m sure they lay awake at night wondering what they did wrong with me. In all seriousness…

Thank You, Dad.

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Father’s Day got me thinking about my favourite Dad song and the George Strait classic “Love Without End, Amen” was the first to come to mind.

And for all the ladies celebrating their Daddy take a listen to the Holly Dunn classic “Daddy’s Hands.”

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The week in review…

Layer of Lies
A colourful take on a layered Poem by Paula at Light Motifs II. Now I’m hungry for cake and rainbow sprinkles!

Ripped Pages Out of My Diary
A work exploring the weight of hopelessness and despair written by Rockstar Girl at Is It Real or Fantasy.

Backwards
A time caper complete with a twist at the end written by Sadje and Keep It Alive.

4 Line Fiction
Four lines that perfectly capture the emotion of the image written by Nicole Smith at Momoetry.

It’s a Living
Fandango at This, That and the Other captures the lament of every subway busker ever.

Subway Tunnel Guy
Christine AT Stine Writing reminds us of the joy and satisfaction of doing something just because you love to do it.

More highlights from Greg’s Blog…

What Are the Chances? | A hitchhiker warning written for Sadje’s “What Do You See?” prompt and Fandango’s One Word Challenge.

Dad’s Lesson | A Father story written for Carrot Ranch’s #99words challenge.

Dystopian Sunset | Phone photography taken during the smoke storms caused by the Northern Ontario /Quebec wildfires.

Around the Blogosphere…

Allium Stipitatum White Giant | A beautiful image by Vova Zinger’s Photoblog.

Try New Beaver Slap | Couldn’t stop laughing reading this gem by Joanne the Geek.

Next week…

Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction and some new T-Shirt Wisdom, Have a great week everyone,

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2323 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

Wildfires dot the northern landscape, dry conditions and an abundance of debris on the forest floor fueling burns that are raging out of control. Hundreds of miles away the sun is all but blotted out and the smell of smoke hangs heavy in the suburban air…

Sounds like one of Fandango’s story starters but it isn’t. It was actually the scene over many eastern cities from Toronto to New York as some 200+ wildfires burned across Northern Ontario and Quebec.

As the hellfires raged on it became increasingly apparent that the response from our cities and towns in the path of the smoke may have been blown out of proportion. That seems to be the norm in today’s world. For example, Nate’s baseball was cancelled on Tuesday, the first wave of the smoke storm to pass through, due to air quality concerns however by Thursday all the hype had died out and even though the air quality was worse than Tuesday the games went on. Even a joke I shared about the cancellation on the team chat drew gasps from outraged parents. Really, all I said was,

Like all things, the smoke blew over and everything returned to normal.

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This week in music I’ve headed back to 1984. The Human League was known for lush synth-pop tracks with 80’s staples like Don’t You Want Me and (Keep Feeling) Fascination. I’ve reached back for something that was less successful but arguably stands the test of time better than the band’s more commercially successful works. It was rumoured that the band had a no-guitars rule, it was the 80s and they were a synth band after all. Whether that was true or not I don’t know but if it was, breaking that rule was a great idea for this week’s track – The Lebanon. The song was written about the civil war that raged on in Lebanon in the early 1980s.

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The week in review…

Brand Management
The future of A.I. from Paula at Light Motifs II. Hope there is a wife model too!

In the Music Which Touches My Mind
An exploration of the connection between emotion and music by written by Rockstar Girl at Is It Real or Fantasy.

Our Party Platform
A fitting piece by Fandango at This, That and the Other considering the planet appears to be burning to the ground! Probably pie in the sky to think politicians will change though.

Inkwell
A powerful poem written by Rebecca at Is It Real or Fantasy

A Thorny Problem
Maybe they used the same A.I. Generator for the campaign idea? Written by the business-savvy Sadje at Keep It Alive.

No responses to this great image. I am going to keep it up/ reissue it for another week and see what happens.

More highlights from Greg’s Blog…

T-Shirt Wisdom Wednesday | You’ll need your wits about you for this one!

Creative Writing Monthly (2307) | The inaugural post for the new Creative Writing Monthly challenge. Get your submissions in before the end of July.

Empire In Decline: The New America | Some observations of America post-Trump, from an outsider!

Around the Blogosphere…

Next week…

Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction, Have a great week everyone,

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