November Diversions

4 – King Tut Day

Eat some Ta’meya or Koshari and wash it down with heqet. Write your name in hieroplyphics:

https://discoveringegypt.com/egyptian-hieroglyphic-writing/hieroglyphic-typewriter/

And of course, dance endlessly to Steve Martin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYbavuReVF4

And the Bangles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qRpIA3RKYc

 

5 – Guy Fawkes/Gunpowder Day/Bonfire Night

Mainly an English celebration regarding the plot in 1605 to blow up the House of Parliament. Guy was hanged and quartered. A couple hundred years later, children would go around begging for pennies to make an effigy of Guy to later burn. Nowadays it’s pretty much just bonfires and fireworks. One tradition was Bonfire Toffee. There are a ton of recipes for toffee on the Internet.

 

15 – Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day

No matter how vigilant you are about not wasting food and putting leftovers in the fridge for later consumption, there always seems to be one or two small containers that get shoved to the very back and forgotten. After a while it becomes sentient. Then it plots to take over the world. Don’t let that happen!

 

25 – Thanksgiving Day

AKA Stuff Yourself Into Oblivion And Watch TV Until It’s Time To Eat Again. And for the love of all that is holy…HAVE ENOUGH WHIPPED CREAM ON HAND FOR THE PIE!!!

 

26 – The Day After…

Eat leftovers and set up the Christmas tree. Then start on the second pumpkin pie. And you better have one on hand. DID YOU REMEMBER THE WHIPPED CREAM???

 

 

Quarantine Book List

 

Back when the lockdown started taking its stranglehold on the country, cute memes started popping up. Lots of song adaptations, too. It stopped being funny as the stranglehold got more and more severe and intrusive. This one really caught my eye, though. It’s cleverly done and it got me thinking about trying to read all the books on the list. Phil Shaw is the one who came up with this. He’s done others as well. You can find him on Instagram.

 

Here’s how the titles read as sentences:

The English patient had caught it on the beach. “I should have stayed home,” she said. Now she was in quarantine in the dark house of splendid isolation. Still, hope springs eternal. With a little bit of luck, common sense and personal hygiene, the corona book of horror stories must end soon. Always remember, clean hands save lives. And when in doubt, don’t go out!

 

Here are the books along with the authors.

 

The English Patient (by Michael Ondaatje)

Had (by Rolf Hiorth-Schøyen)

Caught (by Harlan Coben)

It (by Stephen King)

On the Beach (by Nevil Schute)

 

I Should Have Stayed Home (by Horace McCoy)

She Said (by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey)

 

Now (by Morris Gleitzman)

She Was (by Janice Hollowell)

In Quarantine (by Duncan Foley)

In the Dark (by Mark Billingham)

House of Splendid Isolation (by Edna O'Brien)

 

Still (by Adam Thorpe)

Hope Springs Eternal (by Ginger Simpson)

 

With a Little Bit of Luck (by Sabrina Mahfouz)

Common Sense (by Thomas Paine)

And (by Fay Chivers)

Personal Hygiene (by Frank Overton)

The Corona Book of Horror Stories (Published by Corona Books)

Must End Soon (by Jonathan Meres)

 

Always Remember (by Shannon J. Mills)

Clean Hands Save Lives (by Thierry Crouzet)

And (by Fay Chivers)

When in Doubt (by D. Reginald Thomas)

Don't (by Jenny Diski)

Go (by Simon Lewis)

Out! (by Max Austin)

 

It’s going to take me a LONG time to get through all these books, and unless I get some feedback interest in book reports, I’m not going to post them. If a book really speaks to me, I might talk about that specific book.

 

Dice Stories

 

Back when I was looking for fun stuff to do with Lia, I came across what I call “Dice Stories”. There were several lists of subject matter put into categories with 6 choices for each category. You would roll a die to pick something from Characters. Then roll for a Setting. Then for Plot, Weather, Conflict etc. You could make up your own categories. Now you have the basics for a short story. If you Google “Roll the dice to make a story” you will find tons of ideas.

 

This would be a great writing prompt (in my opinion) for a kid (or adult) to make up some fun little stories. I wish some of my teachers in grade school or even high school creative writing class had made use of something like this for a prompt.

 

Here are a couple examples. You could even combine them to really flesh out a story. You could also change things for an older writer. I found several of these on Google images and Lia and I even made up some on our own.

 

 

Try it out and write me a story…