Everyday Canvas

Blogging and Straws

Prompt: Happy Cinco De Mayo! It's all the Kentucky Derby! Let's put on our crazy hats and slug back a margarita before we answer in celebration.
Did you know it's been 4.2 years since Blog City opened its blogging forum? Time flies when you're having fun.
What's been happening in your world? What would you like to see happen in your world? What can we do to make blogging more interesting to you?

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I came into BC after it has been running for some time, possibly less than a year, on Cindy's insistence. Before that, I was keeping a blog on my own and focusing on writing as its central theme. When I first came in and faced the prompts, some of them shocked me because they were asking for personal data. I admit that I acted in a snarky manner in answering them, at the time, but of course, I soon realized asking someone how many love affairs they had in their lives could be answered from a fictional character’s POV, and not the actual writer’s. Now, I love answering prompts.

In addition, it is much better when different people give the prompts. For that reason, I have been missing Princess Megan Rose 22 Years ’s prompts for the last couple of weeks, even though Lyn's a Witchy Woman is a very versatile prompt giver and I adore her prompts. Whether we have four or three prompters each week, writing every day--at least trying to write every day--is a great discipline for writers.

What’s been happening in my world? Lol, where do I begin? But you are asking about blogging, aren’t you! I like the status quo, especially in BC as here we write because we want to and not because to win something or prove ourselves to be better in some way. I always thought of writing, in its essence, to be a personal, non-competitive choice and not a race of some kind, even though the publishers, with their business frenzy, have made it a race and turned perfectly good writers into vendors. I think the self-publishing flood of today serves them right.

Not that there is anything wrong with a bit of competition. I know that every once in a while, a friendly contest motivates and fires up the will to write, but for something I am doing on an everyday basis, I like the non-competitiveness of BC. Maybe I am so old that I’ve become cemented in my ways.

In any case, Happy Cinco De Mayo, Dear Blog City, and I love horse races.

I’ll be rooting for a couple of numbers in the Kentucky Derby. I said numbers because I can’t keep the horses’ names in my mind. So, before the Derby starts, I pick two numbers and hubby picks two, and as we watch the race on TV, we egg on the horses carrying our numbers. What do you expect from an oldie who already has difficulty recalling people’s names? You certainly wouldn’t expect me to recall every horse and its pedigree, would you?

Prompt: Since Fivesixer likes facts on Fridays, let's give him 11 uses for a drinking straw except drinking that's too dang easy

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How about the straws’ uses and flaws, together? I can’t list the positives without facing the negatives, can I!

1. The UK is about to ban the plastic straws because they are the worst non-biodegradable product ever. McDonald's and a few other companies are also cutting down on their uses in deference to the problems of pollution in oceans and landfills.
2. Your face looks ugly when drinking from a straw.
3. Drinking from a straw with that sucking motion encourages a lot of creases to form around your lips and the upper and lower parts of the mouth area.
4. They may, however, have some kind of a use for disabled or sick people.
6. Straws can be made from bamboo and other bio-gradable products, but their production is difficult. They have been made from paper in the past, but paper doesn’t hold up every liquid drink as well as a plastic straw.
7. You can blow on a liquid, creating waves, ripples, and sprays and try to entertain babies and young children. I saw my mother do this with her grandchildren, which totally stunned my kids who argued with her that straws were not made for that use. This was forty years ago, more or less.
8. Straws are lightweight and easily replaceable, should they fall to the ground.
9. A straw is used by one per person and for one time only. This discourages the contagion of disease or anything close to it through the mouth.
10. Two people can drink from the same container by using their separate straws, although I would hate doing this. Too much togetherness, you know!
11. If you are drinking from a can of soda or even a cup of something in a movie theater or some such place when your mind is focused on elsewhere, using a straw prevents spills.