Seasonal Snapshots and Rudolph's Special Problem

Every Sunday, UnknownMami plays gracious hostess to blogland's  Sundays in My City. Visit her site to visit the world.

We've no shortage of festive sights in Chico, CA.

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For the sake of sillyness, I've resurrected an oldie inspired by Jenny Matlock. Her Saturday Centus exercise involves writing a piece within 100 words. The prompt is bolded below.

Rudolph's Special Problem, 12/10

      Times are tough. Rudolph's lost his charge. The poor deer's tried everything: LED bulbs, performance enhancing pills, Emotional Freeing Techniques...to no avail.
       Meanwhile, Santa patronizes Starbucks. Gulping a grande chai-nog, he ponders Plan B. Do I pick the Tom Tom, Garmin, or Magellan? Shall I shop Best Buy, Costco, eBay or Amazon? Farklempt,* Santa skypes the elves for a consult.
       Vixen and Prancer strut by, giggling about Rudolph's special problem.
       Eyeing Santa's laptop, Vixen sneers, "What was he thinking? OMG! Elves are soooo 2009..."
       "Totally," adds Prancer. "Hasn't he heard of outsourcing?"
        Santa flashes the deers a gesture inappropriate for the season.

***

*Farklempt = Yiddish for utterly flustered and discouraged.

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Thanks for visiting.

Catch your breath, as we approach mid-December, 2013's finish line.


Have a safe, peaceful, warm-loving Sunday and new week!

Hunger Games Chocolate Bar ~Beef Jerky and Smoked Mesquite: The Latest in Chocolate

Are you a fan of The Hunger Games? Me neither. I recently learned that they have a line of chocolate, though. Naturally, I had to try it (for your edification). This one is a Hunger Games' CATCHING FIRE Beef Jerky and Smoked Mesquite milk chocolate bar. I found it, along with five-ish other flavors, at Safeway.  It cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $4. But that's not all. It comes with a year's worth of free chocolate if you win their sweepstakes.

Plus, as I was eating this baby, I was smiling. I don't like beef jerkey, but I liked it in this chocolate bar. They did well to combine a smokey, salty, slightly beefy taste with smooth milk chocolate. It's not overly anything. I was happily impressed.

My only problem was a lingering unsettling sweet after-taste. Overall, though, I give this Catching Fire bar a 7.5.

I am not being compensated in any manner for this review. If I was, I would not have been so honest.

Cheers, and have a sweet day.

Cheersfest: Toasting to and Roasting of the Bird

The blog community loves Mr. Arlee "Lee" Bird! So this roast is for him.

"The original brains behind the annual A to Z Challenge, Lee can be counted on to pay it forward and is a well-respected member of the blogging community."

Hosted by Mark Koopmans, Morgan Shamy, David Powers King, Stephen Tremp and The Ninja Captain himself, CheersFest 2.0 goes LIVE! Dec. 9, 2013.

 Four questions about Arlee Bird:
1) Why did Lee come up with the A-Z Challenge? Lee is old. He forgets the alphabet. Creating The Challenge was cheaper than Hooked on  Phonics.
 2) If someone dreams about being a juggler, what does it mean? They like big jugs?
 3) Is a post by Mr. Bird worth two in the bush? Depends which bush. Bush Sr? Yes. George Dubya? No. Not without tossing in Hooked on Phonics.
 4) Who could play Lee in a documentary? (Living or dead.) George Burns. Living or dead, they're both old.

In +/- 100 words, (excluding the title) write flash fiction using all these prompts:
· Bird,· Juggler,· Challenge, · Brown Jacket, · Tossing

I don't know what flash fiction is, so I wrote a limerick.

 Lee Bird was a Juggler by trade.
  As a bachelor, the dude had it made.
   Brown Jacketed babes watched, gawked, and then stayed.
    Tossing fire -- a challenge ne'er delayed.  
      In the end, Lee always got....paid.

For Bonus Points:
· In +/- 40 words, can you come up with a caption for Lee’s Facebook picture?

         "Pick me, ladies! Mine's multi-colored, and I can keep it up for hours!"