Writing Prompts

Skeletons, Statues, Vampires and Other Surprises

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All of these pictures have one thing in common- I took them by accident.

I was either aiming at something else or I just clicked my camera at the ‘wrong time’.

I wish I had the talent to take my camera out in the world and find these oddly entertaining moments on purpose but I don’t have that talent and I don’t think it’s a skill that anybody can learn.

So once and awhile I go through my photo gallery and get a fun surprise. I suppose that will have to be good enough.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

 

I was checking the time on my phone when I  must have pushed the wrong icon and got this- according to Google it’s about a week old.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

I was taking a picture of this marble tomb because I liked the pink marble and the textures when I got photo bombed by a vampire. No fooling, on that day a group of vampires were taking a tour of the cemetery and one caught me:

Graveyard Photo-Bomb
— at Saint Louis Cemetery- October 31st 2012

I got off the train and was putting my phone into my backpack when I heard that click sound my app makes when I take pictures. I didn’t look at it right away because I new I was standing near a light post and who cares about those? When I went to delete the photo I saw the sticker:

Photo A.M. Moscoso

I had no idea the statue was a person in makeup- I just liked her dress so I took out my camera and snapped the  picture and right after that the Statue started to dance. It was a cool experience.

 2017 ·
Dancing Statue, Pike Place Market Seattle, Washington

 

WordPress Daily Prompt: What skill would you like to learn?

Those Little Things That Count

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Artist Unknown

When I was a teenager my friend’s Mom told me that I was ‘dark and negative’ that I needed to smile more and that I should be less snobby and ‘act like a regular teenage girl.”

I shouldn’t be playing guitar and riding motorcyles, she said. I should be going to parties and hanging out with the girls at the pool. I need to be ‘more feminine’ she said. I should wear makeup because I had that ‘yellow asian  skin’ and that I should do something about my big  brown ‘horsey  looking eyes’

I was thirteen at the time, I didn’t wear makeup because my Mom and Grandmother said I was pretty enough without it- plus I was too young for it and when I turned 16 I could wear it if I wanted too.   Mom did buy me those flavored lip glosses that were popular with teenagers at the time, and I thought the way I dressed was pretty cool. I wore jeans and pretty t-shirts that were the rage in the 70’s.

Looking back on it I was dressing age appropriate, which given the times was probably just fine with my parents. And for the rest, I really didn’t start to wear makeup on a regular basis until I was in my mid twenties.

Over the years I thought that maybe I should have listened to my friend’s Mom a little and paid attention to those little details that would have made me, I don’t know- less intimidating I guess.

Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor. It’s hard to be accepted into the herd if you look more like a mangy wolf then a fluffly sheep and being in the herd is important to a lot of people.

To them social acceptance is a mattter of survival.

But lucky for me, though my family weren’t what you’d call super duper close they were super duper accepting of the people around them and that included their somewhat odd family members. So I remember being hurt that my friend’s Mom didn’t think much of me and how I looked and those other things that made me who I was, but honestly in the end I didn’t care.

If you are wondering about my friend and her Mom- well.  When we were in our early 40’s I heard  my friend was in prison and her Mom ended up in a worse position  then that.

My neighbor was helping my friend’s Mom move from where she had been housed for awhile to regular housing  and they were talking about the old neighborhood and what her daughter was going through and then she asked about Anita- that weird little kid-whatever happened to her?

Written In Ink

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Word Of the Day Challenge: NEWSPAPER

Photo A.M. Moscoso

The last time I remember seeing a newspaper in one of those plastic stands that use to dot street corners and stand in front of grocery stores was in 1999.

I remember it because that was when we had the WTO protests in Seattle and after the pepper spray and dust had settled, the free newespaper were flying out of those little plastic stands like crazy-the free papers were carrying a lot of stories about WTO and not many of the articles about the the Seattle Police Department or the local government’s response was what one could call favorable.

So, I was waiting for my bus when a Cop on horseback rode buy and his horse relived himself near the curb.

The cop got off and cleaned up after his horse. I thought that was pretty cool because dog walkers didn’t always do that and horses leave a bigger mess.

What wasn’t cool was that he went to one of the plastic paper stands, which as I mentioned housed a paper that was critical of SPD and he was about to shove his horse’ pile of poop into it when he saw me and a few people at the bus stop across the street.

Now keep in mind this was before youtube and social media and tik tok. He could have shoved that wad off horse poo in there and if we had said anything about it, he could have easily said he and his horse had been framed.

Instead,  let the lid on the stand close and then he went to a garbage can and put the horse mess where it belonged. I’m not sure why he didn’t carry through on his plan to turn a paper stand he didn’t think much of into a toilet- but to this day I remain curious.

 

There were probably newspaper stands all around me after that, but I don’t remember them. This one, I will always remember.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Help Wanted

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WP Prompters asked: List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

I’m already doing one of those jobs- I write on my blog everyday .It pays absolutely NOTHING. But I love to write and I love to challenge myself, so the rewards that I reap- like feeling I have a purpose in  life and the happiness writing brings me makes up forthe zero income thing.

Die Mysteriosen Catakomben
Weylandt and Bauchwitz1890

The second thing I would like to be is a Paranormal Investigator.

I wouldn’t be one of those scripted “reality” show investigators who run around abandoned houses and buildings in the middle of the night screaming ( the ghosts are DEAD not DEAF ) and commanding spirits to make themselves known.

I would be out there looking for ghosts for the adveture of it all.

My hope is that in the end I would want to be one of those people that hears a story about a place and goes out there with her dog and camera and disappears. Five years later someone finds my car, my notebooks  and my camera and not a trace of me and my dog.

My camera and notebooks would end up on line and  Social Media users would  opine ,  and proclaim ” Well in my humble opinion ( those opinions are NEVER humble ) this was fake or this was real or what happened to the dog because if it turns out something happened to her dog and she put  him in harms way then  I hope she’s dead.”

The Magician in the Barn
Ludwig Knaus1862

The third thing I would want to be is a sidewalk Magician. I’d give it all up to be a sidewalk magician.

I would set up my props and do my shows at a place like the Pike Place Market in Seattle. I would weave into my act stories about the ghosts that haunt the waterfront and how I  learned and practiced  my magic tricks in room in the darkest, unexplored   part of Underground Seattle where, back during the Prohibition bootleggers used to move their bottles of liquor unseen by the Police-( Hahaha- they were probably helping them move the crates ) and that sometimes when I was down there alone, with my rabbit and magician’s trunk,  I would hear the faintest hints of music and laughing- and sometimes screaming- horrible blood curdling screams and then applause.