Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Out of Standard

Bishop Snowman and the Spice Posse.  Copyrighted, Isadora Gruye Photography.




Greetings Garden Dwellers!

American toads and followers, consider me your Thanksgiving benefactor, here for the Wednesday Out of Standard, and you better believe I will back tomorrow to launch a new interview series.   Non-Americans, consider me your special hostess for a mid-week near the end of November.

Let’s get a move on to Out of Standard.

One Wednesday each month, Kerry allows me to take the reigns and steer us off course.  I will set before you a challenge to defy the conventions of a particular theme.  You will be called upon to find new places in the everyday, but there is a twist: in order to complete each challenge, you will also be asked to share something about yourself with the IGWRT community.  

Today’s challenge falls the Wednesday before Thanksgiving: a holiday Americans spend giving thanks for the bountiful harvest and friendly stewardship which will sustain them through the cold winter months ahead.  Since most food is made in laboratories, and most Americans communicate via text message or social networking sites, the day is really more about eating heaps of food.  Here on the north plain, we double up on starches, stuff turkeys with sausage, and menu items with any nutritional value are drenched in cream of mushroom soup and fried onion strings.  The hearty midland Thanksgiving feast was my inspiration for this month’s out of standard.  Let’s focus on a feast of a different sort:

THE GUILTY PLEASURE

We all have one.  but wait.....
Actually, I firmly believe we all have two guilty pleasures:  the one we confess to in public (“All right,” you’ll announce loudly at work, “You caught me!  I read the Hunger Games, and it was really good) and then there is that deep, deep deeply dark guilty indulgence we cover up by admitting to our lesser pleasures (you are comfortable telling your colleagues you liked the Hunger Games, but you do not mention that you write Katniss/Buffy cross over fan-fiction and make your own Katniss dolls with scraps of your own hair--while that is totally natural, you just can’t admit to it, because it’s a little embarrassing).  

And guess, my toads,which one I want you to draw from...bring on the deep dark.

Here are the rules of this month’s challenge:  

  1. Admit to your deeply dark guilty pleasure.
  2. Write a poem gluttonously inspired by it.  NOTICE: I said gluttonously inspired, which means no light hinting or a slight name drop.  

Take a moment to revel in your secret affinity (much like I will be reveling in green bean casserole and lots of red wine) and bring us back something beyond the standard!   As always, I ask that you write something new for this prompt and not post something you have previously written which conveniently fits the challenge.  

Go now toads, rub your bellies in the muck and bleat delightfully at its deliciousness.


24 comments:

Bob Bushell said...

Happy thanksgiving day.

Laurie Kolp said...

Yummy... thanks, I'm grateful for all of you.

Cad said...

But does the guilt make the pleasure more, or less?!

TOADS! I'm disappointed you have that awful word verification in place! Give us a break, and remove it?

Kerry O'Connor said...

@Cad. The word verification will be removed when we stop receiving 400 spam messages a week. Thank you for your patience.

Kerry O'Connor said...

Izy... What can I say? You had me guffawing at "our food is made in laboratories". This challenge is sure to bring out a lot of muddy little toads.

hedgewitch said...

This is, as always, a terrific prompt Izy--I always look forward to them--and perfect for the holidays--my only problem is, as I have gotten older and really cranky, I don't have much guilt about my pleasures, when and if I can locate a few. I will see if I can delve down into my psyche and unearth something more serious than salt & vinegar kettel-fried potato chips.

Margaret said...

... not so muddy, but certainly pink cheeked.

Margaret said...

OK TOADS!! I want NO MORE guilty pleasures about chocolate and candy. DIG DEEP... I know I embarrassed myself ;P

Margaret said...

Salt and fried kettle chips. My son and I are crazy in love with them.

Margaret said...

...salt & vinegar ,.. That should have read

Marian said...

well, mine is not about chocolate OR chips. go figure! ;)

hedgewitch said...

Ugh. I feel a bit naked atm, but I definitely did not write about chocolate--if the day comes when I feel guilty about eating chocolate, just shoot me. have stuff to do now but will read this evening.

LLM Calling said...

My guilty pleasure is out there now, what poor taste I have http://llmcalling.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/my-guilty-pleasure.html

Fireblossom said...

I agree with Margaret. Sweets is the deepest darkest guilty pleasure some of you can fess up to? Puh leeze. B-b-b-awk!

Herotomost said...

Wow......skeletons that I don't even need to dust off.....hmmmmmmmm. Great prompt IG!

Susan said...

Ha ha I did it. I thought I wouldn't but I did. Happy Thanksgiving.

Isadora Gruye said...

Mine attempt is up...please forgive the wonky font sizing.....happy thanksgiving american toads, non americans: happy thursday!

Susie Clevenger said...

I have my guilty pleasure up..not sure I should be admitting to it...lol Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Doctor FTSE said...

Hmmm. Problem I am a roboot.

Kerry O'Connor said...

I'm so over-loaded with work this week but I have been giving the challenge some thought and hope to come back to it the minute I can breathe again.

Peggy said...

I was really stuck on this one--what could I write about if I was unwilling to admit it in public? I finally came up with something (that is true) after reading some of the things you all posted. Thanks to all of you! And happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate this holiday.

Mrs.Trellis said...

Faint heart never won...anything! i, Ada Trellis, decided to be bold, and give the namby pambies something to raise their eyebrows over.

And on the word verification issue, I agree with my Beloved Caddoc! Please consider removing it, as so many of us have - the sky won't fall in if you do!

Lolamouse said...

Just got a breather from the tryptophan overdose to post my poem. Will return to read ASAP. Happy Thanksgiving to all my toadies!

Doctor FTSE said...

Much time and effor goes into decoding these wretched wv's. Return visits highly unlikely.