Tag Archives: Family

PROMPT: Family Traditions

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Daily writing prompt
Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.
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1.) The Feast of St. Nicholas of Myra: It’s like Secret Santa, but each family member draws a name from a hat, and they then abscond with a prized position of the person whose name they drew and pawn it at a local pawn shop. They then hide the receipt in the house. Family members each have 15 minutes to find the receipt. If they find it, they get their shit back. If they do not, the “Secret Santa” gets to keep the cash.

2.) Hide the weasel: You hide a hungry weasel in someone’s room without telling them, and they have to find it before they get a toe bit off.

3.) Candle lighting roulette: candles are set in a revolving candelabra, which is given a spin. Family members take turns stepping forward to light the candle that is closest to them. One candle hides an M-80 firecracker which explodes to spatter the unlucky family member with hot wax.

DAILY PHOTO: Macaque Family

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Family of macaque monkeys on Gudibande Hill in Karnataka, India.
Baby macaque monkey on the rocks atop of Gudibande Hill.
A family of macaque monkeys on Gudibande Fort in the state of Karnataka in India.

PROMPT: 3 Favorite Meals

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Daily writing prompt
What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?
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Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. (Chronologically, not in order of preference.)

Paper masala dosa for breakfast; Thai red curry for lunch; mixed fruit for dinner.

PROMPT: Family Member

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Describe a family member.

When you are very young, he or she is very tall. As you get older, he or she becomes a manageable size, but tiny new one’s sprout up, and then you start to shrink and the tiny ones cease to be tiny and catch up and surpass one in height.

PROMPT: Positive Thing

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Daily writing prompt
Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
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Be present.

PROMPT: Parents (at my age)

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What were your parents doing at your age?
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Regretting having that last kid… (that would be me!)

The Langur Family [Haiku]

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1 
a troop of langurs:
 five monkeys doing five things
  as one family.

PROMPT: Family Member

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Describe a family member.

Eyes: two; Ears: two; Nose: one, but with two entrances; Legs: two; Arms: Two; Head: one, but mostly symmetrical to a sagittal plane…

I’ll stop there. I don’t want to offer so much detail that an AI renders a fake photo and steals this person’s identity.

BOOK REVIEW: Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag (Trans. Srinath Perur)

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Ghachar GhocharGhachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This novella, translated from Kannada, shows the Indian family as both a gordian knot that can be the source of great strength through unity and as an unruly tangle that can neither be loosed nor made neat. It’s character-driven literary fiction that focuses on a young man in a family that becomes nouveau-riche. He is aimless and dependent upon the income of his family’s business, and that is fine and natural with him until his newly-wedded wife discovers he’s more man-child than the business executive his calling cards proclaim him to be.

I found the book to be both insightful and brilliantly crafted. As mentioned, it’s more about the family dynamic than a story, but it’s humorous, contemplative, and shows the psychology of family drama nicely.

I’d highly recommend this novella for readers of literary fiction.


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