“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages and kings” -Lewis Carroll

My daughter and I toasted the New Year with a Prosecco and pomegranate juice cocktail. Prosecco is dry and very refreshing. The pomegranate juice added the right amount of sweetness. I feel like I need several glasses to forget about what is in the news today. My anxiety level is definitely elevated. I would like to have it all explained to us before we get into a war, not after.  This is not the time for nonsensical phrases or keeping secrets. Feels like we’ve stepped through the looking glass and are now in a world where everything is strange and foreboding.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is use an ‘ow’ word in the post.

“Oh, by gosh, by jingle

it’s time for carols and Kris Kringle…”

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Holiday Season! Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is ‘ingle’. Find a word that contains “ingle” and use it any way you’d like in your post.

Featured image of vintage Christmas card via PublicDomainPictures.net

Song lyrics from ‘Mistletoe and Holly’ by Faith Evans

There had been much rancor and raised voices on the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives. As the chairman of the committee opened the debate on the Articles of Impeachment, he told the members that they could each have five minutes to make an opening statement. Many of the Democrats chose to speak about how they felt compelled to do their duty to uphold their oath of office, to defend the Constitution of the United States and preserve our democracy.  One Congressman talked about the story of Esther in the bible standing up to the king, others related that they were doing this for their grandchildren or for all the girls and boys in the country. One Congresswoman said she wanted children to know that it was important when you take an oath to follow it. Many of the members talked about growing up poor or coming to this country as immigrants and how honored and proud they were to be citizens of the the United States and elected to Congress. Congresswoman Lucy McBath shared her life story of wanting so much to be a mother and finally having a son. She dreamed of her son growing up and having a happy life. He was in a car with his friends when a man drove up, said their music was too loud, and fired 10 shots into the car killing her only child. She had come to Congress to work for gun control and other issues important to her community.  Listening to these men and women, some of my representatives, renewed my faith. They are some of the best of us.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is to use a word that means ‘loud.’

Featured image Photo by Carol Highsmith of detail of mural ‘Government’ by Elihu Vedder via Wikimedia.org

A white lie is said to be harmless, done to protect the other person’s feelings. A darker shade is when someone lies to your face not to protect your feelings, but to hide their own wrongdoing  and does not care that they are telling lies. Maybe they get so used to doing it that they don’t think of it as lying or it is just a version of a reality that is the most convenient for them. The darkest form of deception is to think that if you keep repeating a lie for long enough it will become the truth.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS,  is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt word for today is ‘shade’.

Featured image ‘Deceive-deception-lies’ by OpenClipart-Vectors via Pixabay.com

“The time is always right to do the right thing”-Martin Luther King Jr.

It is hard to write about light things because I have been very disturbed over the goings on in my country. Part of me just wants to close my eyes to the bad in the world and think only of happy endings. What is more upsetting to me is that many in positions of leadership lack integrity. They want to gloss over and justify all the wrong doing so they can stay in power.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS,  is hosted by Linda G Hill. The “prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is ‘ght.’ Find a word that contains the letters ‘ght’ in that order, and use it any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use three or more different words containing those letters. ”

Featured image ‘The Muse at Sunrise’ by Alphonse Osbert (1918) via Plum leaves on Flickr.com

I remember my maternal grandmother telling me that she had harvested walnuts in Northern California. Nowadays, the harvest is done by machines. Some brief research tells me that California grows most of the walnuts in the US and that the English Walnut was brought to California by the Spanish padres in the late 1700s. We used to get tangerines and whole walnuts in the shell in our Christmas stockings along with peppermint candy canes. Turns out this is an old European custom, ( the tangerines or oranges and walnuts). My maternal grandmother was English and I think the tradition was passed down from her. It’s been pretty nuts here in California recently with all the fires popping up North and South. I still have a suitcase packed in case of emergency. I like to think the fires will skip our town since we had them just last year and had to be evacuated. It’s a real shell game though and we can not take it for granted that we will be spared. Hope the rain comes early this year.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS,  is hosted by Linda G Hill. Today’s prompt word is ‘nuts.’

Featured image of ‘bulk nuts’ by Kazvarpal on Wikimedia.org