Category: blogging

finally home

Because it has been a complicated trip, we had to have one final chapter. When we went to get our car cleaned off in the long-term parking lot, we found out that, despite just having replaced the battery, the car would not start. Getting someone there to jump it took several hours, but the silver lining was that the freezing rain which had fallen along our route in the morning had melted and dried by the time we got there in the afternoon.

So, finally at home and bracing for the coming days of trying to catch up on what we have been missing here over the last three weeks…
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/09/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-9th-2022/


not quite back home

We are back in the US but won’t make it home until tomorrow. We have at least a three hour drive tomorrow. We are hoping the forecast freezing rain does not materialize…

This jot is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/07/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2022-daily-prompt-jan-8th/ . No logos today. It feels like 1:45 AM at this point.

ready to fly

Negative COVID tests times three so we are ready to fly tomorrow. Dreading the good-byes tonight, especially with four-year-old ABC.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/07/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-7th-2022/

January 6

January 6, like December 7 and September 11, has entered the consciousness of the United States as a date on which we were attacked. January 6 is more painful to me because the attack was perpetrated by our own citizens, animated by lies about the integrity of the 2020 election.

The harm of the attack on the Capitol was compounded by over one hundred members of Congress who voted on January 7 against certifying the votes from some states, despite dozens of recounts, audits, and court cases verifying the accuracy of the vote count. Investigations since have also shown there was no widespread voter fraud or irregularities with the 2020 election.

Strangely, the same people who insist the 2020 election was rigged have discounted the election interference that took place in the 2016 election. This interference, which was known publicly in part before the election and elucidated further by the Mueller report and the talking indictments of Russian operatives after the election, could have impacted the result of the election, especially in the targeted districts that the Trump campaign told the Russians about from their internal campaign polling data.

After the Republicans refused the opportunity to set up an independent investigation of the events leading up to January 6 and the day itself, the House of Representatives set up a special committee, which has been meeting for months. There has been some public testimony and there will probably be more coming soon. I try to hope that this will be helpful in showing what happened and why – and who was responsible for the violence and the lies that have weakened our country and its democratic norms.

It is obvious that Trump has been the loudest voice saying the elections are rigged, but his own words dating back to 2016 show that, for him, “rigged” equals I lost and “fair” equals I won. It has nothing to do with accurate counts of votes cast or fair voter registration and ballot access or lack of foreign interference.

What is even more disheartening is that the Republican party, which had an opportunity to stand up for the fairness of the election, our democratic system, and the Constitution, chose instead to undermine our government in a quest for power, even when that power is gained at the expense of the majority of our own citizens. While there have been a few brave Republicans who have stood up for the truth and for the Constitution – and many more who have abandoned the party altogether – most have supported the lies of the former president and have not voted for bills to help the country deal with the pandemic, the many needs of our people, and the strengthening of voting rights.

I am still in the UK visiting family on this first anniversary of the insurrection. If I were at home, I’d probably be watching coverage about it today, analyzing where the country stands and what the future might be. I would like to be hopeful, but I’m not. While I try to do what I can to spread facts, it doesn’t reach, let alone convince, those who have fallen victim to lies and conspiracy theories.

I will try, in the coming year, to do what I can to keep spreading facts, as will millions of others in their professional and personal lives, in hopes that we can get national voting rights legislation passed and that the Democrats can strengthen their majorities in order to govern more effectively. It’s probably too much to hope that the Republicans will decide to honor their oaths and help to govern, which is sad and frustrating and scary.

Who knows what the next year will bring and what January 6, 2023 will look like?
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/06/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-6th-2022/

One-Liner Wednesday: from a friend

Christine’s message to her family and friends is to love one another and keep each other close.

from the obituary of my friend who I posted about yesterday

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays and/or Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/05/one-liner-wednesday-jusjojan-the-5th-2022-by-george-ive-got-it/

being more northerly

Some people in the Binghamton NY area where I live have the unfortunate habit of thinking that the area has the cloudiest weather possible.

They have not been in London UK in winter. There has been very little sunshine in the nearly two weeks we have been here. This is partly due to cloud cover which is nearly constant. There hasn’t been that much rain, though there is some. It’s also quite breezy, all of which is typical of winter here.

The other reason that there isn’t much sunshine is because the amount of daylight available at this latitude is much shorter than it is in Binghamton. On December 22nd, when I arrived in London, there were nine hours and six minutes of daylight in Binghamton, but only seven hours and 54 minutes here.

One thing that is in evidence here, as elsewhere around the world, is weather weirding. It has been very warm for winter here. E has only seen frost one morning so far and the temperatures here have stayed almost entirely in the 10s Celsius (50s Fahrenheit). It’s unusual for it to stay this warm for this long in winter, which is typically, while not the cold and snow of the US Northeast, chillier and closer to freezing than what we are seeing this year. We are also having a warmer than normal early winter back home. In both places, it’s likely the climate-change induced impacts to the jet stream in conjunction with the ocean currents causing the unusual warmth.

At least none of us are having to shovel snow…
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/03/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-3rd-2022/

1500 (depending how you count)

I am not at all diligent about my blog stats, but WordPress continues to throw some info into my notifications, so I know that I’ve just reached 1500 WordPress followers!

My blog page itself says I have 1,682 followers, which includes followers by email, twitter, and through my Top of JC’s Mind Facebook page.

Either way, yay!

I know that only a few dozen people read my blog on any kind of regular basis and fewer than that comment online, although it still takes me by surprise when I get comments in person from friends, as though I think only cyberfolks read my blog.

Whoever you are, whether you read regularly, occasionally, or just this one post, I’m grateful for your visit and invite you to return whenever you can. This is my 1,561st post, so, whether your interest is poetry, politics, the environment, spirituality, family life, health, or generalized musings, you can probably find something of interest in my archives.

This year, I’m hoping to pay more attention to my “JC’s Confessions” and “How does JC’s Mind Work?” series.

Admittedly, that involves my mind actually working. These last few years have been such a struggle as our family has dealt with the loss of the last three members of the elder generation, B’s mom, known here as Grandma, and my parents, known here – and in real life – as Nana and Paco. Grief still has me feeling scattered, but I’m trying to regain some focus. Maybe, eventually, I’ll even return to having some kind of a predictable rhythm to my days, including writing time. It’s been ages since I’ve had that.

We’ll see.

Whatever happens, I’m sure I will eventually put it into words here at Top of JC’s Mind.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Learn more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/02/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-2nd-2022/

2022

We are celebrating New Year’s with the UK branch of the family. For New Year’s Eve dinner, daughter E and spouse L prepared Korean food. I admit that I didn’t stay up for the midnight festivities which follow the Filipino tradition of L’s parents, with whom E and L and their daughters ABC and JG live.

At midnight, they bang on pots and pans to make noise to drive away evil spirits. There were not organized fireworks due to COVID, but there were lots of fireworks in the streets – all evening and until about 3 this morning. Actually, there have been fireworks in the neighborhood for the past several nights, as though people needed to practice for the big event.

E and L went shopping for fruits as they prepared bowls with 12 different round fruits, which symbolizes prosperity for the household for each month of the year. They even prepared a bowl for us to have in our Airbnb. It’s important not to eat any of the fruits until the new year has begun. L’s family will also hang grapes above the front door, where they remain for the year. First they will have to take down the 2021 grapes which are now a bunch of raisins!


For New Year’s dinner, E is planning to make lasagna and homemade bread. This is our family’s traditional Christmas dinner which got transferred to New Year’s Day this year. It will be a nice way to remember my parents as we move into our first year with them both gone.

Wishing all of us peace, contentment, and good health in 2022!
*****
Linda is once again hosting Just Jot It January to encourage daily posting to get the new year off to a good start! Prompts are provided, but not required. Learn more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/12/31/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2022-daily-prompt-jan-1/

One-Liner Wednesday: Desmond Tutu

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

Desmond Tutu

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/12/29/one-liner-wednesday-psa-part-2/

SoCS: Christmas food

Linda extended Stream of Consciousness Saturday into Sunday this week, giving those of us celebrating Christmas a bit more time to post. She also gave us an easy prompt – yum – so, of course, I am going to write about all the yummy food we had yesterday.

I am in London UK to celebrate the holidays with daughter E and her family, so we ate differently than most Christmases. When E and T were growing up, they usually sang at our church Christmas morning, so we developed the tradition of having lasagna on Christmas Day because it was easy to prepare ahead and then bake after church. It was also a nod to my mother’s Italian heritage.

This year, we did have a bit of Italian heritage by having panettone for breakfast, but our main meal was an amalgam of British and Filipino dishes, as E’s parents-in-law are immigrants to the U.K. from the Philippines. We had pancit, mushroom stuffed puff pastry cups, bacon wrapped sausages over stuffing, a clove-studded baked ham, glazed carrots, and shaved Brussels sprout salad. Everything was yummy!

We had great desserts, too! December 25th is also E’s father-in-law’s birthday so there was a decorated applesauce cake with appropriate singing, of course, and two pies that we had made in our rental flat, one pumpkin and one apple. All of them were yummy. Of course, I had to sample all three!

I did have a very traditional evening snack. Spouse B had made shortbreads from his family’s recipe and gingerbreads from a recipe he made every year with E and T as they were growing up. It was a bit of a challenge adapting the recipes from US to U.K. ingredients and measurements but they are still familiar and yummy!

I hope that everyone, wherever you are and whether you are celebrating a holiday or not, is blessed with some yummy food in your life this weekend!

(Now comes the part of the post where I try to do a pingback to Linda’s blog. I’m uncharacteristically writing this from an app so we’ll see if I can manage it. I’m definitely not trying to copy in the SoCS logo this time around! /https://lindaghill.com/2021/12/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socss-dec-25-26-2021/ )