Tag: SoCS

SoCS: What would you do?

People sometimes ask themselves, “What would you do if…?”

We in the United States are now getting the answer to to those hypotheticals when it comes to questions of what we would did if our liberties, rights, and Constitutional protections were threatened.

The answer is “We organize and fight!”

I don’t mean fighting in a physical sense; we are fighting non-violently. We are marching, calling and writing our members of Congress and the president, getting the word out in traditional and social media, and working through established organizations.

One of the heartening things to me is that we are helping each other with various causes, even if we are not directly affected by them.

I have been involved with various organizations for environmental and social justice for years. Most of them would co-ordinate with some other closely related organizations within their areas of interest, such as environmental or health care causes, but not think about other areas, such as racial justice or poverty. Now, everyone is pitching in to help any injustice that appears.

We are all in this together.

It isn’t easy and how effective we will be is unknown, as these are early days.

But we must keep at it to ensure our rights and the fate of our nation.

There is an old story about not speaking out when “they” (meaning the authorities in an authoritarian country) came for the members of this group and that group because the narrator is not a member of those groups. When they come for the narrator, there is no one left to speak up for him.

We are not making that mistake.

And for that I am grateful.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is wood/would. Join us for SoCS and/or Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-and-jusjojan-jan-2817/

 

SoCS: RiverRead

Last night at Open Mic at RiverRead Books, my poet-friend Merrill Oliver Douglas read a new poem that she had written after visiting the Corning Museum of Glass.

I read “Thanks to the Department of Public Art” which also mentions glass. “Broken shards of glass and lives…”

I had especially wanted to read this poem at RiverRead because it is located amidst the public art in Binghamton to which the poem refers.

The very sad thing is that this was the last Open Mic at RiverRead. It will close at the end of the month, going the way of many independent bookstores.

So, we celebrated books and poetry and the bookstore together one last time.

We know we will continue to celebrate books and poetry. Just not in this place. And not in a bookstore, as there isn’t another independent bookstore available in our community.

😦

Note:  If you visit the link above, you can see RiverRead in the background on the left side of the photograph.
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It’s another double dip, Stream of Consciousness Saturday and Just Jot It January! Linda’s prompt this week is “glass”. Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-and-jusjojan-jan-2117/

 

SoCS: panic-inducing problems

Panic must be setting in.

Why else would I be up writing this post at 2 AM?

With DT’s inauguration less than a week away, more and more information is emerging about Russia’s influence in the election, and, even worse, about possible collusion between the campaign and Russia and about the threat that our incoming president could be blackmailed by Russia.

The problem is compounded by the fact that DT won’t release tax returns and won’t divest his business holdings, so there is no way to know if he owes money to Russian oligarchs or banks – or how many other countries or financial institutions may have financial power over him.

Further compounding of the problem is that many of his cabinet and staff picks have not completed financial disclosures and ethics agreements and that some may be confirmed despite that.

DT is also phenomenally unpopular. Public opinion polls show him with the lowest approval ratings of any incoming president and the approval rating for his transition is even lower.

Our Constitution does not prepare us for this situation. The Congress could impeach and try the president if their investigations show he committed high crimes or misdemeanors, but Vice President Pence would be implicated as well. If they were both out of office through resignation or trial, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan would become president in a nearly impossible governing situation.

Is it any wonder I am having trouble sleeping?
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Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday and/or Just Jot It January! Today’s prompt was to base a post on a word beginning with the letter P. (I started with panic, but wound up more with problem and president.) Find out how to participate here: https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-and-jusjojan-jan-1417/

 

SoCS: coat

A lot of places in the US are under a coat of white from snow.

Not exactly a surprise in January, except that, while there is snow in places one expects, like Colorado, the Dakotas, and Vermont, but also in some places where it is more unusual, such as Alabama and the Carolinas. Seattle, Washington has also recently had snow.

Weirdly, we don’t have much here in the Binghamton, New York area.  While some parts of the state have had massive lake effect snows, the wind pattern is preventing them from reaching us here. The storm systems are coming up the coast and we are too far inland to get major amounts of snow from them.

Also weirdly, the cold and snow dipping into the Southern US are caused by the warming of the Arctic region.  This pushes the polar vortex south.

This weekend, we are having some of our coldest temperatures of the winter. I am pulling out the heavy coats.

Postscript: You can tell this is stream of consciousness because I misused a correlative conjunction and couldn’t go back and fix it.
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It’s a double dip! This post is both part of Linda’s Just Jot It January and Stream of Consciousness Saturday. The prompt is “coat.” Join us! Find out more here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/06/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-and-jusjojan-jan-717/

 

SoCS: Christmas

This was our first Christmas season without Grandma (my mother-in-law) who passed away in March.

It was also a quiet Christmas for a number of reasons which I won’t enumerate here.

It was sometimes difficult to navigate the season, trying to balance happy memories of how much Grandma loved Christmas, especially decorating, with how painful it was that she wasn’t able to be here with us.

I think each of us had at least one crying jag in the process.

Some things just felt right, though, such as putting the carol singers that she made for us on the cupboard filled with her teacup collection that now sits in our dining room, instead of on the mantel in the living room.

And making her pecan puff recipe.

I am also thankful that last year, our daughter E and her husband L were here celebrating Christmas with us. It was a precious time.

None us knew that that Christmas would be Grandma’s last.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “first/last.” Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/12/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-3116/

 

SoCS: Christmas wishes

I am tired of people asking, “What do you want for Christmas?”

Whether or not this is an appropriate question is a moot point. However, I draw the line at the recent ad campaign in New York State.

The ad instructs us to tell our legislature that all we want for Christmas is Uber.

New York State doesn’t allow Uber to operate here. I can understand why some people would care about this and want it to change so that Uber would be allowed.

But let’s leave Christmas out of it.

It’s bad enough that so much of the focus of Christmas has become shopping and gift-giving and receiving – material gifts, that is.

What I most want for Christmas has nothing to do with Uber, or clothes or kitchenware or other things.

I want peace. I want safety for travellers. I want a return to good health. I want people to help one another.

Uber? Not so much…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “moot.”  Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/12/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-1716/

 

SoCS: Ggggrrrrrrr

I don’t know if I can bear to make another phone call.

Well, not any phone call, but one to the NYS Health call center.

I have been trying to get an insurance situation resolved for the coming year and have had several loooooong phone calls with them – plus some online chat sessions.

And we still don’t have the situation resolved.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait for Monday because I think I need to talk to the IRS.

Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Everything has to be resolved by December 15, so let’s hope they all have their act in gear next week when I plunge back into the fracas.

I knew there was a reason I have been a long-time advocate for single-payer…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is bear/bare. Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/12/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-1016/

 

SoCS: the end of no-shave November

Every November here in the United States, there is an awareness campaign for prostate cancer. It is called No Shave November and people participate by not shaving for the month. There are also fundraisers organized around the event.

My husband B has participated in this initiative in honor of a co-worker who is a prostate cancer survivor.

It is now December fourth, but B still has his new beard! He has been getting lots of positive feedback on the look and has decided to keep it, at least for another month.

For him, it may be no-shave November and December – and maybe longer!
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Linda’s prompt for this Stream of Consciousness Saturdays was a word beginning with “sh”. Linda did everything in a timely manner; I am the one not posting until Sunday!  😉 Find out more here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/12/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-316/

 

SoCS: Steph’s blog

I knew Linda’s prompt this week was “pretty” and I wasn’t sure I would write a post, but this morning, this link: http://wordwomanpartialellipsisofthesun.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-corundum-conundrum-sapphires-rubies.html landed in my inbox.

Steph writes a blog that is a cross between science, often geology, and wordplay. She often has pretty photos of rocks, electron microscope patterns, geologic formations, and today, some very pretty gems.

Her blog is not on WordPress, so it is hard to re-blog other than by link, but I hope people will pop over to Steph’s blog and see some beautiful corundum in various colors.

Thank you, Steph, for sharing pretty pictures and words with us!
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Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/11/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-2616/

 

 

SoCS: Work in or out?

As usual, there is a lot of work to do.

The question is – do I work in or out?

We had a cold, wet snap this past week, so the autumn leaves have largely fallen from the tress onto the back lawn, so I could go out and rake and haul leaves to the curb.

On the other hand, we are trying to get the house in some semblance of order and I have lots of things in the den to go through.

It’s probably best to stop stream of consciousness-ing and get to work.

Maybe I will decide in or out while I eat lunch! 😉
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is in/out. Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-2916/ .  Also, check out Linda’s ebook! Purchase links here!