Daily prompt: Two right feet

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breakfast, morning rituals, postaday2015

What are the things you need to do within 30 minutes of waking up to ensure your day gets off on the right foot? What happened the last time you didn’t do one of these things?

The first two things that I HAVE to have within the allotted 30 minutes is nourishment and coffee, with nourishment being first on the list. I cannot have coffee on an empty stomach, if I do I will get ill and perhaps pass out, most definitely pass out if I don’t get ill first, but if I get ill then I won’t pass out; the only constant in this bad equation is me getting ill.

Coffee is the second must have because without it, I won’t feel right for the entire day and most likely would come down with a horrendous headache from the caffeine withdrawal. I do love my morning coffee, a pot is about the size of it for me, the rest of my day is coffee free, so I never feel guilty about my morning consumption.

The other thing that I need to do to make my day right is spend my morning alone in quiet, reading and writing, primarily for my political blog, not doing that would also make my day feel wrong.

As you can see I am seriously a creature of habit, but I don’t see it as a bad thing because these habits make my life functional and everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and reading and writing are excellent brain exercises. So in the very least my habits are good for me.

Blue skies smiling at me ta da da da da

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pictures, postaday2015

Isn’t the sky glorious? After days and days of grey, dark grey and angry clouds hovering above, menacingly threatening us poor mortals with snow, ice and freezing rain; this is such a welcome sight. It deserves a serenade from the great Ella, I was thinking maybe Frank, but I shook my head and went with Ella and her silky voice.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr’s Day!

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equality, Martin Luther King Jr, postaday2015

I remember back in 1983 feeling very strongly about the importance of having a day of remembrance for Doctor King; former President Reagan did the right thing for our country when he signed the bill ushering into law a national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr’s memory, not just him the man, but Doctor King, the ideal, the symbol of something far greater and far reaching, the fight to strive for equality in all of its expressions; equal opportunities, equal possibilities, equality in pay, equality in access to education, housing and food security. I believe that Martin Luther King Jr was more than simply about race relations; he was about humanity, our shared humanity and we desperately need more people like him.

If we can all be a little bit of Doctor King in our daily life, all of his dreams may come to fruition in some not so distant future. We will never know if we don’t try.

Daily prompt: Pleased to meet you

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movies, postaday2015, protagonists

Write a post in which the protagonists of two different books or movies meet for the first time. How do they react to each other? Do they get along?

I am not very good at these types of prompts, but I will try nonetheless. As I was trying to come up with two protagonists from two different movies, the first protagonist that popped into my head was Rocky Balboa and my favorite movie out of the series is the one called “Rocky Balboa” when he is at the end of his career, Adrienne has passed away, their son is full grown and a little embarrassed by his dad; Rocky is feeling the ramifications of a lifetime of having his head pounded upon by excellent opponents. He finds himself in a promotional fight against the heavy weight champion who is trying to revive his career and Rocky doesn’t know how to give up, doesn’t know how to throw a fight and keeps taking it and giving it until the very end. Rocky has heart pure and simple and enter Woody Allen.

I can imagine Woody Allen calling out to Rocky to sit with him, the conversation would start and poor Rocky, it wouldn’t end until Woody Allen was satisfied with conversation. The conversation would be interesting because I can see Rocky being incapable of being rude and Woody Allen, only being curious, would be creative with his line of questioning, so I can see Rocky opening up with Woody drawing him out word by word, emotion by emotion. Then the two finish with a companionable silence, no awkwardness, not the slightest hint of uncomfortable tension.

It might make for a good movie. 🙂

Longer days are here, hooray!

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postaday2015, rosemary, sunlight, weather

My husband and I were out and about and when we were driving back home, I glanced at the clock on the dash and it was 4:55 pm as we pulled into our driveway and the sky was still the prettiest shade of light blue with a gorgeous gradation of pink to deeper pink right on the horizon framed with the mountains in the backdrop; it was such a shot in the arm to see that daylight was lasting longer.

The pictures that I took of my rosemary plant that is residing in my bedroom were from the moment that we returned home at 5:00 pm and you can see the daylight right outside my window. You can also see that my rosemary plant has grown since the summer when I brought it in to winter it until next spring.

If you look at both pictures, you can tell that despite the cold weather, we do keep it on the cool side in the house, my rosemary plant has grown and it seems happy where it is this year, as opposed to the other years where I kept it in the dining room. The hibiscus plants and the bougainvillea don’t mind being wintered in the dining room, but for reasons that I don’t understand, the rosemary never liked it there. My bedroom apparently is where it feels the love. I am more than happy to accommodate it and my bedroom smells quite nice as a result so everyone is happy.

Daily prompt: Agree to disagree

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friendship, postaday2015

Do you have a good friend or close relative with whom you disagree on a major issue (political, personal, cultural)? What’s the issue, and how do you make the relationship work?

I have a very good friend who used to live next door to me, he is married to one of my best friends and we disagree on all things political. It makes for very heated conversations which get diffused when I say something that makes him laugh. Laughter truly is the best medicine.

He is a staunch republican, a war hawk, he did his military training as a Marine though he never went to war, he did boot camp and came back home. I, as most of you know, a progressive and I have always been since I was in elementary school. I majored in International Relations; took courses in American Imperialism, Middle East affairs and politics, SOuth Africa, Japan and Soviet Union, Oil and Strategic relations. The whole messy business of why the American government does what it does and for whom took up much of my last three years at N.Y.U so to say that I am opinionated is perhaps an understatement.

I do not for the most part try to talk politics with him because he gets so angry and defensive about it, but whenever I am visiting with Debbie and he is still awake; he can’t help himself and he will say something that is trending on Fox News and I have to respond if only to defend the poor people, those on welfare and food stamps, who have’t a voice and are the scapegoats for all of the evils of the world as conjured up by Fox News.

I refuse to allow easy and mean-spirited assumptions of others to color my worldview; poverty is so much more complicated than a simple case of laziness and bad choices. My friend refuses to see that, he judges others by his own personal choices and reality which is not fair to the other.

I think that we need to reach further beyond judging, we need to understand and not only sympathize but also empathize.We do not exist in a vacuum, we are all interconnected if it could happen to someone else then it can happen to you. Compassion is a beautiful thing and it should not be handed out in a miserly fashion, it should be handed out generously.

Two of the four

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children, cuteness, pets, postaday2015, sharing

How adorable are my two? Our daughter loves to cuddle with Jack and he has been making us laugh even more than usual. Jack has been so used to the boundaries that he set for my husband and the sharing with his “brother”,our son, that he tolerates; that when our daughter came back home and hasn’t left yet; he finds that he has to share his Maman with yet another “sibling”, he looks confused. He has been trying to slyly and politely come in between us, but our daughter hasn’t any troubles informing Jack that I am her Maman first and he needs to wait for his turn. Jack turns on his big dark brown eyes on her and she kind of melts, a little. He is so cute. So is she. They are both cute together.

Keeping a running tally

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manuscript, postaday2015, writing

I am keeping a running tally of all of the responses I receive from literary agents and publishing houses, not only to keep track of which people and companies I submitted my manuscript to, but also to keep the hope alive for myself and others when the day comes that I finally get an acceptance. I think that any victory for someone in the WordPress community is a victory for us all because it gives us that much more of an incentive to keep going despite the often negative responses we may receive. I keep telling myself that these responses are based largely on perception, market forecast and capital investment so I am determined not to take it personally. However when it comes time for me to send out my novel, which is very personal for me, I fear that my measured, calm acceptance of the nays will crumble and I will take it ever so personally. Hopefully my experience with my political material will build up the thick skin that is vital to all people who take a risk and expose themselves to critique and acceptance. I am keeping a stiff upper lip, I promise.

Dear Laurie Nichols,

Thank you for sharing “A Progressive’s Thoughts” with us. Although we appreciate having had the chance to read your work, we’ve decided against making an offer for it. We receive a much larger number of submissions than we can publish, so, unfortunately, we must often turn away even promising writing.

We wish you the best of luck finding a home for this work, and hope that you will keep us in mind for future projects.

Sincerely,
Editors,
Black Balloon Publishing

Embrace change

Tags

glasses, postaday2015

My husband is so adorable and sweet. He went through all of his many pairs of glasses until he found a pair that weren’t too strong and had me try them on, only for reading purposes and I have to admit, the clarity was AMAZING. I have been reading foggy words for far longer then I had thought, I can say this because I had almost forgotten what clear and bright letters look like, how bad am I?

My husband’s eyes aren’t bad at all, he just needs to read plans and blueprints for his profession and the type is particularly small so he has different magnifications and these he gets over the counter so that is why he has a bunch of extras.

My eyes are new to this whole magnification business and I fear that I will be misplacing glasses left and right simply because I am not at that state where I need them for the everyday so once I am done with them, I can see myself putting them down and walking away, forgetting them and about them until the next time I need them and I will be at a loss where I left them.

First world problems really are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. I should consider myself lucky, heck I will be seeing fewer wrinkles as I go. LOL

I hate waiting

Tags

books, manuscript, postaday2015

I have been looking for the mail every day, hoping for a response from the other publishing houses and I have been scanning my email as well. I have to confess that the thoughts that have been rattling around my head when I open my mailbox and my inbox haven’t been very charitable when I experience disappointment. “How long does it take to read a few political essays” “Why won’t they answer back?” “How bad can it be?” “How far under the pile am I?” These aren’t productive thoughts and I squash them as soon as they pop up, but they do pop up nevertheless.

Then there are the few moments where I allow myself a tiny fantasy of opening up the mailbox and seeing a big envelope from Harvard Press. I open it and there is a contract with my name on it alongside the title of my book. I think that if that actually happened I would faint dead away in a heap outside right next to our mailbox and the ambulance would be called. That could be mortifying, but who would care I was published!

I am getting ahead of myself. Anyway it is a nice daydream and puts a smile on my face; it also keeps me hoping and positive, which is very important.