The Only Real Coup d’état in US History

The Prompt:

Your Friday 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. Have fun!    (From Linda G. Hill)

The Stream:

Fight or flight. I’m Sooooooo glad I’m not in that mode much anymore. It can be addicting and distracting from what we really need to focus on. But sometimes, it is warranted, a matter of survival.

In 1898 in the city I live in, the only successful coup d’état in US history took place.  People had to run for their lives because of the color of their skin. Yesterday, I attended a ceremony to unveil a historical marker to to remember what took place.

It was surprisingly cold yesterday at the ceremony. But there was a good crowd. Ten names were read of the people who were known to be murdered in the coup. But we will never know how many people were killed.

Why is it important that we remember this coup, sometimes called a massacre? We need to know it happened to understand the history of our city, to understand the pain passed on through generations, and work to not let it happen again.

In 1898, Wilmington was a model city of restoration. African American owned businesses flourished as did diversity in government and the press. I imagine a city, a country, a world, where we work together and cooperatively in diversity and peace.

I thought I was going to write about my own move toward peace. I guess that’s where it starts. At least we need to work toward inner peace as we work toward peace with others.  We can do both.  It’s not always smooth, in reality, it can be hard work, but peace is possible.

You can read more about yesterday’s ceremony and the history here.

There is also an excellent novel, Cape Fear Rising, including the history which I read a few years ago.

I just want to add, getting back to “fight or flight,” that the African Americans involved in the 1898 massacre did not fight, they did not riot, they mostly fled for their lives. Now, there are different ways of fighting racism and injustice so that we can move forward together in peace and diversity.

…

The Info:

For more on SoCS, visit our host, Linda Hill at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/11/08/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-9-19/

The Rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

SoCS: Not Going Nuts, Art, and Almond Milk

Today’s prompt is, “nuts.”

I’m trying not to go nuts about getting ready for our church’s annual artisan fair. Both David and I are vendors, and as I write this Friday afternoon, there’s a lot to do before set up tonight and the fair tomorrow (Saturday.) Taking a deep breath. I want this to be fun. It will be fun. I need to relax and be thankful that I can do this without having to go work in an office at a stressful job.

Just goes to show you that even if you are doing the job of your dreams and have the man of your dreams, your life can still have some stress in it, especially if you let your anxiety or perfectionist gremlins infiltrate your peace, JoAnna.

It’s a beautiful day, and I really like the peace, ha, I meant to type piece, I worked on last night that I started in the laundromat while washing my old dog’s bed for the 20th time and finished (the painting) last night.

Flying Over the Ocean: acrylic on up-cycled wood

I’m still in love with it since I did it last night, and because it reminded me that my favorite kind of art to do is to see what the grain and knots in the wood want to be.

More on nuts: Being a vegetarian (mostly) nuts are a big part of my diet. I do love them and have walnuts every morning in my oatmeal. Thank God I’m not allergic to nuts. A good smoothie to make is just banana, peanut butter, and almond milk. Sometimes I add oatmeal or some other fruit. My son makes tacos with a blending of walnuts and broccoli as the filler/meat substitute. It’s really rather good. Rather. That’s an odd word to use.

I’d rather be a nut than a mean person. A funny nut is much more fun to be around than a sane meanie.  Now I’m just rambling along the stream of consciousness. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. I would not be at all surprised if John at The Sound of One Hand Typing shares that commercial for Almond Joy and Mounds. But just in case he doesn’t, here it is.

Nope. I’m going to be honest. I just spent at least ten minutes looking for a commercial I liked and didn’t find one. That was way too much planning and editing for SoCS. So, I’ll share my favorite funny commercial which IS about nuts. I don’t like violence, but I have this other side to me, like we all do… that got tickled by this commercial which came out when I was still single. Whatever that means.

…

Sorry I haven’t been around much. Will catch up soon!  Maybe that extra hour will help as we “fall back.”

…

For more nutty streams of consciousness, visit Linda at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/11/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-2-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

 

 

#SoCS: The Wedding Dress Prank and Other Imaginings

 

Today’s prompt for SoCS is “dress.” But first, isn’t that a beautiful badge? Congratulations to Shelley!  Are those drops of water just peeking down into the grass? Are they going to fall? Doesn’t matter. It’s a moment captured in time, in the stream of consciousness, but it suggests movement. Dancing even. Which brings us back to the dress. A dress a raindrop might wear while suspended on a blade of grass. Wow, that photo sure is inspiring me.

The dress. I wrote about my wedding dress in my book, Trust the Timing. I had taken it to the hotel room where my girlfriends were staying two days before the wedding, because the dress was big and my house was, and is, small, and I didn’t want David to see it of course. My girlfriends from high school were staying at the beach. They had a balcony where you could see the ocean.  One of my girlfriends called me – or I called them, I don’t remember –  but Terry, she had terrible news. She told me they had been playing with the dress on the balcony and the wind grabbed it and took it away. It was somewhere out on the ocean. She was so sorry. Of course I didn’t believe them. Not really. One of the girlfriends was snorting a laugh but said she was crying because the dress was gone. They kept it up for quite a while. But of course it was just a prank. The dress was safe and sound. Here’s what it looked like on my wedding day.

Aw.  It’s funny that when I was a kid, I hated wearing dresses. I wore jeans all the time in my teens and twenties. Now, jeans feel stiff and uncomfortable. I’d much rather wear a long dress, a skirt with and elastic waist, or yoga pants – stretchy pants I wouldn’t be caught dead in back in high school.

Dressing up for Halloween was one of my favorite things back in the days of my youth. In my twenties and even in my thirties, I’d dress up as mother nature or something with moss on my head. It’s been years since I dressed up for Halloween, but I’m tempted to do something just for fun.  I used to want to dress up as Glinda, the good witch from the Wizard of Oz, but so far, that hasn’t happened. What if I crossed Glinda with Mother Nature? I think I’d have some kind of a crown and blow bubbles. Green shoes and lots of sparkles. The dress would be green and gold. Maybe green and amber. Very flowy. Oh, maybe my crown would be a wreath of ivy or flowers. I just stopped for a minute and looked on line for a Glinda meets Mother Nature dress. None of them matched my imagination.  That’s okay.  Sometimes imagination is enough.

What would you dress up as if you could dress up as anything you wanted?

Oh, and here’s an angel in a green dress that I painted a few years ago.

Better an angel in a green dress than a devil with a blue dress. That was a song. I don’t think I liked it much. Damn. Can’t end on that note. Sometimes the stream forks off into a bog. Let’s turn around and paddle back to that question:

What or who would you like to dress up as?

…

For more info on Stream of Consciousness  Saturday, visit Linda G. Hill at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-26-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

When Someone Says You Can’t Do Something, There Still Might Be a Way

Today’s SoCS prompt is, “oh.”

Oh, great. I wrote my post last night, and now it’s gone. Not in the trash, not already published. Oh, well. I get to start over. Seems like whenever I get a win, I also get something for humility. Or the balancing phenomenon can be good – the good thing after the bad – like in my 20s when my car would break down right before I got my income tax refund. This week the balance is in the realm of technology.

Maybe a month ago, I discovered I’d made a typo in the domain name for my art website. This discovery happened after I developed the website, published some posts, and had cards made up copying and pasting the incorrect domain name on the business cards. It was just one letter off. Instead of angelsmermaidsandwoodwork, I had angelsmermaidsandwordwork.  Word Work. Kinda funny actually. I shared my horror on Facebook. (I felt horrible about it. Why didn’t I catch that mistake? How could I have missed it?, etc. etc.) A couple of people suggested I buy the correct domain and re-direct. Let me back up a minute. I had first shared my horror with the support chat person for the hosting entity. He (his name sounded masculine to me) was polite, but not that supportive. He said/chatted that the domain name could not be changed. My stomach fell into the bog of misery. He didn’t offer any suggestions. To be fair, I had first asked him another question, so this was the second problem of that chat. So when FB friends had a remedy, I felt a ray of hope. But I was still bummed out and didn’t want to face another chat session.

After a couple weeks I looked into it wondering if I could do this re-directing thing myself. I bought the correct domain name, but got confused when it came to redirecting or maybe transferring? So I took a break. Then yesterday, I mustered up the courage to chat again with a support person for the host (which is not exactly WP but uses WP.) Guess what! She (the name sounded feminine) chatted that we could just change the name on the website to the new domain. What? The other guy said that could not be done.

I asked for clarification a couple of times. She made it sound simple and that she could do it in a click or two. Schedule it anyway.  What a relief after all that angst and misery about my little mistake. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but not much. I have to check it again to make sure it’s really correct. I held my breath before it came up. http://www.angelsmermaidsandwoodwork.com/  Plus I keep checking for typos. Guess I need to trust the process and take a deep breath. Not to mention putting more content on there. I’m thankful it worked out and that I have an ultra fine point marker to change the r to o on the business cards. Oh, well. The biggest lesson, besides balance happens, is that just because someone says it can’t be done, doesn’t mean it’s true. I was trying to find that quote about being annoyed by people telling you something is impossible while you’re doing it, but the quotes I did find about making mistakes made me realize that the first chat support person just made a mistake. That’s all. Oh well. I  guess everything works out eventually.

For more streams of consciousness, visit our wonderful host, Linda G. Hill at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-19-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

6th Annual #SoCS Badge Contest Entry

Here’s my entry for this year’s Stream of Consciousness Badge contest. The photo is one I took near Linville in the Appalachian Mountains – one of my happy places. 🙂

For links to all the entries, visit:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/17/enter-the-6th-annual-socs-badge-contest/

 

SoCS: A Chant, A Folk Song, and Wildflowers

Today’s prompt for SoCS is:

“ground.” Use it as a noun or a verb in any tense (i.e. grind). Have fun!

Where we sit is holy

Holy is the ground.

Forest mountain river,

Listen to the sound.

Great Spirit circle,

All around us.

 

I learned that at a meditation workshop. We sang it as a chant. Then I found it in my Earth Prayers book.  I miss chanting and drumming. Maybe it will happen this weekend. If not, some day. This weekend, I’m in the mountains with my son, daughter, and granddaughter. Other grands are coming with their mom tomorrow. It’s going to be a full house full of energy.  Maybe we’ll sing. I sang with my daughter on the way here, harmonizing like we used to years ago on road trips.  We sang “I’ll Fly Away.” And she’s teaching me a ?bluegrass song? “Wildwood Flower.”  Let me see if I can find it.

My daughter wants you to know this traditional Appalachian folk song made famous by the Carter family in the late 1920s.  We give it a more Celtic Women flare. Just to give you an idea of the big picture, my daughter also likes heavy metal.

Grounding music about wildflowers while in the mountains with family – it doesn’t get much better than that.  I was going to write about grounding as a technique of dealing with overwhelming thoughts and emotions about the past or future by focusing on what’s going on in the present moment, but I guess the singing works just fine.

Here are some wildflowers.

This one might be from pixabay.

Queen Anne’s Lace in the mountains

It’s gonna be a busy weekend, so be patient. I have not totally forgotten your comments or posts and will catch up soon…. eventually. 🙂

For more information on the SoCS, visit Linda at

https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-12-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

SoCS: Stepping Away from Toxic News

Welcome back to our SoCS host, Linda, and thanks again to Dan for filling in last week.

Here’s today’s prompt: Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “-tast-.” Find a word that contains “tast” and use it in your post. Enjoy!

The first word I thought about was “fantastic.” But I haven’t been feeling all that fantastic lately. Not awful, nothing serious. But why am I so tired sometimes for no apparent reason?  I can rally to get the basics done, but sometimes I feel drained.

Sue Dreamwalker writes about how our energy is affected by what’s going on in the world, and sometimes we need more rest to cope. Maybe that’s it. I generally don’t watch much news. I’m picky. But lately, I’ve been getting sucked into the news about the impeachment inquiry.  Then on Wednesday,  I took my car in for maintenance, and though I had my computer and worked on yesterday’s post, the TV in the car dealer’s waiting room was on Fox News. It got toxic after awhile. Other people were there on their phones or with books and didn’t seem to mind. I kept thinking Fox News would move on to some other topic, but no, it went on and on with clips of 45  that one political issue.

It turned out I need to go back for two tires they had to order. The staff person asked it I wanted to wait on Monday or drop off the car. I asked her,

“Do you always have Fox News on your TV?”

“No, we usually have it on HGTV.”

“That would be better. I can tolerate the news for a little while but after awhile it gets…..”  I shook my head indicating crazy.

“I understand. There’s a remote there for anyone to use. If you decide to wait Monday, I’ll make sure it’s on something else.”

My plan is to have my husband take me to lunch while they put tires on the car. AND not to watch the news. I need to go back to being more choosy. Using the internet allows me to check the headlines, and I have to resist the urge to watch certain clips and also seek the balance of good news.

But back to fantastic. It’s related to the word fantasy. We can all use a little healthy fantasy, especially when the fantasy is about something we want to happen, and it’s realistic, or at least possible, which everything ultimately is. I fantasized about a soul mate who would be a good fit, and eventually, that’s what I got.

What if we fantasize about world leaders who have intelligence and compassion, who care about the environment and realize that it’s crucial to take care of the planet. A Department of Peace, imagine that. Imagine/fantasize/dream about a world that puts more energy and resources into peace than war. Imagine all adults acting like grownups.

I’m expecting fantastic weather this weekend. We’ll be going from the upper 90s to the 70s for a high. I bet that will give me some energy. And not watching any news this weekend. That’s my plan.

…

For more information on SoCS, visit Linda Hill’s blog:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/04/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-5-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!