Herein you will find an eclectic collection of thoughts from the last couple of days.

Pippin continues to be distressed about not being able to sit on my lap. He gives me hurt looks whenever I forestall his attempts and relocate him to sit next to me or at my feet. He also keeps sneaking into the bedroom where I’m sleeping and sitting on my pillow. Stinker.

Now that I can have All The Foods & no longer hit Peak Aerobic Threshold by walking from couch to kitchen, the next big thing I’d been missing was Festive Winter Decor.

Filling my living space with lights and greenery and decorations from mid December through mid January is one of my main ways of fighting the Dark Day Blahs. I didn’t get it done before surgery because I can never bring myself to decorate before Dec 6, plus I was too stressed to face the work. Then I lost last week to Primary Recovery Blah, and Spouseman was taking care of me.

So I’d kinda set aside the idea of having my usual House Full Of Lights this year, and this AM I was feeling exceedingly mopey between blah weather and achy body and seasonal mood crash showing up annoyingly on schedule.

Spouseman hauled out the decoration boxes and set up both trees (we kept our old little tree when we moved to the new house with higher ceilings. It goes in my office for an extra boost of greenery and lights.) Then we both puttered around for a few hours putting out decorations in little bursts of energy between breaks for resting & doing other quieter things like watching more Person Of Interest.

It was no Netflix Holiday movie flash mob deck-the-halls montage set to perky instrumental tunes, but it did the trick. As of tonight, are all set for celebrating our way through the longest, darkest nights of the year and into the new year.

Speaking of Person of Interest, I’m well into season 3. It’s holding up surprisingly well for a technology show from 10+ years ago. A recent episode about the CEO of a life-ruining corporation was full of eerie similarities to the UHC CEO murder story two weeks ago.

I cannot contemplate the idea of throwing a party without breaking into a cold sweat and getting nauseated, but I think I could handle hosting a crow party, like the one described in this pic.

There’s nothing like being forbidden baths to make me really, deeply crave a good long bathtub soak. I think the “shower daily” instruction only makes it worse. For sure I am going to enjoy the heck out of my new deep bathtub once this restriction is lifted. (Why yes, I do have the maximum 6 week date marked on my calendar.)

I wasn’t going to talk about politics, but DAMN the world is making that difficult. The roots of so many of the current issues trace back to the 80’s, and I remain bemused that people have totally forgotten how BAD things were back then. (and how bad they still are, and how much worse a powerful minority wants to make things again.)

Last year I nearly got in trouble with an in-law by stating my belief that we were already in a world war and looking to piggyback a civil war onto that. (They reflexively reply to even my most innocuous factual statements with “well, that’s not true,” but in this case, intriguingly, they asked, “do you really believe that?” I said, “Yes,” and then dodged the inevitable argument by changing the subject.)

ANYway. I think cascading natural disasters might be the only things that can stave off cascading political violence in the US in the coming years. But that’s just me spitballing. I can do that here. It’s my blog.

On a more cheerful note, the weather today cooperated with the seasonal decorating plans, providing a thin coating of fluffy white snowflakes in the afternoon. I felt for anyone having to travel in the icy nastiness, but it was quite pretty. I’m hoping for a little more snow to make things look properly frosty for winter solstice.

And now, pics of Pippin & Proof of Festive Winter Holiday Decor:

Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.

Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:

• Title: Relics From A Traveling Show

• Author: K. M. Herkes

• ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)

  Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.

If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.

I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.

All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.

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