I'm going to Stand, and Throw my arms around...

Vintage Xmas toys at work--the angel, left, is a tree topper, made in Hong Kong.

Arm yourself with toys!
. . . For today, Advent[ure] begins.

As Lorine Niedecker said:
“Jesus, I’m / going out / and throw / my arms / around.”
She was talking about the New Year, but it applies. Every day, maybe.

(Niedecker wrote and pasted her own sayings over a calendar book’s original kitschy quotes of encouragement, which she titled Next Year Or I Fly My Rounds, Tempestuous. [--source])

It does feel, doesn't it? here in the United States (and elsewhere?), whoever we are, as if we're starting out on the Yellow Brick Road--confused and facing real dangers--on a journey to strengthen our hearts, to use our brains and find our courage...
AND SPARKLY THINGS!

More of the Xmas donations I've been sorting:

For it may be a rocky road, full of charlatans and false friends and Giant Talking Heads...
(I'm talking post-presidential election, but really, this is all of life.)

But we do like the Flying Monkeys.
They turn out to be our friends.

Oh, wow--I first read that Niedecker line on an Orange Crate Art post in 2017, which I just looked up, and I see I left this comment:

"I'm borrowing the Niedecker poem for my post about repairing a flying monkey stuffed animal--thanks!"

I'd found it run over in the alley. I repaired Monkey, sewed a monkey suit, and released it back into the wild. Here:: my 2017 posts about Flying Monkey.

Today's Advent reading is spot on:

“Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.
There will be on Earth distress among nations....
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world....

"Be always on the watch,
So when these things begin to take place,
you may be able to stand, and lift up your heads...."
--Luke

How do I (we) do this? And, my ever present question:
WHAT HELPS?

Has anyone seen Wicked yet? I haven't...

Or Bonhoeffer?
I'm sorry that reviews are bad--it sounds schlocky-- but Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a hero of mine--his life is a timely reminder of what one might do when your nation faces rise of fascism.

'In April 1933, Bonhoeffer raised the first voice for church resistance to Hitler's persecution of Jews, declaring that the church. . .
must not simply "bandage the victims under the wheel, but jam a spoke in the wheel itself."' ^[--via]

Bonhoeffer's choice to return to Germany after he went to the US in 1939 always gives me courage: Turn and Stand....

"I have come to the conclusion," he wrote in a letter,
"that I made a mistake in coming to America this time.
I must live through this difficult period in our national history along with the people of Germany.

"I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people ...

"Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that a future Christian civilization may survive, or else willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization and any true Christianity.
I know which of these alternatives I must choose,
but I cannot make that choice from a place of security." ^[via]

Well, I'm no hero-martyr. I AM NOT THE SAVIOR.

But his example encourages me (though—spoiler alert—it didn’t go well on Earth for him):

I can stand in the place where I work... and make lunch.

Actually, today I am going to make a cake--it's Big Boss's birthday tomorrow. I think he's turning 45. Anyway, I know he loves cake, and I am grateful to him for hiring me back. So homemade cake it is. A three-tier yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

Yesterday as I was flying around doing extra tasks, Manageress said, "Thank you, you don't know how much you help."
Actually, I do, but it's nice to hear.

Anyway, I wasn't sure I could bake when I'm not eating sugar, but I think that here at the 6-week mark it won't tempt me.
(I hope I'm right--it's something of a test.)

It was about a year ago that my blood work showed slightly wonky kidney levels.
I didn't realize what kidneys do. And how hard they have to work, especially if we dump crud on them. Even though I'd made a paisley based upon a kidney, back when I was on a paisley-watercolor roll in 2014 (ten years ago!):

Sorry, kidneys!
I cut out red meat and cut way back on dairy and alcohol right away, and by spring, the levels had dropped (to super-high normal, but normal).
So diet, as promised, does work.

Now I've cut out added-sugar... [not directly a problem for kidneys, but as you know, all our parts work together].
After writing last week that I feel sad about that, I stopped feeling sad! (Sometimes a result of the Magic of saying fears and feelings out loud.)
The next thing to sidle up to is Portion Control.

It's nicer if dramatic resistance is not called for.
A gentle nudging along in the desired direction is best.