“O” is for “Orange”

“O” is for “orange” and also for “honor” and other words that begin with a silent “h”. I say “honor” is included because I intend to honor my commitment to myself and the blog community to publish daily, except Sunday, focusing on the letter of the day. Equally important, I’m honoring my commitment to myself to write something daily, published or not.

What came first, the color orange or the fruit orange? Ordinarily, I’d research that question but not today.  Today I plan to write in stream of consciousness style in “homage” (French pronunciation) to Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS) challenge. On the other hand, I’ll be snubbing my nose at #SoCS because I’m writing about “O” and not about her prompt “mash.” On a third hand, though, SoC is essentially a mish-mash of thought trails, so I’m also following the prompt. I didn’t say this post would be interesting, just committed.

But I digress. Today is not the day to discover what came first, orange fruit or orange color. My guess is the color came first. So many other edibles are orange but aren’t named orange: nectarines, carrots, pumpkins, some squashes, nasturtiums. Nasturtiums are little orange flowers that add a zing to salads. Quite tasty.

Again on another hand, orangutans (NOT edible) are orange and have the color in their name. Right off the bat, I can’t think of any other orange animals. Oh…foxes! Clearly not called “orange.”

Oddly, another prompt I’ve been looking at, Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt #272, can fit into the subject of “orange.” The photo shows a carnival ride called, I think, a “whirligig.” It looks like a big canopy with colored bucket seats suspended from it. People strap themselves into the seats, and the whirligig whirls around, the acceleration giving the riders the rides of their lives. Or getting them sick. In this particular photo, the two most prominent seats are, respectively, yellow and red. Combined, yellow and red make orange. The canopy colors include mustardy yellow, red, blue, and blue-green. I imagine those colors mashing together into an orange haze if the ride spins fast enough. (Rebel that I am, I’m opting out of writing an actual three line tale.)

I can’t think of orange without thinking of an “orangy sky” at sunset or in the lyrics of The Cars’ “Bye Bye Love.”

“O” is also for “Okay,” as in “okay, I’ve had enough of this, haven’t you?” This stream of consciousness is boring me. No wonder I’ve never been able to read James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” (I stuck to stream of consciousness and didn’t research, only enough to satisfy my nerd by including citations.)