Beware of what I say and do. I’m frequently an optimist who is often wrong.
Doesn’t stop me from trying to learn and trying to do better. As I said, I’m frequently an optimist.
Monday’s Theme Music
Mood: cool
Lovely fall day is on display today, Monday, November 27, 2023. 45 F under a sunshine drenched blue sky with another stagnant air advisory out for Ashlandia, where the deer are above average and the bears are like Yogi — not. Time is blocked out for activity so I’m spinning this fast.
Gonna be 53 F today. A memory came up of a November snowstorm experienced four years ago. That’s looking out my front window. I did the usual whining about the cold and the inconvenience back then but also was thankful for the snow to help end the drought, which was severe in those days. We’re still working on getting out of it but it’s much better this year, knock on drywall; there were no penalities levied on us for our water use and no cutbacks or limitations announced this year.
Responding to his most royal Floof Papi the First and his 3 AM door service directives, as I walked by a window, I was taken aback, even though the blinds were drawn. Looked like a big ol’ spotlight was trained on my residence. I quickly had ideas that some crime was underway and the police had the place surrounded with a mega spotlight blowing up the scene for all to see. I thought, “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” I pulled the blind up to see if there was a man with a gun out there. But it was but a sky cleared away for a Beaver Moon to shine down on us. Let me tell you, without any heavenly obstructions, that moon was a bright puppy. I would have stayed out admiring it but I was half naked and barefoot, and the air temp was settled around 36 F.
The Neurons suggested The Logical Song by Supertramp, 1979, sliding it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark woke) for my AM entertainment. The suggestion was certainly born from my wife and I discussing various things and concluding how much of what we read or saw via videos seemed illogical. More, though, there are frequently questions which run deep in my mind on into the night, not just about politics, news, history, and religion, but more philosophical elements about the state of existence and reality, and then soft mourning about how complicated our world has become in this information age. “The Logical Song” addresses some of these matters.
[Verse 1]
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh, it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well, they’d be singing so happily
Oh, joyfully, oh, playfully watching me
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh, responsible, practical
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh, clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical
[Chorus 1]
There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned?
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am
[Verse 2]
I said, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal
Oh, won’t you sign up your name? We’d like to feel you’re acceptable
Respectable, oh, presentable, a vegetable
h/t to Genius.com
I went with an interesting version performed by Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. That is the songwriter and the original vocalist, Roger Hodgson from Supertramp on keyboard.
Gonna enjoy the day best that I can and make it successful on my level, using my measuring methods. Hope you will, too. Stay positive, keep strong, and lean forward. I’m sure I’ll do the same, once I get some coffee in me, along with the pumpkin muffins with maple topping my wife made me. Goes super with fresh hot coffee. I’d offer you one but by the time it’s delivered to you, I don’t think it’d be nearly as good.
Here’s the music. Cheers
The Writing Moment
Another revision has been completed. This novel has kept growing*, but in a comfortable way, like I’m allowing it to breathe more deeply. I think I understand the story now, and grasp characters’ arcs and histories more completely, along with more nuances of the concept the relevant history informing the tale, things which I’d never thought about, simply inserting the pieces as needed, vowing, worry about it later, just get it written.
Even while I call this rev done, I have a small list of issues that need investigation so they can be vetted against the books’ revised story, so I’ll begin again. It’s been challenging but fun, and very, very satisfying. Makes me smile as I think, done again, even as I prepare to begin again.
That’s the nature of the process.
* The novel is now 482 Word pages and 146K.
Writ of Floofamus
Writ of Floofamus (floofinition) An animal’s order to another animal or human to perform a duty or correct a situation. Origins: first used by English pets and animals in the early seventeenth century.
In Use: “Many people with pets are familiar with getting a writ of floofamus after the floof thinks their food or water bowl is perilously empty, or if they believe their feeding time has passed.”
In Use: “Finding the cat in his bed, Bogart barked out a loud writ of floofamus for Becall to leave his bed, an order which Becall ignored, forcing Bogart to take the writ to his people for enforcement.”
Recent Use: “On the Monday morning which started his second week as a rescue living with the Thompsons, Napoleon — aptly named, though it was a whim — marched into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, walked up to sleeping Beverly, vigorously tapped her nose, and when she opened her eyes, issued his first writ of floofamus for breakfast, all recorded by a security camera and posted to social media.”
Saturday’s Theme Music
Mood: smooth
Hello, and welcome to Saturday, November 25, 2023.
The rythm of days and nights, and darkness, sunshine, and weather continues in Ashlandia, where the nights are cold and the furnaces are working hard. Last night saw a delivery of 28 F, not bad if your usual is 0, but not pleasing if your usual lows are around 33, which is our range. It’s 43 F now with the weather wizards telling us that a scorching 53 F is within reach today. It is blue sky, sunny, and dry.
Coming home from Friendsgiving on Thursday night, I called up some of Mom’s old sayings she used as we drove home. Fer instance, the one about the little piggies going to the market, etc, ending with one going wee, wee, wee all the way home. Then Mom always like announcing, “Home, sweet home,” when we turned onto our road and our house came into view.
So I did those things Thursday night, annoying my wife. This sequence invited The Neurons to plug “Last Child” by Aerosmith from 1976 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark off) intermittently since then, because the chorus is “Home, sweet, home.” So that’s today’s theme song, with the video being an accoustic version.
Hope you have a tremendous day. Stay strong, be positive, and lean forward. Coffee drinking has commenced here; let’s hear the music. Cheers
Frienday’s Theme Music
Mood: full
Happy Frienday.
It’s actually Friday, 11/24/23, which I find fun to type. The Frienday thingy was pure accident. My computer, an HP Envy 17, has been in use for about six years, which is downright geriatric for computers. It’s given to being a little wonky at times, leaping up from where I’m typing to another place on the page, as well as skipping letters that I type. I know it’s the machine and not me because I don’t have these problems on other machines, like my wife’s Apple. Anyway, by unblemished serendipity, the wonkiness spelled out Frienday. As I celebrated Friendsgiving yesterday, keeping it as Frienday was a respectably cool coincidence.
Had a little cold weather last night, as 25 F was our overnight low. Took me by surprise because weather info suppliers were telling us, 31 would be the low. Anyway, that cold weather kept Papi in for most of the night. The one outing somewhere around 3:30 lasted less than ten minutes, and then he stayed in until 6 AM, when his soft pleas to be released re-commenced. Now the sunshine has pulled the mercury up to 44 F in Ashlandia, where all the trees are brown (except for the firs and pines) and the sky is blue. 52 F will be today’s high, if the weather whisperers are to be trusted.
As for me, blood pressure is 130 over 73, and my SpO2 is 99. So, things are going pretty well.
Today’s theme music was inspired by The Falcon and the Snowman, itself an adaptation of the book, The Falcon and the Snowman. The song is the 1985 song, “This Is Not America” by Pat Metheny and David Bowie, words which one of the people in the book said. The Neurons planted it in the morning mental music stream (Trademark dropped) this morning after catching up on the news, and the GOP’s shift away from democracy toward a dictatorship where Donald Trump is their dear leader. Such moves, along with the GOP’s gerrymandering and other actions undermining others’ rights, including the right to vote, has me shaking my head and declaring, “This is not America.” But, to judge by polls and GOP behavior, this is their vision of a fascist America, and they’re pretty happy with their cancel culture attacks, book banning, and tearing down the wall between the church and state.
Stay pos, be strong, and lean forward. Oh, and you may not have heard, but from what I’ve seen in my email, today is Black Friday, a good time to stay away from stores and shopping centers, because they’ll be busy, busy places.
Got my coffee; here’s the video. Cheers
Our Friendsgiving Contribution
Our contribution to the Friendsgiving gathering, as assigned to us by the host, are appetizers. Here’s this year’s offering.
The photo makes it look yellower than it actually is. There are five cheeses on it, deviled eggs, three kinds of crackers, and some puff cheese pastries, along with smoked mesquit almonds, carrots, celery, and cauliflower.
We also provided a vegetable platter with spinach artichoke dip. The food from both trays were delicious.
Friday’s Wandering Thought
The way that Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to be getting blended together, may as well just call it Thanksmas and get it over with, unfortunately for the other holidays being celebrated during this this period. Egged on by Black Friday deals that start any day of the week and a month before ‘Black Friday’, people and businesses are putting up their X-mas stuff before Thanksgiving (even Halloween, in some cases).
I guess I’m just not in the spirit of these things.
Michael Seidel, writer 