Month: April 2024

Monday’s Theme Music

Mood:

Thwump thwump thwump…the helicopter goes on, up above the mountain high, hovering and waiting, waiting and hovering, picking up its load, going away again, dumping the load, coming back again.

Gotta be boring up there. Least the pilot should have a nice view, up above the trees so high, like a moon in the sky.

It’s a clear Monday, with blue running infinitely on and back again. Sunshine drenches the scene. 69 F now after an overnight low of 40 F, the thermometer is scaling the degrees. Probably stop at 76 F, they tell me. It’s April 22, 2024, for those keeping score at home.

The cats are as happy as floofs lazing in sunshine. An ear sometimes stirs. Another moment witnesses an eye cracking open a hair width. Other than those infrequent movements, they seem set for the next few hours.

Back in Pittsburgh, a new report has Mom feeling unwell again. Tests are being run. She’d been doing well and was scheduled to return home tomorrow. We’ll monitor all for the outcome. Little sister, aka grandma G, provides me with updates. She and her hubby had been sick herself recently. But they’re better know. Just seemed like a mild flu. I think we live in an era of health uncertainty. Sure the pandemic plays a role. I notice that many people around Ashlandia grow angry but resigned when they get sick. Wonder if that’s must my bias, or does this happen elsewhere?

Musically, The Neurons have “For All the Cows” ringing in my morning mental music stream (Trademark backtracking). Utilizing that song’s melody, I’d been singing about coffee. Actually, it was about my coffee cup. Like, I need a cup, a coffee cup, I’ll fill it up, if I had a coffee cup. I’d been wandering with the cup. It mindlessly departed my hand as I slipped through rooms and tasks. Found it in the third place I looked, my bathroom. Yes, I drink coffee in the bathroom while I’m shaving and dressing, okay. Although I didn’t shave today. Didn’t feel the need for a blade on my skin.

“For All the Cows” is a Dave Grohl/Foo Fighters production. Came out in 1995. It’s soft quasi-jazz opening and strange words are beguiling. I listen to it and search for some kind of meaning for what he’s singing about. I’ve always tentatively concluded it delivers an analogy comparing people to cows but also addressed success and the changes success brings to the herd, how you change herds with success. I don’t know. My understanding shifts, depending on my moo-ed. Heh.

Stay positive, strong, optimistic (that the same as positive?), and lean forward. Please Vote Blue. Now, more coffee and cow music. Cheers

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The Writing Moment

Still at it with the manuscript in progress. Its working title remains Memories of Why.

As I began rev 6 — I think it’s rev 6 — I saw that I’d gone too meta. The beginning was too abstract. I understood things, sure; whether muses created it, or I did with my imagination, or it’d flown into my being from some other dimension or alternative reality, I was familiar with it.

But it wouldn’t work for other readers. I’m sure the great mass of others would ask, “WTF?” I didn’t want to put that on them. I needed to create a more substantive setting for them.

As I worked on the last revision, another aspect of the situation had emerged. I could weave elements of that arc into this one. I felt it would cement the story, provide a solid introduction to the main character, and create greater empathy for him.

So that’s what I did. Feeling a need to couch it all in the best words and phrases I could, there’s been a lot of stop and go. Lot of deleting to begin again and a great deal of going off page to write myself into understanding. I think, therefore I write, so I know what I think. I perceived how I sometimes overthought myself into paralysis. Made things too difficult for myself. Tried to be too clever or too precious.

Intriguing to me, when I began each time, the world would form, the characters would drop in, sounds would be ladled in, and the place and its story would be. Then I’d wipe it out and commence again. And again, all would fill in, like I was opening doors and walking into other worlds.

The aspect of the process is stunning and mesmerizing. Once I felt sure of the scene and moved on, I felt the weight of that existence as surely as I know impact of the real world that I inhabit.

So, there were detours. There usually are in any effort. But I advance. So does the manuscript. And the pleasure and satisfaction remains.

Cheers

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Floofdant

Floofdant (floofinition) – 1. Person who is always telling stories or sharing facts about animals.

In Use: “A foster mother for kittens, puppies, birds — just ’bout any critter except humans — Jen could easily be drawn into being a floofdant via a question like, ‘How are you animals doing?'”

2. An animal who insists on doing things the same way every time, not moving until the matter is corrected.

In Use: “Queen Precious was a floofdant who demanded her food bowl be positioned just so, along with her bed, insisting that everyone go to the bed at the same time every night, becoming annoyed and vocal if this wasn’t observed.”

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Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts

I was skateboarding the net yesterday, swerving from click to click. An ad bounced up for an Ashlandia coffee shop I used to regularly frequently. It permanenly closed due to the pandemic, Jan 2021.

My backstory is that I enjoy coffee shops as a place to write. I began doing that when I started working from home and began writing short stories in parallel. I use the process of going to the coffee shop as a method to put on my writing hat and throw off the rest of the world. Finding the right place is a challenge. There’s the taste. Location. Prices. Staff. Decent writing surface and a place to plug in. Wifi is a nice convenience to add.

The coffee’s shop closure during the pandemic was the abridged edition. Located in a hotel, a husband and wife team managed it on behalf of her father. He owned the hotel He came in one December day and told them that plans were changing. They protested. The exchange grew angry and loud. The husband and wife were fired.

I’d been loyal to them. The staff walked out with the managers in protest. Long-time customers like me left and didn’t return. They made changes. I visited once a few months later. It wasn’t the same. Management declared after that that only hotel guests were welcome. That was only in the morning.

Replacing it had been difficult. An ad to come patron it surprised me. I checked online: permanently closed, according to its FB page and website.

But businesses are often shoddy about keeping their social presence online up to date. I drove by. Dark. Empty. Closed.

I went on to my new favorite coffee shop. I’ve already lost four Ashlandia coffee shops in the nineteen years I’ve lived here. Hope I don’t lose a fifth. Yes, it’s all about me.

Still, I had to ponder the business intricacies that had an ad for a closed business riding on the net. Sometimes, it’s still garbage in, garbage out.

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Thwumpday’s Theme Music

Mood: Melloffee

The choppers continued back and forth, up and down. Thwump thwump thwump thwump. We can hear them in the house, windows closed and all. Outside, they’re much louder. This is day four of their presence.

This is Sunday, April 21, 2024. Or with those choppers going in Sunday’s calm blue silence, Thwumpday.

The helicopters seem to start at 8 AM and go until later afternoon. They’re out there as part of the project to clean up the watershed mountainsides to make the area less attractive to fire. So yes, they are a good thing.

They’re driving my wife a little crazy, she claims. Always there, rising and falling in volume as they thwump about.

I don’t mind them. Reminds me of being on military bases. Makes me a little nostalgic.

Beyond the choppers, blue is the predominate impression with my outward gaze through the glass. Clouds are resting on the horizon but over me is sunshine and blue skies. It’s 48 F at the moment. Some rain is predicted. The high will be about 66 F, a drop from our recent forays into the seventies.

The floof boys don’t seem to mind the choppers. Seem to have adjusted to them. They don’t fly directly overhead. The first days had Papi suspicious. He’d go out there and look and look, as if he worried that they were coming for him. He has a mysterious past, you know. Who knows what mischief he did in his youth.

On to the theme music. As I perused the weather this AM, I mildly complained to myself about the lower high. We’d just been in the seventies. Now —

Want something from the seventies? The Neurons asked.

I was blank and confused. Before I could summon a response, they were playing “Whatch See Is Whatcha Get” by The Dramatics in the morning mental music stream (Trademark trending). The song was released in 1971. I always enjoyed it. It made a comeback in my mind when the personal computer age burst upon is. “What You See Is What You Get” — WYSIWYG — was a big thing with software. The Neurons would play The Dramatics song whenever I saw that on the software box or in a glossy magazine ad.

Stay positive, dress appropriately, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee is being choppered in. I hear it coming. Thwump thwump.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Floofthing

Floofthing (floofinition) – 1. Unexplained behavior and noises manifested by animals. First noted use in the early nineteenth century in the United States and North America.

In Use: “One of the most commonly witnessed floofthings is cats chattering (also frequently mentioned as chirping or twittering) when they see insects, birds, or rodents.”

2. Entertainment, bedding, spaces, feeding and medical devices, etc., set aside for animals’ use. First recorded use in the late twentieth century.

In Use: “Catios are trending upward as a floofthing, with homes adding catios as a place where their beloved floofurevers can safely go to outside enclosure and enjoy sunshine and fresh air.”

3. Assembly or court used in Floofmanic lands during the Middle Ages. Also known as a floofmoot in some regions, or a floofsembly. Used to peacefully settled disagreements and try floofs for breaking common laws. Origins: Floomania in the 800s, early Flooxon.

In Use: “Claw carvings found on ancient trees tell of Floofitus calling for ‘repfloofentation of all wyld floofs’ to join together to reduce mindless floofwar.”

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sunflective (it’s sunny, and I’m reflecting on life, the universe, and everything)

It’s Marijuana Day, don’t you know. That is 4/20. Add a 2024 and make it a Saturday, and you have the full day/date situation.

420 is a reference to the time to meet and light up a doobie. That time originated with a group of U.S. high school students meeting up at 4:20 PM to search for a marijuana field. I originally heard it was police radio code for marijuana.

Another warmish spring day has touched down in Ashlandia, where the coffee is fresh and above average. It’s 70 F right now. Despite clouds breaking in over the horizons, today’s high has a few more degrees to go. You know the floofs are in full agreement with tasting some warm sunshine, don’t you.

Today’s music is about Dickey Betts. Lead guitarist (a job shared for a period with Duane Allman) and vocalist with the Allman Brothers Band, he passed this week, 80 years old. Man, when ABB came out with “At the Fillmore East” in 1971, I bought that thing and added it fast to the rotation. I’ve had a version of that double album from vinyl to digital ever since. Still play it once in a while when a nostlaxing mood strikes. Nostlaxing would be nostalgic and relaxing. You get it, don’t you?

Once while listening to “Whipping Post”, my wife, who’d come to embrace electrified blues, entered the room and asked, “Who is that playing guitar?”

“That’s Dickey Betts and Duane Allman,” I answered.

She listened a bit more. “Wow, they’re good.”

Yes, they were good.

But the song hooked in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sliding) is a better-known Allman Brothers tune. This is “Ramblin’ Man”, naturally. This live version from 1972 has Dickey on vocals and lead guitar. He wrote the song, as well. Dickey Betts, 1943 – 2024.

Be strong and lean forward. Vote Blue in 2024. Fresh coffee is flowing. Mine is black and sugar-free. Best way to imbibe it. Here’s the video. Cheers

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