Month: February 2025

Mom & Dad

Daily writing prompt
What were your parents doing at your age?
View all responses

I often think about Mom & Dad at my age of 68 and what they were doing.

Mom, with a couple divorces behind her, was a late bloomer in some ways. She’d given birth to seven children. Five lived. Forfeiting graduating high school to leave her small town of Turin, Iowa and find employment and begin her own life, she eventually acquired her GED. That was long after I’d left home and begun my life. After gaining her GED, she went to college and became an LPN and RN. A twenty-year in that followed; she retired at my current age, devoting herself to being a grandmother.

Dad and Mom had divorced decades before. Dad was in the military, the U.S. Air Force. After retiring at 20 years, when he was thirty-nine years old, he worked in the grocery business as a produce manager and then bought his own restaurant. When he was around 48, twenty years younger than I am now, he moved west to Texas. He worked in different retail businesses while becoming a real estate agent. He always like running stores, though. Eventually, he was running the largest truck stop west of the Mississippi. Along the way, he met another woman; she became his third wife. They’ll be married 33 years on Valentine’s Day of 2025. Meanwhile, he kept managing that truck stop. Every time he told them he was thinking about retiring, they’d offer him more pay, bonuses, and vacation. He did eventually give it up when he was 80. So at my current age, he was fully in the thick of running it.

They’re a surprising couple. From lower class working roots, they married many times. Each had productive careers. Between the two of them, each was parent to seven children but they also buried three children. Five of us siblings shared them as parents. I left Mom’s home when I was 14 to live with Dad and then left his house at 17, joining the military as Dad had done, so much of what I saw of their lives was through a long distance lens. Mom and Dad remain alive. Mom is 89 and Dad is 92. Both endure health issues but because of the era when they worked and the effort they put in, they have excellent health benefits.

Of course, the flip side of it all is, what will I be like at their ages?

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Thurzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Many of us who oppose Trump, whether he’s running for office, in office, or just breathing, have consistently pointed out that he uses others. Yet people voted for him by remarking that he speaks for them. And we replied, “Then you’re racist. Sexist. Anti-knowledge. Anti-history. Anti-fact. Anti-science.”

PINO Trusk is proving us right. His supporters and the low-information voters may never realize it. Okay, one to three percent might. (Isn’t that two percent? Yes, and that’s based on some marketing knowledge I acquired years ago.) But what’s that about action speaking louder than words?

‘Equity,’ ‘trauma’, ‘women’, and ‘female’ are among the words that could bring research grants under scrutiny in the US. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is reviewing thousands of ongoing grants to ensure compliance with executive orders issued by former President Donald Trump during his first week in office. These orders mandate the recognition of only two genders, scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and have led to the creation of a list of words whose use may trigger a review of funding, according to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

Can it be more clearly stated that you’re sexist if you don’t allow the word ‘women’ to be written? Over half of the population of the United States are women. A vibrant and critical part of how we arrived here as a species and civilizaton, and women can’t be mentioned in National Science Foundation reports in the new Trusk administration.

How fucking backward is that? I thought Trusk, the GOTP, and Project 2025 wanted to drive us back into the 1800s. Wrong; they’re going further than that. Women as a word has been in use since the 12th century. That’s how far back the Trusk administration and the rignions — right-wing minions — are trying to take us.

“He speaks for us, he’s one of us.” And that’s why Alabama went big for Trump in 2024.

They’re probably pretty happy about their pretty situation now.

Here’s how much NIH cuts could cost UA, Tuscaloosa

President Trump’s tariffs: Why Alabama’s thriving car industry will see biggest impact

Trump’s job reduction order could hit most at this major Huntsville employer

Trump executive order leads to $100 energy bill hike for hundreds in Alabama

Alabama Arise: Federal funding cuts could undermine healthcare, education, vital services

Yep, less than a month in, and it’s all going great for Alabama!

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Thurzda’s Theme Music

A stiff wind was rockin’ us last night in Ashlandia. As night came on shift, I watched our outside temperature drop to 34 F and then rise to 37 F. Rain fell and the temperature kept sneaking up outside as the wind barked at the moving branchs and howled at the sky. It’s not 41 F. ‘They’ have notified us that 51 F is possible as a high. The wind has skipped into a more mellow mood, sunshine has found a place in the sky, and all seems momentarily well on this day, Thurzda, Feb. 13, 2025.

Snow remains out there in force but its presence is shrinking. Bushes and trees continue their recovery. Fallen branches and trees around the city are being collected, cut up, moved away. If a bit more snow can melt off the piles lining the roads, we’re almost be back to normal.

Many are commenting on the bizarro Oval Office presentation by PINO Trusk. The elected half sat in a chair doing nothing and little vacuous. The other paced and made claims about finding and eliminating fraud. He made wild claims but stayed with the GOTP M.O. of offering no evidence or facts to back the claims. Looked like a Banana Republic Production to me. Paul Krugman did a nice take down of it in a post titled, Elon Musk Is Faking It.

Bet you saw the news that the GOTP wants to raise the debt ceiling for PINO Trusk. One reason given for the need for more debt is that ICE is running low on funds. Wow, who would’ve predicted that, right? Well, just ’bout anybody with the wits to realize the enormous costs involved with Trusk’s deportation plans. As seen on TV, the GOTP and their Project 2025 planners are purty damn witless, in addition to being lawless.

The Neurons jumped back to 1974 to find a tune to honor PINO Trusk. With all of his claims, he’s done nothing provable in quest of slaying fraud, as he claims; he’s only made us more vulnerable as a nation, broke laws and undermined justice, broke promises made to his MAGAts (see inflation and the cost of eggs), and sowed disorder and chaos on a national scale.

Stevie Wonder was found to have provided a song for the times. He called it, “You Haven’t Done Nothin'”.

We are amazed but not amused
By all the things you say that you’ll do
Though much concerned but not involved
With decisions that are made by you

But we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
“You haven’t done nothing”!

It’s not too cool to be ridiculed
But you brought this upon yourself
The world is tired of pacifiers
We want the truth and nothing else

And we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
“You haven’t done nothing”!

h/t to AZLyrics.com

I chugged some coffee earlier and I’m pretty well ready to go. Hope you have the plum-est of days imaginable, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. Let’s go get it. Cheers

4

A Hybrid Dream

I called this one a hybrid dream. My ‘anxiety dreams’ often circle around my long-ago military career. Now my psyche has folded some of my civilian occupations into the mix.

This one began with me working with programmers. While they were busy on the daily stuff required for the present, I was focused on a transition planned for several years down the road. We were installing a new ‘smart’ support system. I was creating test scenarios. At one point, I stopped for a break and overheard someone say that the implementation date would be 2032.

2032. My spirit sagged. I’m going to be forced to wait that long for results?

The dream shifted. Now I’m at work in a military command post as I did for years. I’m working alone in the facility, monitoring different systems. While going back to get supplies, I notice a light blue telephone frame room door ajar. After another second, gathering someone is in there, I head back to the console area to call the security police.

The console is a mess. Phones aren’t where I expected them to be. I can’t find a hotline to the SPs. What the hell, there aren’t any hotlines to anywhere. What kind of command post is this? A dream twist causes me to get distracted. I begin cleaning and organizing the command post, cursing it as I do. What the hell is wrong with this organization that they let it get like this?

Going past the blue frame room door, I realized that I’d forgotten about the person in there. Now I see a woman leave that room. Past her is a cot, chair, clothing, and a small camping table. She’s living in there! Now, using a radio, I notify the security police.

They immediately arrive and take her into custody. Then I realize, I’m out of the console area, and I’m locked out. The console area is never supposed to be unmanned. What is wrong with me?

I hasten to get myself back inside. A person who works for me, a female, is just entering, so she let’s me in I hurry to the console. She accompanies me. We’re chatting, and then I remember and tell her, “I’m behind. I didn’t do my shift checklist, inventory the communications security gear, update the log.”

She says, “Wow, you are behind.”

I begin doing those things. Unlocking and opening the communications security safe, house to all the code books and crypto, I find food inside. “What the hell?”

Taking the food out, I stack it neatly. It comes to me that someone else stored the food there but I don’t know their intention. It looks like candy for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter. I organize it and start giving it away.

Dream end.

1

Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

“Watch out for those stairs.”

My wife and her friend are telling me this. Going down some steps, I’m wearing the blue and white flat sandals forced on me by my lymphedema wraps around my feet and lower legs. They’re a little clumsy to walk in but after five days, I have the measure of them.

“Be careful,” they tell me, hovering around me like I’m a toddler taking their first steps.

“Watch the snow and ice,” they proclaim as I step outside. “There’s a clearer path over there.”

Their concern strikes me as condescending. I mean, they’re with me for ten minutes; what do they think I’m doing for the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes of the day?

“Are you okay to drive?” one asks me.

I smile and nod. I mean, I drove over there. I’ve been driving every day with these things on several times per day. Really, their concern says more about them and their fears and worries than it says about me and my condition.

6

Wenzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

From a post by the Florence County Democratic Party (South Carolina):

“A day in the Life of Sue Republican.

Sue gets up at 6 a.m. and fills her coffeepot with water to prepare her morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With her first swallow of coffee, she takes her daily medication. Her medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of her medications are paid for by her employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Sue gets it too.

She prepares her morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Sue’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the shower, Sue reaches for her shampoo. Her bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for her right to know what she was putting on her body and how much it contained.

Sue dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air she breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

She walks to the subway station for her government-subsidized ride to work. It saves her considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Sue begins her work day. She has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Sue’s employer pays these standards because Sue’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Sue is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, she’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think she should lose her home because of her temporary misfortune.

It’s noon and Sue needs to make a bank deposit so she can pay some bills. Sue’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Sue’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Sue has to pay her Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and her below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Sue and the government would be better off if she was educated and earned more money over her lifetime.

Sue is home from work. She plans to visit her father this evening at his farm home in the country. She gets in her car for the drive. Her car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

She arrives at her childhood home. Her generation was the third to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

She is happy to see her father, who is now retired. Her father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Sue wouldn’t have to.

Sue gets back in her car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Sue enjoys throughout her day. Sue agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m self-made and believe everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

The writer(s) captured the conundrum quite brilliantly to me. These Republicans in their bubbles or those low-informed voters not paying attention, gladly and eagerly seize whatever they’re fed by a right-wing outlet and bet on it as gospel. They’re dismantling so many things brought to them by Democratic initiatives and the Federal government. And as so many of us consistently predict, they won’t know what they have until it’s gone. Then, after the collapse of progress, the GOTP will blame the Democrats.

And Sue Republican and her peers and the under informed will all agree.

1

Wenzda’s Theme Music

Greetings to all on this day, Wenzda, February 12, 2025. Sunshine is blazing across a bold blue sky, dazzling off the disheveled snow comforter still in place around much of Ashlandia. It’s 24 F, up from 19 F. Gonna get up to 42, 43 F, ‘they’ tell us.

A gorgeous full moon visited last night. Light sprayed across the snow, throwing deep shadows around trees and houses. One of those wondrous sights that hold your attention and forces you to invest in deep philosophical thoughts about the nature of existence. At least, until the wine runs out.

Happy Darwin Day! “Charles Robert Darwin, who first described the process of evolution of species in the plant and animal kingdoms through natural selection, was born.
It is now celebrated as Darwin Day, when the common language of science, bridging language and culture, is recognized and appreciated.“ stolen from Scottie’s Playtime. A friend puts on a one-person play as Darwin to honor the man. We were planning to attend but with the rise of flu and other respiratory illnesses, we backed off that intention.

That’s Dr. Pepper Trail on the right.

I also have another lymphedema bandage session this afternoon. The left appendage and all of its accessories responded well and I may come out of there wearing a normal shoe on it. The right, which had the surgery, still had some space to improve.

Today’s song is “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John with Lyrics by Bernie Taupin. Released in 1973, while I was in high school, it’s one of those songs which are easy to sing along with…if you know the words! It’s like, what is he saying? Hearing the actual lyrics cause conniptions over meanings and associations. Some seem straightforward enough but others give a ‘huuuhhh?’ moment. It’s about longing to me, though, about being in a different place and time, one where you feel more comfortable. That’s why I The Neurons have delivered it to the morning mental music stream. Reading the world’s news, especially politics in the U.S., I wondered what road we’ll need to follow to survive and free ourselves of this mess. Where is the yellow brick road?

Coffee grabbed me as I was walking by and took me into the kitchen, where I indulged a cup to wash down a lemon turnover. Hope your day goes well. Stay safe out there. Cheers

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Just A Dream

Daily writing prompt
Write about your dream home.
View all responses

I’ve almost lived in my dream home a few times. That whole personal paradigm of what a dream home is changes with time.

Living in Germany off base in a little town called Waldorf, I was quite happy. Up on the fifth floor, we had nice views and were short walks to some sweet cafes, bakeries, and gasthauses. The drive to the base was short. Not much traffic was encountered on a typical day until I reached the gate, so there was no frustrations or irritations associated with driving. Frankfurt itself, with all that it offered was just down the autobahn. The train or the autobahn easily took us other places, not just in Germany, but across Europe. It was wonderful.

But I rotated ‘home’, to the United States. Home was now Onizuka Air Station, previously known as Sunnyvale Air Station, in Sunnyvale, California. After living in an apartment in Sunnyvale, I moved to base housing. Then I retired from the military and lived in a Mountain View duplex on a cul-de-sac. But my wife and I noticed that we often spent time when we weren’t working in Half Moon Bay, California. So we found a place there, a beautiful townhome just a mile from the beach.

Half Moon Bay was a wonderful town. Our place was just a six minute walk from downtown and its plethora of restaurants, shops, cafes, and stores. We were in heaven for a while there.

But it’s Half Moon Bay, a small place. We still worked in San Mateo, Redwood City, Mountain View. Besides work, we needed to venture up Highway 92 and ‘over the hill’ to do shopping. The traffic there was bad and getting worse.

Then our housing association started going crazo. They began more stringent with the rules while increasing the HOA dues. We were soon paying almost a thousand a month for that and climbing.

So we moved here, to Ashland, in southern Oregon. The town initially offered a lot of promise but the promise has faded. We also know that, gosh, we miss that ocean. So, we want to move again.

To where? Well, probably the east coast in the U.S. Maybe to Europe. Perhaps Canada. Or South America. I want a small town with interesting stores and cafes, good food, and a sense of community. It’s a place where I can walk for coffee, food, beer, books. I’d also like to be by the sea and the churning, interesting facets it throws at my mind and senses. Will I find my dream home?

I don’t know. I think I’m still trying to dream it up.

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