Science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer. Singer (sorry, no shows) & nudist (in my home). Beer, cat, cheese, coffee, pie and wine friend. Left IBM and Silicon Valley for the southern Oregon life but I miss the ocean. We're too far inland. Gotta move.
I often wear a hat. Not in the house, except sometimes to bed, but that’s another night’s tale. The hat is a wide-brimmed green Tilley. A dozen pins decorates it.
When I checked in for my medical appointment yesterday, the young guy doing my intake looked at my hat and grinned.
“I was just admiring your pins.”
I replied, “That’s my flair.”
His grin grew wider. “You can never have too much flair.”
I answered, “No, but I think I need to speak to you about your flair.”
Laughter answered me. “I know. I gotta work on that.”
We both nodded. It was all an unspoken reference to Office Space from 1999. I figured the kid I was speaking to is about 29 years old, five or take, you know. But just a child when the movie came out.
I feel like we’re part of a secret tribe. The tribe of flare.
My wife spoke with her group of friends for coffee on Wednesday. All are college grads and retired professionals. All are liberals, progressives, or Democrats. They range in age from the early sixties to mid 80s. They’d just finished an exercise class at the Ashlandia Family Y. My wife was trying to gage their reactions to Trump’s moves via his musk rat and the DOdGEy operation running at his behest.
They were puzzled. One shrugged. “It’ll be over in two years.”
My wife was shocked, disconcerted, dumbfounded. “What do you think about the cuts at the Bonneville Power Administration?”
BPA provides Ashlandia’s power. BPA also manages the power grid in the Pacific Northwest.
Although BPA is part of the DOE, it is self-funded and covers its costs by selling its products and services at cost. The BPA provides about 28% of the electricity used in the region. BPA transmits and sells wholesale electricity in eight western states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California.[1] Its minimum wholesale rate is 3.49 cents per kilowatt-hour; the BPA generated $4.72 billion in operating revenue in 2022.
“On Sept. 30, the Bonneville Power Administration made its annual payment to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for the 41st consecutive year on time and in full, bringing cumulative payments to approximately $35.4 billion over this period. The total payment for fiscal year 2024 was $792.3 million.”
Returning to my wife’s friends, only one of them was aware of the personnel cuts.
They disturb my wife and I because they’re thinking that all of this is business as usual. In a period when Trump is getting referred to as a king, we’re abandoning our NATO commitments and allying ourselves with Russia instead, and women’s rights are rapidly regressing (see the SAVE act, fer instance) while Trump dismisses the Constitutional checks and balances, they’re basically shrugging their shoulders.
I’m happy to say that it’s not necessarily the prevailing feeling in Ashlandia.
I don’t have a crystal ball or any other means of predicting the future. But reading the Trusk moves and watching the GOTP back those moves with little resistance, I gotta say, Ima little worried.
They say it’s partly sunny in Ashlandia’s valley today Thurzda, Feb. 20, 2025, but I find if fully sunny. The clouds hanging around are rice-paper thin. Wandering aimlessly as a cloud, they break up as easily whipped cream in hot chocolate. 43 F right now, the temperature-measuring thingy is expected to test the fifties before the sun begins its wind down.
A sick cat & personal medical appointments has frayed my routines. Accomodating both — cat (Tucker, the still-handsome black and white floof whose name is pronounced Tuck-ah) and my med appointments are high priorities. So are my twice-daily rituals of self-massaging my bod using the techniques taught me to stimulate my lymphatic system. The wraps and self-massaging seem to be working. My left limb/foot is stabilized and doesn’t swell during the day. I have very minor swelling on the right side, mostly focused on the 3-4-5 toes. As for Tucker, he’s on antibiotics, so we’ll see where it goes. His nocturnal issues diced my sleep into bite-sized chunks, so I was late rolling out of bed. Anyway, the efforts involved in these things cut into my reading/writing/posting/surface hours, and I’m the crankier for it. I know, I am such a whiner.
Today’s song is another odd choice for The Neurons. I have “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” from the 1984 movie, Footloose, with Kevin Bacon. Deniece Williams sings the song,
Folks, this thing was released over 40 years ago. The movie never thrilled my sensibilities but I had plenty o’ younger friends who enjoyed it. Those who liked it were mostly feminine and enticed by Bacon and his dancing. The movie begat several hit songs which seemed perpetually on the radio of the time. Why it’s in my morning mental music stream is beyond my reasoning skills. The Neurons often have their way with me and rarely devote elucidation about it. It’s okay, though, as I’m pleased to not have songs associated with the 2025 PINO Trusk Shitstorm in my head.
Coffee and I made a handshake agreement and I’m gulping like it’s going out of style. Hope you have a solid day. Cheers
This Wenzda, February 19, 2025, is being rinsed off. Yes, it’s 43 F and rain is falling. Papi the ginger blade, aka Meep, Butter Butt and Butter Booger, has chosen to ensconce himself on the living room sofa, not far from the fireplace’s steady warmth. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) remains under the weather and is staying on a bed under the influence of antibiotics. He’s showing a slow but steady recovery. Fingers and toes remain interwoven, as in crossing.
I’m running late due to tending the cat but also because today’s lymphedema massage therapy appointment is at high noon. So I’m ’bout to bust out the door. I bathed with a wash cloth and then did my self-massaging and moisturing, but then washed my hair. A hope is lit that I’ll be done with the thick wraps today. That’s because I’ve shown steady improvement, and the swelling has drastically declined. My efforts certaintly contributed but she added some thicker padding at several locations, and I noticed a dramatic impact from that. Although the wraps only remain on my lower right limb and foot, I can’t properly bathe while working them. I’m aching for a solid, warm shower, you know?
The Neurons have a weird song playing in my head. Not a weird song, sorry; it’s an excellent song, emblamatic of an era and attitude. But why today? That is the question. The song in question plowing my morning mental music stream is “Super Bad” from 1970 by James Brown. Nothing to do with dreams, cats, weather, food, coffee, or news. So what the heck, right?
Love all the different dance moves of the period the young dancer employs.
This is another of those questions with contingencies circling around a word. Today, it’s ‘gift’. I mean, the gifts of life and good health are often on people’s lists. I’ve experienced enough personal health scares to appreciate those words. A memory seared into my being is of being very sick one year. Bronchitis turned to pneumonia. I awoke to Mom’s high pitched appeals, “Please, Lord, let my son live.” Her efforts worked, as here I am. Pretty good gift, I think.
Then there is the best gift received as a present. That would be a 1/20 scale model of a 1961 Jaguar XK-E. I was around nine or ten years old. Car fever bowled me over. Porsches, Corvettes, Ferraris, name it. But that Jag impressed me as the most stylistic art on four wheels. The roadster was my choice but the model was a coupe. It was fun to build, and I displayed the result with pride.
However, there was a shirt given to me when I was fourteen. A female classmate had a crush on me. I was aware of this because other girls wrote me a note informing me of the fact. Later that week, she bought the shirt, and gave it to me as a gift. Although the shirt wasn’t my style, I was flattered. Astonished, really. In retrospect, I understand how much courage it took her to buy that and give it to me.
I suppose, though, the best gift is that kiss and hug my wife gave me the first time she ever told me she loved me. Unable to speak the words, she wrote them in the steam on a window. We were teenagers and that’s another memory captured in amber. Married a few years later, we’re still married fifty years later.
So, not an easy question to answer. The question does force me to realize how many great gifts I’ve received.
I hope I was able to give a few to others along the way.
Hard to think of this as Twosda. The news cycle overflows the norms like flood waters rushing across the plains.
It’s another hazy shade of winter in Ashlandia. Our temperature is hovering at a more springish 48 F, bestowing us with a feel of winring. Will the sun heed the Doors and break on through? Is rain on its way? The betting windows are still open.
This is Twosda, Feb. 18 2025. I own a lot start after some night hours were investing in comforting and helping a sick floof. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) has been under the weather. He’s resting well now but with uncertainty about his condition, who knows? Fingers and toes crossed and everything.
The Great 2025 American Shitstorm rages on as the Trusk Regime continues wreaking havoc, doing everything to make it all over in PINO Trump’s shallow, broken image. They’re cunning bastards and morally corrupt, basically confirming the worse of what we’ve come to see in the right wing and oligarchs. They want it all and fuck the people. The GOTP’s compass is all about getting re-elected and staying in office, so they’ll only cowardly resist with micey squeaks if their constituents complain. I’d say it’s gonna be a long four years but this has the taste of something more ugly and sinister, a poison pill to remake the United States for the rich and white, with a token nod to Christianity.
Today’s music is a product of serendipity. I’ve been encountering the Scottish synthpop trio CHVRCHΞS in multiple settings over the last week. They were on my car radio last week. Paul Krugman used them a few times as his Coda, I spotted them on SNL, heard them online through another’s post, and encountered them again on the car radio coming home yesterday. On a surprise scale that goes to seven as the strongest indicator for surprise, it was a one when Der Neurons began a CHVRCHΞS song in the morning mental music stream today. I always liked the song “Leave A Trace” from 2015.
Lauren Mayberry sings,
And you had best believe That you cannot build what I don’t need And I know I need to feel relief And I know you’ll never fold But I believe nothing that I’m told And I know I need to feel relief
I enjoy her voice. In some songs, she reminds me of Deborah Harry. Other times, it seems like she’s echoing Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries. Sinead O’Connor’s similarities also sneak through.
And yes, there are shadows of 2025 politics spilling through those lyrics for me. The GOTP is tryhing to build what I don’t need, what the world doesn’t need. And yep, some relief from their shitshow would be welcomed in my psyche. But they ain’t gonna fold and go away. Their efforts to create a nation mocking the founders’ ideas keeps on with no relief.
Coffee has breached my defenses despite my efforts. I admit, I was complicit in coffee’s invasion. Put the water in the machine, added coffe, turned it on, poured it into a mug, put the mug to my lips, tipped up the mug, let the dark goodness cover my tongue and swirled down my gullet. Hope you have a strong, positive day. Here we go. Cheers
I was seventeen when I joined the U.S. military. I didn’t begin serving until I was 18. Frustrated with life, I wanted to see the world and find answers.
Military pay didn’t go far in 1974. $344 a month was my starting salary. Desiring to make it go further, I sought guidance as I do for everything: research. Back in those days, that meant mostly hitting the library.
Finding books on budgeting, two things were stressed: one, pay yourself first. Put money into savings. Have at least a few months worth of living expenses to fall back on in case of emergencies. I married, and my wife and I made it a goal to have and keep at least six months of expenses on hand in savings.
The other thing was to always pay off your credit card. Not doing so meant that you were losing money on the interest you were paying, and that would only get worse because it would be compounded. Part of our process was that anything put on the credit card would need to be budgeted to be paid off when the bill came in. We’ve never varied from that and always have a dialogue about was, and is, going on the credit card.
Every month, we brainstormed to list all of our expenses and listed them in a notebook. Some were fixed costs; we knew what they were. They were entered first. Next, the things which needed to be but fluctuated in price and need, depending on multiple factors. This included gasoline and haircuts. Everything was listed, added, scrutinized, prioritized. We didn’t have cable TV because that was $12 which we couldn’t afford. We went to the library, checked out books, and read.
Our final pole for budget was to be frugal shoppers. Back then we saved pennies to buy an occassional dessert. We scoured ads for sales. During that time, coupons in newspapers came out on Wednesday and Sunday. We always bought the newspaper on those days, and then went dumpster diving on the coupon sections that others threw out. Most months we saved over a hundred dollars with coupons.
Later, when IRAs began, we grit our teeth and maxed contributions out. First, IRAs were savings which would earn money and be deferred for taxes, but it was also money which we could deduct from our income tax, enabling us to get the most back in taxes which we could. Likewise, when we started working for corporations that offered a 401 K, we maxed out our contributions.
And doing taxes, of course, which I always did, and still do, I hunt for deductions.
It was tough. Although we’re much better off financially, we still adhere to many of these tenets. I keepa spreadsheet of our savings. We monitor our credit cards and bunce Now, as tariffs, cutbacks, and shortages threaten supplies lines and possible high inflation looms, my wife reminds me, “We know how to live poor. We did it before. We can do it again.”
Michael Seidel, writer 