Author: Michael Seidel

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.

The New Biz

There’s a new business in Ashlandia: Kingston Cannabis.

It’s on the south end of town, by I-5 and the Exit 14 Interchange. The business used to be a U-Haul service center. Before that, it was an automobile service station. Like the U-Haul place, Kinsgston reeks with 1960s era service station design clues.

My wife and I decided to stop there the other day. We were on a mission. Cannabis was not involved. We weren’t interested in THC, CBD, CBG – nothing like that lured us to Kingston. We were there for the food truck.

Garcia’s Tacos.

My wife and I, white as new snow on Mount Ashland, are very fond of Mexican food, especially that part of the food spectrum called Tex Mex. We really enjoy burritos. Tell us that breakfast burritos are available and our eyes light up like the Terminator chasing after John.

Besides Garcia’s food truck, several other food trucks are authorized to park at Kingston’s, including Kat’s Crepes – oh, boy – Yolks and Toast (there almost every Sunday), Desserts1st, Tacos El Paisa, Double B Wings, Laika’s Lox & Bagels, and a doughnut truck called Lil’ Monster Donuts . Yes, a doughnut food truck! Almost as damn enticing to the taste buddies as a Mexican food truck.

The best burritos in Ashland, in our opinion, is offered by Ruby’s of Ashland. They’re downtown, on Pioneer, just a few blocks from the plaza, Lithia Park, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s theaters. Good location, yeah? Yeah. Tres popular place. Next to it is a lovely tap house, Gil’s. Cold brews, you know? Yeah, you know.

So, we ordered Garcia breakfast burritos. Nine dollars each. He gave us a pager for when the meal was ready. Off we went to explore Kingston.

Okay, if you want edibles or smoke-ables, Kingston can serve you. They have fine offerings out of Washington, Oregon, and California. They make many things locally. We didn’t buy anything today but the gummies and cookies were both talking to me. Friends swear by their combination of THC/CBG gummies.

Besides the cannabis offerings, Kingston has a lovely outdoor seating area. Half is covered. New café tables and chairs are set up. Water features and fire pits are set up to counter weather’s influence. The manager told us that they have live music several times a month, with the food trucks coming on site to provide food and refreshments. Besides the seating area, they also had Cornhole set up.

Our burritos took a while. We finally took them home and devoured those puppies. Mine was egg, hash browns, and bacon. It was dry but tasty. Definitely didn’t overtake Ruby’s burritos are the top of the list but definitely worth another tasting.

And of course, there are plenty of other food truck offerings awaiting our judgement. It’s game on.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

The coffee shop banned a man. He’s middle-aged. White. He’s been coming here as long as I have. I know from conversations with him that he accepts and promulgates several sharply right conspiracy theories and also promotes some unusual Christian ideas about how aliens founded or influenced Christianity. It’s a web which I couldn’t fully untangle.

He’s always struck me as a little lonely, eager for friendship, hungry for validation. One morning this week, he came in, set up somewhere, and placed an order. I didn’t hear any of that. He returned to his seat, picked up is gear, and headed for the door. Pausing by me, he said, “I showed some of them my website the other day, and they’ve banned me. They said they’d call the police if I came in here again.”

Turning, he shouted at the counter, “What happened to freedom of speech?” He stormed for the door. Pausing there, he yelled, “Fascists,” and was gone.

It’s a reflection about boundaries to me. I don’t know what was said the other day or how his website was presented. I know of two other people who were banned earlier this year because they ‘annoyed’ other customers. I witnessed some of that, and yeah, they were annoying. I have mixed thoughts about this, about businesses banning people. I don’t know what was said between the parties but I feel for the folks who struggle, and that’s what I’ve always thought I’ve seen with the banned three.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: contemplative

Quiet day here yesterday, today. Light traffic. Today brings more human mechanical noises through the air. A chipper is at work somewhere, and the trash has been picked up at the apartment complex down the street. It’s Thursday, July 13, 2023.

65 F outside, we expect our upper temp to pick at the low 90s in Ashlandia today, where the grass is browning like biscuits in the oven, and the children are going hiking. VP Kamela Harris, the first woman of color to be VPOTUS, made more history by matching the number of most tie-breaking votes made, 31. I believe she might set a new record before her term is done. The historic vote advanced Kalpana Kotagal’s nomination to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. VP Harris shares the record with John C. Calhoun, so the record has been set for a while. It took VP Calhoun eight years to set it back in the early 1800s.

Meanwhile, over on the Fox News website, read all about the man found with skulls, a missing man’s body found in Yosemite, a cat killer, and shark encounters.

The Neurons pre-loaded a Bad Company, “Shooting Star”, from 1975, into the morning mental music stream (trademark contemplated). Why, Les Neurons, why this song on this day? Why not, they answer. Because it’s there, they also replied. And, because we wanted to. Because we could. Little blighters.

Here’s the music. Stay pos, informed, and aware. Ingesting some fresh coffee to help me kickstart my brain. Oh — here comes kickstart my heart. Oh, well.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

A Tiger Swallowtail butterfly landed on a butterfly bush’s long purplish panicle as he approached the plant on his walk. Such a Zen moment, he felt forced to pause for consideration of the scene. Then the butterfly and he moved on, as though neither were ever there, leaving the bush standing alone and patient once again.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Hello. It’s Wednesday, 7/12/2023. Mood: energetic

Gonna be 90 F here in Ashlandia, where the produce is fresh and the cheese is locally made organic. 66 F now — about 19 C — and you know I’m enjoying that. Trending warmer, but we are the fortunate. Looking south and east, a heat dome has settled over the land. In Arizona, wildfires rage. Their daily high temperatures have been over 110 F every day in July so far and isn’t showing signs of abating. That’s hot, friends. It’s even staying in the low 90s at night, so there is no relief. Feel for the land, people, animals.

Meanwhile, New England suffered heavy rains. Vermont experienced serious flooding. A warm, dry day is expected for them today, but more heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow.

Not feeling it? You might, if you’re in the US. That heat dome is expanding to the south and east. From Accuweather:

Temperatures to climb to extreme levels even for hottest part of US

More than 50 million Americans in the southwestern U.S. are under heat advisories or warnings as temperatures will take a run at records that have stood for nearly 50 years in some locations.

More than 50 million Americans in the southwestern United States are under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings as a blistering heat dome maintains its grip on the region. The heat will place additional stress on the energy grid, elevate the threat of wildfires and increase the risk of heat-related illnesses.

Temperatures will climb to levels unusual even for the notoriously hot region of the U.S., putting long-standing records in jeopardy. A sprawling area of high pressure that is positioned over the Southwest, known as a heat dome to meteorologists, is the culprit behind the extreme temperatures.

“This [pattern] will help to minimize the number of showers or storms and allow for intense sunshine that will help boost temperatures,” explained AccuWeather Meteorologist Andrew Johnson-Levine.

AccuWeather meteorologists say that the scorching conditions will increase heading into the weekend and even expand into parts of the Central states and Southeast by next week.

Here’s a link for your further reading.

Meanwhile, the 1966 cover of the folk song “Sloop John B” by the Beach Boys is playing in the morning mental music stream (trademark pending). I have a sense that the song was/is related to my dreams, but I can’t get through the maze to find the connections. Nevertheless, dream and sing have lifted my spirits, so I’m going with the flow.

Stay pos, and be strong. I’m going to have some coffee now. The day is on. Let us begin.

Here’s the tune. Cheers

0

The Two-Body Dream

A woman I didn’t know was outside, speaking about our bodies. White but tanned, middle-aged and slender, I slowed, then stopped, listening to her. She said that we all have body and blah, blah, blah.

I interrupted. “No, I have two bodies.”

“Well,” she began, defensiveness edging into her voice, “yes, we do but, blah, blah, blah.”

At that point, I brought up my second body. It was a little grayed out, with some fuzziness, and the color danced like a drunk guy trying dance moves, but it was there. In most appearances, it was like me but about an inch taller and a teaspoon thicker in the shoulders. We were wearing the same clothes, a yellow buttoned shirt, short-sleeved, not tucked in, with khaki shorts, and we were barefoot.

The woman stammered about how that was impossible. I said, “Yet, here it is.” She went on with a drying, confused voice that two bodies cannot exist in the same plane. I answered, “No, he’s in the other world. That’s where he exists and why he looks a little uneven. But the thing is, the other world is here. So he’s in the other world, but the other world is here. Meanwhile, I’m in the this world, which is the other world to him, and he’s explaining this to you as I’m doing here. Clear?”

Then I laughed because her confused look explained it wasn’t clear, and woke up.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

I don’t care what others claim, if you’re eating raw crunchy veggies, the volume on the televisions MUST be turned up. And it’s not because ‘I’m getting old,’ damn it.

Signed, cranky middle-aged person.

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Kinefloofics

Kinefloofics (floofinitions) – The branch of floofatics concerned with floof activity and motion without reference to the causal forces.

In use: “When a new floof comes around — either as a casual visitor to the property or introduced as a new floofhold member — it’s natural for the other floofs as well as the humans to apply kinefloofics to understand what the new booger is like.” – Excerpt from “Once Upon A Floof; The Relationships Between Humans and Animals”

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