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.
Back at the homestead. Something is barking outside. Sounds like a sea lion barking up a storm. Understandable, as he’s in the mountains. Probably asking directions for the coast.
It’s Thursday, Jun 29, 2023. Folks are active outside on this cool 62 F morning in Ashlandia today, where the seniors are busy and the coffee shops are crowded. We’re lookin’ fer 90, 92 F, sumpin’ in that area, today. Protect your skin, and hydrate. It’s a no-cloud zone for now.
Coffee drinking has commenced. The cats have been in and out, tickled by their space, entertained by a jay’s activities, soothed by a breeze, warmed by the sun. The jay is always out there doing things — well, dusk to dawn — sorry for the hyperbole — an epitome of energy. Depressing to watch their busy self. Makes me feel like a sloth in comp.
In sad news, sunrise has backed up to 5:37 AM. A moment of silence for the lost minutes. Next thing you know, it’ll be November and the sunrise won’t be comin’ ’round till after seven.
Has been a fast year. I always think that it’s just me feelin’ so but my wife said to me, “It feels like it’s too soon for the fourth of July.” I agree. Feels like we’re shooting through 2023 like a slick uncooked turkey through buttered fingers.
After I began ruminating about time, The Neurons just took off runnin’ with it. Don’t know ’bout you, but that’s how my neurons do. Then people are asking, “You look like you were thinking about something.” You reply, “I think I might have been but I don’t know what it was.” Anyway, The Neurons reacted with “Time Is Running Out” by Muse (2004). I enjoyed the video back when it was released, just under a year before we moved from California to Oregon. Liked those military folks around the table, oblivious and yet doing things as a synchronized act. After my military career, that felt right to me.
Stay pos, and don’t let the bedbugs bite. Here’s the music. Cheers
TL/DR – went up north to get my REAL ID. An overnight trip. The cats are happy we’re home. Gonna get hot here in the next few days.
A late post to the day. We’ve returned to Ashlandia, where the temperature is 85 F, the time is 7:07 PM, and the people are sweaty. Been away today, heading north on the great driver license quest yesterday. See, I turn 67 next week and license expires. Being over 65 means renewing must be done in person so they can check my eyes, a fifteen second step in the entire process. But let’s go back to the start.
Got the notice a few months ago and began to plan. First thing I learned is that Ashlandia’s DMV office is open three days a week, seven hours on Tuesday and Thursday, and six hours on Wednesday. Second, the line gets long very quickly. People are outside an hour before, waiting for the office to open. Third, there are no appointments available. I tried making one for weeks, again, again, again, again, again.
I checked the Medford DMV, twenty-five miles up the road. No appointments to be found — again, again, again, again, again. Next was Grants Pass, fifty miles away. No appointments. But Canyonville, up Interstate 5, 85 miles away, had appointments. So I will go, I decided. My wife said she would accompany so we decided that we’d go on to Eugene to shop for books, shoes, clothes, and stay overnight. See, a wedding is coming up in a few months. Quite formal, one of my nephews, and we’re gonna be there.
After making the appointment, I told several friends about my efforts. One related that his son just renewed his license. I don’t know why he didn’t do it online, but he went down to the DMV office in Medford, where he resided, four times. Finally arrived one morning half an hour before the office opened. Got in line. Finished four hours later.
I could have done that, I suppose, just keep going to the DMV and getting in line and waiting, rather than racing up the highway. But a road trip is more fun than sitting around for me.
Anyway, one of the other friends mentioned that he’d tried renewing in Ashlandia, and then in Medford, and found the waits exasperating. As he and his wife had to go to Portland, they stopped in Canyonville. He walked into the DMV and had it all done in minutes.
Well, I arrived yesterday at the Canyonville DMV fifteen minutes before my appointment. Walked in. One person working in there. Fifteen people waiting. Everyone had a number. But I had an appointment. Where do you go if you have an appointment? There was no guidance.
The person being served finished. The sole agent called for the next number. I headed toward the counter. A woman leaped up and said, “I have a ten fifty appointment.” Her name was checked, appointment verified. I said, “I have an eleven o’clock appointment.”
The agent said, “Wait on the red carpet. That way, we’ll know you have an appointment.”
Ah, the red carpet, of course! The three by three foot red carpet. How could I have not known that? That’s how her friendly but snarky tone sounded.
A little after eleven, a second agent snuck into the work area and called the next number. I said, “Excuse me, but I’m standing on the red carpet!”
Quickly the agent bowed. “Please forgive me and come forward.”
No, just in my imagination. Actually, I just told the new agent what I had an eleven o’clock appointment. She asked me my name and we began. It was a quick ordeal, barely long enough to call it an ordeal. Funniest part was that I wear glasses to drive but forgot to put them on when I did the eye exam. “Perfect,” the agent said. “Do you wear contacts?”
“No, I just forgot to wear my glasses.”
Supposed to get hot tomorrow, with sunshine exploding with heat and dry, calm air moving it, the low nineties are anticipated. Gonna be that way, getting warmer, for a few weeks, not just in Ashlandia, but in southwestern Oregon.
Returning today, the cats were happy to see us. Papi was relieved to be allowed back outside. Although we have a pet door installed, Tucker likes sleeping in front of it, blocking Papi’s progress and giving him stress and anxiety. So, pet door were closed, and the cats were locked in the house together with food and water for about thirty hours. Blocked windows provided them with fresh air and kept the place cool.
Today’s music came about after we watched Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Music last night. It’s amazing, incredibly creative, fascinating in so many ways, and a showcase of impressive talents by multiple individuals. I surfed the net for more info about it this morning. I ended up coming a “Better Together” with Jack Johnson being done as part of Song Around the World/Playing for Change. I offer it up to you.
Stay strong, be cool, and continued to have brightly positive, as you can, when you can. Here’s the music.
June of 2023 is slip sliding away. It’s already 6/27, fer gosh sakes. Temptation Tuesday, too. Temptation Tuesday is always recognized as the last Tuesday of June. It’s so-called Temptation Tuesday because people north of the equator on summer or bathing suit diets often lose their will to keep going on their diet. See, they’d been making progress, looking good, feeling better about themselves. Don’t they deserve a little reward?
Gonna be 84 F here in Ashlandia, where the cats are chubby and the dogs are barky. No significant change from yesterday. Change is a’comin’, though. Big heat heading for northern California. We’ll get some runoff from that, with highs climbing into the nineties. Not expected to break 100 F, knock on plastic.
The Neurons are playing “Tom’s Cabin” by Suzanne Vega with music by DNA. Always enjoy this song about a woman in a cafe on a rainy day thinking about someone else and observing the minutea around her. Have no idea why Der Neurons are playing in the morning mental music stream.
Stay pos and keep reaching for the heavens, or something like that. We have coffee at hand. Here’s la musica. Cheers
He thought he saw a friend entering the coffee shop, staring at him as the other passed.
Impossible, of course. His friend, Andy, died back in the early part of the century, murdered while on a business trip in Tennessee, a story misted with mystery. Andy and a woman he’d met at a bar talked to a man in the bar about buying a boat. After some drinking, the three went out to the man’s house at midnight to see the boat. A fight ensued.
Andy always carried a knife and pulled it now. The knife was taken from him. Stabbed twice in the abdomen, he staggered half a mile down the long dirt road leading to the house. A trooper found him dead on the roadside hours later.
All that came back as he watched the man with the remarkable resemblance to Andy. Other possibilities could explain why the man looked like Andy. It could be Andy. Andy could have returned from the dead. Andy’s death may have been faked, the death story constructed as part of some larger con. Maybe Andy had a twin he didn’t know about, or he’d crossed into a dimension where Andy still lived. Theories crowded his head as Andy’s doppelganger took his coffee and departed the establishment.
He couldn’t let it go. Catching up, he called, “Andy.”
The man turned back to him. A smile flickered over his expression. “No. Not me.”
Sipping his coffee, the Andy twin turned and hastened away.
Floofcological(floofinition) – Mental or emotional state of a person or animal arising from or related to thoughts or worries about animals, or observations about animals.
In use: “Her floofcological state always became anxiety-frazzled when she was forced to go away on visits and not be with her floof friends, although the ability to see and talk to them via a security system helped restore her calm each night.”
63 F in the outdoors with a tincture of cool mountain air offsetting the morning sun’s greeting. “Perfect,” the cats agree. They’re looking forward to the possible high in the low to mid 80s F.
It’s Monday, June 26, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the cougars and bears roam the streets and tourists roam the restaurants. Perusing the news, there’s hope for a cancer treatment that shrinks tumors, deaths in Pakistan from lightning, North Korea keeping up its traditional war of words with the US, cocaine market is booming, tornadoes in the east, train hauling hazardous materials derailed — yes, another — and more deaths, more deaths, more deaths. Not much on Ukraine and Russia. Nothing on Trump. Probably too early in the day. Race results about a NASCAR offering named after a corporation which bought the rights provides filler,
Stone Temple Pilots, J. Cash, Bush, and the Stones have songs sharing space in my morning mental music stream, they being, “Creep”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, “Machinehead”, and “Start Me Up”. Why them was the leading question in my interrogation of The Neurons to learn more. They took the fifth. No comment all the way.
After all that, I went with “When the Whip Comes Down” by the Rolling Stones, a song featured in the documentary about them last night when they focused on Ronnie Wood. Written and released in 1978 (yeah, looked it up), the song is about a gay man and how he’s treated. I enjoy watching Mick playing gee-tar on the video.
May I suggest you stay positive and keep my moving forward? I’m moving toward a cup of coffee. Let’s get it cracking. Time waits for no one.
They entered the coffee shop, passed the hall with two restrooms in it and two signs pointing out those restrooms and walked to the other end of the coffee shop and stared at the employees’ break room door. Then they walked back to the counter and asked the baristas, “Do you have a restroom?” If they’d let their eyes go left, they would have seen a third large sign saying, “Restrooms” with a significant red arrow pointing the way and explanatory text, “The restrooms are in the hall to the right.”
Sometimes, though, you know, urgency just pushes rational thinking and observational skills right out of the brain.
Michael Seidel, writer 