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.

Monday’s Theme Music

High white cirrus brush strokes marble the pale blue sky. Monday, November 11, 2022, begins with sunshine and 33 degrees F in my foot of the valley. Although autumn fashion still imbues most neighborhood, eau de winter fills the air. It’ll be 54 F today, and mostly sunny. Sunshine crept in at 7:08 this morning like a cat sneaking in through the pet door. The day’s final rays will grace us at 4:45 PM.

We’re planning our soups. Soups in winter is a household favorite. Post Thanksgiving, we’ll resume a soup a week. I listed my favorites. Top of the list is harvest soup, which is all roasted veggies with mushroom broth. Second is chicken white chili. Tortellini soup comes next. Black bean veggie chili fills the fourth slot followed by lentil in fifth. Nothing like soup and warm bread on cold days to fill you, and these are all healthy and filling. Their simmering fragrances are a lovely bonus.

Musically, The Neurons were influenced by another’s post. Jill shared a song by Mike +the Mechanics, “In the Living Years”. It traditionally makes me pause to consider my relationship with Dad. Not the best, nor the worse, but a damaged one and a fount for personal frustration. He and I try but there’s just too much piss in the snow to completed the connections. I’m from his first marraige but he has children and stepchildren from a few other marriages. Dad was in the military and finally living in the continental US when I was a teenager. Another one of Mom’s marriages was imploding so I took refuge with Dad. He married again in my high school senior year. I became an adult and was gone. You see how it is. He just celebrated his 90th birthday last month.

That song prompted memories of other M +tM songs. The Neurons began playing “Taken In” from their 1985 album. I had it on CD and played it while driving across the southeastern U.S. I did that a lot in that life era. While stationed at Shaw AFB in South Carolina, I deployed on temporary duty to Florida, Somalia, Egypt, and places in Europe. I’d drive to stateside places, but before deploying, I’d sometimes take my wife and cats up north to stay with her family, as I’d be gone a while, four to eight weeks. So there were the trips there and back to taker her home, and there and back to pick her up. I put 54,000 miles on the car in eighteen months. Besides music, I’d listen to books on cassette tapes from the library. They weren’t yet on CD in our base library. It was an interesting time of transition.

“Taken In” is a mellow song and was ideal as a vehicle to help past the day speeding down the highways. I’d never seen the video before, but I love the period touches — the phones, the clothing, the cars. Hope you enjoy the video and music.

Here we go. Got coffee and a plain blueberry bagel. A cat monitors my progress on my left. The other sleeps in another room, where sunshine slices in past the slats on the blinds, generating a cozy ambiance. Stay positive, test negative. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sunshine is blending the clouds and blue skies into sweet fall melange. Winter temperatures jumped into the blend last night, taking us to 29 F. Up to 34 F now — feels like 3 C, the weather machines tell me — but it’ll rise up to 55 F later.

This is Sunday, November 20, 2022, the final Sunday before Thanksgiving celebrations begin and Black Friday officially starts. Our sun came around to see how we’re doing this morning at 7:07 and will abandon us like an old milk box at 4:45 this afternoon.

My latest flu & COVID vaccinations worked me over a bit yesterday. Squeezed my energy until I was an empty toothpaste roll. Hammered muscles into aching submission whether I moved or stayed still, and fossilized my joints. The cherry on top was a headache that circled front to back and up and down my cranium like it was trying to improve reception. Appetite remained great, but my mind was murky as coal mine slurry — Wordle was no fun — but bowel movements were unaffected. That was me in a webisode. All day was spent eating, writing, reading, and napping. So, not much difference from the usual.

Now I feel better than I did before the shots. What a difference twenty-four little hours can deliver.

The Neurons are all over that comment about a difference brought on by twenty-four hours. They’ve activated the morning mental music stream. The featured song is “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” by Dinah Washington from 1959. I’m going instead with the upbeat version delivered by Esther Phillips. Her voice is so distinctive that it’s hardwired into memory. What isn’t hardwired is when song came out. Turned out to be 1975 according to the Wikipedia gang. I also learned that Esther Phillips died when she was 48, brought down by kidney and liver issues caused by drug abuse.

Must dash now. A cat is calling, and I am a flooftouch. Cup of coffee is also serenading me and you know it would be unkind to not say hello and spend some time with it. Stay positive, test negative, get vaxxes as needed. Here we go, Sunday, here we go.

Cheers

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Flooftouch

Flooftouch (floofinition) – A person who is easily is easily taken advantage or manipulated by animals.

In use: “Michael was such a flooftouch for his cats. All that was needed was a purr, meow, or even just a look, and he responded by asking them what they wanted, hurrying about to give them treats or food, let them out, or

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Saturday’s Theme Music

It’s a slow-start Saturday. My vaxxes have taken me down a bit. Ah, well. Concerned floofs are providing constant attention. They keep coming by to ask if I’m alright and if I could give them more kibble. Kind of them.

Sunrise conquered our valley quickly after its 7:06 appearance this morning. A cloudless sky, but the winds are something else. Infused with glacial flavors, winds rocked us all night, and are still up to it. Despite that, we’re at 47 F and expect to hit 57 F. The winds currently sound like aircraft taking off a short distance away. For the record, this is Saturday, November 19, 2022. We’ve gone below the two-week warning for November. If you dreamed goals of doing something in November, hope you’re getting it done because the calendar is emptying.

Sunset will fall at 4:46 this evening. The wind did denude many trees. Our ‘little’ one — it’s about twenty feet tall, nothing compared to the huge old oaks, pines, and firs that live along this street — was stripped bare yesterday. When we left in the late morning, it was still rich and lively with foliage. Last night, gone. That’s how change sometimes work, swift and sudden.

My theme song for today comes from a comment to my wife last night. In response to her claim that we’re old — we’re in our sixties — I answered my usual, that we can be as young as we act. Then, for good measure, I had Alexa play today’s theme song, “We Are Young” by fun. from 2011. The conversation continued, though, through lists of things we used to be able to do when we were young, and the energy that we had back then, you know?

Stay positive, test negative, get your vaxes in your asses. Well, actually, these were injected into my arm. Just ate a bowl of hot oatmeal. For my next trick, I will attempt to brew and drink a cup of hot black coffee. Or maybe some floofs and I will snuggle in bed and read while the wind sings to us. It’s a coin toss.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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The Writing Moment

His fingers dance and skate across the keyboard. He talks with the characters, stares at far scenes until focus is found, laughs at a surprising turn. He turns his head, listening for what’s being said, rolling with the tension. Quarreling with the muses, he devotes fierce time trying to tie the story’s ends together and grasp what’s to happen next, hunting for the button that will make it all make sense.

The he stops, stretching his arms, deeply inhaling, blinking his eyes, working out back kinks, shifting so blood can find a way through his ass, and gawks at the coffee shop around him. He swears it was full before.

Now he writes alone.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Friday’s initial tide of sunshine looked promising. Preening over the trees and mountains at 7:05 AM, the sun’s unfettered illumination quickly vanquished night as clouds took the morning off. Warmth remains to come. It’s 39 F now. 50 F is today’s temperature top shelf. Winds toy with the trees like kittens with strings. A lot of energetic and unexpected havoc goes on. This is November 18, 2022. The sun’s final bow will be at 4:47 PM.

We’re vaxxing today so time is compressed to get everything done. Flu and COVID. Mom is still awaiting her test results back in Pennsylvania. Her spirits are up again.

“Magic” by Olivia Newton John (1980) is in the morning mental music stream. This is again a case of The Neurons deciding something, and refusing to release the tangible connections to the selected song. Are The Neurons trying to tell me that I need to believe something? Probably. The song came into my head yesterday afternoon while walking. And there it has stayed. This seems to be another instance where I need to pass it on to others to stop the songworm from getting a tighter grip on my sanity. You’re my beneficiaries. I did ask The Neurons that if I believed, the song would stop. The song kept going. It’s never the whole song, either, just the slice where she sings, “You have to believe we are magic. Nothing can stand in our way.”

Stay positive and everything. Hope you have or are also getting vaxxed. Coffee is on final. Hope you have a great day wherever you are.

Cheers

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