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.

Wednesday’s Theme Music

A winter Wednesday morning to you. No snow here in the lower levels, but the temperatures and air quality has us singing that winter is upon us. No surprise, it being December 14, 2022, a nose hair short of mid-month. -2 C and foggy out there. The fog will grumble and fuss around the trees and houses for most of the morning but burn off and permit sunshine’s entrance. Daylight crept through the valley’s fog at 7:32 this morning. By the time the sun lowers its from our presence, the air temp is supposed to jump up to 46 degrees F. It may do so but yesterday’s 42 degrees felt like 34, as they say.

After perusing some morning news headlines, I pulled an early cup of coffee, and wrote the dream journal up. Les Neurons then then pulled me down a ‘where are they now’ path about a one-time neighbor and co-worker. We were serving the Air Force together at Onizuka AFB in the mid-nineties last century. Before Onizuka was renamed to honor an astronaut killed in t he Challenger disaster, it was Sunnyvale Air Station. It went from Air Station to Air Force Base to Air Base after being renamed Onizuka.

That has nothing to do with my friend. Last which I heard of him, he’d gone to Turkey on an unaccompanied assignment, returned to Florida, divorced, and retired. He and I ‘connected’ on Facebook but little was ever there of him except for annual birthday greetings from people I don’t know. He’d quit responding to those a decade ago. Alive or dead, The Neurons wonder.

Today’s song, brought to you by The Neurons and their ‘where are they now’ tour, is “Cut Like A Knife” by Bryan Adams from 1983. This is because the tour subject loved this song. Midway through a party, he’d request it. If he’d imbibed enough and it was late enough, he’d sing and play air guitar to the song. Thinking of him, I think of that song, and cigarettes and beer.

Hope you enjoy it. Stay pos and test neg. I gather from reading digital news papiers that a growing body of folks eschews such quaint measures as masking, testing, etc. “It’s nothing,” you read more often online even as rates of flu and COVID climb. Certainly, local store experiences find my wife and I in a tiny minority when we’re masked while shopping. Oh well, live and learn.

Here’s the tunes. I need to wrap up morning activities, and head to the coffee house for writing activities. Hope your day is safe but enjoyable. Let’s go on a limb and say, productive, too, right?

Cheers

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Burgers and Beer Dream

The dream found my wife and me on vacation at a seaside resort. Throngs of people enjoyed warm and sunny weather as a festival proceeded. Bands played and people sang. Many milled about, going from one spectacle to another.

We broke out of our small luxury place on the main boulevard and proceeded down the seaside promenade where the main events were taken place. Sunshine teased blue wavelets and gulls wheeled above. What struck me dumb was wherever I went, crowds so that I was never bothered by the numbers, never needed to wait in line, and was never stopped unless I wanted to be stopped.

We returned to our room because we needed to dress for dinner. Dinner plans were unsettled but we were meeting others. Our suite had a living room with large windows. Strangers were gathered there, along with an employee, a big bluff, graying hair white guy. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. We conversed about who we are and who we’d been. A dark-haired white woman with red lipstick wearing a dress that matched her lips sat in a blue accent chair listening. He and I ended up talking about cats as I discovered that he had a cat on a leash. I told him about a RL trap, neuter, and spay project I’d participated in during one duty assignment. Then I told everyone that they needed to leave because I needed to shower and change clothes. The woman in red stood up and kissed my cheek, thanking me for helping cats, and then she and everyone else left.

I went into the other room, showered and changed. When I came out, my wife and her sister were sitting on the sofa. They told me that they didn’t want to go out. They didn’t feel like dressing up and were worn out by the day. How ’bout if we called room service and just had burgers and beers with fries in the room. That worked for me.

Dream end.

2

Tempting Tuesday’s Theme Music

Misty and 25 degrees F. Graylight bangs in through the windows. Gray stillness enthralls the landscape.

The cold outside works with the moment to tempt my spirit to cozy up under my duvet and covers and just hang tight in that warm cocoon for just a little longer, perhaps until March. The mists rule beyond a few hundred feet, depriving me of any mountain views. As far as I know, the lip of the world’s end is just over on the next street.

This is Tuesday, December 13, 2022. Not much of a holiday vibe rings the air. Sure, there’s Christmas music on store speakers. Holiday music thrills the coffee house ambiance off and on through the hours. Stores have some holiday items on display but overall, it feels like the holiday launch was premature and already peaked. Now we’re just waiting for the finale and the curtain fall so we can applaud and go on to the next big thing. Perhaps this is only my sentiments. Not many people seem jolly. Anxious is more how I’d color them. Anxious and tired.

It’s going to be 46 F as a high today. Of course, these are the same weather geniuses telling me that it’s sunny out there. Maybe it’s same zip code, different worlds. Sunrise entered at 7:31 but it was already light throughout the house by then. It seems like daylight is already showing up earlier in the morning. The sun show will end shortly before dark.

Freedom is on my mind this morning. I often feel constrained. Most of this is my own doing as I set up schedules to write, eat, exercise, and relax. Cats (2) and wife (1) add to this constraint, by their needs and wants. So does house and car mischief and the business of residing in the U.S. So I chaff. Even so, I know others have it much, much worse. It’s a fascinating thing, a web of emotions, logic, and expectations. Not complaining, I protest, just stating it as I see it.

The Neurons noted my subject on their radar. Their response was adding “Freedom! ’90” by George Michaels to the morning mental music stream. The song is about freedom and reflects his feeling that he’d lost freedom because of his stardom. Cry me a sea, right? But many celebrities end up on Michaels’ path, lamenting what success has done to their privacy. It’s a tricky labyrinth to follow, but that’s seen in most endeavors attempted where success is found. Success pulls admiration and brings more pressure to succeed and be. It ends up like golden handcuffs.

Now, I knew this song when it came out in 1990. Heard it on the radio all the time. Knew of Michaels and his success. But I’d never seen the video associated with the song. Seeing it today, I read more about Michaels’ reflections and frustration with success and freedom.

I know, waa-ville. Okay, I accept that. Stay positive and test negative. I’m up for a cup of coffee now. The cats are with me. Not that they’ll be having coffee — I shudder to think of them hopped up on caffeine — I mean, woof — but they’ll accompany me as I leave the office, make the brew, etc.

Here’s the tune. Hope your Tuesday works out well. Cheers

2

Flooftine

Flooftine (floofinition) – A regular course of action established by one or more animal’s needs, habits, practices.

In use: “Like many people with pets, Gina discovered her activities prescribed by flooftines. The dogs’ flooftines were manageable because the dogs were more accommodating and willing to bend their flooftines to Gina’s routines. But that cat, Loki, honored no one’s orders but his own, rising at three AM to gallop around, eat, and then waking the others to feed or play with him. Lokie’s flooftines were disruptive.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

Chilly and cloudy, Monday touched down. The 7:30 sunrise glowed over a damp land. Clouds dropped their bottoms, hiding the ridges so I don’t know if snow is up there. It’s 36 F now. The weather systems and complications of axis tilt and our position in respect to the sun has 40 F as the day’s high before we spin away from the sun again at 4:39 PM. Then our temperature will drop to minus 2 C. Despite the cloud blockade, they say it won’t rain or snow.

This is 12/12/2022. We’re approaching December’s midpoint. And we’re hurtling toward winter solstice again. Also coming into view is a bevy of holidays with all the traditions, partying, celebrating, and observances which accompanies the holidays like a rock star’s entourage.

I don’t know what The Neurons are thinking today. After I finished with my dream journal and then posted one dream recollection (a drecollect) online, The Neurons put “Elvira” as covered by the Oak Ridge Boys (1981) in the morning mental music stream. Why the heck was Elvira selected? Don’t know. I know the song and several more by them as they were on the radio, and we lived with the radio on in the car and at home during that period, first in Texas, and then on Okinawa. Also, we met up with my SIL during leave when we moved from Texas to overseas. She was a huge ORB fan at the time. Like her and many others, I enjoy Richard’s deep solo. (Yeah, I needed to look up his name.)

Sunshine is blasting through the southern windows. I think coffee will go swell with that. Stay pos, test neg. Here’s the boys with their tune. Cheers

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The Darkened Grapes Dream

This was a dream with a sharp real feeling, startling me into confusion when I found myself in my bed after awakening.

I received a small brown box in the mail. Opening it were two things. Don’t know what one was but the other was a large bunch of green grapes in a plastic baggy. Receiving those really pleased me as I’d order them. From that, I learned that my wife and I were vacationing and staying a small room and bath in some exotic location. The building was small and meandering and seemed to be constructed of thick clay. My dwelling was painted pink but the one beside it was yellow.

A knock came on the door and then a large American opened it. He explained that they were next door. They didn’t have a bathroom and were told they needed to use ours. Sure, I told him. He and his wife entered. While he used the bathroom, we chatted with the wife about the place, inviting them to go with us as we went around so that they can learn of places we enjoy.

I showed them my grapes in their baggy. Then I opened the baggy. The grapes all immediately blackened and shriveled. I thought they were raisins but feeling them found that they were soft and mushy. I left them alone because I didn’t want to damage them. We left, taking the bunch of darkened grapes with me.

We walked around small shops. Shopkeepers and local people wanted to touch the darkened grapes wherever we went. They seemed in awe of them. We finally arrived at the small restaurant where we wanted to eat. We’d eaten there before, including the previous year. It was at the owner’s behest that I’d ordered the grapes.

I showed him the darkened grapes and told him what happened. Delighted, he asked if he could hold them, which I permitted. Holding them aloft, he explained that those aren’t grapes, and that I was very lucky to have these because they are very rare and special. I asked him to tell me what they were if they weren’t grapes. As he was embarking on his explanation, I awoke.

Sitting up in the bed in the dark, I shifted left and right, looking for him and my grapes.

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