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.

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Early dark thirty. Far before the sun’s scheduled arrival after seven. I’m waiting for my sister to pick me up and convey me to the airport. I’m always depending on my family and their kindness. She is one of the best.

It’s Tuesday, October, 11, 2022, exactly, without planning, one month since my arrival in Pittsburgh. Mom was in the hospital when I arrived, fighting COVID as it attacked her heart, lungs, and everything else it could lash out at. Nurses told my sisters it was very possible that Mom may not survive. It was one of the worst COVID cases they’d seen since the pandemic’s start for that hospital staff. Besides COVID and fluid in her heart and lungs, her appendix had a perforation and was pouring poisonous material into her body. Her pacemaker was only functioning at 20%. Things looked ugly.

She fought back and came out of it. Now she’s home, recovering, rehabbing, and I’m going home. She is struggling with bouncing blood pressure with a diastolic dropping below 100 too often. She’s on meds to promote good blood flow, keep her blood pressure at a healthy level by lowering it because of what she endured in the hospital, when it was skyrocketing. Now they’re backing those meds off, readjusting them, but her blood pressure is erratic. That’s a concern.

Other than that, she’s recovering her strength and balance, eating well, and so on.

My work here isn’t done but life dictates other needs, so, here I go, back across the country, back home.

It’s a travel day, in the car for thirty minutes, airport for two hours, aircraft for five plus, another hour in another airport, another two hours in a second aircraft, then in a car to reach home, an eleven-hour trip. That’s much better than the pioneers, and not as hazardous.

I feel like a little bit of a basketcase dealing with Mom as I hear her tell me one thing and bend her words so it doesn’t seem as bad when she’s dealing with her medicos and my sisters. Irritating as hell to be honest; makes me feel like an unreliable witness. But alas, these things are not within my control, so I let them go like the air from my lungs.

However, The Neurons jumped all over those feelings, dumping “Basketcase” by Green Day into the morning mental music stream (trademark pending – not really, but it feels like it should be added). So here we go.

My ride is here. Stay pos and test neg. I’ll try to do the same. Here we go. I’ll have coffee at the airport, thanks. Cheers

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Floofclamation

Floofclamation (floofinition) – 1. An animal’s takeover of a place, activity, item, or food.

In use: “Loudly growling, the tiny kitten made the floofclamation that the chicken leg was hers.”

2. Orders given to an animal.

In use: “Helplessly and, she felt, hopelessly, Kerin told her dog not to jump over their six-foot privacy fence, but as soon he was released, he leaped over the fence and then back, as if telling her what she could do with her floofclamation.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday sprang into action, moving with balletic grace, like River Tam going after reavers.

Yes, it’s Monday! October 10, 2022, for those checking schedules and appointments, the day of the week generally engraved with a moment to see what we have going on in the coming days. I take air travel for a thousand, Alex.

Pittsburgh’s fall finds another cool morning, 45 degrees F with broad and full sunshine. The morning has been building its structure since sunrise kissed the area at 7:26 AM. Temperatures will kick up into the 60s. No rain today. Planetary rotation will shut down daylight at 6:46 PM. Back at home, it’ll be 84 degrees and smokey.

Yesterday’s morning delivered a pleasant interlude. It’s my daily habit to take a cuppa hot joe onto the front porch in the early AM to breathe the air and admire the world. When I stepped out yesterday, a grazing doe across the street raised her head and greeted me. Two chipmunks and a squirrel dashed away, and a ground hog scurried for safety. I regretted interrupting their moments, but the deer returned to her business and the rest drifted back a short while later. Later, the squirrels and chipmunks had some kind of race going on in the backyard. Don’t know if they were the same characters that I saw in the morning, though.

Mom pulled The Neuron’s attention. She was talking about what music she’d like at her service after her demise. One of the songs is “I Call Your Name” by The Mamas and the Papas. She’s been having Alexa play it at least once a day, singing along with it. Naturally, The Neurons became enthralled with it. Mom and I talked about the song. We both remembered watching it on The Ed Sullivan Show. So The Neurons pushed it into my morning mental music stream, fitting, since it’s my last day here. That show episode is available on Youtube, so here it is.

Mom would have been in her early thirties back then, less than half of my current age.

Stay pos, test neg. Yes, I need coffee, how ’bout you? Mom’s home is a decaf zone. My BIL bought me this coffee when I was COVID isolating. I’m brewing the very last grounds today. Perfect timing, right?

Here’s the music. Have a fine one. Cheers

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Sunday’s Wandering Thought

He remembers teachers and things they taught him in school. It was eight grade when Mr. Dakin, a gym teacher, said, “A team is only as strong as its weakest parts, so you need to fix the weakest parts to become better. It’s the same with your body.”

That same year, a sociology teacher, Mrs. Rubenstein, said, “A nation is only as strong as its weakest people. That’s why we should take care of our weakest people. That will make us stronger as a nation.”

He hadn’t thought of those things in years but being back in the area and driving past the place where the school used to be, resurrected those memories, along with others.

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Floofrise

Floofrise (floofinition) – Moment when animals get up to do things and tries to get others up.

In use: “Many people who live with cats find that floofrise will usually take place at three or four in the morning, while they’re trying to pursue deep sleep. Unfortunately for them, stopping floofrise is as difficult as stopping sunrise.”

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Her Dreams

She says that she vividly dreams all the time and tells him about two. Both were recurring. In one, she was with her ex-son-in-law. He’s in many of her dreams but in this recurring dream, she and he are in a huge house. Others are there but she doesn’t remember who the others are. The SIL says, “We’re going to bring a lot of children here, so we need to start making beds.” She thinks in response that they’re not ready and that’s going to upset her daughter.

The other recurring dream, experienced three nights in a row, was about being in a huge mansion. She said it cost over a billion dollars to build. It’s sealed off from the outside world. But she thinks, there’s no oxygen. There’s no air. She can’t breathe.

She dreamed that one while she was in the hospital on oxygen, fighting COVID pneumonia.

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