Wednesday’s Theme Music
Rotating and orbiting as the planet has done for billions of years, we now come to February 2, 2022. A Wednesday, it may be memorable to many people for many reasons, but how does it compare to the past trillions of days? Our human lifespans are so short compared to the universe’s life scale that little of what we do is memorable in the cosmic sense. It’s why we narrow our focus down to our personal spaces and calendars. Contemplating the greater scale may well lead to nihilistic conclusions or heavy consumption of coffee, alcohol, or other drugs. Or eating disorders. So let’s just keep focus on our smaller but amazingly impactful days. They are impactful on us and that’s what builds our memories and experiences and skew our emotions.
Anyway, the sun ‘rose’ at 7:23 AM and will ‘set’ at 5:27 PM. I’ll drink some coffee and eat some food. I’ve already done some of the latter. You’re probably doing something similar, eating, or thinking about what you’ll eat, even considering, perhaps, who you’ll eat it with. Here in Ashland, it dropped to 28 F last night. Now it’s 36 with a high of 44 expected for the day. Dollops of congealed gray and white cloud float on the blue sky. We do not expect rain.
I haven’t done any of my daily games. They’ll come soon. I guessed my first word in Wordle in two guesses yesterday. On the other hand, it required all six in two games. Four other games took three or four. Yeah, I like Wordle. Getting it in two is luck. For instance, in the first game when I guessed it in two, the last two letters of my first guess were green. On a whim, I entered poppy as my second guess. That was the word. Yea for me.
Weirdly, I have a song called “If Not for You” living in the morning mental music stream. Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song. Then George Harrison recorded it, followed by Olivia Newton John. I had the albums for the first two performers. I heard the ONJ version on the radio one day and then turned around and pulled out the vinyl 33-RPM album to listen to Dylan and an eight-track tape to listen to George’s version. Doing that back then in my bedroom in Pittsburgh somewhere around 1973 (all of the versions were out by 1971), I never imagined the technology that would allow me to sit at my computer and pull up the same songs. Trippy, innit? Just think of how it all might be in another fifty years or so, right?
Part of me thinks about memories like this and wonder why it stays so sharply in my memory today that I can look around that room from my vantage here and see and hear the details of my life then. A sliver of me muses that maybe there’s some cosmic entanglement taking place. Another facet of me shrugs and mumbles, who knows?
For today’s theme music, I’ve selected a recording of Dylan and Harrison playing it together. Makes me smile. Stay postive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. I’m off for coffee now. Looking forward to it. Here’s the music. Cheers
Floofumentary
Floofumentary (floofinition) – A presentation (such as a film or novel) expressing or dealing with animals.
In use: “Popular floofumentaries include Benji, Babe, The Lion King, and 101 Dalmatians.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Did the conveyor belt of calendar days speed up? It’s already Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. I feel like George Jetson sometimes. The cat and dog sped up the walkway and now it’s a runaway, leaving George shouting, “Jane, stop this crazy thing,” as he goes round and round. Yes, time can feel like a crazy thing.
This morning’s sunrise at 7:24 AM seemed sudden. I was watching out the window on the southeast side where the sun first makes it way over my house in the winter. The slow rise was expected, but then it was like the sun leaped up over the mountain, blinding me as it shouted, “Gotcha!”
It was up to 33 F by that point. The water in the outside pet dish was frozen. I told my cat last night, when we went out at midnight and gazed at the clear, star-filled sky, “It’s gonna be a cold one, dude.” Not as cold as other places; these things are relative. I guessed 29, 30, which was on the mark.
Our high will be like yesterday, about 45 F, which is our winter average in Feb. Sunset will come at 5:25 PM. That means ten full hours of sunlight today! Woo hoo! But — still looking for that rain and snow. Worries about drought, wildfires, the snowpack, and reservoir levels hover over the pleasant winter hours.
When I was out walking yesterday, my mind drifted through writing projects and DIY issues before the mental jukebox turned on. It was on random, but Whitesnake with “Is This Love” was left playing in the morning mental music stream. The song was released in 1987 and the song and video have such a glam rock 80s vibe — the hair, the women in tight dresses, the beat, the guitar styling. What a scene.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax when you can, and let’s get off this crazy thing. Here’s the music. Ah, coffee. Such a wonderful aroma. Now, to taste.
Cheers
The White House Extravaganza Dream
The White House Extravaganza Dream was long, detailed, and complicated as a Game of Thrones season. It’d take too long time and words to recount it completely, so I’m offering a few bullets.
- I was in my mid-twenties. My wife and I were staying a luxurious mini-suite. We were discussing where to go eat when we remembered, “Oh, wait, we have the White House today.”
- She and I were one of several hundreds on the tour. My family and brothers-in-law were on it, too. As an interesting side, they were their current ages while I was young.
- The White House wasn’t the familiar edifice. I never saw the outside, but the inside was an extensive complex. Furniture and carpets were in cranberry hues.
- Guides were always around, answering our questions, leading us into new halls and places, explaining things, and watching after us. The guides were all dressed in cranberry-colored slacks and vests, with long-sleeved light-blue shirts. The senior guide was an elegant female person of color.
- They fed us a lot during the tour. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. I ended up declining food. After eating one meal, they offered us smoothies. I turned them down because I was too full. I was amazed that others took them.
- I didn’t meet the POTUS but the Secret Service stopped a small group of us because the POTUS was in the room. A slender, bald person of color, the POTUS he wore a dark cranberry suit, speaking about jazz while getting his shoes shined. When he finished, he waved to us and walked away down another hall. We were all very excited and pleased to see him.
- We’d also gone on the White House water park rides. They showed us slides and videos of us on the different rides, laughing and having fun.
- At one point on the tour, as we were being escorted from one hall to another, a young white man called me out and stopped me. Introducing himself as a WH aide, he provided me with a business card. Before giving it to me, he turned it over and wrote in pen. He said, “That’s a code to reach me any time that you need help or want anything. Just call the number and give them the code, and they’ll put you through.” I was amused. I couldn’t imagine what help I would need from the WH. No one else received such a card to my knowledge.
- Toward the end, I needed to use the restroom and stopped at the underground WH gas station. (Yeah, ns.) I was first to arrive of five men. The room was occupied. We were not in line but standing apart. Although I was first, I let the others go ahead of me. While there, a man had a large four-wheel drive Ford pickup. Jacked up, with huge tires on chrome wheels, it was painted glossy red. He had a panel on the bed raised. I looked inside and saw an orderly line of transfer cases and differentials. While I was baffled why he had so many, the layout impressed me. “But where is the engine?” I asked, even though I knew it was a pick-up truck, the engine should be in the front. But I spotted it in the back, a huge black and chrome unit.
- At one point in the WH dream tour, I noticed the carpet had tiles made to look like shoes. I then discovered that these included outlines of my family members’ shoes. They were enormous, much larger than my shoes. I laughed at that.
The dream was livelier than these words portrayed. I felt energetic and lifted when it ended. Its sharpness and details amazed me.
Contact
He’d begun to wonder.
A snowstorm was traversed that morning when he came over the pass, following the Interstate. Hurricane force winds. Icy temperatures. Snow without end, clotting light, forcing a squint into his tired eyes as he and the cats and dog peered ahead. No one slept. The animals had to be with him, of course; they were mostly silent constant shadows. Itty Bitty was on the console and Floofy Cat rode the right-hand chair. Almost Dog lolled his tongue from the left-hand seat. Britt had the center seat – when he sat. Mostly, he nursed coffee and stood or paced.
Steering by him and such controls weren’t required. Protected by its energy shied, the machine scythed along. Systems weren’t optimum but speed was low, fifty miles per hour. Plenty of energy remained in reserve and the cells hovered around ninety percent. Altitude was five hundred feet. The imaging system showed a city in the valley below but nothing over eleven stories. Still, uncomfortable, flying blind. He drank coffee and hovered around the drive deck, eyes skipping between the snow outside and the instruments, maps, radar, and GPS.
Weariness finally won. He told the vehicle to find a place to land. Pavement was found; he nixed that, asking for a meadow. One sufficiently large was tracked down. The machine settled itself twelve minutes later. Snow still fell. Wind remained an angry infant wailing. He deployed the security fencing. Despite twenty-degrees Fahrenheit temperature – minus two when the wind was considered – the little machines sailed out of their portals, and then created and erected the perimeter protection in fourteen minutes. The shield was expanded to include the ship and the area to the fencing.
The systems said the snow had ceased the next morning and the temperature was up to twenty-four. He spent a little energy warming the air outside the machine, melting the snow off the shield, letting in blue sky and sunlight. Growing more comfortable and relaxed, he spied on the town. No people were detected. Not much of anything showed up. There were stores. BiMart. Google said it was an employee-owned enterprise, part of a chain. Albertsons and Safeway. A Market of Choice. Rite Aid. Six miles away. He flipped a mental quarter and decided to take the five pack in for scavenging.
It was after coming back that he detected other people. Three women, according to the vehicle’s senses. Been three months since he’d had human contact, but he was in no hurry to meet anyone. Taking manual control of the vehicle, he confirmed the cloak was on and steered toward their reported location. Spying them, he settled the vehicle into a hover and watched.
Three women. Struggling. Indeterminant age in that ragged clothing. One seemed worse.
Why, though, were they out in this thick white? Snow climbed over their knees.
Desperate people, of course. Most survivors were desperate, hungry for the right food, thirsting for company, praying for help.
Britt tapped a finger on the center console and counted, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Didn’t know why he did that and when he caught himself, he willed, stop.
He figured the woman must be trying to reach the city. They were at least a few miles away.
A sigh breached his lips. The humane thing to do and all that. He guided the vehicle forward until he was just ten feet away. Then he uncloaked. Let them see him.
Took a double fist of seconds before one focused attention on the vehicle. Pushing back thick brown hair and light blue hood, she held them off her pale, wan face to take in his car. Turning on his vehicle’s ears, he heard her ask, “What’s that?” Then, when the others put attention on her, she pointed at the car.
He settled it onto the snow and popped the door. Stepping out, he called, “Hello. Need any help?”
© 2022 Michael Seidel
