Thursday’s Theme Music
“Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day. I got a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way.”
Yes, Gordon MacRae is singing to me this morning. Part of an exercise to, um, exercise a more positive attitude.
In many ways, it is a beautiful morning. Though the sun is a whitish wisp behind a uniform chalky pale gray, the air is calm, windows are open, smoke isn’t actually entering the house, and nothing locally is on fire. See, I can be an optimist. It’s a cool 76 degrees F for now. Sunrise came prowling around my back door on or about 6:15 AM and sunset will get our attention at 8:16 PM here in the Rogue Valley area. The heat dome is still with us, feeding off the air and land temp. We expect a high of 102 plus. We expected that yesterday but didn’t achieve it as the smoke kept us below 96 degrees. Thanks, smoke!
Inside the house is our sanctuary. Not a large space. Nor fancy. But ours. Where we can walk around nude if we want. Laugh and argue. Read and eat. Sleep and bath. All in relative protection. Within it is my space. My desk. Laptop. Printer. Chair. Cats on three sides of me. Guarding or protecting me. I don’t know what they’re doing for sure. But they’re there, sleeping on the job. Snoring, purring, there.
Shifting from Oklahoma!‘s music, I’m now playing U2’s song, “The Fly”, from 1991. Always a little bit of a strange song to me. Not my favorite. But I was going through this one part that goes, “It’s no secret that a conscious can sometimes be a pest, it’s no secret ambition bites the nails of success. Every artist is a cannibal, every poet a thief. All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.”
What I was thinking about that was drive. Effort. Persistence. Trying and striving. Don’t really see how it ties into those lyric, but that’s what my psyche came up with. Thinking about it more, I believe the song is associated with the album (Achtung Baby) which is part of a chain of time and events in my life in 1991.
All right. Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed, and don’t try to bullshit yourself about whether it’s needed. And get the vax. Here’s the music.
Cheers
Debutfloof
Debutfloof (floofinition) – A young animal being newly introduced to an animal or human society.
In use: “A famous fictional debutfloof occurred in the The Lion King, but many found Fiona, a hippo born in the Cincinnati Zoo in 2017, an equally charming debutfloof.”
Today’s Wandering Thought
Directions
Toilet’s clogged
And your mind is bummed
The cat’s been sick
And you’re feeling a little strung
Out
This is the way
Of life today
If it’s not one thing
It’s another damn thing
Taking you
Down
You try to cope
With a little caffeine
Maybe some wine
To help you make
The scene
But the way you see it
Everything is really fucked
Up
So you vow for change
And make it work
Then you clash
With some guy who’s an asshole jerk
And you decide the best you can do is stay
In
It’s like water
Going down the drain
All this stuff
You’re starting to feel
Insane
But what else are you going to
Do?
But that was then
And this is now
So you tell yourself
With another vow
I’m gonna make it like
Mary Tyler
Moore
And you start again
Like it’s fresh and new
As the little drops
Of morning dew
And you hope that someone
Doesn’t try to screw
You
It’s just a week
Another month
Another year
Of stumbling on
But one of these days
It’s gonna be
Different
You know that in your heart
Of hearts
Or maybe that’s gas
And you just need to fart
Who knows what the hell is really going
On
So you work and play
And live another day
Trying to change
But it’s the same old way
Even though you say
Again and again
Enough
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Smoke blankets us. A heat dome squat over us. 102 to 114 F today. COVID-19 in our county are at their highest levels ever. Kind of puts me in the mood for “Eve of Destruction”. Too heavy handed, don’t you think? Would be like taking a howitzer to a mosquito.
Sorry, haven’t had my coffee yet. Feeling tetchy. Today is Wednesday, August 11, 2021. Sunrise came on at 6:14 AM. Sunset will be at 8:17 PM. The sunsets, watched from being windows and a smoky haze, are beautiful in their own red, hellish way. The sun glows a nuclear red. As it sets behind the hills, the red glow spreads across the sky, painting the parched, brown land in bright red tones. We could have called yesterday Redday instead of Tuesday. Yeah, not subtle. Our air quality sits at 256, the purple zone, which is very unhealthy. Advisories have been issued: it’s super hot, so don’t go outside. And it’s smoky and the air is unhealthy, so also don’t go outside. Keep your doors and windows closed. And if you do go in somewhere, wear a mask. Also, wear one outside.
Yes, the masks are making a comeback in Oregon. Not surprising. With ICUs filled and people being turned away, sixty employees of one local hospital are also COVID-19 positive. Not a fun month, August, 2021. Started out with a lot of promise and hope. Most of that’s been swallowed by heat, smoke, and COVID-19. Meanwhile, after the IPCC’s devastating report on climate change, WaPo has an opinion piece on why we shouldn’t give in to climate despair. Which of the other despairs should we give into?
All this leaves me feeling a little grungy this morning. Alice in Chains brings “Down In A Hole” (1992) to the mental concert.
Down in a hole and I don’t know if I can be saved
See my heart I decorate it like a grave
Oh, you don’t understand who they thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now I’m a man who won’t let himself be
Down in a hole, feeling so small
Down in a hole, losing my soul
I’d like to fly
But my wings have been so denied
h/t AZLyrics.com
That’s good car music, hey? Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Get the vax. Here is the music. That is all. Cheers
Inappropriate
They were ordering food. Take-away from an outdoor café. Burritos, wraps, and sandwiches. Fries, of course. Sodas. A hut where the cooking, storing, and sales transactions took place. White tables with red umbrellas surrounded the hut on a small pond of blazing white cement.
The food was ordered. Waiting commenced. Others were eating. It was outdoors. They wouldn’t eat there. They’d go home. A man and three boys were at one table. Food-focused, none looked up. Nobody spoke. Blonds. Crewcuts. Dad appeared to be in his mid thirties. The boys ranged from guesses that put them six to twelve.
Their ticket was called. He got up and collected their food. His wife joined them on their walk to the car.
“You see what happened behind you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did you see the man and three boys a few tables over? The littlest one got up and walked over and peed behind your seat on the grass by the sidewalk.”
He gasped. “Did his father see that?”
“I think his father told him to.”
The man thought, he’d have to pass this on to Jill. Some see something as inappropriate, but to others, it’s fine.
Neighborfloof
Neighborfloof (floofinition) – Animal that lives close to a particular house or location.
In use: “Neighborfloofs included a deer and her twin fawns, the new gray and white cat (name unknown) with a purple collar that seemed to live with the people two houses down who just moved in, an active grey squirrel and trio of jays who were always bickering, the little yapping dog (name unknown, despite repeated orders from his people for him to stop barking), and the black bear that liked to come by for the apples on the tree, where he’d take a nap after eating.”
