Tuesday’s Theme Music
The slide began on a Tuesday, June 22, 2021. Sunrise at 5:35 AM was one minute later than the previous day. This depressed Michael. He could see the tunnel forming that would lead inexorably to the coldest, shortest day, which meant the longest, darkest night.
Brewing coffee, he shook it off. Summer was here! At 9:00 AM, the local temperature was 78 degrees F. Thunderstorms and clouds offered some refuge from the heat. They’d only be 94 today before the Earth’s turn shifted them from the sun at 8:51 PM. The thunderstorms might bring wildfires, though. Fingers crossed…
He began humming “More Human Than Human”. Humming it until he began singing, soto vocce, “Yeah. Yeah.” The White Zombie song came out decades before. When? Yes, back when he retired from the military in 1995. He’d been amused hearing it. The song title is lifted from one of his favorite movies, “Blade Runner”, based on a favorite book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” He often thought of that slogan while slogging through corporate meetings in subsequent years. The start ups. Then Tyco. ISS. IBM. “More Human Than Human” encapsulated the misleading slant corporations bring to their marketing.
It was a depressing way to begin the day. Brewing more coffee, he turned to writing. Even if not a successful writing day (which was always iffy), writing was a distraction, his personal drug.
“Be positive,” he told himself. Test negative, his mind answered. Wear a mask when needed. Already got the vax. The state — his adopted state, Oregon — was almost at seventy percent.
Fingers crossed. It was becoming his personal slogan.
Monday Messes
- Well, the stories circulating the net about me are true: I changed my underwear. Like many, I started as a tighty whitey in the sixties. Bikini briefs burst on the scene and I went over to those in my early twenties. Eventually, I found my way to boxers in my late twenties, and rested on that preference for several decades. In fact, I’d not bought underwear since the end of the last century. My boxer collection fit. They worked. They were wearing thin, become more like see through lingerie. I reacted, whatever. Mom used to warn me about having clean underwear without holes in them when I was a youth, in the event of an accident. We’ve all heard about that trope, haven’t we? I was rebelling agin’ it. If people could wear jeans with holes cut in them as a fashion statement, I could wear underwear with holes in them.
- The new undies are boxer briefs. They have a little sack for my sack. It’s a sack sack. They’re also made of stretchy cotton. They cradle my butt and hold it up. Sexy, yes? Well, we’ll see about that, but they are comfy. Now I must go out with the old.
- Thinking with out with the old, I looked up something on the net yesterday. Algorithms behind searches and advertising thought that I should be reminded that Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones starred in The Fugtitive in 1993. That’s a good marker for change. I was in the military at what became my final duty assignment at Onizuka in California. A few families decided to go to the ‘Drive-in Movies’ because the last one in the San Jose-Mountain View-Santa Clara-etc. area was closing in a few weeks. We bought pizzas and watched The Fugitive. It was my final drive-in movie experience.
- I loved going to the drive-in movies with my family as a child. Mom did it right. Made fudge. A big roaster of salted, buttered popcorn. Iced lemonade to drink. We took pillows and blankets. Arriving early for a good spot was a must. That meant getting there before dusks. The movies began at dusk. To kill the time until then, we spent time on a playground up in the front by the big screen. Then darkness fell. The speaker was attached to the window. Commercials played. Cartoons followed. Then the movies.
- Although, one year, at the drive-in, I was on the see-saw (or teeter totter) as a young one (five?). Dad was supervising us. He was holding me up while helping my sister off on the other end. I decided to get off. Just as the see-saw came down. Landed on my ankles. Didn’t break them but did serious damage. I was restricted to bed rest for weeks.
- Painting yesterday required me to empty the home entertainment center. To move it and paint the wall behind it. Although infrequently used, I’m loaded with CD. Hundreds. The CD player has space for 200. Bought that thing waaayyy back in Germany in 1990. Amazing it still works as designed. My wife wondered if I could part with some CDs. I declined. I’m saving them for the apocalypse. I’ll crank up a generator and my music. Meanwhile, I was listening to classic rock through Alexa as I painted, because the stereo was dismantled to move the entertainment center.
- The bee tree is humming today! Don’t know what kind of tree it is but it’s tall and fragrant. Bees love it. Early last week, I walked past it. Hearing silence, seeing no bees brought on a touch of weary depression. Then, two days later, I noticed bees had arrived and were singing as they worked. Today they had a huge chorus going. I can sit in the office and watch them flying to and from the tree and around the branches. Go, bees!
- We’ve been trying (again) to simplify. (I know, I should start with the CDs (or old underwear), but I’m not.) We usually buy used books and then sell them to book stores. If we can’t do that, we give them to Goodwill and/or swap them at tiny libraries. But circumstances (COVID-19) has prevented us from selling or donating books. We have boxes and books full of hardbacks, trade backs, paperbacks. Seeking a new way, we looked at selling them back to book stores online. We’re fans of Powell’s City of Books, so we started with them. Twenty books were selected that met their condition guidelines. I put the ISBNs in; eleven books were selected. We printed out the UPS label. Packed up the box. Took it to UPS. Powell’s received it the next day. That was over two weeks ago. Silence since then. We’re disappointed. We’re talking about trying other places.
- It’s wildfire season again here in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Heat is rising, the drought is spreading and deepening. Vegetation is going brown. Ashand Firewise Program urges homeowners, land owners, and businesses to clean up their area. It’s an ‘or-else’ situation. They will fine you. Cut your weeds and grass to less than four inches because otherwise, it’s fire fuel. Clean up your dead leaves, or it’s fire fuel. Ditto, fallen branches. Yet, walking home along a main road in Ashland, the city’s property is covered with leaves and the debris that they urge us to clean up, or-else. Another case as do as I say, not as I do.
- I’ve made a resolution for 2022: don’t go to the emergency room. Been to the ER three years running. 2019 was for an enlarged prostate/blocked urethra. 2020 saw me break two bones in my left arm. 2021 had me in being treated for a kidney stone. That’s enough, okay?
The Assistant Dream
I was walking alone through an empty school. While not recognized by my mind while awake, I knew it in the dream. I encountered other people. They began congratulating me. “Looks like you were selected. Congratulations.”
“For what?” I asked back, shaking hands. Well, people told me, they were sending an assistant out to help one lucky person, and you won. It was announced today.
Surprised and happy, I was inclined to turn it down. “I don’t need an assistant, thanks.” Apparently, it wasn’t optional.
I went on my way. A woman accosted me. She held hands with one child. Several others were with her. “I heard about you and I wanted to meet you,” she said.
Hi, nice to meet you, I answered back, inquiring about who she was. Turns out she was a friend’s wife. Those were her children. Well, it was nice to meet them all, I said, shaking hands all around. Pleasantries were paraded out, then she took her children and led them away while I continued through the school.
I entered the gymnasium. Another woman with children was there, saying very similar things as the first, about wanting to meet me. I inquired more, why did she want to meet me? Well, she’d heard about me from her husband. It dawned on me that I didn’t know my friends’ families, and that those families were making an effort to change that. After chatting with her, I sat at a table, where another wife and family approached, talking about wanting to meet me. Meanwhile, my assistant, a tall, beautiful woman, arrived in the gym. She was famous and I recognized her. While she approached, I was still talking to a woman introducing her family.
The assistant arrived at the table. Excusing myself for a moment, I broke off my conversation to address the assistant. I told her, while flattered, I thought others required an assistant more than I did, so I was turning her services down. She answered that I didn’t have a choice, that she would be with me for a while, which was where the dream ended.
Monday’s Theme Music
76 degrees F at 8 AM. Will probably be a warm Monday.
June 21, 2021. This is it: our longest day. That’s the accepted norm. I like the long periods of daylight, so, sigh. Not looking forward to the shorter days of daylight. Sunshine initiated ‘the longest day’ with its faint streams at 5:35 AM. It’ll cease at 8:51 PM. Between those hours, high temperatures in the upper nineties will be enjoyed. It’s interesting that today’s sunrise is a minute later than the last two days, but sunset is later. Result of all these rotations, revolutions, and tilt in play, yeah? Fun to imagine us streaking through the solar system around Sol, along with our planet siblings, while the whole arrangements itself is whizzing through the galaxy and the galaxy is racing through the Universe.
“Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran occupies the AM mental music stream. The song was released when I was two but received a lot of airplay throughout my youth. Although the song is about the misery of a teenager with a summer job, I’ve always been enamored of that line, “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.” A gaggle of acts have covered the song, including The Who and Brian Seltzer, but I’m loyal to that original. It popped out of memory and into active thought as I finished painting yesterday and contemplated my next summer task. Wonder why. Heh.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music
The time was 5:34 AM. Sunshine trickled over the hills and through whatever gaps the world offered, heralding the commencement of another day in Ashland, Oregon. Heat began its trickle a few hours later. Temperatures trickled into the seventies by the mid-morning and whispered about going into the mid-nineties.
It is Father’s Day in the U.S., June 20, 2021, a holiday officially recognized in 1972, a news moment that passed by my teenage head with little notice. I have no FD plans other than the standard Sunday through Saturday routines. Coffee, writing, some work around the house, maybe a short drive somewhere, perhaps more house painting before sunset is called at 8:50 PM. Dad is alive in Texas. I see him every few years. He calls me on my birthday and whenever he goes back into the hospital. He’s gone numerous times this year. Despite a young enthusiasm for Lucky Strikes and Camels, he didn’t see much of a hospital until he struck into his eighties. Now he’s a regular. I’ll call him later today. Did send a card. We’ll talk about cars and military service. It’s our common ground. He’s on his third marriage. This one has stuck, as they’ve gone past twenty years.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are in my mind with their 1981 song, “The Waiting”. “The waiting is the hardest part.” Yes, waiting to write is the hardest part for me, getting torn away from it by other requirements. No how life was planned. Didn’t have a plan, TBH. I was just winging that mutha.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get a vax. We’re almost at sixty-nine percent in Oregon, edging toward seventy jab by jab. The waiting until then…well, you get it. Here’s the music. Cheers
Flooftown
Flooftown (floofinition) – Flang (floof slang) for a place dedicated to animals.
In use: “The dog was not happy, explaining to the cats, “I heard her sayin’ that she’s taking me to flooftown,” which was the floofhold expression for the vet, gathering by his tone that he didn’t mean the other flooftown, the floofpark (to which the cats were never invited to go).”
