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.
I enjoyed this piece’s optimistic, reflective view. Right now, there seems to be few Adults in the room in the Trump era. Hopefully, as posited in this post by earlthepearl137, the young generations will rise up, see what needs to be done, and get it done. Fingers crossed, ya know?
We were taught to respect him. He wore a tie to breakfast. He had opinions on everything from foreign policy to potato salad. He shook his head at protests, praised moderation, and told stories where he was always the hero.
He was The Adult in the Room.
He built systems that favored the seasoned and the serious. He spoke in spreadsheets and nostalgia, mistaking legacy for wisdom. He said youth should “wait their turn,” even as the clock ticked toward irreversible climate change, social fracture, and another news cycle full of grief.
When the world caught fire, The Adult offered a lecture. When the oceans rose, he proposed a committee. When children cried out in fear or fury, he complimented their passion… and resumed business as usual.
Medflooftation(floofinition) – A relaxed, introspective state induced when relaxing with animals. Origins: 1970, California, USA.
In Use: “When Michael sits down to read, a floof often joins him, and he soon finds himself doing medflooftation while stroking fur.
In Use: “One of Brenda’s favorite moments after work was when she arrived home, kicked off her shoes and enjoyed medflooftation with her cats and dog on the sofa with a glass of wine, and light comedy on the tube.”
Last night was beautifully clear and cool.The temperature dropped into the 50s. We were rewarded with a coolly comfortable house in the morning, third day in a row. I credit the skunks for some of that. We usually open our windows at night, and our doors for a few evening hours, to naturally cool the house. Skunks, though, were getting busy at eleven at night, releasing their odor and forcing us to shut the windows. The skunks have taken an August recess. Hope they’re not ending it soon.
Today is Satyrda, August 9, 2025. It’s 75 F now, feels 85 F, and is going to reach 91. Tomorrow, we stalk the century zone again. I think about how pleased I am that I used the cool stretch to get outside work accomplished. The flip of that is, while I was doing that work, I discovered — or sometimes, re-discovered — other work to be done at there. I’m bristling about it a little now because today and tomorrow are swamped with calls for other activities, like a memorial service for a friend. There’s too many of those things going on.
We’re going on vacay, too. Detailed planning plagues the days leading up to our planned departure. Food is the subject. We’re sharing a house with two other couples. Those four are a decade plus older than us. We all live under food restrictions. No this and that. I now have my own list. They all want to cook in the rented home. That’s apparently part of their vacation ethos: “Let’s go away and cook.”
Each couple is to provide dinner one night. We’re on our own for breakfast and lunch. My wife and I have a surprise dessert planned, a vegan fondue smorgasbord.
As I sat reading news and sipping my coffee, my wife said from her part of the office, “We don’t need to worry about him. He’s golfing today.”
“Not true,” I answered. “Thanks to modern technology, he can text something or call someone and launch a new round of craziness.”
Although we never said his name, we’re talking about the human wrecking ball named Trump, who is also known as TACO. My wife and I share some laughs over FAFO stories, like the Trump Burger guy who ICE picked up and plans to deport, Roland Mehrez Beainy. Beainy responds to the claims against him, “Ninety percent of the shit they’re saying is not true.” Well, that’s probaby so. This is the TACO regime. They’re addicted to lying, just their leader, TACO himself.
Shifting tones, my wife and I are angry about reports of how big tech is helping the TACO Regime. Apple’s investments, and Tim Cook’s gold offering to Trump sicken us. Amazon Web Services gave Trump a billion dollar discount. Gag, groan. Google slashed cloud services for the TACO Regime. OpenAI is giving Trump’s agencies access for $1 per year. Ordinarily, I’d think, look how great this is, with these companies helping the United States. But they’re not helping the U.S. Nothing Trump does helps the U.S. It’s all about him. And these companies are bribing him to stay on his good side.
Today’s music is “Pride and Joy”. This is a 1983 rock blues offering by Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble. My wife and I are both fans of SRV & DT, and we enjoy this song. But I don’t understand any segue that leads from what I dreamed, thought, or observed that led The Neurons to pull this one out and slot it into the morning mental music stream. It’s just one of those brain things, I guess.
Coffee has been sucked up. Its off to the races. Hope grace and peace finds and keeps you. Cheers
My wife and several of her friends lunched together to catch up. They dined at a small local restaurant called Sauce. It’s normally a very popular lunch site.
“It was weird,” my wife related. “Besides us three, there were only two other people in the restaurant. None of us had ever seen it so empty at lunch time.”
It got better (worse?). After she ate, my wife went clothes shopping. Few places in Ashland offer new clothes; we instead have several ‘used-clothes’ boutiques, such as the Good Will. She says she’s outraged by the new clothes being sold, less by the prices and more by how cheaply they’re made. She’s bought stuff and had it fall apart after one or two outings. This infuriates her.
Her second point about buying used clothes is that it makes her feel better about being a consumer. “I’d rather buy used clothes and give them a second life, than have those clothes thrown away and filling landfills.”
I agree with that. She went on, “Besides that, we have an older population in Ashland. Most are retired professionals who have generous retirement incomes. A lot of times, I can find new clothes with the tags still on them.” And, because of those factors which she cited, the used clothes tend to be from better brands.
So she went shopping at her favorite used-clothing store today, Deja Vu in the Ashland Shopping Center on Ashland Street. When she returned home, she said, “Michael, you should have seen it. They had so many pieces of used clothing, the store was filled. They had it piled everywhere. But there were only two or three other people shopping. I heard an employee say to another customer, ‘Nobody is buying. Everyone is selling.'”
Don’t know how much these anecdotes reveal about the state of the union, but they say volumes about what’s happening in little Ashland, Oregon.
Dad and I spoke for almost an hour today. The conversation energized me, boosting my mood into a happier place. On the surface, a high percentage can be attributed to relief: Dad was home. No greater problems were found during his latest hospital visit, and it was a short one. He and his wife were both friendly, engaging, and happy on their end. Undoubtably this fed me and my spirits.
I also insist, though, that some of this came from just speaking with Dad. He and I are familiars. We mock and respect one another. He’s one of the few people I sense I can really spill myself to regarding what’s going on, whether it’s politics, writing, relationships with my wife, Mom, and sisters, or my DIY projects.
We’ve not always been like these. It’s been a long evolution. I’m glad we made it here, though. It’s taken time. We followed a torturous path. But here we are.
Fridaz political observations from the worldwide net to anger and amuse you, and one to remind you to hope.
Interesting, innit?
Outrageous. A person who never served and has no honor, denying what they earned through their service and honor. What a travesty the United States is becoming under TACO.Looks like someone visited a cheap hobby store.
Greetings from Ashlandia. We’ve gotten to another Frida. It’s been predestined to be called August 8, 2025. Last night was a sharp, clear night in Ashlandia. The fullish moon unloaded buckets of light. Stars crowded in like Swifties at a concert. Cool air sweet with freshness took the house’s heat out of it. Now dawn has broken. Sunshine has bulled out over the green land. Heat is coming up. Today will scale to 90 F. Tomorrow, red flag alerts are out as we push past 90, and Sunday, we’re expecting 102 F.
I called Dad and spoke with him and his wife for over an hour. He’s back home and doing well. Both were in good spirits. Trump’s actions and behavior deeply disturbs Dad. He’s worrying and wondering what the country will be like in four years. Other than that, we chatted about other family members and heating and air conditioning. That last was triggered by a task I’m doing: going up into the attic to switch the blower fan for the A/C and put it on high. I really should get a switch installed for that. It’s no fun at all climbing into the attic above the garage to deal with the horizontally-mounted blower for the central system. And I need to do it in the morning in the summer, before it get’s blazing hot in the attic. Complain and moan, that’s me.
Worrying about tariffs, I did order a new computer. It’ll arrive in a few days. Nothing fancy, just something for TSPG: typing, surfing, posting, gaming.
I surveyed a blizzard of news a little bit ago. Court cases the Trump Regime won and lost. More speculation about the Epstein files. Canyon fire growing in California. Troopers shot in PA. New record temperature in Arizona. These are all Trump era trends.
Reviewing some of Trump’s recent lies, The Neurons came up with a Queen song, “Liar”, from 1974, in the morning mental music stream.
And, fueled with coffee again, I’m off. Hope peace and grace finds you today and everyday. Cheers
I just want to note. Children are dying of starvation around the world, but most especially, most visibly, in Gaza. And the self-described ‘pro-life’ party in power, the ones who hounds every woman seeking an abortion with religious zeal while screaming about the sanctity of life is doing fuck all about the dying children. No, the greedy Republicans like Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump are focused on making money and saving money, and protecting Trump from the Epstein Files fall out and exposure as a pedophile.
As always, actions speak louder than words. The GOP’s actions scream with hypocrisy.
Michael Seidel, writer 