Friday’s Theme Music
Mood: coffeemistic
Sunny blue skies greeted me in my home in Ashlandia, where orange barrels block streets as paving, repairs, and improvements continue and the roads are above average.
Already November 3, 2023, some folks are marking their calendars for next year’s elections. It’s also Friday, end of the work week for some and beginning of the weekend fun for others. Those of us in a quasi-, semi-, or permanent retirement state mostly look at the door with an eye toward social engagements. ‘Work’ except as volunteers, has mostly been dismissed.
As I prepared the floof royalty’s meals this morning, a glance out the window found gray smudges defacing the blue-sky fall scene. At least, I hope it’s fog, I thought with a chortle, and then imagined other possibilities, entertaining myself as I went about my business. Another glance out, and I perceived a wall of fall stealing in from the northwest quadrant. Six minutes later, the fog presented a solid front and the sky was gray. An hour after that, the fog is gone.
While it’s 48 now, we’re expecting our high to be in the upper sixties, ingredients for a enjoyable autumn day.
Moving on toward the theme song, a friend queried a group of us by email, do you remember this song? Who sang it? He was just playing around, of course:
He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
A polka dot vest and man, oh, man
He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
And a big Panama with a purple hat band
It’s Dodie Stevens with “Pink Shoe Laces” from 1961, of course. That started a firestorm of memories for the group and their wives. One spouse was really excited because it was her and her sister’s favorite song. They played it all the time while dancing around the house. Remember this, she began singing it and dancing around the house, and then called her sister, and they had Siri playing the song on the phone while they danced and laughed.
That opened the door on a vault in my head, where certain songs I know but am not crazy about resides. Reaching in, The Neurons pulled out a 1958 novelty song, “Beep Beep” by the Playmates and have it on loop in my morning mental music stream (Trademark dashing).
Behind the song is a car, a Rambler, product in my lifetime of a now defunct US car company, the American Motors Corporation. I had a friend with a Rambler. Although old, we used it to sneak people into the drive-in theater in the little car’s spacious trunk in the early 1970s. It was just like the one in the photo.
Also featured in the song was a Cadillac, a car much more expensive than the Rambler. More expensive, the Cadillac had a larger engine and was more powerful, capable of greater acceleration and top speed than the Rambler. That forms the song’s gist as the Rambler tails the Cadillac and the Cadillac keeps speeding up to get away, but can’t, astonishing and amazing to the Caddy driver. As this unfolds during the song, the song’s tempo keeps increasing until the punchline when the Rambler driver pulls alongside and asks, “Hey buddy, how do I get this car out of second gear?”
While riding in my Cadillac, what, to my surprise,
A little Nash Rambler was following me, about one-third my size.
The guy must have wanted it to pass me up
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.
Refrain:
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).
I pushed my foot down to the floor to give the guy the shake,
But the little Nash Rambler stayed right behind; he still had on his brake.
He must have thought his car had more guts
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).
My car went into passing gear and we took off with dust.
And soon we were doin’ ninety, must have left him in the dust.
When I peeked in the mirror of my car,
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The little Nash Rambler was right behind, you’d think that guy could fly.
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).
Now we’re doing a hundred and ten, it certainly was a race.
For a Rambler to pass a Caddy would be a big disgrace.
For the guy who wanted to pass me,
He kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).
Now we’re doing a hundred and twenty, as fast as I could go.
The Rambler pulled alongside of me as if I were going slow.
The fellow rolled down his window and yelled for me to hear,
Hey, buddy, how can I get this car out of second gear?
h/t SongFacts.com
What a hoot, when I was young. I would sing it in the car with Mom as we drove along, driving her a little nuts.
Stay pos, be strong, and keep leaning forward and reaching for the stars. Coffee is being consumed and the sun is shining. And away we go.
Cheers
Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts
This morning delivered light serendipity.
Waiting to turn, he was behind a silver third generation Toyota Prius and a current series Dodge Ram pickup, also in silver. Both turned left, and he did the same.
As the three accelerated down the boulevard, he checked the oncoming traffic: a silver third generation Toyota Prius, and a current series silver Dodge Ram pickup. From his angle, the two pairs of vehicles were identical.
He laughed as the cars and trucks passed each other, wondering if their drivers noticed what he was seeing and about the odds for this happening.
It would have been really freaky if a car like mine was behind the other two doppelvehicles coming my way, especially if the driver looked like me.
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
Here we go. Thursday ends in a y, so it must be time for me to rant.
Subject: Are more people running red lights?
It seemed like that was rare for me to witness anywhere outside of Japan, which was over thirty years ago. I’d see one sometimes in the Bay area, especially in San Jose.
Now, here in little Ashland, I typically witness two cars or more a day running red lights. I rarely if ever saw them before the COVID era began. Now they’re increasing. While some are people turning left across traffic and waiting for an opening that doesn’t come until the light changes, the huge percentage are going straight, speeding up to hurtle through an intersection before the light goes red.
They often don’t make it. People get the green light and begin to go and then, here comes the red light runner, forcing everyone with the green light and right of way to slam on their brakes. I often witness very close calls between vehicles, or the speeding vehicle and cyclists or passengers.
It reminds me of the one crash I saw when someone ran the redlight.
This was around 1997. We were living in Mountain View, California, and had decided to go to the Mall of America in Milpitas. Stopped at a traffic light, I realized I needed to be in the lane to the right. Only one car inhabited it, so I thought I’d delay until they went and then shift over.
The light changed. The car in the next lane started off. I followed.
Suddenly, here comes a Cadillac sedan. Running the light from my left, they slammed into the driver’s side of the first car.
That could’ve easily been me.
We went right, around the block, coming back to check on the cars. Took a few minutes and by the time we arrived, the cops were there and the people from the crash were in a parking lot. But my wife and I stopped anyway, to share what we witnessed, and to check on the people.
As we approached, we heard the young female driver whose car was hit say with heavy sobbing, “I thought the light had changed.” On the parking lot’s other side, an old man paced while an elderly woman fumed beside him, arms crossed, lips tight.
I immediately said to the young driver, “It had changed. I was there. It was green when you went.”
The cops looked at me and asked who I was. I explained it all. My wife and I verified, the light was absolutely green when the woman went forward.
I heard the fuming woman say, “You’re always doing this. I knew this was going to happen.” As I looked her way, she finished to the old man, “You’re lucky you haven’t killed someone yet, but you will, if you don’t change.”
Watching these people taking greater and greater risk, I often now think the same thing which that woman said that day.
White Corvette Dream
The dream began when my wife and I, young people in our early twenties, were driving a red and white Chevy S10 pickup along winding roads. (My father drove a pickup just like this when I was in my twenties.) The roads were well-paved and we encountered no problems. It seemed to be a pleasure drive.
Returning to a house where I think we lived (it wasn’t clear in the dreamscape), we encountered Dad. He was tipsy, surprising me. He greeted us and then gave me a rambling speech and presented me with two checks, telling me, “This is for the hardship I’ve given you.” I protested that it wasn’t necessary, everyone makes mistakes, and so one, but he was adamant.
He went off and I went off. Finding my wife, I told her about it.
I was then outside, looking up at the blue sky. The moon and the sun drifted and floated across the sky’s highest reaches, leaving me startled because they don’t usually drift like an unmoored ship. Cartoon animals began crossing the sky with most changing and becoming something else as they did. One cartoon began very tiny and then grew into a small bunny as it crossed the sky, growing into a larger bunny, transforming from a cartoon creature into a real rabbit, which finished by bounding across the horizon.
Laughing and smiling, I tried telling others about this, but no one was interested beyond what they were doing, which disappointed me. One of my younger sisters then noticed the sky and announced it, and everyone stopped what they were doing to ooh and ah over the sky, irritating and exasperating me. I complained to them about it; all replied that they hadn’t heard me.
Back in the house with my dad, I told him that I need to go to the bank to deposit his checks and tried giving them back to him. He wouldn’t take them back and then declared that he had a check that needed deposited in his account and asked me to do that, scribbling out a check and signing it as he spoke. I took the check but then thought, Dad doesn’t have an account in my bank, does he? Also, he hadn’t give me acount information, although I supposed that they could get the info from the check. The whole exchange left me confused.
But I walked through the house and went upstairs to the bank. Two bank employees were waiting for me there. They already had Dad’s check but then swapped it with the one I had and destroyed the other one. While all this was going on, they sketched what they were doing but spoke so fast that I understood none of it.
Returning to the house and my wife, we went down concrete steps into a well-lit concrete garage. It was like a small maze of different garages but they were all mine.
We entered one of them and found a white 1981 Corvette with a red interior. (By happenstance, Dad had a ’81 Corvette but it was dark blue.)
The car was immaculate. As my wife and I took it in, I said, “I’d forgotten that I had this.”
She said, “Let’s take it for a ride.”
Her request surprised me but she was already getting into the car, taking the driver’s seat. My surprise doubled at that point; this wasn’t the kind of car she liked driving. I tried talking her out of it, pointing out the car’s power and that it’s a manual (she doesn’t know how to drive a manual) but she remained insistent and enthusiastic that she wanted to take it for a ride.
The dream ended with me getting in the other seat as she leaned forward and reached for the key already in the ignition.
A Dark & Stormy Dream
Awakening this morning, I was surprised. Sunshine was flowing into the bedroom.
Where was the dark rain?
I listened to the house’s silence. Wednesday, I thought, considering my plans.
No, Sunday, I corrected myself.
I’d expected night, rain, and Wednesday because that’s what I dreamed. Alternatively, maybe that was a different reality embracing me — which I thought was a dream — and now I’m back here again, where it was sunny, daylight, and Sunday. It’s something to contemplate.
The dream had leaned toward the odd side. My wife and I were with many others. We’d gone somewhere where I was to receive a prize and she was to be honored at a dinner. Pretty exciting stuff.
Meanwhile, I was eager to continue writing another novel which I was working on. But first, the dinner.
We’d all parked. I had my black RX-7. It was night, pitch black, and pouring rain. Despite those circumstances, it was a boisterous crowd streaming into the festivities. I knew many and was busy waving, calling out greetings to friends, and laughing.
We got into the hall’s foyer, a lovely warm, tall, and pink marble place with thick carpeting and golden chandeliers. As I chatted with friends, my wife moved away from me, but I could still see her. I called to her so we could go in and find our table.
She turned back around. Shock was on her face. I went to her and asked what was wrong.
“Doctor D is dead,” she answered.
Others approached us, inquiring if all was okay. I explained to them what she’d told me and who Doctor D was to her. Meanwhile, I wondered how she’d received the news; I’d been watching her. Nobody talked to her and she wasn’t on the phone.
Using our coats to protect our heads from the rain, we hustled through the dark rainy night back to my black car. Many other cars were already started and moving, shiny dark shapes, filling the air with exhaust smoke and startling me, because I thought they were staying for the dinner. While wondering why they weren’t I started entering my car.
Another person called to me. Sitting in her car, her window partially down, she explained that she was trying to use her computer writing program but it was asking for a code. She didn’t know how to get a code.
“Yes, you need a code,” I said. She replied that she’d never heard of that, and I said, “I think I can get one for you.”
Returning to my car, I started it and plugged my computer in, then typed some keys.
A series of red characters came up on a black screen. I memorized them and ran through the drenching rain to the other person. “Here, put these numbers in.” When she was ready, I repeated what I’d memorized.
We had to do this twice. I worried that I’d gotten the numbers wrong but it worked after the second time. “Good,” I said, and she replied, “Thank you.”
Head and shoulders hunched, I dashed back to the car. My wife was inside it, waiting. The rain cut visibility like a sheet had been tossed over the world.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me. “You’re not wet.”
The dream ended.
First, after dreaming this and thinking about it, I eventually fired up my ‘puter. When I checked Facebook for messages from friends and family, FB showed me a post under its “Memories” category; it was the photo I shared in this post. I thought it a stretch as a coincidence to dream of a car that I haven’t owned in over eight years and see a picture of it on the same morning.
I liked that car a great deal, owning it for almost twenty years. A 1993 Mazda R1, it’d been bought as a gift to myself in 1996 after I’d retired from the military in 1995 and landed a good-paying job with a civilian company, a medicial device startup in Silicon Valley. The car reminded me of that life era, and how much my life changed at that point.
All that rain and darkness intrigued me. Despite that, we’d been very happy. I was getting a prize, and my wife was being honored. The mood quickly changed with news of a doctor’s death, but I don’t know of that doctor in real life, so that left me puzzled.
Overall, I don’t have any strong grasp on any insights about the dream. As always, it could be Neurons just having fun, or some weird neural scrambling brought on by unknown causes.
That’s how it goes with my dreams. If anyone can tell me what it means, it’d be appreciated.
Another Driving Dream
In this dream, I’d driven to a pre-arranged place where I met up with friends.
I was younger, in my twenties, I think, and the others’ age was in that same realm. While I knew everyone in the dream and considered them a friend, only one was a real life friend. This was my sister-in-law, B, who I’ve known since I was in tenth grade in high school.
We were meeting as a group to decide where to go. A brief discussion led to someone suggesting, “Let’s go to southern California.”
“Yes, let’s go to San Diego,” another said.
Further discussion changed our destination to La Jolla.
Pushback rose. “La Jolla? It’s nice but there’s nothing there.”
“There’s the ocean,” others answered. La Hoya was confirmed as where we were going.
I’d been to La Jolla a few times. Once on vacation with my wife, and three other times when my employer, US Surgical Corporation, sent me for trade shows. I like the small and picturesque place. Going there pleased me.
I asked, “Are we all driving?” Because we’d all driven cars there. It seemed to me that one reason we’d met was to share cars, letting us share driving, too, and cutting cost, not just in money, but in what our driving did to the environment. My car was a large black BMW hybrid sedan.
Nobody seemed to hear my question. All seemed busy just gabbing. I called, “Does anyone want to go with me?” Again, there wasn’t any response.
I went to my car to prepare to leave. Part of that was trying to attach an fabric doughnut pillow to my car’s rear. Even in the dream, I wasn’t sure why I was doing this, but, paradoxically, it was important to me in the dream.
The doughnut was attached. Onlookers were impressed, and thought my solution clever. Worries were rising for me that the doughnut would be dragged along the roads and ruined. So I worked on it more, becoming satisfied at least.
Returning to my group, I asked once again, “Does anyone want to ride with me?”
Damian, a young man, said, “I will, if you’re offering.”
“Great,” I replied. “I’m over there.”
I was walking, talking, and pointing as this went on. Damian was on his back. I noticed several others in the group were on their backs, awake and talking, but looking up. Possessions and cluttered surrounded them.
Eager to get on the road, I went to my car, slid into the driver’s seat, and waited for Damian to appear. Impatience growing, I finally got out and went looking for him.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said after I found him. “I’m going to drive myself.”
Exasperated, I called out, “Does anyone else want to ride with me?”
“I will,” my sister-in-law answered. “Where you parked?”
After showing her, I headed back to my car to wait. I was pleased she was going to ride with me because I enjoy her company.
That’s where the dream ended.
My first thought was that the BMW isn’t a cheap ride. But does that signify anything? No, The Neurons replied, except is has value.
Most of my focus went to the frustration of trying to get the seven of us moving. Why seven, I wondered, and why my sis-in-law.
My SIL is someone who I respect. Things weren’t going well for her after high school graduation, but she changed directions and reinvented herself. I admire the willpower and determination she asserted in those years. She’s a confident and charismatic person.
As for seven, I undersand it’s supposed to be one of those spiritual, powerful numbers. Doing some research on the net, I saw that it can mean you’re on the right path.
From all this, I created an explanation that I’m on the right path for what I want to achieve, but I’m exasperated by my slow progress, and that it’s messier than I like. But if I focus, as SIL did, I can make it.
Either that, or The Neurons are playing mind games with me again.
Saturday’s Theme Music
Mood: positive
Salutations to my fellow corporeal beings. Saturday, October 7, 2023, has reached has – or we’ve reached it. Indian summer continues its presence in Ashlandia, where the children are hard-working, and the cats often nap.
I believe Indian summer has become my favorite season. It feels as if we’ve been given a reprieve from the wearying matters, like wildfire smoke, drought, excessive heat, politics, and mass murders, and we’re just allowed to be and enjoy the days. Tension and stress slide away under the blue skies and bright sunshine. Night air pulls coolness out of the mountains, dragging temperatures down into a comfortable range of upper fifties to lower sixties. The day’s sunshine and air pushing the temps back up to the upper eighties.
I just need to avoid the net to sustain this feeling. Because we know it’s all out there, and the net will deliver it to you, right or wrong, good or bad. But for now, life is beautiful.
Despite this mood and an armada of dreams, The Neurons had little in the morning mental music stream (Trademark rascally), giving up some Mark Knopfler and David Bowie. I didn’t think those songs were up to the moment, so I turned to the net.
Well, one of the Bowie songs was “Space Oddity”. While checking out a video for it, I discovered the Langley Schools Music Project. This was a series of elementary school children playing and singing rock songs in the 1970s. One recorded song is “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys. The Langley Schools version is imperfect but sweet and innocent, a comfortable accoutrement to the weather and mood.
Hope your morning is as pleasant, relaxing, and peaceful as my own. The cats, black and white (Tucker) and bright ginger (Papi) are soaking up backyard sunshine, contentedly washing after breakfast. I think I’ll take my coffee out there with them, admire them, feel the sunshine, admire the trees — still green back there — and breathe in the clean, sweet air.
Stay pos and be strong. Here’s the music. Cheers
Thursday’s Theme Music
Mood: energetic
Hallo, fellow earthlings. Greetings from Ashlandia, where the sun is shining, and the inhabitants are spirited.
Today is Thursday, October 5, 2023.
It’s started out at 52 F this morning. Sunshine lit the bedroom with a golden haze.
Wasn’t so nice in the rest of the house, where it was dark, even a little gloomy. Mountains and trees hid the sun until the Earth and sun moved enough to bring the sunshine over the obstructions.
60 F is now on display on the thermometer. Autumn colors have crept into my windows’ views. Sunshine blazes across the colors, sparking stunning vividness in the scarletts, golds, yellows, and greens. A madcap blue sky lids it with perfection. Today’s high will be 86 F.
I think Indian summer may have arrived.
Our beer group met last night. Under fading sunlight and the mountain’s long shadows, a light breeze carried an air temperature of 69 F. Lovely setting for having a beer and chatting with friends. We had a good turnout of twelve people. One member, Mark, has his younger brother in for a visit. Those two joined forces with two other members to build a pergola in Mark’s backyard. Tales of mistakes made and corrected were shared for some of our time until discussion about the vacated House Speaker position.
From there, we strangely pivoted to cars. “What car that you owned would you like to have back?” one member queried us. 1960s muscle cars were mentioned by many. A pickup truck was thrown in. I would opt for my orange 1974 Porsche 914. My wife and I had much fun in that car, tooling around San Antonio and the local Texas countryside, targa top off, sunshine soaking us. Conversation then shifted to rock concerts people had attended.
Eavesdropping on the conversation, Les Neurons began playing Bob Seger singing “Fire Lake” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark fallacious). This mellow 1980 song has such a throwback feel that brackets a story-telling mode, ending with a philosophical question, “Who wants to go to Fire Lake?” With Bob Seger’s throaty whiskey delivery, it’s a pleasant song to have in the MMMS.
Stay positive, be strong, and keep your head in the clouds and keep reaching for the stars. Coffee is being consumed. Time for the day to be embraced. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 