Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I saw a segment on television about the Arlington National Cemetery and Memorial Day activies. Following a whim, I looked up my little brother’s marker and location. Four years younger than me, he lived for just over a few weeks. I remember the night Mom received the notification that he’d passed. Washing the dishes at the time, she stood there at the sink, a dish cloth in her hand, and cried and sobbed as I watched, asking her, “What’s wrong?”
She still mourns him.
Mood: Mystified
It’s 65 F. That’s the low for Penn Hills in the Churchill Valley today. The house’s east side is being sunblasted. Clouds? Yes, some particles are stringing together thin white cloud structures. The thermometer is supposed to stop up by 90 F today. It’s Tuesday, May 21, 2024.
Mom’s energy was strong yesterday, a change from the usual. See, there was a birthday celebration on Sunday. Mom was there for about five hours. Normally, such outings deplete her energy stores, so the day after leaves her listless.
But not yesterday. She was spirited and energetic, good to witness. Did her exercises and was quite engaged. Holding my breath on today, but I hope we’re seeing a new trend’s beginning.
I was thinking about my brother-in-law. Married to my oldest younger sisters, he and I have known one another for fifty years, since we were seventeen. Long time to know another who isn’t related or married to you. Sad for me, he swung toward the right wing over thirty years ago and is now a full-blown MAGAr. That limits our conversation and introduces some awkwardness. We’ve tried talking around it, but he often introduces racist or sexist comments, and has that MAGA habit of ignoring one set of facts while adhering to another. Yet, I’m looking forward to being a guest at his house his weekend for a Memorial Day cook-out.
My family is big into gathering for holidays and eating food. Memorial Day cookouts are the standard, even though the starting lineup has changed, and new players have been added through marriages, divorces, deaths, and births.
The Neurons have introduced “Tin Man” to the morning mental music stream (Trademark well-done). I don’t know why. The 1974 song by America has no discernible links to my dreams IMO. Nor are there conversation or activity links. For that matter, the mellow, comfortable song has silly lyrics. Lots of hooks and easy to sing with, but little deep to it.
That’s okay. Maybe The Neurons are ordering me to chill.
BTW, today is birthday boy’s actual birthday. So happy sixteenth, Michael. May your days be as complete and fulfilling as you dream them.
Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue for 2024. Here’s a good summation of why Vote Blue is important this year.
Coffee has traipsed over my tongue and down my gullet. Here the music. Cheers
Back at home with individuals not driven to write, the conversations awaken my muses. They gather to watch people, and think about their lives and times. A common concept about pain, end of life, children dealing with Mom and each other, begins evolving.
Aspects emerge. Donuts being thrown against the side of the house one frozen December Sunday. Children running away and returning. Marriages and divorces. Many marriages and divorces. Enduring secrets. Diseases that strike and tear our family apart and bring us back together.
The first stories I remember hearing about Mom was when she was fourteen. She lived in Turin, Iowa. Small town. V-E and V-J were just a few years before. The children habitually walked the streets over to watch television through a window. The window belonged to the hardware store, which was also a cafe. It had the town’s only TV, as television was then so new. The hardware store/cafe also had the town’s only phone. If a call came in for a resident, the owner’s son ran to fetch them.
Then there is Mom’s tale about the Sunday chicken. Her mother was leaving and warned Mom and her older brother, “Don’t you get this house dirty while I’m gone.” They heard the iron in their mother’s voice and the threat it carried.
But they were siblings and started teasing each other. It escalated until Mom grabbed the roasted chicken and threw it at her brother. He ducked. The chicken slammed into the wall. They watched it slide down, fixing the wall with a greasy trail. Looking at one another, they knew Mom was going to beat them.
Yes, there’s stuff to be told, as there is in many families.
Mood: coffeemistic
I’m ensconced in Penn Hills, PA, an eastern suburb of Pittsburgh, visiting family. A light rain is scenting the 64 F air with petrichor. Temp should peak at 67 F.
Weirdly, the weather seems ‘right’ to me. I emerged from my cocoon in this area and first spread my wings. Lived with Mom and grandparents when I was a child not going to school, moved away in conjunction with Dad’s military service, then returned here. Attended school in several small burghs for second grade through my high school sophomore year. Since Mom and a buncha extended family live here, I’ve been returning again and again on my own cycadean rhythm.
Tragically, Mom only serves decaf. She and her man only drink decaf. So, they make a big pot of coffee. Once it’s done brewing, they draw from it for days and doctor it with cream and nuke it in the microwave. Gag gag gag.
So I slipped away for coffee and writing, heading for a Starbucks. That works for Mother and I and the general household, since Mom and her BF sleep in late these days. She said she doesn’t emerge from her nocturnal seclusion until almost noon. Then her BF, already dressed, ensures she’s set up for the afternoon, and goes out on his errands. His first stop is the gym, where this former boxer, now in his early nineties, works out.
The Starbucks was chosen because it’s where my niece and her boyfriend work. Both are college grads with bachelor’s degrees. Her’s is in business administration. She speaks several languages and plays the violin and is still attending college, going into software and database administration.
So guess who served me? Yes, she looked up with widening eyes when I said, “Morning, Amy.” I hope to have more of a visit with her than that, of course.
Amy and I have a running joke from when she was a child. There’s a movie called The Mothman Prophecies which came out in 2002. It’s about a bridge collapse in Weirton, WV, and a mothman warning it was gonna happy. A brother-in-law (not Amy’s father) saw the movie while traveling in West Virginia. It freaked him out because after watching the movie, his hotel room phone began ringing, just like in the movie. He and I and Amy talked about it in subsequent years. I began calling her Mothgirl. She dubbed me Mothman.
Today’s music arrives via a conversation about me living on the west coast. Everyone hearing hat immediately asks, “California?” No, I’m from the Pacific Northwest, Oregon, to add more precision, Ashlandia, to get granular. But the California suggestions kicked The Neurons into filling the morning mental music stream (Trademark with “Californication”. The Red Hot Chili Peppers released the song in 1999. I immediately took to it. It’s a drool commentary about how Hollywood sells California as the place to be. Several little plays on pop culture are woven into the song.
On to the day. Stay strong, be positive, and Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music video. Cheers from Pennsylvania.
The weather has pressed pause on the rain. Shards of broken sunshine are coming through but as soon as they broach the dark clouds’ defenses, a new mass of clouds rush in to patch it up.
A refrigerating breeze circles the streets with a load of petrichor. Like a madeleine for Prost, the petrichor delivers stacks of memories. I flash to being a boy in Wilkinsburg and Penn Hills, PA, a young airman in Korea and Germany, a tourist walking outside a tavern on a darkening day to visit with Dad in West Virginia.
Such is the power of smells to foster memories.
Mood: Wonstalgic
Thwump thwump thwump thwump
The copter continues the watershed cleanup. I can watch him manuever through the kitchen window. Sounds give clues of his comings and goings. Right now, he’s resting in the air above the peak of a conifered-blessed mountain.
Looks like a good flying day out there on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Sunshine gleams off windows and cars. Full-fledged green leaves on trees dapple lawns and houses with shadows. A few clusters of cloud islands hold steady on the western horizon.
It’s 17C outside, about 62 F. We’re heading for a 76 degrees F high. Rain has a chance but it’s less than 40% chance. Usually at those odds, we don’t see it.
Mom is supposed to be heading home today. She should actually be there, per the schedule, as she told me she was being released noon Eastern. Which was almost an hour ago. I find that most hospitals are optimistic about when things will happen. Like the military and DMV, there’s a lot of waiting at a hospital. I’m living on a hope that she’ll go home today and be relatively healthy and happy for a while and put some of these health scares to rest.
With that thinking, I tripped down the trail of what it used to be like back home, when I still held the flowers of youth in my appearance. The Neurons responded by conjuring a jazzy Stevie Wonder song that speaks to that essence, “I Wish”. The 1977 song is echoing through my morning mental music stream (Trademark drifting). I found an online offering of him doing the song live in 1982. Sweet. I hope you enjoy it.
Here we go. Stay positive and be strong. Vote Blue in 2024, and let’s see if we can stem the retreat of rights and sanity. Coffee is brewed and ready to be introduced to my body.
Here’s the video. Cheers
Mood: Sunflective (it’s sunny, and I’m reflecting on life, the universe, and everything)
It’s Marijuana Day, don’t you know. That is 4/20. Add a 2024 and make it a Saturday, and you have the full day/date situation.
420 is a reference to the time to meet and light up a doobie. That time originated with a group of U.S. high school students meeting up at 4:20 PM to search for a marijuana field. I originally heard it was police radio code for marijuana.
Another warmish spring day has touched down in Ashlandia, where the coffee is fresh and above average. It’s 70 F right now. Despite clouds breaking in over the horizons, today’s high has a few more degrees to go. You know the floofs are in full agreement with tasting some warm sunshine, don’t you.
Today’s music is about Dickey Betts. Lead guitarist (a job shared for a period with Duane Allman) and vocalist with the Allman Brothers Band, he passed this week, 80 years old. Man, when ABB came out with “At the Fillmore East” in 1971, I bought that thing and added it fast to the rotation. I’ve had a version of that double album from vinyl to digital ever since. Still play it once in a while when a nostlaxing mood strikes. Nostlaxing would be nostalgic and relaxing. You get it, don’t you?
Once while listening to “Whipping Post”, my wife, who’d come to embrace electrified blues, entered the room and asked, “Who is that playing guitar?”
“That’s Dickey Betts and Duane Allman,” I answered.
She listened a bit more. “Wow, they’re good.”
Yes, they were good.
But the song hooked in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sliding) is a better-known Allman Brothers tune. This is “Ramblin’ Man”, naturally. This live version from 1972 has Dickey on vocals and lead guitar. He wrote the song, as well. Dickey Betts, 1943 – 2024.
Be strong and lean forward. Vote Blue in 2024. Fresh coffee is flowing. Mine is black and sugar-free. Best way to imbibe it. Here’s the video. Cheers
Mood: friendly
Today is Sunday, 4/14/2024. I’m late to the show. A friend needed some help, so the day was given over to that. She’s advanced in age. Neither she nor her husband can drive any longer so we took her shopping up the road in Medford. And since it was a long day, we stopped and ate out. Just soup and sandwiches.
Soup and sandwiches were perfect for this April weekend. Rain was Sunday’s main course. Temperatures hung around in the low fifties as the rain practiced speeding up and slowing down. It’s only now, as we cruise toward sunset, that the sun made a cameo, slipping out of the clouds’ protection to say hello before it says good night.
Being with my wife and our friend, listening to them chatting about friends inspired The Neurons. They quickly planted “With A Little Help from My Friends” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark helped). Yes, it was morning. We left the house at 9:30 AM and returned about 4 PM.
Although the song is a Beatle tune, I’ve always favored Joe Cocker’s cover. Coming out in 1968, he brings such soul and energy to it. Countering Cocker’s raw vocal energy are female backup singers pitching soft, precisely enunciated verses. Hammering away on drums is B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum. Searing along with the vocals is Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin on lead guitar. Tommy Eyre offers that exquisite organ opening, gently mesmerizing but cajoling us on into a higher state. Sweet.
I was twelve when the song was released. Hearing it on my AM clock radio, the song cemented my sense of what I like in rock, and how rock carried me. Hope that makes sense.
Stay positive, be strong, Vote Blue. Hope you enjoy this music. I’ve had a day of coffee, thanks. Here’s the music.
Cheers
Mood: refreshed
My jeans came off again.
The shorts went on. Officially, they’re ‘short pants’.
This is Wednesday, April 10, 2024. 66 F now, the warm end of our day will rise to 71 F. Everything is in bloom under blue, sunny skies. It’s bold with yellows, pinks, and white blossoms and blooms, people, against a fully backdrop of green grasses and trees — along with
Things are going well for me, thanks. A woman at the coffee shop told me, “You have nice legs. If I had legs like that, I’d be in shorts, too.”
She appeared a few years younger than me and had a perfect stage voice. I’m not one who enjoys attention. Baby, I was cringing inside. But I smiled and thanked her. She responded, “Wow, you have a great smile, too.” I felt like everyone was looking by now. I thanked her again, and she waved and went on.
Back ‘home’, Mom was discharged from Forbes Hospital after treatment for appendicitis. A day and night of diarrhea was endured. Now, after being up all night in pain, she’s back at the hospital for a CT scan to see why she has pain and a fever.
My sister, G, is on the scene, waiting for news. It’s a business day at the hospital. Parking is full. The parking situation and emergency responsiveness are hampered by a sinkhole in the parking lot.
A social worker came out and spoke with sis. No beds are available for Mom and they’re proposing to scan her at another location. Now they’re suggesting, take her home and bring her back tomorrow.
WTF questions arise. Sis is dealing with it. She’s intelligent, competent, and hard-edged at times like this, unafraid to question authority, and willing to stand her ground. In other words, she’s a good person to have on site.
I was thinking about my aunt J. She’s the one I previously wrote about with colon cancer.
I always admired her and enjoy her company. She always spoke to me like I was an adult when I was a child. I think she was instrumental in teaching me to think about matters from different perspectives. That’s a quality that I’ve often depended on, and which is responsible for whatever successes and achievements I’ve had. Good to have people like her in one’s life.
I didn’t learn about all her issues. She married and was divorced when young. One child. Then, another child from an affair. That child, my cousin, was put into an orphanage until my aunt could get her life in order. She finally met and married the love of her life, as she described him, and had three more children. She and I were together until brain cancer took him about a decade ago.
Update from sis about Mom. Fever is gone. Mom is in a bed in a hallway. Awaiting further developments.
Tucker goes back to the vet this afternoon. It’s a checkup on his thyroid, high blood pressure, and his gums after having his teeth removed. Fingers crossed that my old friend is found to be healing well and his issues under control. He’s gained weight, energy, and enthusiasm over the last few days.
Two thirds of the way through reading Kings of the Wyld. High fantasy variation, and worth reading if fantasy speaks to you. An interesting spin is that adventurers are ‘bands’, much like rock bands, and treated like rock stars. We readers are in on the idea but it’s not heavy handed. Our protagonist band broke up years before and have aged into normal lives. Now, yes, they got the band back together to save one of their daughters. I highly recommend this Nicholas Eames novel, even though I’ve not finished it. Still have about one hundred fifty pages left. My wife read it first, and then urged me to read it.
Today’s music comes straight out of 1966. After reading a Heather Richardson post, I thought, tell it like it is. One of our nation’s political problems IMO is that politicians on the right lie to their supporters, and the media goes along with it for the most part. Some journalists are beginning to seriously hipcheck some of the liars but too many get a free ride. I can provide substantial examples, if you need it.
Anyway, overhearing my thinking about Ms. Richardson’s post, The Neurons began playing Aaron Neville and “Tell It Like It Is” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark burning). A beautiful torch song, it’s a good song when you’re at a fork in the road, looking back on what’s happened while gazing ahead, trying to divine a path forward.
Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue this November. I’ll be doing the same. Now, riding on wings of coffee, I’m off to continue writing and editing.
Here’s the music. Cheers
Mood: sunsizzle
Our intrepid band of three hundred million plus call Earthlings or Terrans come at last to the day noted as Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Once a date studied by prophets and feared by rulers, the reasons for that have been lost. Only one man knows the truth, but he’s been frozen and forgotten. And so we, the survivors, skip through this day not knowing its significance.
It’s sunny in Ashlandia. The sky’s blueness is marred by some lazy stray clouds hanging above the valley’s high edges, as though spying for an enemy ruler. Current temperature is in the upper 50s F. We’re shimmying toward the upper 60s. This is a fine example of how spring should appear in the middle of the season in Aslandia.
My wife and I have been involved in a jigsaw puzzle. She picked it up at the library of things last Friday. We began working on it that day.
It’s a Ravensburger, which is my favorite. Ravensburger puzzles have solid pieces which fit together well, and vibrant colors. This one is a tableau of a beach house living room looking out over the sea. A small dog rests on his bed in the foreground, looking back at you. His orange toy is on the bed beside him.
A coffee table dominates the center. It sits on a striped rug on a hardwood floor. Sharing its surface top is a tray of food and wine, a long scarf colorful with sea creatures and flowing aquas, purples, oranges, and blues, a gold-rimmed bowl of shells and starfish, and a plate of food. Sea foam green easy chairs and sofa are arranged on either side of the table. Past the table are open sliding doors leading to a deck.
Beyond the deck is the sand and churning waves. Further out are sailing vessels and a coastguard ship. Osprey and gulls wheel through light clouds and blue skies.
I’d love to live in that place. Wish I was there now, listening to the ocean and reading a book. Small stacks of books are on the sofa and the coffee table’s lower shelf.
The puzzle is coming together fast. We are now about 85% finished. Sky and sea remain, along with the birds.
It wasn’t that way yesterday morning. Back then, we had one edge piece missing. The coffee table was almost complete, and the dog and several other areas were completed. I’d say it was thirty percent done.
I was focused on that missing edge piece. My obsessiveness had kicked in. I hadn’t plan to work on that puzzle at the point in the day. It was mid-morning and I had things to do. But I sure wanted to find that missing piece.
Going through the pieces, I began asking deities and fates for help. None came but The Neurons, taking up my issue, began an ABBA song: SOS from 1975 began playing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sinking).
I found an American Bandstand episode with Dick Clark and ABBA on the net. Seeing Bandstand shook up memories like they were in a snow globe. Many teenagers and pre-teens hustled into a television’s presence to see the show in the 1960s. I never became deeply into it, but my older sister surely was. ABBA wasn’t a group I followed. I didn’t aspire to their style. But I respected their talents and their drive to succeed. There they were, doing what they’d set out to do. Congrats to them. I knew about them because AM radio broadcast their music. Then there were the friends who were so into them, too…
By the way, I didn’t find the missing piece and left for the coffee shop. My wife returned from her exercise class and answered the call, finding the missing piece. She’s my hero.
Stay positive, persevere, and Vote Blue this November. Coffee is being actively consumed in parallel to my typing. Hope you have the kind of day you wanted when you awoke this morning. Here’s the music.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 