His top ten lists are flexible. Whether it’s books, songs, musical groups, or places, mood and season seem to cause fluctuation. About his only constants is that blueberries keep eking out a win over watermelon as the top front and coffee just beats water as his favorite drink. For the record, beer is consistently third on that list, followed by red wine. Also for the record, water remains at the top of the most needed drink.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Drizzle filled our skies all day yesterday, posturing it as an ideal day to stay in and read. We naturally hit the road for some shopping, as supplies had dwindled. Sure, we had coffee and many of the other essentials, but we lacked a few of our regularly required items conducive to be healthy, happy, and full.
Today, Tuesday, October 25, 2022, is cloudy but without precipitation. Sunrise brought in velvet fingers of light at about 7:35 in the morning. The sun will pull its influence at 6:14 in the evening. It’s currently 41 F but will jump to 13 C before we cross midnight. Rain is expected to start falling at ten PM and continue until 1 PM tomorrow. Dress right, you know? (Had to stop myself from putting in “Dress right, dress,” right? Ingrained stuff, right?)
I had “Cracklin’ Rose” by the Taylor lad playing in the morning mental music stream. The Neurons then replaced it with “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean, followed by “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce. “On a story-telling song kick,” I queried The Neurons. They pivoted to “We didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, riffing of my thoughts of turning on the fire because it’s a damp morning. Oh, those neurons crack me up.
They weren’t done yet. I was outside, sipping hot coffee on the cool porch, enjoying the sun’s silvery presence behind bruised clouds and the smell left behind by the rain, when The Neurons pulled up Duane and Gregg Allman with “In the Morning When I’m Real”. The song was part of their first band’s efforts, a group called The 31st of February. Now I knew the song ITMWIR but didn’t know the Allman boys were behind it. Didn’t sound like them as it lacked their guitar-sharp rock blues sound I place against their names. Wasn’t till the mid-seventies, when I was back at Mom’s house when she presented me with a box of stuff I’d left behind that I re-discovered the album and this song and realized it was the Allmann Brothers. I don’t know how I acquired the album. I suspect someone left it behind at my house but it’s one of those things which remains unknown, kind of like, have extraterrestrials visited Earth?
Keep on being positive and testing negative. Wear masks as needed to protect you and yours. You deserve it, don’t you? I have coffee, started drinking it when I ate a warm buttered blueberry scone. Why don’t you go get yourself something? I’ll wait here. I’m gonna go ahead and play the song, though, ‘kay? Here it is.
Cheers
Monday’s Wandering Thought
Taking his coffee with him into the bathroom to brush his teeth after breakfast, he mused, “I don’t know. It feels like something is wrong with this scene.”
Sunday’s Theme Music
We turned on the fire yesterday. Yeah, we have a gas fireplace. I turned on the gas and ignited the pilot light. All done because it was a cold, wet day. A friend went hiking this morning — yes, she and her husband are both crazy like that, hiking at dawn around 7:33 this morning — and sent back photos of light snow covering the pines and ground up on a ridge a few thousand feet up. None of my local upper ridges show any snow.
Today is Sunday, October 23, 2022. Sunshine and rain/snow clouds are waltz across the sky. Bright sunshine rules one minute before clouds close the gaps and threaten precipitation in the next. It’s 6 degrees C outside, keeping the felines inside slumbering in their usual winter spaces. Guess that’s the key. Leaves are changing and we’re racing toward winter. High temperature today will 51 F.
I was thinking about waiting this morning, as I was waiting — again — which made me go into a lap of ‘poor me’ self-pity because I’m so put upon, often treated as something stepped in that assaults the nose with a nasty reek after an animal does their business somewhere. Once the lap was done and I was over myself, The Neurons came in with The Black Keys and their song, “Lonely Boy”, from 2011, because, you know, the song has ‘waiting’ in it. What I remember more about this song was the video. I love this guy dancing and lip-syncing the song. He did a sensational song IMO. I read about him on Wikipedia today. His name is Derrick T. Tuggle. Wikipedia called him, “actor, musician and part-time security guard”. Hope you watch it and enjoy it as I have, as much as he seems to be doing.
Hope you have your positive energy shield up and your negative test armor on. I’m adding some coffee protection. Don’t know if you’ve heard of this magical brew and its amazing properties…
Here’s Tuggle and the music. Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music
Monday muscled into the morning, declaring, “Ready or not, I am here.”
It’s October 17, 2022. Half of October has fled under the bridge and over the horizon of the past. But they tell us the past doesn’t really exist once it’s done; really, all the previous days have evaporated, except for what we hold in our minds.
After reaching 95 F yesterday, half a dozen degrees higher than prepared for, today will drop into the upper seventies, maybe striking 80 (26 C). It’s a clear enough sky for it. Nothing but blue from my vantage. Trees have at last begun shifting colors here. Local leaves are mostly going gold or yellow.
Monday’s sunrise tiptoed in at 7:26 this morning like it had a hangover. Sunset will come at 6:26 this evening, just eleven hours later. Next Sunday, we ‘fall back’ in most of the U.S., resetting our clocks to be an hour later, part of a hugely debated bi-annual ritual adopted as law last century.
The Neurons were spying on me this morning. No surprise, right? The tiny peckerheads often do. Going about the usuals needed to void my body and begin to re-assume form and manners for being among humans, I found myself examining a memory about meeting a man. After carefully checking it to see where it came from, I realized it was from a dream – ‘we’d met each other in a dream.’ Case closed, I decided, but the dream was suddenly so vivid.
Well, The Neurons heard ‘we’d me each other in a dream’ and called up Heart and “Magic Man” (1976) for the morning mental music stream. It’s been going over and over in an endless loop, kind of like how phone calls and meetings take place on Monday. Chuckle, chuckle.
So that’s the theme music for this October Monday. Stay positively oriented and negatively tested when it comes to COVID and its variants and the flu. It is definitely coffee time for me. I’m positive about it. Here’s Ann and Nancy and the band with their song. Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
We’re under a blue egg sky this morning. A half-moon that seems almost translucent studies us from a perch above the western horizon’s trees. It is Saturday. Looks like we made it.
October 15, 2022, the Gregorian calendar system employed in most of the world declares. I appreciate the decisions made way back in the 1500s and further back, in the third and fourth centuries about how calendars work. Saves me the headache of doing it myself. I’d need a Youtube video for that. The current calendar is built on the back of other calendars, like the Julian. We owe some of our current calendar use to Pope Gregory XIII. I learned these things back in junior high but that’s all I can share without a dose of coffee. The Neurons have ordered a work stoppage until said coffee arrives.
I can still type, though, and note that it’s Saturday, either the end of the week or next to last day of the week, depending on whether you think the week starts on Sunday or Monday. I lean toward Sunday as the week’s beginning, making Saturday the end of my week, but I recall a family argument about when the week begins. Boy, was that a crazy morning.
It’s 61 F right now. Weather analysts tell us that 32 C is possible by late afternoon. No doubt it has a chance. The sun is strong, clouds have slipped away for a long weekend (probably at Cumulopalooza 22), and windshifts are moving the Cedar Creek fire’s particles away from our faces. Located in a steep, rugged area, the fire jumped containment five days ago and is forty percent contained as of today.
Sunset will come at 6:23 PM while the heavenly mechanics brought the sun back into our valley at 7:23 this morning.
The Neurons have seeded the morning mental music stream with “19th Nervous Breakdown”. Doya know the song? Released between fifty and sixty years ago, it was a hit single for this Brit band called The Rolling Stones. This tune was selected, The Neurons inform me, because I went outside, and then told myself to stop and look around. I was enjoying the morning air, breathing deep, letting the sun bathe my face with warm light, and planning my yardwork. The Neurons, of course, carried it off in on a whole other track. But now it’s here, and I must abide by The Neurons.
Coffee is also here, a welcome jumpstart to my taste buds and energy. Stay posimatic and be a negabot. Also take care of yourself. You’re worth it, to steal a commercial line about hair products, don’t you think?
Here’s the music. Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music
Coffee has arrived. The first two sips of the gorgeously hot brew invigorate my senses and awakens my palette. Here we go, The Neurons sing.
Today is Friday, October 14 of the common era year 2022. I skim headlines and press on to other matters before the news blunts my energy and takes my soul. 57 and chilly under a pristine blue sky, sunshine began its daily visit at 7:22 ante meridiem. Sunshine will linger until 6:38 post meridiem. Temperatures are again foretold to have a high in the upper eighties. After a windshift yesterday, the smoke cleared and we struck 86 F around my house, a wonderfully warm, comfortable day, with a faint breeze and mild humidity. Our leaves haven’t done much turning in this area, nor are they dropping yet, a huge contrast to where I stayed in Penn Hills, PA. during the move from September to October. Guess the trees decided to wait for my return before launching their fall show. Gracious of them, innit?
For theme music, given that it’s Friday, The Neurons loaded that golden oldie, “Friday Friday”. I grew up on those lyrics. “Friday, Friday, how I love that day. Out of school and work at last, and free to play.” Nipping on that song’s heels comes a familiar favorite, “Black Friday” by Steely Dan.
Yes, Friday is on my mind. Instead of those songs, though, The Neurons re-introduce me to “Slide” by the Goo Goo Dolls. Released two or three lifetimes ago, which can be calculated as 1998, it’s another song in the catalogue created as I commuted to and from home to shop and work in the SF Bay Area and peninsula at the end of the last century. Why that song, I query The Neurons. It’s about a pregnant girl and her boyfriend debating choices about what to do. Jimmy Neuron answers, “It’s just those words, I’ll do anything ever dreamed to be complete, or something like that.” Oh, I answer. Oh. It’s about the dreams and the quests, huh? I see.
Test negative and stay positive, or as The Neurons call it, negapos. So be negapos. Sorry, that’s the coffee. It’s taken over The Neurons. Here’s the music. Hope you own Friday and it doesn’t end up owning you.
Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music
Monday sprang into action, moving with balletic grace, like River Tam going after reavers.
Yes, it’s Monday! October 10, 2022, for those checking schedules and appointments, the day of the week generally engraved with a moment to see what we have going on in the coming days. I take air travel for a thousand, Alex.
Pittsburgh’s fall finds another cool morning, 45 degrees F with broad and full sunshine. The morning has been building its structure since sunrise kissed the area at 7:26 AM. Temperatures will kick up into the 60s. No rain today. Planetary rotation will shut down daylight at 6:46 PM. Back at home, it’ll be 84 degrees and smokey.
Yesterday’s morning delivered a pleasant interlude. It’s my daily habit to take a cuppa hot joe onto the front porch in the early AM to breathe the air and admire the world. When I stepped out yesterday, a grazing doe across the street raised her head and greeted me. Two chipmunks and a squirrel dashed away, and a ground hog scurried for safety. I regretted interrupting their moments, but the deer returned to her business and the rest drifted back a short while later. Later, the squirrels and chipmunks had some kind of race going on in the backyard. Don’t know if they were the same characters that I saw in the morning, though.
Mom pulled The Neuron’s attention. She was talking about what music she’d like at her service after her demise. One of the songs is “I Call Your Name” by The Mamas and the Papas. She’s been having Alexa play it at least once a day, singing along with it. Naturally, The Neurons became enthralled with it. Mom and I talked about the song. We both remembered watching it on The Ed Sullivan Show. So The Neurons pushed it into my morning mental music stream, fitting, since it’s my last day here. That show episode is available on Youtube, so here it is.
Mom would have been in her early thirties back then, less than half of my current age.
Stay pos, test neg. Yes, I need coffee, how ’bout you? Mom’s home is a decaf zone. My BIL bought me this coffee when I was COVID isolating. I’m brewing the very last grounds today. Perfect timing, right?
Here’s the music. Have a fine one. Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music
Yesterday is past. Today is here.
Today is Friday, October 7, 2022. It’s gonna be a cool one here. A silky silvery layer insulates us from the sun and promises precipitation. Sunrise at 7:22 this morning was smooth and low-key, a gradual unveiling of the fall landscape. Sunset at 6:53 will surrender the land back to night. It’s 51 degrees F now, warmer than the week’s earlier offerings, but we’re only expecting a little beyond 13 C as the high. Meanwhile, my wife tells me our high back home was 91 F.
A dream that I was swimming through green water brought me The Neuron’s music choice. Not much of the dream remains except that the water was green but clear, with good visibility. I could see myself from an external perspective, breath held, bubbles sneaking out of me, panic rising as my air ran out. I struck for the surface and could see it far, far above me. I knew I wasn’t going to make it. Cheeks and lungs bursting, I let my air escape.
But then I discovered, oh, I can breath.
Anyway, thinking about that this morning, The Neurons said, oh, “Nightswimming” by R.E.M. from 1992 would be perfect. I dunno, I replied, because it’s a very mellow morning song. But I do like Michael Stipe’s vocal stylings, so here we are.
Stay positive and test negative. I’ve had my coffee, thanks. Loved that fresh brew smell tickling my nose and energizing anticipation. The first cup was taken out to the cool air on the back porch, where I could enjoy the woods and grass’s dark jade richness. Moments like those are salves on the soul, re-establishing my balance as I contemplate existence.
Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Last night’s sunset was like gold dust was thrown across the sun’s final rays for the day. Pretty and fascinating, shared as photos by a few, it caused me wonder: what’s in the air reflecting the light like that and giving that color?
Today is Wednesday, mid-week of October’s first week. I’ve been here in Pittsburgh a few, visiting, helping Mom and the fam. Also learning the dynamics of who is cool to who, or angry with another family member, and what words and questions to avoid like it’s a UXB.
It’s October 5, 2022. In my mind, we’re racing toward completion of the first quarter of this century. So much potential floats in the air like the stuff turning our sunset gold last night. Sunrise today is silvery clean, coming on at 7:21, about twenty minutes after I opened the back door, stepped into the 42 F air, and breathed deep. The weather the announced it’ll be 70 F and sunny today. I’ll pop the shorts back on. Sunset will sneak in at six minutes before seven in the evening.
Mom is doing a lot better by day. All her appointments and visits went well. Strength, balance, and co-ordination is returning. Her old personality and ways are emerging out of the sickness morass. But as noted, some things require walking on eggshells, broken glass, smoking coals. Gently, gently, lest you alienate another or get hurt yourself. Caution will see you through. Taking it in, The Neurons said, “This sounds like an opening for Annie Lennox.” They commenced playing “Walking on Broken Glass” from 1992. The album was part of my wife’s music rotation when we cleaned house every Saturday in the mid 1990s, so I heard it a chunk o’ times.
Stay positive and test negative. Coffee has already answered my call. Needed it to assist Mom with some matters and present her breakfast. Ready to jump into the day, starting with a shower. Here’s the tune. Y’all have a good ‘un.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 