A Move Is Made
I was settled in and writing — but —
First came the cat, Tucker. The big black and white long-furred character kept muttering about something. Food? No. Not a desire to go outside into the cold wind, surely. Nope. Water? No, not water. Just give me attention, he suggested.
“Sorry, but I gotta write, buddy,” I told him. “I’ll brush you later, I promise.”
Tucker was like, okay, I understand. He jumped up on the desk, went to the hand holding the mouse, and went to work on it with his head as a huge volume of purrs rolled through the space. “I love you but that’s not conducive to writing, buddy,” I said, moving my hand and mouse away.
Well. He sat a while, considering my response before resigning himself to a nap on a stack of papers a foot away. Writing like crazy commenced again.
My wife arrived home from her exercise class about ten minutes later. Energy bubbled out in vocal expressions. Setting into her office space, she began playing videos on a high volume, laughing aloud at what she went, turning to him to say, “You should see — oh, sorry, never mind, you’re writing.”
After four of those interruptions, I needed to find a writing refuge. The laptop was tucked into the backpack, the winter coat and gloves donned. The real question was, what’s the destination? Ashland’s coffee shop scene had changed during the pandemic. Two favorites had joined my longtime haunt, The Beanery, on the rolls of places that used to be. A new place had opened, not conveniently located, but run by a person I knew who used to run one of my favorite coffee shops. Named Moxie, I’d try it.
I walked in. “Michael!” everyone inside shouted.
I started, embarrassed to be in the spotlight. The owner was behind the counter. “Michael was one of our favorite regulars at my other coffee shop,” she explained to everyone. I knew three of those people. The other six were smiling strangers.
Not a large space, Moxie had gone through a soft grand-opening as furniture and style is acquired and employed. It had key ingredients that I need in a coffee shop: a table with a plug. Coffee. A good vibe.
After catching up with people, I settled in with a double-shot mocha. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Saturday’s Theme Music
Gold filled the cloudless sky as the sunblast kicked off at 7:27 AM in our valley on this Saturday, January 29, 2022. With the sun rising, the gold dipped. Blue flooded in as the sun’s beams surmounted the mountains at last. The temperature was 32 F. Now at 36, we expect to see 63 before the sun takes its show over the western horizon at 5:21 PM. Look at that, almost ten hours of sunshine and February hasn’t started it session yet.
In bummer COVID-19, all the county libraries are completely shutting down for a week. All materials due during that period will be automatically extended as the drop boxes will be locked shut. Hold pick-up periods will be extended, too. All this is because of personnel shortages driven by employees or their families sick with COVID-19.
While that’s happening, some genius suggested in an editorial that the best way to deal with the skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers is to open all the businesses and not restrict any of them. Save the economy and give everyone’s morale a boost. But…as the numbers are skyrocketing, people sicken, and the hospitals fill, who is going to be there to work?
Sadly, many see this bizarro logic as an ideal solution. Yet, hospitals across the nation are pressing nursing students into working for free to help with the caseload as personnel fall sick. Other nurses are being ordered to work longer hours, sometimes while foregoing pay, because of shortages. These are the same people who think that bare shelves are a political issue which can be resolved by just making more people work. They completely miss the dynamics engaged.
Enough of that. Sorry for the rant. Haven’t had coffee yet.
Today’s song is a repeat. “Maneater” by Hall & Oates came out in 1982. I was stationed in Japan, on Okinawa, at Kadena AB in the military at the time. That has nothing to do with the song’s occupatoin of my morning mental music stream. The song is there because of the cats. Why, yes, of course.
Sometimes when I’m feeding the cats, maybe just five out of five times, Boo and Tucker will suddenly become oblivious to me. After begging me for their morning meal with patient meows as they follow me around, I’ll put the bowls down and say, “Here you go, Tucker. Here, Boo. Come and get it.”
Hearing that, they’ll sit. Look around. I can hear their minds saying, “Boo? Tucker? Never heard of ’em.”
Papi, the young ginger, will dart pass them to the bowls, give me a meow, and begin eating. I then say, “There you go, Papi, eat up.”
Hearing “Papi”, Boo and Tucker will rise and come. “Papi,” they say. “Why, that’s me.” They say this even though I tell them, “No. You’re not Papi. You’re Tucker and you’re Boo. You two are black and white. He’s a ginger.”
They act like they can’t understand a word of what I’m telling them.
Of course, when they finally came is when I said in my head, “Here they come.” Which started Hall & Oates and the bassline for “Maneater”. Thus is how my mind works. At least before coffee.
Here’s the tune. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, as get the jabs when you can. I gotta get that coffee in me, you know? Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
‘ello, Saturnauts. We have reached the weekend, Saturday, Jan 15, 2022. In true Heisenberg style, the week’s end is also the week’s beginning. Talk about your uncertainty principle.
The Earth’s spinning brought the sun back into our valley at 7:37 AM, where it will give us warmth and light until the Earth’s spin takes it out of our sky at 5:04 PM. Out on the coast, tsunami warnings have folks scrambling back. Winter storms are sowing chaos in the eastern U.S. Southern states are bracing for snow as they haven’t in years. Then the storm will end north again, I’m told, where the people will grit their teeth, plow their streets, and put on a heavier coat.
Out here, we’re enjoying 41 F degrees right now with nuthin’ but blue skies greeting my eyes. Expected high will be 53 F. Not gloating, just enjoying it. Went walking yesterday afternoon and hope to do so again today.
Oasis has “Morning Glory” going in the morning mental music stream. The royal clowders call for food called out the 1995 song. I said to them, I said, “I need a little time to wake up.” And there it was, from “Morning Glory”:
Need a little time to wake up
Need a little time to wake up wake up
Need a little time to wake up
Need a little time to rest your mind
h/t to Songmeanings.com
Test negative, stay positive, get the jabs when you can, and wear a mask as needed. Speaking of needs, I feel a need for coffeeeeeeeee. Here’s the music. There I go. Cheers
Day Two of the Apple Diet
Walking along the streets yesterday, I realize that I’d picked the wrong time of day for a constitutional. It was dinner preparation time. Smells from people’s cooking clouded the air. I swear that I smelled a grilled steak with garlic bread and onions. And here I am, eating nothing but apples.
Stickers on fruit exasperate me. Yes, this is a first world complaint. Two or three stickers are on each apple. Removing them requires some thumb-nailing. One typically comes apart as five or six tiny pieces.
The apple diet is an Edgar Cayce thing. My wife and I discovered Edgar Cayce in our late teens. Cayce was as a clairvoyant who claimed to channel information from his higher self while in a trance-like state. People wrote to him for advice, especially about their health. We came to learn about Cayce through books by Jess Stern.
Cayce made a lot of predictions that didn’t work out. But some of his notions intrigued us, and we adopted some of his eating and healing guidance. One of those things is the apple diet. On it, you eat nothing but apples for three days. You also drink water. Black coffee is permitted, too. The idea is that eating only apples will detox you or cleanse your system of its toxins. We’ve done this diet many times before, but not in several years. Now in our mid-sixties, battened down against COVID-19, limited in diversions because travel is restricted, we thought we’d entertain ourselves by eating only apples. I mean, I’ve been working on a jigsaw puzzle, but the pieces don’t taste as good as apples. I’m doing this to be a supportive husband, though. That’s what I tell myself. Several times a day.
We went out on Thursday and bought a variety of apples totaling enough for two people eating six apples a day for three days. That makes some number that is two times six times three. Beyond that, it’s pretty easy. Put six apples into a bowl each morning. Peel off the stickers, wash it, slice it up, and eat it when you’re hungry.
It’s not bad, as diets go. (That’s what I tell myself. Several times a day.) Limited in scope and duration. Easy to follow. And we like apples. I wouldn’t want to do it for longer than three days, though, although I do like the cleanup. Much easier than the messes made by plant-based burgers, pasta, fish, etc.
The most interesting part of this are the looks received from the cats when I bring in a plate of sliced apples. They’re like “Hey, what do we got?” Sniffing is exercised. Then comes the stare. The stare says, “Seriously? Where’s the real food?” The stare is fraught with betrayal and disappointment.
“I know how you feel,” I answer. Their expressions change to pity. One of them pushed a piece of kibble to me.
Seriously, the apple diet is not bad. That’s what I tell myself. It’s. Not. That. Bad. At least I still have coffee.
Thursday’s Theme Music
Sing us a song of Thursday, on this twenty-third day of the month. Yes, it’s still December, 2021, for a few more days. Ticking down, though, ticking down.
Our weather report is about fog with 37 degrees temperatures and a sky without a break in the clouds insisting, “Rain is coming.” That’s for the lower elevations. Above two thousand feet, snow is expected with some heavy accumulation, and lower temperatures. The snow levels will be dropping to seventeen hundred, so the valley floor will probably experience a taste. We’re at eighteen hundred feet and will probably enjoy a winter blend.
Concerned thinking this morning brought out the morning mental music stream inhabitant, “Distant Early Warning”, by Rush (1984).
The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy
But I worry about you
h/t to Genius.com
Have some coffee (or whatever your preference is), stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, do some social distancing, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Onward. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 