Category: coffee

Monday’s Theme Music

Salutations from the third rock from the sun. Today, we mark Monday, April 5, 2021 on the calendar. Here in Ashland, Sol presented at 6:47 AM and is expected to vacate the area at 7:41 PM. Temperatures are cooler today, just 47 degrees F right now, with supposed highs in the mid-sixties. Rain showers are likely.

Had half a cuppa coffee already. Taste buds are singing praises about the flavor and the caffeine is bubbling in my blood. Musically, me mind is mired in 1979 this AM, with Rainbow’s cover of “Since You’ve Been Gone” dominating the neurons. I think this has to do with a dream medley that I experienced that left me thinking about people I socialized with in different locations who I no longer see. Some have died, but with others, different paths were taken and gap emerged that keep us away from one another.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

0

Saturday’s Theme Music

Good coffee! Today is Coffeeday, March 27, 2021.

Sorry, coffee on the head. Haven’t had my AM brew. Should go brew it up. Smell does wonder for focus. The contents do more for energy. And the taste…ah, sublime. Dark, no sugar, no milk, thanks.

Today is really Saturday. Sun climb was 7:02 AM while sun fall will be at 7:31 PM in Ashland. Temperature, currently hovering at 47ish, is expected to reach 72ish. I see yard and garden work coming in the afternoon hours.

Theme music today is — yes — dream-related. I was playing Jeopardy in the dream, so the song is the Greg Kinn 1983 hit, “Jeopardy”, with its 80s techno-disco vibe. I thought that it fun could be injected into the proceedings by including the 1984 Weird Al Yankovic parody, “I Lost on Jeopardy”, with Art Fleming. It’s a Saturday twofer. You’re welcome.

Wear your mask, get the vax, test negative, and stay positive. It’s coffee time. See ya.

0

Thursday’s Theme Music

Thursday salutations. This is March 25, 2021. Welcome to Hard Coffee.

Sorry, have coffee on my mind. Haven’t had it yet today, and the beans are whispering my name in the other room. What is Hard Coffee? I imagine it as a movie in which people must survive without coffee for several hours. Initially hostile or indifferent to one another, they learn that they can get to coffee in a building on the next block, if they work together. A tough ex-Marine who fought at Fallujah, a female with an artificial leg, becomes the de facto leader.

Sol’s first appearance on this cloudy, still, rainy day was at 7:06 AM. The thermometer claims it’s 40 degrees F. outside. Sol will fade out over the horizon at 7:29 PM.

Music choice is driven by a dream in which I was driving a car. “Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car” is a 1988 song by Billy Ocean. No one was in my car in my dream but me; the later lyrics, “I’ll do the driving, I’ll take the wheel,” is what spirited the song into the thinking stream. Yeah, it was a silly chuckle morning. I hadn’t had any coffee yet. Still haven’t actually. Must soon rectify that. You wouldn’t believe how hard typing is. I keep back spacing to correct words. Woof.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Hello. Well, we’ve done it, most of us in the U.S.A., at least, we’ve ‘sprung ahead’. Our clocks are set forward in accordance with whatever.

Today is March 13, 2021, a Sunday. Per Sunday requirements to relax if you can and eat if ya got it, cinnamon rolls with coffee were consumed. It’s 54 degrees F outside under a sky mocking the idea of ‘sunshine’ with large gray swaths. Rain veils are drawing closer but might yet swing away, tempted by some other valley spot. Sol popped up at 7:23 AM and the orb will drop beyond the horizon at 7:13 PM here in Ashland, Oregon.

A favorite walking song has infiltrated me today. The Who released “Baba O’Riley” in 1971. I was fifteen then. Having no wheels and an independent spirit, I walked or ran wherever I needed to go. I had biked but the bike was stolen. Finances didn’t stand up for a replacement. Walking was agreeable, and remains a favorite pastime. My wife doesn’t enjoy walking with me; she wants to stroll. I’m walking, damn it. Yes, there are times for strolling, such as when we’re shopping, but when you have a place to go, I’m all in.

The defiant beat and raucous sounds found in “Baba O’Riley” lends itself to my walking attitude. So, yesterday, up there on the street, looking across the valley at the fields, the song arrived in the mental music stream as a welcome companion. Thinking about it today, I discovered this interesting rendition of it. Hope you enjoy it as much as me. I enjoyed seeing my music heroes young and alive, into their music, one more time.

Test negative, stay positive, wear a mask when required, and get the vax. See you on the streets. Cheers

0

A Coffee Shop Dream

A pleasant and sunny day had emerged. In shorts, I was out walking through some thin woods and arrived at a stone and wood building I knew. Pausing on some steps, I cleaned off my shoes. Cat hair was just coating them. As another couple — strangers — passed, I briefly attempted to explain to them that I was cleaning cat hair off my shoes — but why would it matter to them? Stopping, sitting down, I removed my shoes to better clean them. At last, I continued, in socks, shoes in hand, up into the building.

This was a cozy book store-coffee shop combo. I visited the book store section first. A white male with glasses was behind the counter. I told him I was looking for fiction books. He asked for more details. I then asked, “Do you have a McCall’s? It lists every fiction book ever written.” He went off in search of, then returned with a red book with white lettering.

I moved to the coffee shop. It was a tight place — large counter dominating one corner, a waste can and several small, round tables taking up the rest of maybe a twelve by twelve foot space — and busy. I took a tall chair between two male customers at the counter. The woman behind me was a pale, slender redhead. She said, “Everyone was here dancing last night, Michael. You should have come. You would’ve had a good time.”

I thought I recognized her. She knew me but I didn’t know her name. Stalling, I replied, “Who was everyone?” She began reciting names as I wondered what her name was. Then a large man threw the remains of a scone and hit me in the chest. He began a string of earnest apologies. I realized that he’d been trying to get the scone into the trash can behind me but it was so tight and crowded, he’d instead hit me. It bothered me not at all. I took the scone and turn to put it into the trash.

I struggled. The trash can was carved out of a thick and twisted tree trunk. Two holes were there. An upper one was for recycle and the lower was for the waste. I figured this out along with other people who were attempting to use the trash. We all talked it through out loud. Then, scone dropped in trash, the dream ended.

0

Tuesday’s Theme Music

I began by appropriating a Def Lepard melody, twisting lyrics to suit my purpose. “Pour some coffee for meee.” That sent the Wayback Machine rummaging through my head for today’s music.

Good morning. Today’s label is Tuesday, March 9, 2021. The thermometer says it 37 degrees F. The forecasters say, “Today will be cloudy with rain showers.” The high is expected to be 48 or thereabouts. Solclimb in Ashland was 6:33 AM. Soldrop is expectd at 6:10 PM.

Today’s theme music turned out to be Great White’s 1989 cover of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”. It’s natural to be leery of something after it got you once. That’s true whether it’s an animal biting a human, a human hitting an animal, or a politician breaking their word (well, unless you’re a Trump supporter). It has less of a metal sound and more of a rock and roll/boogie-woogie sound. An entertaining song.

Stay positive, test negative, wear that mask and git that vac. We’re counting the days until we’re eligible. Here in Oregon, it’s expected somewhere around the end of April, beginning of May for our age group. My wife likes to joke with her older friends, “We’re still too young for the vaccination.” Says it’s probably the last time she’ll be able to claim she’s too young for anything, but then, she still doesn’t qualify for Medicare. Well, nor do I, but it’s coming.

Have a good one. Cheers

0

March Monday Madness

  1. Thinking of the post’s title brings back memories and a smile. Pre-pandemic, I used to regularly visit a coffee shop. I usually ordered mochas there. So, it was Michael’s mocha. Going with the alliteration scheme, Michal’s Mocha sometimes became Michael’s March Madness Monday Mocha. It also took place in May. Just harmless fun, banter between me and the ‘ristas.
  2. The skunk under the house was active last night. Lots of squeaking under the master bath and then arose that smell. We admire this skunk for her persistence and tenacity. She’s like a writer, never giving up, you know?
  3. I shut down the skunk’s activity last night — well, it was this morning, really, one twenty-five AM by all the standard references — with the iPad. Turning it on, I called up a video of David Frost interviews. Setting the iPad on the bathroom floor with the volume turned up, I plugged it in so it wouldn’t run out of juice, and closed the door. As soon as David Frost began speaking, the squeaking ceased.
  4. Just to make home life more interesting, we now have what seems to be a gopher hole in the back yard. Investigations are ongoing. More reports forthcoming. We’re a no-kill household, so I’ll probably be turning to sonic stakes to drive them away.
  5. I’m always fearful of calling down the muses’ wrath when I mention that writing is going well, that I’m enjoying the process and entertaining myself with what I write, so I won’t mention it.
  6. I really enjoyed the 60Minutes interview with Colson Whitehead that aired Sunday. First novel rejected twenty-five times and never published. He writes for himself but hopes that one person will identify with and like what he writes, and maybe one will become ten, etc. That’s me paraphrasing, based on what I heard, and perhaps what I wanted to take away from his outlook. He’s won two Pulitzer Prizes, which, great, congratulations to him. More importantly, those two books are in the house in my reading pile. My wife read both and recommend them to me. I seriously trust and respect her judgment in these matters. So, I’ll put those books higher on the pile.
  7. The reading pile is always growing, it seems. Books get recommended or passed on. Reviews are read and chords are struck. Friends publish new books and must be read. A new favorite author is discovered and other works are hunted down for reading. Then, there’s the non-fiction side. Reading is a constant requirement. I’m fortunate to have the time to indulge myself.
  8. I was reading in the living room yesterday afternoon. The book at hand was Countdown City by Ben Winters. It’s a quick, engaging noir adventure. Sunshine bubbled in over my shoulders through the blinds. Sitting, listening, in a pause from reading, I heard no electronics running. No lights were on. The furnace and refrigerator were silent. Radios and television were off, though clocks are running. The home weather station was running, and so was the net and laptops and the associated equipment. But none of these things made sounds. I enjoyed the sunny stillness.
  9. Thinking of clocks…four ‘clocks’ are in the house. Two are in the kitchen, in the microwave and range. Another is in the bedroom. The fourth is a battery operated clock in the snug. But then, we wear Fitbits, which offer us the time. So do the phones, the thermostat, and laptops, printer, and tablets. We track time everywhere.
  10. I’m fussy about synchronizing the clocks, too. I think, or at least, pretend, that it harkens back to my military career. Being synchronized to the second was important to us in that life.
  11. Also to keep life interesting — because these are such boring, tedious times — credit card fraud struck us. I was reviewing my credit card billing last week. It’s a weekly habit for me to go online and review all the finances, a time-killing activity to fill space when I’m putting off doing something else. It just takes a few minutes. Well, lo’, there was a small charge that I didn’t recognize. After verifying it didn’t belong to my wife, I challenged it with the company. They responded by cancelling that card and sending me a new one. However, they didn’t tell me that they were doing that. First I know of it was when the credit card was rejected. That spun me up fast. Suspecting it was related to the fraud that I reported, I checked into the account to look for notice that such is what happened. No notice. A chat with an agent was required to verify cause and effect. It would have been nice to be warned or notified that they’d done this, right? Irritating customer service policy, to say the least.
  12. We have only two credit card accounts. Each is used for certain activities, to help limit exposure. That meant, though, that we are down one credit card. Momentarily, yes, but it’s a domino effect. Emails arrive, hey, your card was rejected, what up? No idea when the new card will arrive so some activities are on stuck in a queue. Whereas I had reduced checking the mail to once a week in general, sometimes twice in one week, I’ll now be going to the mailbox daily.
  13. Also, I knew that credit card information. I could rattle off the number, expiration date, and security code without hesitation. Now I’m forced to learn a new number and particulars. Yeah, I like whining, don’t I?
  14. Got my coffee. Ready to write like crazy at least one more time.
2

A Blue and Orange Dress Dream

To begin, it’s the late 1960s on a hot, dry day. I’m younger than now but not appropriate for that era vis-à-vis my life. After watching some Formula 1 practice action, a dust-up between two cars at one corner stops practice. Strapped into my car, I’d been waiting to go out. Leaving my car, I returned to the garage area to get out of the sun and get a drink.

The two drivers involved with the accident, Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Graham Hill, come in. They’re trying to figure out what happened, so they’re going to talk it over. I suggest some coffee. Coffee was served to them in small glass cups. They finished it quickly. I told them that maybe we should sit down. They agreed to that and move to a table to one side. I asked and they agreed, they could use more coffee. I brought the pot over to serve them. Both glasses were sitting on a shelf above the table. I didn’t know which cup belonged to which driver. They tell me that it doesn’t matter. I poured the coffee into the cups. The coffee is light with milk as it came out of the pot.

Next, Tina Fey is walking around inside hallways which were in my body. As far as I know, I’m the only other present, but she’s acting like her 30 Rock character. My first reaction is, wow, Tina Fey is here. Second: she’s in my body. Third: there are hallways in my body. Fourth: Tina Fey is in my body making jokes about my organs. Consumed by those four thoughts, I understood nothing that she actually said.

A dreamshift takes place. I’m outside of a motel/lodge, in the parking lot, by the raised cement sidewalk. The motel is modeled after modernized log cabins. A candy stand dominates the sidewalk. Tiered rows of candy offerings face me. I’m amazed by the selection. Every candy I think of — Jujubes, Good n’ Plentys, Mars and Mounds bars, Dots, Old Henrys, York Peppermint Patties, are all there in neat rows. But they’re expanding, adding another section, to add more candy.

I’m amazed that so much candy is for sale and amazed that they’re preparing to offer yet more. There is nothing but candy. Shouting children begin running up to the stand. SMH, I enter the lodge.

Adult motel workers and customers are inside. I know several because I’ve been staying there on a writing retreat for a few days. Now, though, I’m supposed to go meet my wife at another hotel. I’m to take a pale blue dress with pale orange trim to my wife. It’s way too big for her, probably five times her width, but a perfect length if she’s six feet tall (but she’s just five four), but she requested it. So I’m carrying this dress around for her.

Discarded candy and candy packages litter the lodge’s deep brown carpeting. I’m incredulous. Laughing and screaming children — no doubt charged by sugar, I think — are running about. I change (don’t know where that was done) into new light gray shorts. They have a bright blue string. I speak with my wife on the telephone and tell her that I’m on my way. Then, first, where’s the dress? It was on a hanger. I set it down and now I don’t see it.

Then I need to urinate. I find a bathroom. Weirdly, it’s at a juncture where one side is a hallway to rooms and the other faces the foyer/waiting area. The two walls are sliding accordion doors which need pulled to and locked. I attempt to do this but each keep sliding open, though I slam them. I then discover there’s a screw lock at the top of the accordion doors; I firmly screw that in place and start to do my business. I see that the screw is turning, becoming undone. Irritated, I screw it tight again. Sure that it’s secure, I step up to the urinal to pee and discover my shorts are in the urinal. They’re getting wet. Exasperation growing, I pull my shorts back. One accordion door has slid open. My shorts are pulled half down, so I’m effectively mooning people. A manager and customer come by to tell me. I answer back with explanations about the doors and how unimpressed I am by these doors. They’re chuckling. The male customer keeps joking, “Your bulls are showing,” by which I realize he means my ass. I joke back that I’m running with the bulls. Yeah, lame.

Although my shorts are wet, I’ve managed to pee and I’m ready to go again. Someone has found the blue and orange dress that I’m taking to my wife and call out, “Does anyone claim this?” I do, I answer, then explain that I’m taking it to my wife at her request. It’s way too big for her, I explain — I think it’s bigger than it was before — but she requested it.

That’s where it all ends.

5

Sunday’s Theme Music

Yes. Sunrise was at 6:59 AM in Ashland, Oregon, on this soddy Sunday, February 21, 2021. Sunset is at 5:51 PM. Outdoor temp is 39 degrees F but it’s a warm 72 in the snug. The rest of the house is a more proper 68 degrees. The snug stays warm. Might be the computers and bodies, feline and human. We’re all in there. The cats, of course, are surfing the net. Can’t seem to get them off the ‘puters these days. I’m always imploring them, “Don’t you want to go outside and get fresh air and exercise?” They just cling to their mouses and click on, occasionally swatting at the screen.

Today’s theme music is a jam with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Buddy Guy. Warning: it has a lot of guitar playing. It’s my music choice for today because I enjoy when two major talents get together, have fun, and share it with the rest. Plus, given the chill rainy presence, it’s a sortofa blues and reading day. I will mix in some coffee, of course. Every day is a coffee day. I do enjoy it when I sip back some hot black coffee and gaze out the window as rain splatters existence.

There will be writing. It’s a requirement. The muses have had their coffee, and are eagerly chattering in my ears about which character does what thing where. Feels like it’s gonna be an intensive writing session.

Stay pos., test neg., wear a mask, get the vac. Here is SRV and BG with “Champagne and Reefer” from 1989.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑