Category: health

Thirstdaz Wandering Thoughts

I’ve lost over twenty pounds. With that came a reduction in my waist size. Now my pants are too large for me. Friggin’ swimming in them. Fortunately, I kept some pants which were too small for me. Now I fit in them again.

Large part of my weight reduction in my mind comes from exercising. With my exercising now, I can look back and appreciate how much I was hampered from exercising by health issues for the last few years. I’m running and exercising much more consistently and intensely than I’ve done since COVID struck. Back then was when I broke my arm. Feels good, too. Energy levels are up. Thinking is clearer. Mood is better.

My issues forced dietary changes on me. Embracing them, I eat more mindfully, turning down many things, enduring hunger. Like, right now, in the coffee shop, they’ve heated up quiche for someone. Smells exquisite. Another person is wolfing down a cherry turnover. Looks really good, know what I’m saying?

I thank the dawgs for my turnaround. Good medical interventions, often triggered by emergencies, saved me. As did my wife, who had to endure my emergencies, issues, and recoveries.

Just need to keep it up and keep it off. Yeah, there’s the eternal rub.

5

Thirstdaz Theme Music

It looks like we might have some fog today in Foglandia. It’s Thirstda, December 11, 2025. The fog landed on us yesterday morning and has not abated. My friend came out of meeting last night and said, “Wow, this is Jack the Ripper kind of fog.” Our forecast for today, given yesterday morning, promised sunshine and a possible record high in the low to mid-sixties. That was yesterday. Now we’re mumbling about maybe hitting 50 F. It’s 37 F now. The claims made yesterday for today have been shifted to tomorrow. Feels like a con game. Wonder how much of Trump DOGE cuts cause the diminishing weather forecast accuracy?

Another night of intriguing dreams featuring cars, women, and building had me wondering about stuff this morning. Traversing the assimilating and understanding functions of parsing the dreams inspired Les Neurons. “Clocks” by Coldplay floated into the morning mental music stream. The song’s lyrics go, “Confusion never stops. Closing walls and ticking clocks. Gonna come back and take you home. I could not stop that you now know, singing.” Which pretty well reflected part of one remembered dream sequence. Actually, minus the clocks. It was but the sentiment of confusion.

Speaking of the sentiment of confusion, have you heard Deceiving Donny’s recent speeches? Yes, he’s a rambling vocal trainwreck. Naturally, MAGA reactions are, “But Biden.” Always looking to the past, they are, always hunting for an escape route to avoid facing reality. Read a piece which tickled me from MPS, Case Study: In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts.

Yes, we know he’s nuts. So does AI as it reviews some sample shitalk outta the great mango babbler. Trump’s probably the greatest babbler the world has ever known. He can babble like no babbler has ever babbled before. People listening to him often remark, “What an amazing babbler. What a stunning babbler.” After listening to Dizzy Donny’s babbling, people often march up, shake his hand, and say, “Sir, that was the most beautiful babbling I’ve heard the pleasure of hearing.” One man said he told Trumpy Dumpty, “In my two hundred fifty years of life, I’ve never heard greater babble coming out of anybody like this before, let alone the President of the United States. What babble! Amazing babble! BEAUTIFUL BABBLE!!!”

I was with friends having a beer and talking last night. One related the death of his brothers. One older, one younger. Both being treated. One was denied Oregon’s “Death with dignity” to pursue assisted suicide because he was being treated and following a course of stuff supposed to fight the disease, etc. But the side effect of said treatment were blood clots which caused strokes, diminishing his capacity to speak, move, breathe, etc. Sickening and exasperating.

On that note, time to rev up the life engine and plunge into my daily routines. Which mostly circulates around going out and writing. Writing is going well but consumes so much life band. My wife is tremendously accommodating of my efforts. She deserves several prizes. Hope I can reward her faith and support with success someday. Meanwhile, onward. Cheers

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A Building Dream

Well, I dreamed my wife was driving the car. I was in the back seat of this dark green sedan beast. Weird, I was standing while my wife was sitting, sawing at the giant steering wheel. But my head was at her level. Oddly, the steering wheel was on the right, counter to the usual U.S. practice of having the wheel on the left side.

A gorgeous woman with a low top and cleavage displayed was on the seat behind me, wholly exciting me with her presence, trying to entice me to join her. I’m like, “That’s nuts!” My wife is driving us to either shopping or school. Note from the real-life side, my wife only drives me when my physical condition warrants it.

We stop. I climb out from the back seat. I ask my wife, “Where are we?” It seems familiar, like a beach we’ve visited but no beach is in sight. Instead, white pieces are all over the place.

I pick a few white pieces up with some WTF-self quizzing. They seem bigger than they were. At first, I thought them to be building blocks like the kind children use. Instead, these are as large as shoe boxes, but they’re light. Hardly weigh anything at all.

They’re all over the place, like wreckage. I can’t imagine what happened to cause it. Hurricane? Tornado? Both are feasible but what were the pieces part of and where were they before? I’m looking around, trying to place that.

A whim drives me to collect pieces. After doing that, I realize they can be put together and stacked as a wall. Amused, I do this for a bit. Finding and gathering more pieces, I put together corners, doorways, windows without much effort. I’ve been working a while in bright sunshine, a warm breeze coming along as a visitor. I was sweating and then realized I didn’t see my wife or the car. A little thinking about that progressed but I returned to my building effort. I wondered as I did if this thing I was building was strong enough to stand, and wondered, why am I even doing this? It seemed crazy.

Two other crazy aspects emerged as I worked. The building changed, becoming a real place. I was at once sure that I’d built it but also certain that I’d never done all the things I was seeing. Second, the day seemed to be progressing enormously slowly. I took some time to contemplate where the sun was, trying to think back to where it’d been when I began, but I couldn’t come up with any answer.

That’s where the dream ended.

4

Twozdaz Theme Music

Read about Chicago’s weather this morning. I felt much better about our weather today, Twozda, December 9, 2025. 44 F now, sunshine has bullied the clouds and fog aside for the moment, graciously giving us a blue sky and the chance of a temperature in the upper fifties. Rain is lurking.

A tense truce has settled between Mom and the family. Mom is ignoring everyone and plotting her own destiny. Sis is polite and helpful but gives Mom her space. Text message volume has dropped from “Trump midnight anger ranting” levels to a more sedate “checking in” scale. Nothing is resolved. More a matter of water seeking its level, you know, adjustments being made. Mom tried different avenues to get returned to her home. This ‘quiet plotting time’ is familiar to all of us. It’s now wait and see what emerges from it. We think it’s best to let Mom talk to those agencies. If one comes to visit her, perhaps they’ll recognize her state and commence proceedings. The sisters on the scene don’t want anything to do with that. I’m considering flying back to address it but the magnitude of the task is major bigly.

Today’s song choice is fresh from the dream review. “One” by U2 begins, “Is it getting better or do you feel the same?” Although the dream said nothing about Mom and her situation, thoughts of her situation flooded my dream meditation process. Then, surprise, The Neurons caught on to my thinking and pushed the song into the morning mental music stream to play and ferment. I found this video interesting because it’s not an effort to duplicate the studio sound. The lyrics and delivery end up much different.

Here’s a headline that seized my attention this morning.

Trump admin is ‘trying to put out a fire they started’ at Weather Service as a cold, snowy winter looms

Gosh, I wonder if anyone saw the possibility that the manic cuts Trump made through DOGE was gonna have negative repercussions on the nation’s services, including weather forecasting?

Well, of course, most of us on the left shouted, “Look out, what is wrong with you,” when this happened. We’ve seen this scenario play out time and again during Trump 2 (now with less brain cells!). They fire everyone. Realize they made a mistake and broke a system or need those people. Scramble to find those people and bring them back to fix that system. What maroons.

Another trend was one my wife brought up.

Why Gen Z is flocking to SEC universities

SEC universities are sixteen institutions located primarily in the south. Outliers are Tennessee and Oklahoma. Several are in Texas.

Why are they going there? Short answer: warmer weather, lower tuition, more fun. Longer answer: student loans and lifelong student debt.

Another interesting headline reminds us that the Epstein files still exist.

Judge grants DOJ request to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell records

In ordering the files released in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer noted that almost all of it was already public record and chastised DOJ for misleading people about the Maxwell files’ content.

~snip~

“As the Court chronicled in denying DOJ’s motion, the motion itself misled victims —and the public at large — in holding out the Maxwell grand jury materials as essential to the goal of ‘transparency to the American public,’ when in fact the grand jury materials would not add to public knowledge,” he wrote in Tuesday’s order.  

~snip~

Coffee is awakening the body systems for another go around. Hope peace and grace find and hold you sooner or later. Here we go, one more time. “Let’s be careful out there.” Cheers

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Mundaz Theme Music

Sunshine is making its way. Yesterday’s prevailing gray has been subdued. Temperatures from 46 to 57 degrees F, now and later. It’ll be cloudy. Rain could slip in. So could fog. We’ll see what we see for today, Munda, December 8, 2025. At least it has a less wintry feel to it. Yeah, I know how much I whine. Other places are digging out of snow, dealing with slush and ice. Here I sit, the prince on his cushion, upset about a pea.

Haven’t done this song in a while. “You May Be Right” is a fave for me. Like the words, their sentiments, the beat, and Billy Joel’s delivery. It’s a ripped from life sort of song. That’s what brought it here today. Mom and sisters are now in open war. One sister said she won’t have naught to do with Mom. Sis, the primary caretaker, said she will no longer speak to Mom or help her. Third sister said she is also not speaking to Mom because Mom is not listening and is shouting at everyone. Exhausting a thousand miles away plus.

Mom wants to return to ‘her house’. Her house has been cleaned out of food. Slowly stripped of stuff to make it saleable, an effort begun back in October. Sis and the others are saying, “Let her go if that’s what she wants.” I tried to make peace. Tried to explain how it didn’t work for Mom in October when Frank was hospitalized and it won’t work now. Sis and the others have moved past caring, they say. Mom has alienated everyone in the house. Sigh.

Tried to explain to Mom why it won’t work for her to return to her place. Mom’s response was, well, startling in its unmoored style. She told me that my sister had gotten to me. Went into something about how that was because she’d been in and out of a wheelchair back in October but now they’re keeping her in a wheelchair so her back and legs are week. Like, what? Mom finished, “I’m going to get out of here, one way or another.”

Frequently in the conversations and texts about the situation, I end up saying, “You may be right.” After observing me thinking it so often, The Neurons decided that I needed the song and cranked it up in the morning mental music stream. Although I often look for recordings of live performances, I enjoy the original video for this song, so here it is.

In reflection about Mom and sis, etc., I had doubts about that arrangement working. Mom is hardheaded; sis inherited that from her. Mom also have several other skills, like being overdramatic and the ability to push others’ buttons. Sis and Mom have history. Nonetheless, I was hopeful. This option was also the only one Mom agreed to. I think all concerned dreamed of a different outcome. Of course, we can’t say how much drug, pain, aging, stress, emotions, etc., is dictating this course. I’ve seen other families endure it with grit teeth and heavy sighs. Now it’s our family’s turn. I don’t have hopes for any sort of quick, easy, or happy outcomes. One of them is texting me right now so I must go see what the latest is.

Need I say, we all miss Frank for his patience, support, and endurance?

Hope peace and grace finds and holds you. I’ve had a couple slugs of coffee. Think I’ll have a few more. Here we go. Cheers

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Saturdaz Theme Music

Guess what? It’s a cold and gray, wet and sunny December 6th, 2025, Ashlandia Saturda. The wet is drying, the fog is swirling, the sun is breaking in, and the gray is hanging on. The digital mercury currently rests at 46 F degrees with sunny promises of a 50 F degree high.

Mom and sis battle on. Mom’s mind has taken a turn for the worse, and her behavior has pushed the people living with her to the limit. She’s suddenly paranoid and conspiratorial, making bizarre accusations, and is increasingly hostile and critical, accusing everyone of imaginary slights. Mom has exhibited these traits throughout her adult life. All of her offspring can relate periods of encountering Mom in ‘one of her moods’. This period, which has lasted several days, has driven sis to declare she’ll have nothing to do with Mom any longer. Of course, sis is speaking out of anger, stress, and frustration. Mom has declared that she’ll move back to her house and live alone. “Go for it,” shouted sis, according to sis when we spoke on the phone. We are investigating and discussing trying to get Mom into somewhere else for her living situation.

Today’s song is “Sexcrimes”. This is a 1984 Eurythmics song, full name “Sexcrimes (Nineteen Eighty-Four)”. No idea why The Neurons slotted it into the morning mental music stream this morning. In the kitchen doing breakfast things when it made its appearance. Always sort of an odd song to me, never quite to my preference, but I encountered on the radio back in the day. There is something slightly mesmerizing about it to me, maybe the beat, I suppose.

Read the news last night that the National Parks Service has declared free admission for Trumpy’s birthday. Meanwhile, giving us a massive middle finger, the NPS dropped Juneteenth and MLK Jr’s birthday as holidays with free admission that they’ll recognize. More of that kingliness grace that Trump is imposing on We the People as he defecates on our past collective decisions, history, and heritage. Of course, thanks to Dizzy Donny and the massive staffing and budget cuts under his regime, stories of chaotic situations at national parks are on the rise.

Been thirty days since my gallbladder was removed. Recovering and adjusting seem to be going well. It’s my habit to drink hot water in the morning. This week, I’ve experienced nausea when doing that. From the way it rolls from my abdomen and gathers at the back of my throat by my jaw muscles, most online medical sites tell me it’s not unusual and is most likely because of an irritated Vagus Nerve. As a root cause, that’s not startling. They’ve suggested an overstimulated Vagus Nerve is probably behind my high blood pressure for years. Manuka Honey does settle the nausea.

Coffee has been re-introduced to my biosystems. Hope grace and peace show up someday in the United States again someday. Here we go, into another day.

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Fridaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Trump has announced that every street named “Main Street” in the United States is going to be called “Trump Street” by popular acclaim, beginning on Jan 1, 2026.

No, that’s not true. Far as I know. That’s how it feels, though. A golfer, he wants a NFL football stadium named after him. Tasteless, he wants the Kennedy Center renamed after him. He wants to name everything after himself for doing nothing but lying, cheating, stealing, and destroying. I’m not in favor it. Only thing I’d like to rename in Trump’s honor is toilet paper. Call it Trump paper. Then I can use Trump paper to wipe my ass.

Other than that, let’s name poor houses after him. And the homeless. He deserves that. “Look at those poor Trumps, standing out there in the cold rain.”

It’s wild how the nation is spiralling downward. Let’s cut off immigration, except for H1B visas for business. Let’s cut education and help for children but encourage families to have more children. And how will these families pay for them with healthcare, food, and energy prices increasing? We’re building AI facilities and robots to take over jobs. More companies are laying people off to use robots and AI instead of people. In Trump’s rage against Democrats, he’s attacking blue cities and states. Yet blue cities and states provide a large portion of the nation’s economic drive. So he’s gutting the nation of its economic power while trying to attract and encourage manufacturing. But who will have money to buy anything with employment falling?

Trump’s policies are already killing our local economy in southern Oregon. We depend on tourism, education, some beer and winemaking, and healthcare. Those are our largest revenue streams.

Last year, the Trump Regime cut funding for public transportation. Just like that, bus service fell to severely cut levels, affecting students, the poor, elderly, and remote.

SNAP and food assistance programs were cut, affecting the food-insecure, lower incomes, and homeless.

As costs rise for running a city and repairing things, the city is levying more fees on its citizens. That strains people’s spending and savings and cuts into discretionary spending. That results in less people spending on the local economy, with less tax money flowing to the city. See how that works? The city doesn’t.

Meanwhile, parks and rec want to open more parks. This is even though the city’s structural debt is blowing up. Parks and rec already cut their headcount, resulting less park maintenance, and its shows. Their solution is to build more parks. Build more bike trails. That’ll bring in people, they think.

Really, man, they are not paying attention.

Our local college is Southern Oregon University. SOU. They’ve responded to a continuing and growing cash flow problem by cutting programs, raising tuition, and reducing staff, including professors. With funding assistance from the Trump Regime falling, they’re facing a dire future.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is our big annual draw. They’ve seen reduced attendance for the last ten years. First, drought, hot temperatures, wildfires, and wildfire smoke pushed tourism down. Then COVID pushed tourism down. Now the Trump regime, with its open hostility towards foreigners, is pushing tourism down. A festival and region dependent on tourism will fall as tourism falls.

Finally, the local hospital announced cutbacks. This used to be the Ashland Community Hospital, but then it was bought by Asante. It has announced it’s closing its beds and surgical center. Just going to be some limited services. We’ll need to trek down the road to another hospital for assistance. But bus services have been cut. How are the poor and needy going to get there?

We’re being gouged and hollowed out in so many ways. This is just my state, my region. How much of this is being repeated across the United States? We know from news reports of growing corporate layoffs and flat employment growth. News reports inform us of meat packing facilities shutting down. Trump cuts through DOGE gutted research funding for universities, including cancer and other medical research. His policies also reduced foreign student enrollment.

As this downward spiral continues, the delta between haves and have nots in the United States will grow with the population of the have nots increasing. We’re leaning toward being a nation of underemployed, uneducated, unmotivated individuals. Our robot-run factories will pump out goods destined for foreign buyers on foreign shores.

Yes, I’m pessimistic about our nation’s future under Trump and the GOP but I’m not the only one. Meanwhile, a Yougov poll shows that while 40% of respondents think Trump will be judged as a “poor” president, 18% believe that he’ll be remembered as “outstanding”.

I guess those 18% are the haves, or perhaps have-nots who have not met their FAFO moment.

3

Fridaz Theme Music

It’s a sighing kind of day. Sunshine is spare as rain falls and gray clouds swallow the valley. 46 F now, we’re almost at our high. Yes, good to have some rain. But not so good for my spirit today, Frida, December 5, 2025. On the plus side of things, Wordle, Connections, and the Spelling Bee were all easy. So I have that going for me.

Mom and sis are again having issues. These are also adjustment things. Relates to how things used to be done when Mom and Frank lived together and Frank ran Mom’s errands. Sam’s Club was being used as Mom’s pharmacy. That was cost-effective and convenient for them. Sam’s Club was just less than ten minutes away, an easy drive. Frank enjoyed going through, picking up the prescriptions, doing some shopping, getting gas. Sam’s Club is nowhere near sis’s house. Going through is an hour plus investment of time and effort deeply affected by traffic and weather. Sis asked Mom to change her pharmacy to CVS because it’s just a few minutes away. Mom said she called the Sam’s Club and told them. No, Mom needs to call her doctor and tell them. She says she did. They told another sister that Mom’s message couldn’t be understood. Sis asked Mom to call them again. Mom said, no, she’s only allowed to call the doctor once a day. WTF? So yeah, confusion, frustrations, and stress are rising. Doesn’t help sis that she’s working this week so much of this is being conducted via phone calls and text messages while she’s at work. It’ll pass. Hopefully that’ll happen soon, and without much bloodshed. This sort of reminds me of the novel, Corrections.

Today’s music is dedicated to Trump and his enablers. After news reading that encouraged headshaking, groaning, growling, and sighs, The Neurons put Linda Ronstadt in the morning mental music stream with her cover of “You’re No Good”.

My wife raised this issue today: why didn’t the Trump Regime pick up those two survivors of the boat attack and question them for intelligence and information? Answer: because it’s about killing and making a show, and not about truth, facts, facts. She continues to advocate for the guillotine. She believes drastic changes will be needed once Trump is gone, and the only way to emphasize that We the People are serious is to lop off a few heads. Mitch McConnell tops her list. Weird to hear this lifelong pacifist advocate cutting off heads but that’s where we’re at.

Coffee and I are making nice again. Time to get out and do other things. Hope peace and grace light your day for a bit. Here I go, into the rain. Cheers

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Eavesdropping

I’m busy typing at the coffee shop but the conversation going on with the newcomers to my left pluck me out of my fiction and into the real world.

The woman was catching up with her father. So I gathered because she asked, “What do you drink, Dad?”

“Black coffee.”

“Cream? Do you want a little cream?”

“No, black.”

They sat and talked. Her healthcare premiums were going up. That’d forced her to change insurance coverage, reducing it to reduce her monthly costs. That meant getting less insurance. Her deductible would now be $9,000 for her. Only her. Her monthly payment now would be $448 a month. She discussed the notices she’d received about her reduced subsidy now dictated by the Big Beautiful Bill.

Dad commiserated. Mentioned, you’re like one of those on television, facing tough choices because of the new bill. Lamenting that the legislators won’t take it up.

Then she said, “Thank God I’m healthy.”

I bit my tongue. Wondered about their politics. Shrugged.

This is where we’re at.  

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Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts 2

We are so polarized in the United States in the second decade of the 2000s.

Yeah, that’s not news.

Last election for the POTUS in 2024, we had those on the right screaming about President Biden’s sleeping. They declared him feeble. ‘They’, egged on by Donald Trump and JD Vance, raged about President Biden’s enfeebled state. In their eyes, he was too old, too tired. And who should replace that enfeebled, tired president, the one called Sleepy Joe by Donald J Trump?

Why Donald J. Trump, of course! A year younger but so much more energetic, they declared. Despite his haggard appearance. Despite the photos of him sleeping at his trial in 2024.

Trump is what we need, they cried. Despite his felony convictions. Despite his business failures. He tells it like it is! Despite his well-documented lies. Despite his hatred, and his use of slurs against people, especially women and the handicapped. Despite his three marriages and payments to a woman for sex.

They thought Trump would lower prices through tariffs. Reduce inflation! Bring back jobs! Increase the prestige, success, and conditions in the United States.

The rest of us thought this weird. Trump had already been POTUS. He’d not accomplished anything he promised. His biggest broken promises were not building the wall that Mexico would pay for. He’d been twice impeached. He instigated insurrection against the United States and tried to overturn the election results when he lost.

Trump didn’t replace the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, he mocked it — as he promised. Trump never even rolled out a concept in four years plus.

Trump said he would ‘never golf’ or ‘take vacation’ because he’d be too busy working for the nation. Trump has since golfed more than any POTUS. He’s golfed about 25% of his time in office in 2025.

And Trump, Trump, is the only POTUS to have the government shutdown three times. His third government shutdown, the Trump Epstein Shutdown of 2025, is the longest on record.

Now Trump has established new records. Through Trump’s orders, 80 people, strangers to the United States, as we rarely know their names, or their records, or any evidence against them, have been murdered in international waters, a violation of U.S. and international law.

Through Trump, U.S. citizens are being turned against one another through his deployment of unneeded national guard and military units. He offers flimsy excuses and reasons, declaring that the places where he’s deploying them are burning, when there is no evidence at all of these things happening.

Through Trump, tourism and travel to the United States is cratering. Through Trump, prices are rising and affordability is falling.

Trump makes money on being POTUS. He pushes products with his name on them, like his Bible, his gold shoes, his gold cell phone. He’s destroying the White House, having it torn down, over the objections of We the People.

And weirdly, weirdly, through all of this, some part of the United States population declares that Trump represents the best of us.

The rest of us recoil in horror. We think Trump represents the worst of us.

Trump’s greed is not the best of the United States. His failed businesses are not the best of the United States. His lies, womanizing, and cheating are not the best of the United States. His lawlessness and childish mocking of other people are not the best of the United States. His ranting on Truth Social is not the best of the United States. His wanton disappearing people based on the color of their skin or their accents, without any due process, is not the best of the United States. His killing of citizens from other nations without due process is not the best of the United States. His persecution of political opponents is not the best of the United States. Nor is his greed, avarice, and shallow thinking the best of the United States.

Twisted and polarized. This is what we are. The real question for us is, where do we go from here, in 2025, as we near the end of just the first year of Trump’s second term?

Many of us are holding our breath as 2026 approaches. Because we do not know what Trump will do next. And given his lawlessness and the way he’s breaking our nation, chances are, whatever he does, it will not be good for anyone except Donald J. Trump.

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