My wife and I are on the Oregon coast. We ate a wonderful fresh breakfast at the Fresh Harvest Cafe. Then we hit the local Goodwill.
My wife enjoys visiting Goodwill stores. She likes bargains and she likes re-using things. She did say today, “I’m not buying anything new. I’m death cleaning so whenever I see something I want, I just tell myself, ‘You’ll just have to throw it out.'” Books are the exceptions. We bought four, two for each of us.
Killing time, I wander the store and write a short story in my head. It’s about a future Goodwill. Dystopian situation. A guy ransacks an unused house. There’s a lot of them. Finding a cache of shot glasses, he brings them to the Goodwill. They give him a small bag of peanuts for them. He sits outside in the sunshine, savoring every nut as he eats them.
My sister texted me about her grandson’s birthday. He’s already fifteen, thoroughly discombobulating my brain, which still thinks of him as much younger. His mother is still a teenager in my thoughts. To see that he’s now a teenager is too much. I do the slow math; I was fifty-five when he was born. Time, you know?
Sis tells me that her grandson went to an Escape Room for his birthday. Muses gather in my head to conceptualize fiction about Escape Rooms.
Sis interrupts with a text abut Mom. She’s taken Mom to Urgent Care for another suspected UTI. Mom complains about dizziness as she Mom gets in and out of her wheelchair and the car.
Browsing Goodwill shelves, I see things which might be in my home. I go through an aisle of tools and imagine my tools in there.
I believe I have seen the future.
Leaving the building, I breath in fresh air and smile at the sunshine on my face.
Catsitter called to say all is well with Papi. He was sort of quizzical about his morning routine, looking around for us, not really ready to eat at first but then gave in and chowed down.
Yes, we’re still at the coast. Another day, another photo.
Temperature is 58 F for the record, not far off of the expected high of 63 F. Tide is out. It was waayyy low earlier this morning.
Other than thinking about Trump and growling about what he’s done so far, I’m not paying much attention to the news. Saw there was another shooting, along with the usual responses from the usual suspects.
It was striking to see how many police cars mobilized to the shooting site in San Diego. We could save so many lives and need far less resources like this if we’d take a sensible approach to gun ownership. Someday, someday, someday…
For music, The Neurons went with “Margaritaville.” This is a Jimmy Buffett song. The Neurons fed it to the morning mental music stream as I cruised the sand. The surf’s sound pounded my ears and the wave play was fantastic. Soooo refreshing. I had a cuppa coffee in my hand as I walked… Well, truth: I had a four shot Americano as I walked. Good stuff. *smile*
Hope you day goes as well as mine, and that our days together will grow brighter, better, and healthier.
We hit the road at 10:10. Interstate 5 North. Good sunny travel weather, moderately heavy traffic.
A gas stop at Costco in Roseburg returned us to a full tank. Back onto I5 N for a few more miles, leaving it at Sutherlin, now going west through the mountains, to the coast. We entered Florence at 2 PM.
Neither of us had commented on the lack of RVs and travel trailers on the road. They’re usually good for slowing our progress to a snail’s stroll. The rule of the car is, don’t notice something good out loud, or you’ll jinx us.
Lunch was done at a Florence favorite, Traveler’s Cove. After a walk through town, we headed to our hotel. The Driftwood Shores Resort and Conference Center offers okay accommodations. We like it because you’re right on the Pacific Ocean and all the rooms face the beach. We were there for ocean, dude. It’s the waves.
I unpacked my clothes. Set up my toiletry. Arranged my shoes. Hung stuff up and put things into drawers. My wife sat and read her book while I was doing this. This is one of our major differences: I always unpack, like I’m living there. She leaves everything in her suitcase, pulling it out as needed.
We walked the beach, gritting our teeth against a stiff sea breeze. The sun was unblocked by anything, and the waves were strenuous, constantly pounding, noisy but soothing.
Back in the room, I opened a bottle of red wine, poured a glass and watched the waves until, finally, some piece of me whispered, “Let’s go see what’s happening on the Internet.”
So here I am, watching the waves, typing, reading, sipping wine.
Our weather here is chilly but the sky is clear. It’s 44 F but expected to jump to 70 F.
Meanwhile, we’re on the road, heading to the coast. Our friend has just arrived to take up residence with Papi. Her house has work going on so this worked out well for us.
Off we go. Meanwhile, the music in my morning mental music stream is “25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago. It’s in the stream because of the line, “Should I try to do some more?” I was doing something earlier and asked that aloud to Papi. While he was indifferent to the question, The Neurons plucked Chicago out of memory and began playing the 1970 classic rock staple.
I enjoyed watching the video because I dressed just like Terry Kahn on lead guitar back in those days. *smile*. Hair was long like that, too, but bushier. *another smile*
Hope your travels take you to happy places, whether it’s down the road, in your writing or thinking, or just through your house.
Wet, chilly 44 degrees F. Clouds are throttling the sunshine. Rain fell overnight, a good short-term addition to keep the land wet, the plants green, and the reservoirs and cisterns full. Today’s high will be 64 F.
My news feed includes stories on an airline passenger biting a crew member, Trump threatening Boebert, and a car crashing into a crowd in California, killing people. The sad thing about these news pieces are how frequently things like this now fill my feed.
The complete Epstein files have not been released, despite Trump’s promise.
Trump’s disapproval ratings continue to climb. The NYTimes compiled a list of 826 poll results. I reviewed the first pages. Only one poll of 120 showed Trump to have a positive approval rating — +2, by a Republican pollster. All the preceding polls showed polling about Trump red with disapproval.
Project Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! remains in a quiet phase. Get ready for a breakout.
Crooks & Liars shared coverage about Trump and Vance and their financial paperwork.Setting the tone for Americans of all ages and backgrounds, Trump and Vance always diligently fill their paperwork accurately and on time.
No; that’s how it’s supposed to be. But in Trump’s Golden Age of Corruption, Trump and Vance keep failing to fill paperwork on time. Other presidents haven’t had this issue, but then, other presidents weren’t buying and selling stock as Trump does. The Trump White House countered, blind trust, but a rep said, “No, we have the paperwork with Trump’s signature.”
Lies, grift, and chaos are the hallmarks of a Trump operation.
Conover Kennard wrote the C&L post, “Rules Are for Little People”. I love her final paragraph because it summarizes the law-and-order hypocrisy of the Trump operations.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here to suggest that Trump isn’t being forthcoming. Shocking, I know. Last year, Trump publicly attacked Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri for collaborating with Democrats on legislation that would have prohibited the president and vice president from trading stocks. Imagine that.“
Yeah. Imagine that.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
I’d be impressed if Trump began by making the White House crime free.
That’s not going to happen. Bolstered by the Roberts Court ruling that things Trump does as president is above the law, Trump has a different set of rules for himself. He has another set for wealthy friends and powerful people, a third set for his supporters, another set for everyone else except immigrants. Trump has a special set of rules for them, and it doesn’t include law or order, due process, or any of that other fancy US Constitution stuff.
Try to overturn the peaceful, fair, and legal elections
Threaten elected officials
Threaten and beat up law enforcement and destroy government property
Reward them for those crimes and behavior
That’s how upside-down Trump, the GOP, and the Roberts Court has turned the world.
Today feels like a bluesy Sunday. Sensing that, The Neurons hooked Gary Moore’s song, “Still Got the Blues (for You)” from the memory bank and began playing it in the morning mental music stream.
My hope for you is that the day works out for you with some semblance of peace, grace, and happiness. Stay strong.
This week, Linda Hill’s prompt was sweet for the Saturday Stream of Consciousness. Here we go.
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Sweet, I thought, go to the coast, get away, enjoy the weather and eat something different and just be someone different somewhere doing something different watching waves, breathing the air, smelling it –
Hope it all goes well. Why shouldn’t it? Well…yeah. Life.
Maybe I should eat something. Cookie? Scone would be nice. Blueberry. Lemon.
Four women were chatting at a nearby table at the coffee shop. Appearing similar in age to me, two women dominated the talking. One was short and slender, with fair skin and dark, bobbed hair. The other was tanner and smaller. Smiling a lot, her silver hair fell around her shoulders.
They were talking about toothpaste. Looking up from my writing, I tuned in as the first woman said, “I put a pea-sized amount on my brush.”
One of the other women, heavy, with dry brown hair that came to her shoulders, loudly, sharply scoffed. “That’s not enough.”
The first woman replied, “That’s what the directions say to use.”
The brown-haired woman snorted. “Everyone knows you’re supposed to put toothpaste on all the bristles, from one end to the other.”
The conversation fell still for several seconds. “Anyway,” the first woman resumed.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, May 16, 2026.
Clouds block the sunshine and dirty the blue sky. Our weather temperatures continue their slow backward slide. Today’s high will be 58 F. Fed by wind gusts, it’s currently a chilly 46 F.
Papi the ginger wonder isn’t happy. He’d like to be outside but, wind. Wind is his enemy. He sat for a bit, feet all together, tail wrapped around him, motionless except for ear flicks. That lasted three or four minutes before he was back inside, washing himself and recovering.
Our weather is better than other places in the US, where a May spring snowstorm is complicating plans.
What did Trump’s visit to China do for the nation. We won’t know for a while. Trump has made some claims about what China agreed to do. We’ll see how much of them are true, and which are just hot air. Remember, Trump has made vows and claims before that carried nothing but his air:
Make no mistake, Trump and his MAGA base are trying to take the United States backwards. In the latest move during the Trump Golden Age of Ignorance, Knox County, Kentucky, schools are removing the historic novel “Roots” by Alex Haley. It’s truly a WTF period for many of us.
Your Trump Quote for the Day:
With Trump’s reactionary thinking dragging us backwards and the weather losing its summer luster, The Neurons plugged “Back In Time” into the morning mental music stream. The 1985 song was performed by Huey Lewis and the News and featured in the movie, “Back to the Future”. Seems right for the day, except the time I want to go back to is before Trump ever ran for office in 2015.
I hope your weekend is progressing well and you keep moving forward in good ways.
Mom has moved out of her house and into an assisted living facility.
A household of things have been left behind that we need to move to sell her house. That includes clothing, paintings, vases, dishes, appliances, furniture, electronics. My sisters contacted liquidators and estate sales businesses to see if they would do it for a cut.
Short answer: no. Not enough of value to make it worthwhile.
I wasn’t overly surprised. Mom has tons of clothing and shoes but none is really vintage. She has furniture but the agents said that furniture is a hard sale these days.
My wife and I talked about this in relation to our own life. Adverse to an estate sale after she passes on, my wife has been doing a slow-roll death clean: a drawer a day. A closet. Organizing, tossing, donating. She used to refer to it as simplifying; now she just calls it the death clean.
It’s one of the places where we diverge on our philosophies. I consider my life busy and frantic enough to do without going through my belongings to see what I still want and want I need to throw away or donate. I do so sometimes, but I don’t make it part of my daily or weekly routines.
This exchange summarizes it for us. My wife said, “I don’t want people having to come through the house to get rid of things for me.”
I replied, “I don’t care. I won’t be there.”
As I walk around the house, I wonder, what would the estate sales agents say to me?
I suspect they’ll tell me the same thing they said about Mom’s stuff.
It was cloudy but the clouds have fade, retreated, moved on. Sunshine is winning the morning, carrying us through the mid 50s now. Today high will be around 70 F.
Trump is returning from China. They apparently didn’t want him, either. We should have sweetened the offer, let them keep Air Force 1 if they kept Trump. Throw in Melania and Colossus Don, Dozy Donnie’s golden Floridistan statue.
Note: “Colossus Don” sure sounds like a mob name, doesn’t it? I can imagine a scene of dialogue about him. “What’s Colossus Don doing?”
“Feeding his fat face, of course. That fat fuck doesn’t give a fuck about nobody but himself.”
Trump is pleased because China agreed to buy more US oil. Krugman pointed out that it doesn’t really help us much as consumers. It raised oil prices in the US. Oil and energy companies are making more money and profits. They’re corporations, so we see the fallout from that in the stock market and the stockholders. Krugman points out that the stock market is owned by a small percentage of people in the US and that foreigners own a chunk of it. Yet we’ll keep hearing about how great the stock market is!
Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is contemplating a new Iran military operation. Just don’t call it war. Sure, we’re using military equipment and weapons to shoot at others and destroy things while they shoot at our military and destroy things, but that’s not war in Trumpyworld.
In the next move of the non-war, Trump will launch Operation Sledgehammer to see if they can open the Strait of Hormuz, as they were in February, before Trump ordered the attacks.
Trump’s administration also announced they were increasing global humanitarian aid to $1.8 billion after slashing it before. This seems like another Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! move to me. The announcement is one thing; will other nations see the funds? Not under the standard OE — LS! processes. Just grab headlines, distract from bad news, poor economy, Epstein files, etc.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
“According to a CNN/SSRS poll, 77% of people surveyed said Trump’s policies increased their cost of living. Roughlt two-thirds of Americans said Trump’s policies made the country’s economic conditions worse, according to the poll conducted between April 30 and May 4.” USA Today, May 15, 2026.
My music today is from Led Zeppelin. I watched the Netflix documentary, “Becoming Led Zeppelin” this week. I’ve been a Zeppelin fan for most of my life so it was entertaining to learn more details about them as individuals and how they came together. Jimmy Page was really the force, but all four were intense, talented musicians.
The making and playing of “Whole Lotta Love” consumed the documentary’s final minutes. As a youth, the song fascinated me. I remember listening to that middle ‘avant garde’ section, identifying sounds as it moved around the room, thinking that’s really cool. LOL. The Neurons enjoyed remembering the song, so it’s hanging around the morning mental music stream, so here you are.
I remember listening to it, too, and having Mom and my sisters look at me strangely when I talked about the song. Mom didn’t get it at all. My sisters seemed really jaundiced about what they were hearing as well.
I hope your Operation Epic Friday begins well and improves as the hours progress.
My coffee is here. Time for Operation Epic Drink Coffee.
Michael Seidel, writer 