Category: humor

Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: Postsunday

Proceeded through the morning essentials. Complained to Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) about the stench of some of his essential. Both floofs begged release from the house to the rear yard. I headed out with them.

September 30. 2024. Monday. Cold autumn morning. Even the rising solar orb gave a little shiver. Cats sought sunshine arrangements for grooming. I launched back into the house, thinking, cold now but will cap at the mid to upper 80s F today. No clouds effing with today’s blue, either.

This is it. September’s last shout. Like other months this year, September of this year will be able to brag to historians about disasters, politics, and violence. History will give it a glance and reply, more of the same but intensifying. Probably ask, “Couldn’t the people see the direction they were heading? Did they not give a fuck to try to change it?” We’ll defensively huddle together and reply, “Well, it’s complicated.” If MAGAs and the GOP ever emerge from their holes of irresponsibility and weirdness and wash the cult off, will they be able to understand how they contributed?

The Neurons offer a slice of song from the South Pacific musical: “Gonna wash that cult right out of my hair and send it on its way. Get the picture?” I thank them for the mild snicker they induce.

Moving on to music, thoughts about waiting and patience impell The Neurons to move on from “Bali Hair” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sinking) because they kept on going with South Pacific tunes (once they’re on something) to a 2003 Audioslave song. The melancholy rock song, “Like A Stone”, is about waiting for the afterlife, patiently at that, where they’ll hope to be reconnected with someone. Doesn’t purely translate to today’s situation ‘cept for that idea of patiently waiting for some of this mess of 2024 to clear up, patiently waiting, as it’s sung, like a stone.

Be positive, patient, and strong. Test neggy and lean forward. Vote blue. Coffee has washed down the breakfast components. Here’s the music part of the post. Cheers

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Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts

Thinking about my coffee evolution today in honor of National Coffee Day.

I began drinking coffee when I was around twelve. Maxwell House. *shudder*. Only drank a cup at a friend’s house once in a while, loaded with sugar and cream. I stopped doing that before I was fifteen and didn’t resume drinking coffee until after I was twenty. Leaving the military after my first enlistment was up, I bought a restaurant and ran it while going to college, so I drank coffee, but not much. I remained indifferent to it.

I re-entered the military. Working night shifts, I would nuke the leftover cold coffee from the huge office urn and doctor it with sugar. Nasty stuff.

Wasn’t until my NCOIC, Bob Totten, and my buddy, Jeff, at Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan, that I really became a coffee drinker. I was working as a back-office warrior by then as the Command Post training NCO. Bob would invite Jeff and me to informal staff meetings at the Base Exchange cafeteria upstairs. Even then, I didn’t think much of coffee. But I was going to school and evolved into drinking it at home as I geared up for evening classes.

Then I discovered ‘good’ coffee. I found that I like French and Italian roasts best. I didn’t like cream or sugar in my coffee. I bought my beans and ground them myself. I only made sufficient coffee for my needs and only drink fresh coffee.

Of course, by then, I couldn’t stand our military office coffee. Too weak and American for me.

At subsequent assignments, I would take over our office ‘coffee fund’. Darker roasts, better coffee markers, and better brands were my requirements. I levied that on the rest. My offices in Germany and California became known as a good place to get decent coffee.

Field conditions were horrible for coffee, of course. Weren’t no good brands out there. Gird my loins and quaff the evil brews available to fight the cold off or endure the heat. Bad coffee, bad food, bad sleeping arrangements, and nasty latrines – holes in plywood in tents.

Retiring from the Air Force, it was the same sort of thing as I went to work for civilians. Except I ended up working with an engineer, Janet, who liked yet stronger coffee. She used to complain that my coffee was too weak! I was appalled. By then, I was in the SF Bay Area, purchasing Peet’s coffee and bringing it in, making my own pot. Of course, people other than Janet liked my coffee, so there were often several brews going besides decaf.

Eventually, I was working for IBM, but remote, working from home. My wife and I saw a Keurig at Costco and purchased it. For a while, I continued making my coffee using beans, a grinder, and a drip style coffee maker as I didn’t like any of the pods that I tried. But then I tried the Costco SF Bay French roast pod.

That worked, and that’s where I’m at now, drinking that at home in the morning. When I was going out to write at The Beanery for several years, it was a different story. I drank a nonfat double Mexican mocha for my writing. Alas, The Beanery went away. Now, I order Americanos wherever I go. I like espressos but they’re consumed too fast. The Americano works.

And that’s my coffee tale. It’s been a grind. Happy Coffee Day.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sundaylazing

Autumn covered us this morning with a familiar old comforter. Sunshine on changing leaves, cloudy, hazy blue sky, crisp weather ranging from the upper forties (Fahrenheit) at night to today’s high in the low to mid 70s.

Today is Sunday, September 29, 2024.

It’s National Coffee Day in the United States! Like many holidays, its provenance is a little iffy. Coffee is a staple in the United States. Lot of coffee drinkers like me swear by a daily brew or two. The only thing I drink more than coffee is water, and the only drink I enjoy more than coffee is beer. But coffee has less calories and is fat free! Woo hoo! While it has some potential benefits, it comes with potential risks. IMO, the coffee person relationship is more individualized. Either your body works well with coffee or it doesn’t. Think I’ll celebrate as I do every other day, with a cuppa coffee.

BTW, since there’s a coffee-inspired holiday, there are coffee-inspired deals available. USA Today provides a list.

Over on my brain’s political side, my spouse refocused me on a USA Today opinion piece. Written by the notorious Kevin Roberts, it’s titled “Opinion: Harris is wrong about Project 2025. Our plan is good for America.” His final paragraph cracks me up:

“What should be a scandal is the vice president’s attempt to avoid discussions of substantive policy issues. Americans want and deserve a real debate, not vibes.”

Yeah, baby, year, real debate, not vibes. Real debate as Trump and his surrogate, J.D. Vance, spread acknowledged lies about Haitians eating pets in Ohio. Let’s debate that, Roberts.

Will Trump debate the ‘stolen election’ claims he continues to make, even after admitting that he lost the election? The stolen election claims that were thrown out of court over and over again? The efforts to overturn the election that he’s been indicted for?

Let’s have a debate over Trump’s healthcare plan. The one he installed when he was POTUS. *Chortle – yeah, that didn’t happen.* Vaporware has more substance than Trump’s current ‘concept of a plan’.

Let’s debate Trump’s declaration that he’d protect women after the fucking disaster of the Trump-stacked Dobbs decision and its afterbirth on women, their rights, their bodies, and their health. You know, the women who he refers to as ‘bimbos’. The ones he’d grab by the pussy, and Jean Carroll.

Remember this exchange?

Donald Trump: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach.

Unknown: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.

Trump: I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and f*** her. She was married.

What respect he shows! Such a protector! (Yes, that last was late-morning, coffee-fueled snark.)

Yes, let’s have a debate between Trump and Vice President Harris, Roberts! Oh, we can’t because Trump refuses to debate Harris again because she trounced him the last time so badly that Trump’s feelings remain hurt.

Moving on.

Today’s music was inspired by another’s blog post. Tom MacInnes mentioned April Wine in his fabulous series about rock music. I’ve only featured April Wine here once, six years ago. But after today’s post, The Neurons were stirred to drop “Roller” from 1979 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark limited). I had a Canadian friend serving in the U.S. Air Force with me on Okinawa. April Wine was one of his basic “we’re going to play their music” groups. If you were at his house listening to music, you would hear April Wine sooner or later.

Funny, but thinking on that, several such connections exist through my years of friendships. With Jeff, it was Culture Club. Randy could be depended on to bring out Van Halen, although Boston also came out at his place. Rich in Germany was a Chris Rea advocate while Bobby was apt to crank up Cream. Gene, being more old school, frequently invoked the Grateful Dead. Robert was always bringing in Rush. Such a group of characters. Of course, I was likely to turn up a piece out of Pink Floyd’s catalog.

Stay positive, test negative, remain strong, and lean forward. While you’re at it, could you also vote blue in 2024.

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Floofpes

Floofpes (floofinition)– Internet slang. Literally, ‘floof tropes’, overused cliches and outmoded themes about animals. Origins: Worldwide Web, early twenty-first century.

In Use: “One floofpes children often heard as they grew up was that they were ‘fighting like cats and dogs’, which many of them doubt as they see videos or personally witness dogs and cats getting along very well.”

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: Coffeenical

Slept in, and the overfloofs allowed it. Rising ticks after 8:30, I found a comfy autumn day hunkering in. Blue sky like we’ve seen thousands of time, but is still wondrous. A full sun was encroaching, driving up the mid 50s temperature. We’re due to make a final stop in the mid 80s before the sun finishes business.

This is Saturday, September 28, 2024.

Today’s theme music overtook me from a song’s line. Yeah, unusual, right? Yes, that was snark.

I was reading Things the MAGAs Claim. A wearying trope. Turning off from that, I mentally countered, “Well, you got your reasons and lies.” As the standard morning activities continued on semi-auto-pilot, The Neurons introduced a vocalist singing “Well, you got your reasons, and you got your lies” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark streaming). Wasn’t until coffee blessed my throat that I was like, oh, hey, that’s that Tonic song. What’s that Tonic song? More coffee and I remembered, “If You Could Only See” from 1997.

I figured, oh, I had to have used that before. So, I sat and searched. Yep, December of 2020, I posted this:

I ended up with a political spin on a love song today. The song, from 1997, is “If You Could Only See” by Tonic. It came to me as I read some interview with another Republican insisting that the election is a fraud and everything must be tossed out. They don’t want a do-over, mind you: they just want Trump declared the winner. Never mind any facts that say anything about the election’s validity. Some nefarious, shadowy and powerful individual allowed Trump to be elected four years ago, let him run the country, but now said, “Oh, but enough. We will rig the election so he loses.”

Such bizarre reasoning always prompts wonder in me. Why do they so love Trump? Why do they put so much faith in unproven conspiracies? Why do they believe statements shown to be lies and fabrication?

Yeah, we have theories about it all. It brought some lines from Tonic’s song into my mental stream this AM.

Well you got your reasons.
And you got your lies.
And you got your manipulations.

That sums it up for me. Strange reasoning, reinforced by lies and manipulation. Truly, this song from 1997 is proper for this era in 2020.

Funny that the song fit my mood as Trump lost the 2020 election and declare it had been stolen from him, and now, as he runs for office again, with the GOP doing their best to steal it for him by hampering voting.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote blue. Here we, Saturday is underway. Cheers

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Neofloofthic

Neofloofthic (floofinition)– Belonging to a previous animal and now outmoded. Origins: 1865, Sir John Floofbock.

In Use: “She thought that the dog’s toys were neofloofthic relics of another era when she began taking care of her daughter’s cat for two weeks but on the first day, the cat was attacking everything that the dog used to play with.”

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More ‘Bout the Huckster

Today’s Theme Music

Nan shares Mary Trump’s take on Uncle Donald’s latest grift. I was thinking about D.J.T. and his grifts and thought it wouldn’t be surprising if he put out a set of ‘commemorative Presidential Seal watches’. Sure, it’s illegal to use the the seal, and subject to fine. But with the SCOTUS ruling about Trump’s immunity, I’m sure oddsmakers believe there’s a good chance that Trump will do just that.

Long as it’s making him money.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

My wife chastised me for ‘using too much soap’ when I was cleaning the cat’s bowls.

I apologized, having been unaware the restriction existed. Ignorance is not a defense, of course. I await my sentencing.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Frigruff

Some artists got together and painted us the bluest sky. Brill sunshine was dabbed in o’er the goldenish green trees towering across the backyard. Cats and I were well-thrilled with this autumn display, frolicking in a mature way in the 50 something F air. We’ll plumb the mid 80s F today but autumn is bigfooting its presence on Ashlandia.

This is Friday, September 27, 2024.

I’ve circled at the usual AM stops and found some part of me meditating on What Constitutes A Healthy Breakfast? Trader Joe’s sheet cake was inviting me for a taste but that’s not healthy, is it? Well, it could be. Pumpkin and spices. Probably all artificial. But tasty.

Laboring through the morning news. Hurricane Helene did the wreckage as expected. Still rampaging. NY’s mayor indicted. The noble and dignified Trump hawking watches. They say they found the world’s oldest cheese, too. I thought that was in my fridge. I checked; still there. So that’s another example of fake news, innit?

Maggie Smith passed. 89, which is now considered a youngerish sort of age. Suppose because I’m closer to that yardstick. Beloved is an often overused word, up there with superstar. Beloved seems apt for Maggie Smith.

Alice in Chains is dominating the morning mental music stream (Trademark trademarked) with “Would” from 1992. I check and learn, yes, I used “Would” before as theme music, in September in another year. I have detected a trend of having the same songs come to me in the same months of different years. Serendipity? Random psychosis? Bullshit observation? I don’t know. It’d take more study and I haven’t had enough coffee to pursue it past my fingers bashing a keyboards.

I sneeze several times. My wife isn’t here so I need to tell myself, “Godzilla”.

Which inspires Blue Oyster Cult and their ode to the creature terrorizing Tokyo. It’s been pinned as theme music here too and doesn’t feel synchronized to my day, although nothing else does, either.

Then, clicking and muttering, I’m lead to Stevie Nicks’s new offering, “The Lighthouse”. Nicks said that she’d been on the road, listening to a newscaster talking about Roe v. Wade being overturned. Thinking of what it would mean, she had to write a song.

Nicks sings,

Because everything I fought for
Long ago in a dream, is gone
Someone said
The dream is not over
The dream has just begun
Or
Is it a nightmare
Is it a lasting scar
It is unless you save it
And that’s that
Unless you stand up
And take it back
And take it back

h/t to Genius.com

Yes, this feels like a song for today. Hope you give it an ear.

Be strong and so on as we wade through the days, 39 of them, until November 5, 2024. Coffee still tickles my throat in measured swallows. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Wandering News

Ashlandia is getting talked up as a place to be in 2024.

First, we had the surprise announcement in August of this year that Ashland is a top-10 town for bicyclist.

“No. 5 ranking in Outdoor magazine could bring in more tourists, outdoor recreators.”

“With a People for Bikes rating of 70 out of 100, League of American Bicyclists gold status and 86 trails dedicated to bikes, Ashland was ranked no. 5 of the top 10 bike cities across the country. A ranking such as this has the potential to bring in more tourists.” h/t Ashland.news

It mildly astonished most of us who live here, but the next news was miiinnnd blowing. Architectural Digest announced its list of “The 13 Most Beautiful Underrated Cities in the World” in the middle of this month. Yes, following the limp foreshadowing, Ashland, Oregon, is included on the list.

Ashland, Oregon

Part of the 2018 edition of The New York Times’ “52 Places to Travel,” Ashland is located in the Rogue River area of Southern Oregon. Like much of the Pacific Northwest, the region is celebrated for its natural beauty, which includes Lithia Park and North Mountain Park defined by leafy vegetation and beautiful waterways. Home to Southern Oregon University, the college town is also know for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a local repertory theater that offers a myriad of performances not limited to just The Bard.

Those two pieces are enough to send other places into extreme city envy. But wait, there’s more!

America’s Coziest College Town Is In Oregon

Yes, TheTravel.com also announced this month, September, 2024, that Ashlandia is the United States’s coziest college town.

“This Oregon town features everything a college town should; cozy bookstores, coffee shops, and bars, quaint art galleries, museums, and scenic trails.”

It’s funny to see that written about our town. Hate badmouthing it…buuuutttt…

Our numbers of bookstores and coffee shops have fallen and fallen. We used to have over a dozen coffee shops, along with several excellent bakeries. Those have closed, replaced by vintage stores and retail businesses. Sure, we still have four bookstores but it’s a fall from the half dozen at our disposal in the last decade.

I suspect a PR firm was given some cash to go out and get us on these lists.

I guess we should be proud of our town but I can’t forget when it seemed like a better place.

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