Category: Information

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Satisthursday

Recalibrating…recalibrating…recalibrating day…date…time…weather.

All systems indicate with uniform agreement, this is Thursday, December 12, 2024, as expected.

What to expect from the weather is something else. The winds have abated. Rain heralded the morning hours. But the off-white canvas that stretched overhead from valley end to end at dawn is shredding and tearing. Blue sky and sunshine are poking through. As the cloud cover shreds, the curls turn dark and mean looking. A few coalesce into hulking, brooding bodies…but they sail on, leaving my field of vision.

It’s 41 F out, just four small degrees of separation from the projected high. It will be some variation of a late fall, early winter day. Details are still collecting.

Just saw a headline announcing that Meta — Facebook’s overlord — donated $1,000,000 to Trump’s inauguration fund. They didn’t contribute to President Biden nor Trump’s first inauguration campaign. This confirms the slide I’ve witnessed in my perspective of their ‘community standards’ enforcement. There’s a nasty authoritarian, fascist stench coming from that site. It’s also getting more sucky in its content, with ads and clickbait becoming its overwhelming offerings.

Saw my surgeon in a post-op follow up regarding my ankle surgery yesterday. He lifted movement and activity restrictions off me. Yes, some swelling is still evident, and yeah, edema swelling has caused some complication, but the general trend is going up. I’ll take that.

Heavy mental fog surrounds the morning mental music stream’s current occupant. “The Man Who Sold the World” is a David Bowie composition. Came out in 1970. The song resides on several Bowie albums in my music collection. The cover in my head was done by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, and was released in 1995. In both, the enigmatic words are influenced by Bowie and Cobain’s vocal deliveries. Always gives me pause to consider what’s being said and fuels a search for meaning. Can’t say I always achieve that. As to why it’s in today’s mmms (Trademark sold), it might be just a general response running through my mind that so much of the world is simply selling out, so the Neurons countered with music about not selling out.

Side thought that comes with writing about Cobain and Bowie that it’s dissatisfying that both passed away. But the duality of life remains: they had great gifts and shared them with us. Of course, the full stop finish to the reflection is, this is life. We live and die. The difference is made in the gap between the beginning and end.

Let’s get positive and move through this winter of disappointment and on to a brighter spring. Coffee has planted its energy seeds in me. Time to move it, move it, move it. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Windsday’s Theme Music

Mood: springtimistic

Welcome to Windsday, December 11, 2024. We’re calling it Windsday here in Ashlandia as the wind is calling the moves and has the trees square-dancing under a white slab of sky. Currently, the thermometer sits at 42 F and the thermostat rests at 68 F. Today’s high will see the measuring one stab at the low fifties.

We descended on friends’ house for their birthday party last night. The couple have been married 45 years and share the same birthday. So, per their wishes, we arrived with pizza from their favorite place, a salad my wife provided, and a few pints of Talenti ice cream. Intelligent and engaging people a few clicks older than us, a good time was had. They have two young cats who are not permitted to be outside except in their backyard on a harness or in their catio. For some reason, the wife gave me two containers of Applaws sardine and mackarel catfood. I fed our floofs one of these this morning. Man, they licked the bowls clean and stumbled away, grinnin’ and lickin’. I think they liked it.

Our late purveyor of news, Ashland Daily Tidings, had a Frankenstein moment. The newspaper name and their old website were used to provide fake news to the world. Yes, because the world has a fake-news shortage, I suppose. No, whoever did it is just sucky people doing sucky things. I suppose the bottom line is that their life sucks and they want to spread the suck. Thus, I suspect that they are rightwingers. Modern rightwingers aren’t happy unless everyone conforms to their sucky version of being. Now that they’ve elected a sucky guy who will be a sucky prez, and is assembling a sucky administration, the suckiness will commence in January.

But, The Neurons said. The Neurons have “The Rose” playing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sucky). “The Rose” was a 1979 hit for Bette Midler out of the movie called The Rose. The Neurons are riding the lines that go, “Just remember in the winter, beneath the bitter snow, lies the seed that with the sun’s love in the spring becomes the rose.” Good idea to rally around: with this sucky prezzidency falling over us, we’re going into winter. But we just must nurture those seeds of freedom, democracy, equality, and sanity, and help them bloom when the sucky winter is over.

Lean toward the sun. Be pos. Coffee and I have begun a new day of collaboration. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Flooflective

Flooflective (floofinition) An animal’s ability to exclude and filter information so they only hear what they desire to hear. Origins: England, 1888.

In Use: “Rocky’s flooflective hearing allowed him to sleep through blaring television shows and people talking, but as soon as a bag was opened in the kitchen, Rocky heard it and was in there floof de suite.”

In Use: “Skipper had remarkably flooflective hearing, easily discerning the words, treat, walk, and ball, while remaining completely obfloofvious to stay, sit, down, and stop.”

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Cautiousmisticpensivity

Blue sky and sunshine prevail today, Tuesday, December 10, 2024. Weather system reading says that it’s 41 F outside. What? Really? I check other places and learn that Ashland’s temp is but 38 F. We’re higher than them, a December rarity. Let’s celebrate with coffee. A high of 51 F is promised to us but there’s also another dense fog advisory floating out there. At least the stagnant air issues have abated.

I’ve been recovering from my ruptued tendon surgery at home, donning shoes to go out more frequently, testing my ankle’s feel. Today, I’ll go to the coffee shop and write. Some pensiveness about it is dripping through me; I’m not certain why.

This morning’s song was given to me by The Neurons, of course. Right? They’re aways bringing me songs. They’re like cats bringing gifts in that way. While sometimes the songs emerge from dreams or memories, some are just word association. Such is today’s situation. I was thinking about how I was doing some things so automatically. Poof; The Neurons put “Automatic” into my morning mental music stream (Trademark freeze dried). This 1984 Pointer Sisters song is a classic offering from that bubbly techno era. I found this video. It gave me grins to see their outfits’ colors and the big shoulders and big hair. That was the time for these things.

Let’s get positive, find the right direction, and move our asses forward. Coffee has made its way through important recesses of my body. I’m now ready to rumble. Here’s the music, and away we go. Cheers

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Soonday Morning

Mood: Soontobe

It’s Soonday, December 9, 2024. We’re enjoying a clear sky loaded with sunshine and an outdoor tempy of 28 F. Frost has shadowy places airbushed with white influences. A dense fog warning is percolating while 49 F is being dangled in front of us as a high. Should say that it’s my local system calling out 28; in other parts of Ashlandia, sunshine has cleared the forests and mountains and 42 is already being experienced. A friend’s weather setup, available via Wunderground, has his temperature at 31 F. Dress appropriately.

Moving slow this morning. That’s why I’m calling this soon day. Soon, I’ll get up and do things. Soon I’ll leave and get my hair cut. Soon. Night fraught with dreams and restlessness are keeping the go pedal from getting engaged, even though coffee and I have said our hellos. One dream featured me as a young man with young friends and relatives, traveling to another place. Along the way, I stopped to visit with others. There, I rested in sunshine and told people of other people’s businesses failing, along with places such as airports not being built. It ended with me trying to pull a nuisance weed, which then bloomed, leaped out of the ground and ran away, freaking us out. Then we laughed.

This cold weather and clear sky put me into a whirlpool of childhood memories. Once, while going outside to play football with friends when I was almost a teenager, I was accosted by mom. “Put a heavier coat on, for God’s sake,” she said. “It’s winter outside.”

Wise me replied, “It’s not winter yet, Mom, until the solstice, December 22.”

She answered, “It’s winter when it’s cold and the snow starts falling to me.”

We were living in Penn Hills, a Pittsburgh, PA, suburb. Snow had been falling since before Thanksgiving. Therefore, it was winter.

I used to talk to her about her winters in Iowa. She loved those days, she said, because they would stay in the house, where it was cozy and warm, and play games, listen to the radio, talk, cook, and clean. Winter remains her favorite season for those reasons.

Those memories crystallized into two songs for me last night. Both are called “Our House”. They’re very different. The first was dropped into the morning mental music stream (Trademark frozen) when a television show featured it ysterday evening. This is the “Our House” by Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young. My wife sang along with it; that stirred The Neurons up, and triggered that memory whirlpool. But a rebel group of Neurons countered with “Our House” by Madness. Two very different songs. The CSNY offering says, “Our house is a very very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy cause of you.” Madness sings, “Father wears his Sunday best, Mother’s tired, she needs a rest, the kids are playing up downstairs. Sister’s sighing in her sleep. Brother’s got a date to keep, he can’t hang around.” The CSNY version is about a young couple’s domestic tranquility. Madness offers a portrait of hustle, growth, and noise.

Let’s get positive (sung to Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical) and move forward. 2025 is almost here. Here’s the music to help you along. Cheers

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Floofralism

Floofralism (floofinition) – 1. Theory that two or more animals coming together shape reality. Origins: 1872, United States,

In Use: “Once Marsha and Geoff added three rescue animals — one dog and a feline brother and sister pair — a positive floofralism imbued the household, with everything becoming more relaxed and the two humans feeling happier.”

2. Flooflitical floofosphy that animals of different background, habits, and behavior, can peacefully co-exist and even thrive in the same household. Origins: 1787, Sheba and Champion (pets in James Madison’s household), United States (A Floofizen’s Guide to Flooflitics).

In Use: “Jeff’s two dogs were dubious when Jeff married Lori and she brought two cats, two birds, an aquarium full of fish, and another dog, but Lori’s elderly cat, McCavity, explained floofralism to the dogs, and adjustments were made.”

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Fogday’s Theme Music

Mood: Indeafoggable

We landed on Sunday, December 8, 2024, or maybe it landed on us.

Light rain graced us most of yesterday. We’ve been rewarded with a chilly, damp 38 degree F morning with silvery-gray fog as thick as my breakfast oatmeal, and I like my oats thick. No worries, as they tell us the valley’s high temperature will crack the low forties.

Papi the ginger blade is driving us nuts with this weather. My wife claims that he expects me to change the weather for him, and is disappointed that I haven’t. But rain, wind, fog, chilly weather, he keeps going out one door and returning to the other to tattoo his message to us, “Let me in.”

My wife and I watched the University of Oregon Ducks take on Penn State’s Nittany Lions yesterday. I lived in Pennsylvania for a decade plus when I was a child and have live in Oregon for months short of twenty years, and have family living in Pennsylvania, so there’s a flimsy personal attachment to the game. This is football, BTW, where the Ducks are undefeated and nationally ranked #1, while Penn State wore the #3 ranking and one loss. The game was the Big 10 Championship. The Ducks won but I’m amused how often I heard that they ‘held on to win’ as Penn State, seven points down, was trying to drive the field in the last two minutes and score a touchdown and get a point after (or two) to win. My preference for how it should be stated was that Penn State lost.

My wife had two questions about the game; what is a Nittany Lion, and why is Oregon’s team called the Ducks? Well, my wikipedia researched revealed that a Nittany Lion is made up, based on eastern U.S. mountain lions and a local geographic feature, Nittany Mountain. As for the Ducks, they were originally the Webfoots. These were fishermen who became Revolutionary War heroes who settled in the Williamette Valley. As ducks have webbed feet, some writers began referring to the Webfoots as ducks. The name was eventually changed.

I read a summary of the highlights and statements emerging from Drumpf’s ‘first network interview’ since he won the election. First, it’s wearingly to read this and think that anything he says is worth its weight in air. I mean, he has a history. Second, he sounds like he’s still disconnected from reality. In example, he still plans his mass deportation plans because, “You have no choice. First of all, they’re costing us a fortune. But we’re starting with the criminals and we’ve got to do it. And then we’re starting with others, and we’re going to see how it goes.” But economists tell us otherwise, that illegal immigrants do not cost us as much as he claims and actually add to the economy. Likewise, stats and studes show most illegal immigrants are not criminals and are less likely to commit crimes [1] [2] [3]. Doesn’t matter in Drumpf world. Likewise, he still insists on “Drill, baby, drill,” to increase oil production and drop prices, even though U.S. oil production is at record levels and oil prices are dropping due to a global lack of demand. But dinosaurs like Drumpf — and his MAGA GOP — cling to disproven and outmoded ideas.

We’re attending a holiday concert today. I was making the bed and thinking about what I would wear when The Neurons began playing “Secret Agent Man” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark chillin’). Naturally for me, it was the Johnny Rivers version of the song, which we had in our household on a 45 RPM record when I was still a singleton. I know and like the guitar oriented song. But hearing it in my head this morning, my reaction was, WTF? Where did that come from? I asked Les Neurons, what brought this on? They said nothing. I thought of what I’m writing in my fiction, and it’s not at all related. I’m reading several books but none of them mentioned secret agents. Now, I am watching “The Agency”, “The Diplomat”, and “The Day of the Jackal”. Maybe their combined weight slipped into the liminal cracks and stirred memory of the song out of its slumber in its grey cell nest. I was surprised, as other songs and ideas had been stirring in the mmms, but here we are.

Let’s get positive and move forward. I’ve moved forward with my morning coffee and feel better for the effort. Here’s the music. Cheers

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