Beetleypete offers some mindchews to go with your daily libation. Cheers
Munday’s Theme Music
Mood: Mundacity
Yeah, it’s Munday, December 2, 2024. Just a couple notes on it. Temp is rising and falling between 26 and 28 F. Sun is kicking in. First strokes can be witnessed in the dining room’s southern window, which catches the sun’s approach from the southeast as it jabs through and around trees branches. Fog is doing a swirling veil dance. Alexa said it’ll be 56 F today. Same claim made yesterday and we barely topped 43, so I know where I’m putting my money.
Many people don’t realize the Monday as a day of the week comes from Middle English mondeyne which itself is derived from Late Latin, mundanus. It all means ‘common place’ as in ‘nothing special’. Boring. Routine. Mundane. Monday. Munday.
Trump continues with his authoritarian cabinet o’ clowns. Mockpaperscissors shares a scope outta the New Yorker about the dishonorable Pete Hegseth. True grrrspiring stuff about his drunken leadership and how he sexualizes women. Nice note about his drunken chants, “Kill all Muslims!” Bet those Muslims who clamored for Trump over Harris are creaming their pants with pleasure over that. Who coulda known that Trump woulda picked such a piece of meat for a high-rankin’ gubment position. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
My wife asked me last night how old I thought Papi was. We reminisced about his interactions with us. He first showed up on a fence back when Scheckter, one of the original Orange Boiz, was still alive. Papi, then called Meep for his tiny meow (yeah, he’s grown outta that), showed up on the backyard fence like a little Scheckter mini me.
Scheckter
Meep aka Papi
Records show Meep has lived with us since May of 2017. While Schecter was warm and sweet, Meep, I mean Papi, remains guarded and wary. When I informed my wife of my research, she remarked the same about the two floofs. Scheckter was a cuddler and lap dweller; Papi has been on my lap once for three pico seconds.
Dreams inspired The Neurons’ music choice today. I was reflecting about a dream of a levitating train I was driving through an apocalyptic ‘Merica. Thinking about the dream highights, I noted that it was a simple life of travel in the flying train with a small group of people. The Neurons shook my head. Out came No Doubt with “Simple Kind of Life”. “And all I wanted was a simple thing, a simple kind of life” keeps circulating the morning mental music stream (Trademark freeze-dried).
Sunshine owns all the living and dining rooms’ windows now. Blue sky speckled with withdrawn clouds rule the view. It’s 30 F. Coffee and I have found common ground again. Look up and open your eyes. Take a deep breath. Inhale; exhale. Here we go, December’s first Munday. Hope it’s a wonderful one for you. Cheers
Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts
Alexa, we have a problem.
Alexa is Amazon’s ‘virtual assistance’. It’s useful to me for telling me the weather and the news if I ask it. But its recent behavior has undercut my trust in it. Observe.
Night had come on shift. My home weather system said that it was 30 degrees F outside. The sudden downturn surprised me. I wondered if it was right and how cold it would get as it was still early in the evening. So I asked Alexa for the weather.
“It’s 35 degrees in Ashland. Tonight’s low will be 35 degrees.”
Okay, that seemed cool. (No pun intended, because it was cold, no cool. Obs.) I’m on Ashlandia’s southern end, at a slightly higher elevation. Our mountain’s shadows climb over us early and get off us later, as we’re in the valley’s pinched, closing end. I’m not sure where the station is where Alexa gets its weather but it seems to be down where the sun keeps it warm longer. NBD.
A little later, I noticed my system said it was 28 F. I didn’t expect it to keep getting colder after Alexa told me the low would be 35. To Alexa I went. “Alexa, what’s the temperature?”
“It’s 30 degrees in Ashland. Tonight’s low will be 30 degrees.”
Well, wait a minute. That’s not what the system said before.
An hour later, my system said it was 25 degrees. Rinse and repeat with Alexa: “It’s 26 degrees in Ashland. Tonight’s low will be 24.”
What the serious actual fuck? What good is a system that calls out predictions and then indifferenctly changes them? I thought the idea behind her telling me what the high or low will be is to help me plan.
Of course, I asked Alexa about it. It played dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I also asked it where its weather station was. “Hmm,” it said. “I don’t understand your question.”
I repeated it in multiple variations. “Hmm,” Alexa said. “Let me get back to you.”
I’m still waiting.
Sunday’s Theme Music
Mood: sunpleastic
December 1! Here at last. Turn the page and count down the days until your holiday of choice and the end of this year as the majority reckon it here in ‘Merica.
That cold front from out of the Arctic is still dominating. Sunday, it’s 32 F out there. Cold air throws our valley. See, that doesn’t work there, does it? Although through is a synonym for blanket, it only works in that capacity as a noun, not a verb. No wonder we’re so often confused.
While it’s 32 F now, that’s up froom the 18 that greeted me at dawn’s start a few hours back. 56 is the whispered high. We’ll see. Yesterday’s projected high was never approached. I think we topped out at 40 F. We have a stagnant air alert going on, and that always affects the temperature’s dance moves.
From a dream comes today’s theme music, “Beat It”. The 1983 Michael Jackson hit is in my morning mental music stream (Trademark icy) after a dream began playing it when the dream faded out. No credits were rolled for the dream, though. I have no idea who produced or directed it. I did star in it but I don’t know the other stars. They weren’t recognized. That’s not to say that they’re not stars in their own rights; I only have access to my dreams. They may have starred in other dreams which were only released to the individual having them.
“Beat It” came out when I was living on Okinawa, an island that’s part of Japan, and site of a major Pacific battle in dubya dubya two. I was there for almost four years as part of my military service. My neighbor, Carol, was so excited about this song and its video. In retrospect, she was a Michael Jackson fan girl. I was okay with the song. Has some interesting vocal and musical elements and tones. I don’t know why it was chosen for the dream’s closing sequence. It didn’t seem at all related to the dream’s context and action. I queried The Neurons about it but they’re as transparent as brick.
Hope your Sunday is a good one and a fine start to December. Coffee and I have renewed our vows and I’m sipping in bliss. Here’s the music. This video shows Slash from GNR standing in to interpret Van Halen’s original solo guitar. Hope you enjoy it. Cheers
Sa’day’s Wandering Thoughts
When I was a child, I asked Mom, “Why are some streets named streets, and some are boulevards, avenues, drives, and roads. What’s the difference?” Mom replied with some vexation, “I don’t know.” Wasn’t my first disappointment with the realization that Mom didn’t know everything.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I heard Steven Wright ask, “Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?”
Yes! Finally, someone is going to explain. He didn’t answer it, though. Bummer.
I’m always hungry to learn something new. I’m fortunate that my wife has a like spirit, athough hers vectors toward learning about women’s rights, social justice, and sex and dating trends. So she keeps me covered in that area. We share responsibility and coverage on politics, literature, and pop culture. I’m on my own regarding STEM and history.
Over the years, I’ve gleaned insights into streets and all the variations. An e-letter I received, Word Smarts, shed more light on the differences between Interstate, freeway, expressway, parkway, highway, turnpike, and frontage road. It’s a start. Meanwhile, here’s some classic deadpan Wright one-liners.
Floofmulent
Floofmulent (floofinition) – 1. An acceptable or satisfactory animal. Origins: 1996 American television.
In Use: “Jackson’s family took him to pick a kitten at the animal shelter. But an elderly cat marched straight to him, and Jackson announced the cat was floofmulent and named him Captain Jack.”
2. Something that animals are willing to accept, or that satisfies them.
In Use: “Although Devon preferred a tennis ball, Max couldn’t find her normal ball. After a little trial and error, Max found a stick which Devon thought floofmulent, and a game of fetch commenced.”
Sa’day’s Theme Music
Mood: Politicynicsm
It’s an autner morning with winter impression holding a slight edge. A freezing cold night was had with temperatures lowering to 18 F around my place. I know that’s not so cold in many places; I’ve lived in a few of them. But that’s chill for us.
Since dawn, the sun put the hammer to the temps. We’re into the low thirties now. The splash dab white crystals decorating the greenery is giving way as the sun’s fingers stroke the land into warmth. A high of 56 F is contemplated, with clouds, blue skies, and sunshine.
This is Sa’day, November 30, 2024, the last day of the year’s eleventh month. Just one more for the historic records and we’ll put 2024 to bed.
Keeping Papi the ginger blade in and safe from icy temperatures was a big challenge for us. He gave me his patented cheetah stare whenever I told him no.
Note: this is not Papi. Papi looks nothing like this, except for that staring, judging expression.
But we were successful without too much floofma. Now he is up and up, patrolling and sniffing to see who floofpassed on his realm while he was suffering the indignation of being kept warm and safe.
Been thinking about the Trump presidency and how it’s going down. He and his teams have not signed the transition docs. Therefore, no transition can begin. But, he’ll be sworn in on 1/20/25, won’t he? And then he’ll be POTUS. And then he’ll say, “Fuck those documents. I don’t need to sign shit. I’m the president.” SCOTUS has already established that these things he does as POTUS aren’t illegal, so… I’m sure the Senate will go into a legislative tantrum but the reality is, what will they do? Are the oaths really needed? Not in Trump’s newly minted prezzy immunity. Prezmunity.
Yes, feeling cynical this morning. But that’s the battle and potential outcome I see brewing. Of course, I’m crap at these predictions so I wouldn’t put any money on it.
Hmm…is Vegas laying odds on it? That would seem appropriate. Electing a proven con, liar, incompetent wanna-be dictator and fascist is a gamble…
Oh, wait. I see that he has signed some of the docs now. Sorry, been avoiding the news cycle. That’ll teach me.
So last night, I bit into a Kind drizzle bar. Off came part of one molar. Had to laugh. Just fits in so well with this year’s progression of events. My wife has been claiming that I’m held together by bubblegum and tape. Looks like it’s all coming apart.
I originally had songs about ice or white in the morning mental music stream (Trademark frozen). Ya know, things like “Cold as Ice” and “Ice Ice Baby”. “White Wedding” and “Nights in White Satin”. “Whiter Shade of Pale”. But The Neurons used their veto-override and inserted “Take My Breath Away”. The song was a creation for the Top Gun movie a zillion and two years ago. Berlin, an American new wave musical group, performed it for the movie and achieved a respectable hit for it.
I asked The Neurons, why this? They smugly deigned to voice an answer. But it’s in the stream, so I’m forced to share it to get it out. Kind of a tedious song to me. I mean, I admire the singer’s talents and the band’s skills, and respect the songwriters. Just not my cuppa. I’m low on the romance scale, though, so don’t judge it by my impressions. Listen for yourself.
Try to be positive. I grok that’s an easy expression to state but hard to manifest at times. Do your best, right? I will, too. Aided by coffee, the positivity function is stirring anew. Here we go, another day in 2024. Here’s the music from 1986 to take you there. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 