I nuked something this morning in the microwave. When it announced, “Done”, with five beeps, I responded by pressing the cancel button three times.
Thinking back with a smile, I remembered how I developed that habit. Those ‘three beeps’ are supposed to be for good luck. I first did it in the 1980s when we lived on Okinawa when we bought our first microwave. I started to nuke something but canceled it, inadvertently pressing the button three times.
Later, I had a good day. When I remembered that the next morning, I thought, I’m going to keep doing this, because maybe those three beeps brought me luck.
It’s all fiction. I did hit the cancel button three times today and smiled, wondering if it would bring me good luck, and then I made up the rest.
Ashland, Oregon — Wednesday, March 11, 2026. 34 degrees F under blue skies latticed with thin, white clouds. Today’s high will climb into the fifties.
As part of a messy life stream, things continue on the Mom and news fronts.
The first new oil refinery in Texas in fifty years was announced. Trump is all over the money aspect, citing $300 billion dollars, which makes it really impressive in his mind. Two things struck me about the announcement.
Trump announced it as a “America First” thing but it’s funded by an Indian oil billionaire. Pretty good marketing hype.
Secondly, many headlines said that Trump announced the opening of a new oil refinery. Was it being opened or built? As I researched it, I couldn’t find basic answers to how long construction will take and when it will open.
I finally learned that it’s going to be built, with construction beginning later in 2026, and it’ll cost $4 billion to build. At this point, it’s a proposal. It won’t start operating until 2-3 years later. “America First” is the name of the company developing the refinery, a partnership with the Indian company, “Reliant Industries Limited”.
The hype around it reminds me of Cadillac’s Formula 1 effort. They put out a huge Super Bowl ad which including some of JFK’s speech about putting a man on the moon. They said, “The Mission Begins!” “We have liftoff!”
It annoyed me because I was struck that they acted like they on the cutting edge of something new and amazing, and not another new racing team in a series that’s been around for decades. What was more stunning was I later realized that Cadillac was using Ferrari engines for the first two years.
My sisters reminded me about a Mom fact which I never thought about. Mom always dressed nice. My older sister claims Mom had thirty pairs of high heels. But Mom often claimed poverty for us. We couldn’t afford to do things and often had to skimp. We did always have shelter and food, and Christmas presents were usually lavish. But my sisters all remember struggling to have clothes themselves.
Anyway, I responded to Mom last night as she reached out to me again. She was referencing texts which I didn’t have. I don’t know where the disconnect is. Her texts were about payments to the assisted living facility. I texted back, “What is your situation and what is your plan?”
She responded, “You finally answered. The situation is I’m in assisted living and I have a roommate so I think the pay is 4500 a month. I asked Lori yesterday what happens when I ran out of money and she said you have a house don’t you and yes but they’re not going to sell it until the spring and then I realize what she meant by they will put a lien against the house and when I die, the house is theirs if I would be here a long time which I don’t plan on being here a long time. So glad you answered me, Michael because just. because Sharon is through with me, Gina has been through with me for a long time. She had also told me that Lisa has always hated me so there’s nobody left Michael very upsetting to me that all my children hate me. But thank you for answering me tonight. See you later alligator.”
I sent that information on to my sisters so they’re aware of it.
I haven’t heard from Mom since, which isn’t surprising. In the last six months, she has a cycle of staying up late, texting into the night, and then sleeping through the day. She becomes angrier and meaner during those periods, more frantic. Then she grows lucid and nice, normal for a few days.
On to my normal day. The Neurons have placed “Schizophrenia” by Sonic Youth in the morning mental music stream. It’s an interesting song.
Sipping on some coffee, looking at the pale sky. I hope your day lives up to your best dreams for yourself.
It’s good to laugh, especially when I can laugh at Trump. Jill Dennison again provides the need laugh-fuel for a weary feeling March Tuesday. Here are my top choices from her terrific solution. Hope you read the rest and find your own.
Cloudy and 39F outside, dry with a high of 52 F projected.
This post is mostly about me and Mom. Pings erupted in the middle of the night. Mom had launched a text blitz, and the sisters were sharing and discussing them. I read many and saw it basically as the same old, same old on every front. One sister had helped Mom by picking things up at her house; another had responded, telling Mom that she’d created this living situation mess.
Meanwhile, searching for info and thinking late last night, I hunted for more about Heritage Grove, the assisted living facility where Mom now lives. I found this photo on their Facebook page. That’s Mom, the 90 year-old in the front left in pink in the ‘drive’ wheelchair. She’d won a Snickers bar at bingo.
Returning to sleep after the text barrage was a challenge. I finally slept but awoke when I thought I heard a man saying, “There’s a fire.” There was no man there and the house was silent. I rose, though, and walked through the house, trying to see if I smelled smoke or saw sparks or flames. Then back to bed, back to sleep, but ended up getting up late. Just eating breakfast now, 10:30, two hours late. Bah, humbug.
While I was awake in the night, I thought about yesterday’s news.
Trump urges Australia to give Iran’s Asian Cup players asylum
The story quoted Trump saying on Truth social, “Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed.”
Damn it, the only people he’s fooling are his unthinking supporters and the uninformed. This is the same person who has Homeland Security and ICE rounding people up and sending them anywhere he could get away with sending them, without one damn thought about whether they’d be killed. In the process of rounding up people and shipping them out, people were actually and being killed. And Trump always, always blamed the victims, labeling them as domestic terrorists, criminals, or thugs.
The NYTimes headline was from last October. Since then, the Iranian government killed thousands of people. And, were any of those people Trump flew back to Iran in 2025 killed when Trump bombed them in 2026?
It all has me shaking my head.
Which carries me into theme song territory. The Neurons came up with “Helen Wheels.” To which I responded, what?
The Paul McCartney & Wings song is about Paul’s Land Rover and driving around. How did it fit into my mind?
Well, it hinged on two salient aspects: “Ain’t nobody else gonna know the way she feels.” And yep, that’s Mom and life with Mom at this point. It’s a mystery. And the other part is the long-sigh “bye buh” I feel toward what’s happening with Mom, especially with my sisters.
The upbeat song feels like it’s driving me forward, pulling me off the night’s inertia.
I hope your day is going well, wherever you are, whatever you doing. May peace and grace nestle up against your efforts and help you move forward.
Mom is struggling in her assisted living situation. It’s been five to six weeks in her new place. She has professed to be happy at times. She also has related that she hates it.
She’s accused others of stealing things. She found those items in her room later.
Her habit of texting my sisters at night resumed. Two sisters ended up blocking her.
The texts were often complaints about what was going on or demands that things be taken to her.
As it was before, it seems clear that Mom is cognitively impaired. She’s been through a lot of health issues and is on many medications.
Now Mom must pay again for another month in advance shortly. She’s not sure what she’s paid or what she’s expected to pay and is asking us for help. There are some hints that she wants us to help her with the costs.
It is so painful to hear about these texts and read them.
My sisters are hugely angry with Mom and struggle to help her. They tell me that Mom becomes mean and hateful and will start yelling or just turn away from them. I can imagine how emotionally exhausting that is for them. We agreed, only one sibling can address Mom, following the advice given to us to handle the situation. Maintaining that silence is so painful.
I want to send Mom money to help her out. We’re warned not to do that because Mom will probably end up depending on Medicaid. If that transpires, Medicaid looks at her previous five years of income. Anything we’ve given her will be considered as part of that and reduce what help she’ll be given.
I do a lot of sighing when I think about Mom and her situation.
Just a short time ago, I overheard two elderly individuals talking at the coffee house, addressing the same problem that I’m dealing with. A man and woman, they both looked older than me by about ten years, putting them in their eighties. He later confirmed for her that he was 79.
The woman was talking about her sister and her sister’s problems. Her sister resides in Arizona and won’t move to Oregon, where we’re at. But each woman is alone and need help, so they’ve decided that the coffee-shop woman will be a snowbird and go live with her sister several times a year and see how it goes.
The man related that he was an only child. His parents created a trust after they retired. He could withdraw from it whenever he wanted. His father cautioned him, though, that someday they might need that money and urged him to be circumspect.
The man related that he was glad his father gave him that advice, and that he heeded it. He estimated that in the last five years of his parents’ life, he spent about $1,000,000 to provide them with housing and care.
Cold and gloomy this morning. 44 F underneath clouds and tepid light. Showers are possible, along with a high in the fifties. Not bad as weather goes; just uninspiring.
Many things rocking the mind in this early Monday hours. A new week is underway and we don’t know what will happen next. We can guess but the overall trajectories are pointing toward bleak.
The partial government shutdown is creating travel problems as unpaid TSA agents fail to show up for work, resulting in long security lines in the United States. More importantly, a stressed and diminished security force can be a huge liability as Trump increases attacks on Iran.
A Federal court ruled that Kari Lake lacks the authority to make changes to the Voice of America and ordered people released to be returned.
With Iran’s previous leader killed in the initial bombings, a new leader has been established: his son, a hardliner, much like his father.
Measles outbreaks continue growing in the United States, with sharp inclines in North Dakota, Utah, South Carolina, Colorado, and Ohio reported, along with a Texas Homeland Detention Center. Over 1100 cases are reported so far in 2026.
Although the weather here isn’t stormy, the mood around the world seems stormy and moving toward greater destabilization, and we must ride it out. Thinking of that inspired The Neurons to deliver “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors to the morning mental music stream.
This atmospheric song from my youth is always thought provoking but, on my way to find a video to share, I came across Playing for Change’s version, which includes Robby Krieger and John Densmore of The Doors. I enjoyed the new musical inflections added by different singers and instruments from around the world. I hope you enjoy this as much as me.
And off we go. I hope for the best for you and us, this day and every day.
Michael Seidel, writer 