Category: memories

Wednesday’s Theme Music

We’re into the middle band of the rainbow of days, a prism that never ends. That’s right, it’s Wednesday. We’re also into the final seven days of August, this being the 24th, and over halfway through the memorable year of 2022.

It’s 71 F right now and we expect to be in the upper nineties by day’s end, although we’re not anticipating passing 100. Not in the cards today, fingers crossed. Air quality isn’t bad today. It’s gone up and down by the hour in the last two days as the winds ebbed and flowed. Nighthold was broken at 6:28 this morning, but the darkness will be restored after sunset at 7:58 PM. “Night is coming,” people whisper. They’re talking about the long night. Others mock them, but those who understand these things are preparing for the long night.

“Lay Lady Lay” by Bob Dylan from 1969 has won the morning mental music stream over. The Neurons allowed me to see the progression made from thought to song today. It involved some writing so I’ll not say anything else. It’s a superstition of mine. The song was a favorite of mine for a bit. It came out when I was thirteen. There was a girl in school who showed interest in me. Sweet Vicky loved this song, so when she asked me about it, I loved it, too! We held hands, went to dances, malls, and movies, necking in secret for a few months, before going toward different lights. I have good memories of her and this song.

Stay positive, test negative, and take care of yourself, family, and community. I’ve had my coffee, thanks. Feel free to have some yerself. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday has landed. You need to be careful when Monday lands that it doesn’t do serious damage to you. Some people really enjoy Mondays landing. They’re depressingly cheerful, shouting things like, “Woo hoo, it’s Monday,” causing the rest of us to raise our eyebrows so high that they get lost in our hair.

It’s August 27, 2022, which, for some, is the deadline. It’s also birthdays and anniversaries, so salutations to you if it is. Hope it’s memorable and the start of a long line of fantastic years.

I’m in Eugene, Oregon, now, a stop off on our way home. It’s 61 F here, 16 C on the coast, and 64 F in Ashland. Respective highs are 85, 68, and 88 F. Sunrise for this local was a classic, with sunshine piercing the eastern sky with a sharp golden lance at 6:323 this morning. Sunset will be at 8:07. I plan to be home then, where the sunset will be 8:01.

I have a 1957 song by Buddy Holley and the Crickets stuck in the morning mental music stream. My fault, totally my fault. After we checked into the room and settled for the evening, we cruised TV offerings where we found BBC America showing Stand By Me. The 1986 movie is about boys in a 1959 small town, their conflicts with themselves and others, and the quest to find a dead body. It features a terrific cast and music of the era. Well, The Neurons heard, ” Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ closer, goin’ faster than a roller coaster,” and they latched onto that like a cat taking over a chair.

Stay pos, test, neg, and so on. Yes, I’ve had coffee and breakfast. Coffee was very good. The breakfast went down well, breaking back tears of joy from being out in the field and enjoying some fine reconstituted eggs. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Well, we come down the hill and turned into a glade, and there it was, majestic as ever: Sunday, August 21, 2022. So I, for one, can say, it does exist. I’ve seen it once and I’ll probably never see it again.

It’s a beautiful day on the beach. Though clouds blanket the sun, its presence is here. The ocean is a sleepy murmur. No fog or marine layer. 64 F. Today will be a little warmer, 70 F.

Sunrise trickle across the eastern skies at 6:26 AM and the sun’s luminescence will leave us with sunset at 8:12 PM.

A dream last night featured Tom Petty saying, “Let’s do the crocodile song, the rock song.” He said this three times, not in a row, but at three different times. I knew he referred to Elton John’s hit. Whenever he said that and his band played, I would go off and tell myself, “I need to be more like Tom Petty, and take more risks, put myself out there.” The dream also featured two-day POTUS Ronald Reagan and four-time NASCAR champ Jeff Gordon. It was an interesting dream.

But when thinking about the dream, “Crocodile Rock” and Tom Petty, The Neurons responded with Tom Petty and “Running Down A Dream”, a hit song from the 1989 album, Full Moon Fever. I was in Germany at Rhein Main Air Base when it was released, returning to America in 1991. The Neurons know I like this song. Who am I to argue with them? Yes, the song has been featured here before, but we’ll survive that.

Yes, I’ve had coffee, so I’m mellow, as are The Neurons. As I say, the ocean is a sweet companion today, in a mellow mood, and it’s infectious. Stay positive, test negative, and so on. Enjoy your Sunday, yeah?

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

The wheel spins and slows. The marble drops. Spying the results and spreading the word, everyone gets into position to begin another life play.

Today’s performance is Saturday, August 20, 2022. Those who went through this day before and remember it know what to expect. Others need to improvise.

A narrator says in a Morgan Freeman voice, “It’s 6:23 in the morning as the sun unloads it light. An overcast sky is shifted into place over the ocean. Birds hang around on the beach, enjoying the scene without making one. Lazy waves roll in, release their splash, and slid back out. It’s cool but comfortable, sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The thermometer won’t show much warmer by the ocean’s side, maybe nudging sixty-eight, sixty-nine. Few people are out. Dog walkers dominate, strolling with leashed pooches. This show will go beyond midnight, but the daylight scenes end at 8:14 this evening. Let the play begin.”

The Neurons have pressed buttons on the morning mental music stream. (They’re still updating to clicks.) Hall and Oates are singing a 1981 hit, “You Make My Dreams”. I was in Texas at the beginning of that year, on Okinawa by June. Stayed there until December 31, 1980, calling Kadena Air Base my home. We lived in a small apartment in a small building with other young American couples, for we were young. Hall and Oates were a favorite group in the building, and their songs are deeply etched into my psyche.

Why this song today? Maybe it was the dreams. The Neurons aren’t confessing anytime soon.

Stay positive and test negative. Wear a mask if it’s needed. Use your judgement and heed the experts. Meanwhile, my coffee is here. Time to start the day. Here’s the music.

Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

We’ve come to Friday. Full stop. What else needs said? Everyone has a Friday sense, a feel for what Friday means for them. We do that with every day, though, depending on schedules and activities, wants and needs, desires and confusion, determination and goals.

Rain is falling on this Oregon coast August 19th. The sun’s reappearance was dampened by clouds but still took place at 6:23 this morning. Turning away from Sol — which often invokes Pink Floyd and someone singing, “On the turning away” — takes place at 8:19 this evening. By that time, we’ll expect to be at 67 F, a small jump from our current 16 C. They say it feels like 60. Whatever, it’s loaded with soft salty fishy oceany fragrances sprinkled with dirt, sand, and asphalt, along with plant smells. Know that melange? It’s a relaxing scent to inhale, one that unfolds the soul and pours out cares, at least for a little while. It also invokes memories for me, of where I’ve been, my present intersection of time, space, and being, and the final leg, who I am. Cue The Who, “Who Are You”.

Falling rain means Elvis Presley for The Neurons, today, though. They could have gone with Blind Melon and “No Rain”, I suppose, but no, they have “Kentucky Rain” (1970) circumambulating my morning mental music stream. Why? Silly one, The Neurons don’t explain their processes and decisions. Perhaps that’s only me. Your Neurons might be much nicer. Well, my neurons are nice, just as wild and free as a clowder of kitties chasing dandelion seeds on the wind.

Here’s the music. Stay positive and test negative. I must go on a coffee quest. (Yes, now The Neurons have folded “The Impossible Dream” into the morning mental music mix.)

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Lotsa wet out from ocean fog. Drips from everything and sprawls over cars and houses. Thursday morning on the coast. It’s started out much like Wednesday morning on the coast. I’m beginning to have suspicions about Friday morning on the coast, although rain is in the Friday forecast.

For now, it’s quiet and chill, 62 F, sunshine smothered in fog. The sun has been ‘up’ since 6:22 AM but it’s a dim bulb in the eastern fog swirl. A high of 68 F will be probed. We’ll going out on a short boat trip to explore the local marine life and history’s highlights. Should be fun. Sunset will be about 8:19 this evening.

Should note that it’s August 18, 2022, for the record. The record is important, isn’t it? ‘Tis why we’re always tracking and chasing these things. “For the record, what day was it?” “I believe it was August 18, 2022, yer honor.”

The line “walking in the sand” is walking through my morning mental music stream. Yes, thank you, neurons. Not very original of you but I have walked a few miles in the sand in the last few days. Nye Beach has a beautiful flat beach, not very busy on the sand, with gorgeous ocean views, well worth walking as the waves roll in do their splashing, and hurry back out as the gulls meditate and wonder.

Back to the music. I have the Shangri-Las version of “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” dueling the Aerosmith’s rendition, which is an interesting mental flavor to have before coffee. 1964 was the year of the Shangri-Las’s version while Tyler and the boys had a hit in 1979. One is pop and more melodic and the other is rock. I’ll let you guess which.

Here’s Amy Winehouse with the song. Yeah, I thought I’d throw a curve in. Stay positive and test negative, right? Deep breath because we’re still going through this. Meanwhile, I gotta find some coffee. Then I’m gonna go walkin’ in the sand. Hope I remember. Enjoy your day.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

We’re on the coast. Fog defined our Wednesday sunrise at *drumroll* at 6:21 AM. The fog burned off about nine-ish, leaving us awash in sunshine.

This August 17, 2022, finds us at 62 F with a high of 71 F in the cards. We’re three short blocks from the beach, with view of the surf from our upper-level windows. Not a bad deal. No writing to be done…for the moment. I am to socialize and be a tourist. I don’t wear those hats well, but I’ll try. Sunset will be at 8:19 PM.

Seagulls sing wherever we go. You’d think The Neurons would pick up on that and sing some music by A Flock of Seagulls, which I think is actually called a flotilla. I think there are other expressions. Guess I should google it…someday… I’ll put it on my TBG list.

Instead, The Neurons have noticed my anti-social tendences, my desire to hasten away somewhere to write. They’ve installed a Helen Reddy song, “Leave Me Along” (1973). You know, it’s a song about a woman telling others, “Leave me alone, won’t you leave me?”

Yeah, not nice of me, is it? It’s against our social conventions for how we define ‘normal’.

Here’s the music. I’ve had my coffee, thanks, a lovely Americano at Ultralife Cafe. Off to sight-see. Stay positive, test negative, and try to socialize. Would it really hurt you? Oh, the things we don’t know.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Wandering Thought

He read about the droughts in England, Italy, and France. Fires in France rage. Italy’s Po River is drying up. Meanwhile, toxic chemical waste in the Oder River in Poland and France is causing a huge fish die off. Drought has caused the River Thames source to move East.

Parts of Australia are suffering drought and low precipitation. A record heatwave in July baked the US. Wildfires burn in the US, including Hawaii, as fifty percent of the country experiences drought. America’s west is suffering from a record megadrought. Record floods caused massive damage in Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. The Colorado River is drying up. Lake Mead is at its lowest level since 1937. Lake Powell is dropping to deadpool status, where the water level will be too low for water to flow from the dam. Flooding in Kentucky and West Virginia caused death and substantial damage. Investors are scrambling to exploit the exposed earth as glaciers melt and recede.

World food prices are going up as crops dry up and wither, weather disasters strike, and harvests shrink.

Reading all this news, he thought of Billy Joel’s 1989 song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. In Billy Joel’s song, they were at least trying to fight it. Too many now seem to be fighting against fighting it.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Cool air is washing in through the windows as crows caw and talk a few blocks away and a small prop plane drones over the valley. It’s Saturday morning. When I was a nine-to-fiver, I’d jump out of bed on Saturdays and be out of the house by seven. It was all me time, private time. I’d be returned by ten and then the chores and errands kicked off.

So, just to clarify, I was never a nine-to-fiver. Just a term to express working a Monday through Friday work week. I generally started at six AM and was done by three PM. I preferred early hours. More was accomplished in the office before others arrived than at any other time of day. When I had really large projects, I usually went in on Sunday nights and worked on them, because nobody was there to disturb me.

Today is 8/13/2022. The sun quietly cruised into position in the eastern sky at 6:16 this morning and will cruise out at 8:15 PM. Someone posted yesterday on social media that “today is the last day that the sun will set after eight PM if you’re in the northern hemisphere.” No, my friend, it’s not that universal. Wide variances just by traveling a little north and south.

It’s currently 61 F but we’re looking for a high of 25 C. Not bad. Purple Air says our air quality is lime green today, hovering around the border between the yellow and green zones. Not too bad.

The Neurons have put a song called “Sisters” in my morning mental music stream. I asked, what the what? They sniggered. Written by Irving Berlin, the song gained wide popularity after it was included in White Christmas in 1954. Weirdly, these are things I know despite being born two years later. But White Christmas has been shown on television for most of my life. “Sisters” is a song my wife likes, so she sang it frequently. All that prompted me to learn more about it years ago. No clue why it’s in the morning mental music stream.

I rejected “Sisters” as my theme music. I also rejected “Mother” by Danzig. It was featured on Paper Girls, a Prime series which we’re enjoying. Instead, I repudiated Le Neurons by pulling “Tusk” out of my mind and put it into the morning mental music stream. I told my neurons, you’re not the boss of me. I’m not gonna let you tell me what to do, so there. “Tusk” is by Fleetwood Mac. Released in 1979, I find its percussion and the way the lyrics are sort of barked out to be soothing. Plus, it irritates The Neurons, ha ha ha.

Okay, going off on the coffee run to make it up to The Neurons. Stay pos, test neg, etc. Take care of yourself. Enjoy the music, life, and Saturday. Cheers

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Frieday’s Theme Music

Take a deep breath. You can smell it in the air: Frieday has arrived.

It’s Frieday, August 12, 2022, but it is Frieday, Frieday, when you can sit back and enjoy some frybread, or crispy and sizzling fried bacon, or hot breaded fried chicken, fish, or shrimp.

That’s how many come to Frieday. Others arrive at Frieday feeling or looking fried. People tell them, “Man, do you look fried.” They answer, “Well, it is Frieday. I’m looking forward to the weekend. I am going to go nuts and do nothing.”

Doesn’t look like our town will fry today. Sunrise started the sizzle at 6:15 AM. Today’s sizzle won’t be much, a low burn high of 86 F. Now it’s a cool 18 C as the mountains bath us with morning air from their tops. Just sixteen hours and one minute from sunrise, the turning away will commence. On the bummer side of this Frieday, air quality has gone down with air particulates pushing the air into the red, scratching the blue sky with brown streaks.

Dreams were long and complicated. I emerged from them feeling good about myself. As I fed cats and ran the morning bifloofalon, I thought about my self-esteem. Those thoughts encouraged The Neurons to break out “Self Esteem” by The Offspring from 1994. A little Youtube scratching found this video of the group performing the song in 1999. I prefer versions where I can see the group playing the music and singing. Doesn’t usually sound as polished as the studio albums, but I like the reminders of the time given by the band’s appearance, the stage, setting, and audience. Feds the flames of nostalgia, yeah?

The boiled black brew is reading for its Frieday tasting. Stay positive, test negative, have a good Frieday and a most excellent weekend, your excellencies. Here’s the music. Cheers

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