Category: memories

Thirstday’s Theme Music

The wheels of time rolled through another day into Thirstday, August 11, 2022. Thirstday, the time of week when you pause to think of the things for which you thirst. Maybe it’s unrequited love. Or something simpler and more personal, like a cancer cure. Perhaps you thirst for food security and shelter, social justice, or equality. It could be that you thirst for another time, when you knew yourself as a younger person with a wide-open horizon before you. Our thirsts are different, Thirstday reminds us.

Sunshine tore the night covers back at 6:14 AM. The sun’s valley reign will go on to 8:17 PM, taking our temperatures from 18 C where we now sit to 90 F by late afternoon. A wondrously blue sky highlights the day’s placid nature. Everything looks calm, peaceful, and serene. Only arguing jays break the morning stillness.

Wasn’t so a short while again. The house floofs love this weather. Papi turned in a record mad dash as the halls and rooms became LeMans. He took the Mulsanne Straight chicanes flat out, demonstrating mind-blowing speed and control as Tucker watched with bristling white whiskers.

The Neurons have turned to Bill Withers, sliding an old high-school favorite by him from 1972, “Use Me”, into the morning mental music stream. I understand The Neurons’ reasoning. It’s a dream thing which I’m still unknotting. It’s a good song to hear again, to help look back on things in a quiet pause between more urgent matters. Though we never knew one another, Bill and I lived in the same town, Beckley, WV, for a few years. Yeah, it was separated by about six years, so meeting him was remote. Did see him in concert once and have great admiration for him.

My Thirstday coffee is a-calling from the kitchen counter. Stay positive, test negative, etc., endure, survive, and go on to thrive. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Numbday’s Theme Music

Happy Numbday!

Today is Numbday, August 8, 2022. What makes it Numbday is personal. For some, it’s because of the work grind that commences with Monday. Others find the news creates Numbday — they just can’t take it anymore! Like when Trump was said to say that he wished ‘his’ generals were more like Hitler’s and denied that Hitler’s generals ever tried killing Hitler.

Price shock causes some Numbday reactions when folks buy a bag of groceries for $75 dollars or fill their car’s gas tank for $100. Smoke and heat exhaustion, flooding, and other weather events can cause Numbday. Revelations about a loved one’s halth or a deep personal betrayal have also been known to cause Numbdays.

My Numbday is caused by one of the oldest and most basic reasons: not enough sleep because of sleep interruptus CAUSED BY A CERTAIN FLOOF — yes, I’m talking about you, Tucker, and don’t you try to pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about — and the need to get up early for an appointment. Woof.

The sun sprang up as if it were not a day over a billion, leaping into the sky at about, um, 6:11 AM, where it’ll stay until 8:22 PM, if standard rotation and orbital mechanics follow, which they should, unless there’s suddenly a black hole the size of a bowling ball coming into the scene. More on that later. Our temperature is a weirdly warm 68 F (20 C). We’ll be creeping up to 97 F today, so a little cooler than yesterday. Yeah, fires still rage out there, but our air remains clear. Fingers crossed, etc.

It was a bright moon last night, lighting up the local night as it waxes toward its full greatness. Out in the backyard to admire the night sky, because the moon was rendering it difficult with its light in the front, I caught a meteor’s streak. Blink and its gone. That kept me there for a few more minutes, hoping for another. No luck.

It did cause The Neurons to erupt with “The Reflex” by Duran Duran (1984). Simon and the lads remain in the morning mental music stream, a reflexive song in response to my reflexive need to try to see another meteor. Listening to the song, I often end up wondering, what exactly is the reflex? I know it’s a lonely child, yeah, I hear that, and it’s waiting by the park. Then there’s that chorus.

Oh, why don’t you use it?
Try not to bruise it
Buy time, don’t lose it
Oh, why don’t you use it?

h/t Genius.com

Is it the helping hand or the reflex that I’m thinking about using and trying not to bruise?

Well, some volunteer coffee has arrived to go down my gullet and lift my energy. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. Here’s the music. Enjoy your Numbday. Cheers

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Sumday’s Theme Music

This is it, Sumday, the beginning and the end. The circle remains unbroken, and here we are at the culmunation of hopes and prayers, work and play, getting ready and relaxing, all in one. For some. Your day might be different.

August 7, 2022 is upon us. For me, a wedding anniversary; we married at Wright-Patt AFB in Ohio on this date in 1975. Yep, still going, for better and worse, etc.

It’s about 22 C right now, a climb from 65 F. 100 F is anticipated for today. Sunrise punched in at 6:10 AM. As the world turns, the sun will depart our sky at 8:23 PM. The clouds have taken the morning off but a mass assembly is expected in the late afternoon.

Air quality remains excellent. I slipped out last night just after sunset to do a visual of the sky. All looked good except the northwest sector, which glowed with dirty purple and red malevolence. Nothing has come of it, so far. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc. Fires still burn in the area. Containment is growing but the rising heat makes everyone worry. Might not surprise you to learn that the wildfires thrive on hot weather.

I traipsed out again later to enjoy the cooling, silent night. The clock was leveling midnight and the moon was cruising low in the western sky, perhaps pondering a landing path into the mountain’s trees. White with silver icing, it was shifting toward three-quarter fullness, an inspiring sight against the blackened blue expanse. Light pollution was low. Stars, galaxies, and planets were all sailing the nocturnal firmaments. I watched for a while, thinking about photos sent back from the Webb telescope, contemplating history and science, the future and now. The Neurons brought out no songs. I wondered if they were napping or out of the office for the night. They hadn’t said anything to me about leaving. I’m always the last to know when The Neurons leave.

Thoughts continued into the novel-in-progress. That brought The Neurons back. They kicked a song called “Between Something and Nothing” by The Ocean Blue from 1989 into the mental music stream. The song is lifted from that late 1980s and early 1990s era of softly glittering electronic music and high questioning voices. What a time, but then, weren’t they all?

Stay positive, test negative, and so on to do as needed to protect and sustain yourself and others. The coffee truck is ringing its bell and coming up the street. Got to grab some money and dash out to get a cuppa. Have a peaceful one. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Heard a loud crash reverberate through the night last night. Shook the windows and threw me out of my chair. Investigation revealed that Wednesday, August 3, 2022, had arrived.

Sunrise was at 6:06 this morning, a sketching of faint pastels relieving night’s fading grays. Our temperature pumped up to 21 C from a start of 65 F, with a high of 97 F in sight for today. Skies are clear except for charcoal scratchings brought on by smoke. The McKinney Fire still burns, still less than one percent contained, unlined, but rain slowed its spread. Other fires have sprung up and are being dealt with. We were fortunate that with all the lightning strikes of the last 24 hours, we were spared, knock on wood. Sunset was a bold, lingering red splash yesterday and I think we’ll have the same today at 8:28 PM.

I was watching my ginger sweetness do a dash. He’s a cat who loves to dash about doing good. As I teased him, “Why are you running from place to place,” The Neurons said, “Oh, we know this song.” That’s how I came to have “Saving Grace” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (2006) in the morning mental music stream. I enjoy the song’s purer rock sensibilities, which is something I think that Petty always brought to his music. His was a simple approach.

Stay positive, try to be cheerful, test negative, have a nip of coffee. Don’t mind if I do. Here’s the music with the late Petty recorded live. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

In the game of months, August is a powerful force but one-dimensional. Her gifts aren’t subtle.

Tuesday, August 2, 2022, greets you with a warm smile. But what will happen next? A storm with thunder, lightning, and maybe rain? Or a liberal dose of high heat?

She gave us hours of lightening and minutes of thunder last night. The lightning show kicked off before eleven PM, well after sunset at 8:33 PM. Lightning continued until almost three AM. For a period, it was flicker one two three flicker one two three flicker one two three. Thunder muttered once in a while about not wanting to be there and then unleashed a significant boom as if to say, “Fine. Here. Satisfied?” There may have been rain but evidence of it was cleaned up by sunrise at 6:03 AM. The net was knocked out, though.

The cats dealt with it in their own ways. Papi, who loves the outdoors, came in before I was aware that storms were upon us. Tucker, who is blase, shrugged, found a porch spot, and went to sleep.

Temps today are cooler. It’s 22 C now and the high will be 92 F. We may have more thunderstorms later. Winds shifted yesterday so we’re not getting smoked out. Our largest threat, the McKinney Fire south of us, received rain, higher humidity, and cloud cover, all which helped fighting the fire.

With all that smoke in the air for the last several songs, The Neurons plied the morning mental music stream. You know many of the usuals: think of smoke and it was probably heard. But stealing from The Neuron’s m.o., I said, the key word is smell, and then went off on Johnny Winter and the old Bobby Bland song, “I Smell Trouble”. I was a Winter fan starting with Egar and then learning of Johnny. As I became more interested in the blues in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I found some great videos from Montreux. Sadly, those videos can’t be shared. So, here is instead “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo”.

Stay positive, test negative, and take precautions as needed. I believe it is now coffee time. The Neurons agree. Here’s the music. Have a better one. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

It’s 76 F this Monday morning, the first of August, 2022. Turn the page, as Seger sang.

A high of 90 F is expected today. So are thunderstorms. Thunderstorms rolled through in a big way last night around midnight. No local lightning. More fires were ignited in the Cascades.

The smoke has shifted away this morning. Our good fortune but others are suffering somewhere. Firefighters are strategizing and working to contain numerous blazes in California and Oregon. The fires’ names and situation replace city tax and budget matters and lost pets on our local social media.

Sunrise, at 6:03 AM, was more normal. Sunset will be at 8:33 PM. They say our temperatures are going to drop into the 80s F this week and return to average range in the mid to upper nineties next week.

The Neurons have songs in the morning mental music stream, oh yes. Saw the setting sun last night as the smoke thinned and the clouds parted to open the sunset show. It looked like a “Red Rubber Ball”. Written by Paul Simon, which I didn’t know for years, Cyrkle had a hit with it in 1966. I vividly remember hearing it as I played on the patio of our Vernoa rental house.

Second song, yeah, “Tequila Sunrise” by the Eagles, 1973, also a reflection of last night’s sunset. My mind keeps bringing up morning songs in response to evening settings. It’s like everything is reversed. Maybe it’s reverse week, you know, where up is down and left is right. Does that happen in your reality?

The third song is about the Fitbit missing from my wrist. I go to check the steps or the time every hour, as it’s trained me to do. The tracker isn’t there so The Neurons immediately rip off the Zombies song and sing, “It’s not there,” a pull on “She’s Not There” by the Zombies from 1964. Santana covered it later. Both versions have been theme songs here, along with the first two tunes. What to do?

Reject The Neurons, of course! Here’s “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake (1982). Ha! Take that, Neurons!

BTW, it’s National Exclamation Day in my reality today!

Stay positive and test negative, my friends. Stay cool and safe, or warm and safe, or dry and safe, whatever works for your weather situation. Maybe you’re a fortunate and have a lovely weather day in progress. Enjoy it.

Here’s la musica! Where’s le coffee?!!

Cheers!

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Just after sunrise at 6:02 AM, the sun began clearing the mountains and threw unmistakable blood-orange light through the windows. Smoke hazes and clots the air. Wildfires are burning somewhere. We can smell it. Our AQI has jumped to 90 around our part of town, 117 downtown, two miles away. Either the fire is nearby, or the winds and terrains are lifting and channeling it in our direction.

Good morning! Today is Saturday, July 30, 2022. One more day and then July is history. On to August.

Yesterday reached 112 F at our house. That was my home weather station’s reading. The net claimed 109. Alexa agreed. At 8:30 AM, it’s 81 F. The humidity has gone up. It’s only 39% but it feels heavier. Today’s high is expected to reach 106 F before sunset @ 8:32 this evening. The overnight low was 75 F last night.

That overnight low staying so high hurt. We kept waiting for the air to cool down outside so we could open doors and windows. It finally dropped below 90 at 11 PM. Yes, some relief. Then a skunk struck. Maybe two. The house was re-sealed for an hour while the winds scrubbed the odor away.

The heat affected our big black and white cat, Tucker. He’s older, and older cats struggle to deal with extreme heat. I brought him in, dampened a washcloth with cold water, and rubbed him down a few times. He really enjoyed it and is quite energetic this morning, with a strong appetite. Now, he’s resting by my right hand, providing editorial guidance. Papi, of course, is all, “It’s cool. I’m good.” I keep an eye on him. He appears to be telling the truth.

The Neurons are playing “Lovesong” by The Cure in the morning mental music stream. They’d started with “Friday I’m In Love” and then segued into “Just Like Heaven” before launching “Lovesong”. I asked them, “What’s with the medley? What do you know that I don’t?” They, sipping their espressos, snickered and replied, “Ho, ho, a lot.”

“Lovesong” came out in 1989. I was still in the military, in Germany, then, and found I really enjoyed the song’s moodiness. Hope you enjoy it on this July Saturday, 2022.

Stay positive, test negative, and take care of yourself, yeah? Sure. Back to reading. Back to writing. Back to a cup of coffee. Then, things to do. It’s Saturday, you know. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

It’s your choice. Will you stay with what you have or will you trade it for what’s behind one of these three doors?

They’re going for door number three. Let’s see what’s behind door number one and two first.

Door number one is…Monday, May 1, 2028. So that would have been a small trip into the future for you. And door number two is…a slip to the past, Friday, August 16, 1996. Have you experienced that year yet?

Okay, let’s see what they won. Let’s open door number three. Good luck.

Today is Thursday, July 28, 2022. Today’s high temperature for Ashland in southern Oregon is 108 F or 42 C. 108 is pretty high and I’m dubious we’ll hit it. Only touched 103 F at my house yesterday. Right now it’s 74 F (23 C). Sunrise was at 6 AM exactly. Expect the daylight selection of our day to finish at fourteen hours and thirty-four minutes later.

The felines have been loving the heat. Go into a torpor in shade for the day. They don’t eat or move much during the high heat portion. Come night, they turn into homicidal psycho jungle cats (a phrase borrowed from Bill Watterson), prowling and pouncing, muttering and munching.

In news —

No, let’s skip the news portion. Speaking of 1996, The Neurons plucked a song out of that portion of the memory puzzle, I mean palace, and slotted it into the morning mental music stream. See, I was writing in my head as I went about feeding beasts and prepping my breakfast, following up on what was written yesterday, dipping into where I want to go today, addressing a character and what they’d believed and what they now believed, which meant they needed to do this — well, you know the chains. Out of that, The Neurons plucked “Stupid Girl” by Garbage. Took a long several minutes to get more than, “all you had you wasted,” but I could clearly hear the voice and supporting music for that slender segment. More would not come. Just as I drifted away with the attendant thought, it’ll come later, pop, The Neurons released more and the song and band were fully recalled. Yea, go neurons, go!

Stay positive and test negative, and so on. Three friends have announced they’re COVID free while another announced he just tested positive. So it goes. I’m going for coffee before it gets too warm. Here’s the tune. As a bonus, you get it performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman”. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

The rumor of a breeze circulated at ten o’clock last night. The temperature had plummeted to 91 F by then, still a little warm for opening the doors and windows to cool the house. Although we have central A/C, I dislike its effects on my sinuses, environment, and energy bill, and avoid using it as much as possible. I really wanted to open the doors and such, and it was hard to hear the insects and bugs’ tiny rapping and requests to come in and escape the heat. I eventually yielded at eleven, when it was 81 outside and 86 in the house. The air, still warm, barely stirred.

A few clouds and haze mar the sky’s true color today. This Wednesday, the final of July, 2022, the 27, for those seeking more, will reach 104 they say. We officially reached only 100 in Ashland yesterday, although my house said it was 103.5 as the high experienced. Sunset will be at 8:36 PM. Sunrise today was at 5:59 AM. It might be the last time for a sunrise before six in the morning, unless it happens again when we ‘fall back’ with the clock later this year.

“Janie’s Got A Gun” by Aerosmith (1989) inhabits the morning mental music stream. The song is about parents and others raping, abusing, and molesting children and Janie getting a gun to stop it. Rape was removed from the radio version. And yeah, it came up as a song as I read more sickening news of the world. Not going into it any further. Many people frequently promote an idea for using a gun to shoot and kill people with state permission as soon as their crime is discovered. I’m not for that for many reasons, among them being an orderly and intelligent system of justice. I know it fails often but throwing it out isn’t a solution; its shortcomings need to be addressed and fixed. That’s difficult in today’s political environment but I stand by the belief.

Stay positive and test negative. Wear masks and get vaxes as needed. Good luck and stay safe. Coffee? Why, thank you, I think I will.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

The dice have been tossed. Rolling to a stop, they come up Tuesday, July 26, 2022.

106 F is today’s magic number for our valley. We hit 103.5 F yesterday. Only cooled to 22 C overnight. Already 24 C this morning.

The sun peeled back the night at 5:58 AM. Night will reclaim the valley upon the sun’s setting at 8:37 PM. Them’s the rules.

All this warm weather has the cats in an interesting zone. During the day, they staked out cool shade and slept. One took up the front door and the other guarded the back. This morning’s cool air turned the house into a grand prix circuit as the cats exercised some zoomies, accelerating down hallways, blasting around corners, obliterating toy mice and throw rugs encountered along the way. The FIA should check out it as a new race venue: the Clay Street Grand Prix. Seating will be limited so they’ll need to turn to television to keep their lofty revenues up.

Today’s music came from eavesdropping on two young women. I’d bet on them being twenty-somethings. One was encouraging the other in some enterprise and told her, “Your day will come.”

Well, The Neurons leaped right on that, popping “Our Day Will Come” into the mental music stream where it remained this morning. The original hit that I knew, from a year I couldn’t remember, was by Ruby and the Romantics. A 45’s label is burned into memory as it was loaded on a pink and gray little portable record machine. Where, who, when are blanks. Covers and other variations of the song were encountered throughout my life but I always enjoyed the one with the organ solo in the middle.

BTW, I just love that expression, “eavesdropping”. Hearing it conjures a person hanging upside down from eaves outside people’s windows.

Well, here we go. Stay safe, test negative, exercise some critical thinking, and remain positive. Coffee time now, before the heat becomes oppressive.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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