Category: memories

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Sunlight highlighted a ridge of blue clouds in the eastern sky at 7:20 AM in Pittsburgh. Looks like another day of sun and clouds and temperatures in the mid 40s F to low sixties F. Autumn is taking a firmer hold as leaves acquiesce their green and yield to becoming other things. They’re good with going with the flow. Sunset arrives at 6:56 PM. Yes, we’ve broken the 7 PM barrier.

The shrinking daylight portion seems accelerated during my Pittsburgh time. Less than three weeks ago, I’d rise, go to windows, open blinds, and see the day beginning as the sun crested the east. Now, I wait for a few minutes before enough light announces that sunrise is coming.

I was out with Mom and a sister yesterday, escorting Mom to PCP and MRI appointments, and picking up ointment at a store. As she drove, my sister kept talking about road signs, particularly a large ROAD CLOSED sign sitting in some grass, surrounded by trees, on a road that no longer exists, which we used to take as a shortcut. Next thing I know, The Neurons have snuck “The Sign” by Ace of Base (1993) into the mental music stream. It’s a frothy song, a little techno, simple lyrics and an easy beat, which hooks minds with its simplicity. When I first heard the song, I thought I already knew it. Like many songs I feature here as theme music, I’d never seen the video before.

Short post today. Stay positive, test negative, get your boosters. Coffee and breakfast are calling. Have a better one. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thought

She would have been called a troubled teenager. Drinking too much, dropping out of school, becoming pregnant, marrying before she was seventeen, her life had taken turns that we didn’t expect from such an intelligent and charming person.

Two divorces, two children, and forty-five years later, she acquired her GED, graduated college with a B.S., runs a family business, is a grandmother of three, and is also a professional. She’s the one we turn to for help. She’s strong, stable, and reliable, the person we thought she would be before she became a troubled teen.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Graylight heralded dawn and a tombstone-like sky at 7:17 this morning. The red squirrel was busy early, a crimson slash racing across the emerald lawn and through the trees. He was probably making up for yesterday, when steady rain gifted to us by Hurricane Ian kept the wildlife passive and sheltered. The deer did show yesterday and popped into the side yard outside the kitchen window as I prepared Mom’s breakfast just after sunrise.

Today is October of 2022’s first Sunday, and the second day of the month. Birthdays galore this month for our tribe. July and October are our busiest birthday months. This day will see lows of 50 F and highs of 64 with light rain. Sunset cometh this evening, 7:01 PM.

Mom continues improving. Next week will be a big challenge, with three doctor appointments and seven home visits – physical and occupational therapists, nurse, and nurse aide. I’ll probably be flying west to home the week after, I think. I miss my partners, aka my wife and floofs. I’ve only been here 22 days but it seems longer. My days are more idle as Mom gets healthier and does more for herself. I’m deliberately drawing back, mindful as I do, to test her skills, along with her partner. He’s 92 and well-meaning, in decent health, but he gets tired and forgetful, totally understandable.

BTW, did you see that after Ian’s strike on Florida and the southeastern US, and his travels up the Atlantic coast, another storm is intensifying and heading towards Mexico. Busy storm season. The death and destruction already seen is enervating and demoralizing.

I have Veruca Salt orbiting the morning mental music stream with their song, “Seether”, from 1994. The song is a throwback, solid grunge, simple chords, a steady beat. The band’s name is familiar from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Originally hearing it caused a double take followed by a short burst of laughter. Anyway, the song came into my head when I was dealing with Mom yesterday. She’d become worked up about an issue and I started chatting with her to distract her and calm her down. Lo’, The Neurons awoke and said, “Hey, that reminds me of that Veruca Salt song,” and here we are.

Side note: today’s post was delayed by house guests.

Stay positive, and test negative, and so on, and do what you need to take care of yourself and your people and tribe. I’d have coffee, thanks. Here’s the music. Hope you enjoy it.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Slow and ponderous, daybreak took over the sky’s voluminous gray matter at 7:16 AM. This, I learn from the baffle net, is ten minutes earlier than they’ll see in Ashland, Oregon later today. 52 and 56, respectively, degrees in F, are the current and high temperatures. 7:03 sees the world turn that brings us another night.

Welcome to October 1, 2022.

It’s Saturday. Leaves are just turning in our neighborhood, with one mighty perennial going dark red. While the trees are heralding fall, animals and the weather are muttering, “Winter is coming.” Ned would be concerned, although meteorologists tell us they’re we’re seeing Ian’s stuff in our weather pattern. Overcast, they call this sky.

The Neurons dropped “Barely Breathing” into the morning mental music stream. Had to look it up to learn it’s by Duncan Sheik from 1996. I think the song employs many clever phrases. One set in mind this dawn was, “And everyone keeps asking, what’s it all about? I used to be so certain, and I can’t figure out.
What is this attraction, I can only feel the pain. There’s nothing left to reason and only you to blame.
Will it ever change?”

Why those words today, I queried The Neurons. Is it part of a memory set? Could well be, something of the air, imbued in the house, makes me think of other times and years, of course. Photos on the walls and shelves document the family’s expansion, and there we are as the young, when now we’re the old. It could be the chilly wet weather, and the dance of leaves falling off trees as they flirt with new colors. Maybe it’s just a natural echo of the mind set delivered when you realize, oh, I have aged. I used to be so certain. Now I wonder about more, and entertain reflections on paths taken and results found.

Think I need coffee.

Stay positive, test negative, and so on. Stay safe as you travel the roads and skies, stealing glances at weather, people, news. Where the heck is that coffee?

Here’s some music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Time to rock another day. The day in question, September 29, 2022, is a Thursday. Sunlight rocked us at dawn about 7:14 this morning, slicing apart the clouds with golden blades. The clouds recovered and came together in a solid front. They say it won’t rain, and I generally trust that set of they, the weather people. It’s 44 F now, with hopes that 60 F will be touched before the sun steals away at 7:06 PM and leaves us to the night.

Mom has a few home appointments. Nurse aide coming to bath her, and a nurse coming to check her out. She’s doing well, in good spirits, with a healthy appetite. I’m beginning to plot my return home.

Thinking about sleeping and dreaming, not just nocturnal dreams, but dreams of aspirations and accomplishments provoked Les Neurons into dropping Fiona Apple into the morning mental music stream with a song outta 1997, “Sleep to Dream”. Used to hear it a bit during my daily commutes and on my radio at work in my office. I enjoy the song’s thudding, rhythmic beat and how the vocals almost fluctuate between singing and rapping, something that we’ve seen more frequently in this century.

Stay positive, test negative, give a care for Florida and their situation. I have coffee, thanks. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Mom has lived in many cities, states, houses, and apartments. He’s now in his mid-sixties. She’s almost ninety. There’s been many changes, but she still has the same salt and pepper shakers that they used when he was a little boy.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

The Neurons asked, “What day is this?” I replied, “You guys are supposed to be telling me these things.”

We decided it was Wednesday and then checked a wall calendar and the computer’s time and date. Yep, Wednesday, September 28th, 2022. If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear Christmas marketing in America coming. The computer tells me it’s “Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day”. I answered, “What?” I’m working on the day of the week and you’re telling me about some specious holiday? Is a “Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day” really necessary? It’s not like they’re donuts.

A sad sunrise of whitewashed gray clouds took place at 7:13 AM. I guess the time of sunrise each day and then look it up. Six out of ten times finds me with the right answer. I’m much better at guessing the temperature. It’s 46 F now. A heavy rain crashed down on us yesterday morning. Wouldn’t be startled to see another one today. Yesterday’s rain was fun because it poured in front but was relatively dry in the back, with just a little splashover. How about a high of 60 F today? Sounds about right. Feels about right. I either need to go back to Oregon or buy some warmer clothes. It’ll be in the mid-seventies back in Oregon. I looked it up.

Sunset? Yes, at 7:08 PM.

As I assumed morning duties for Mom, bringing pills, making breakfast and coffee, cleaning, etc, I was thinking along the cracks of, “Here I go again.” Somehow, The Neurons slipped in “Would?” by Alice In Chains from 1992 into the morning mental music stream. Why “Would?”? I wrote that just for that double question mark. Don’t have an answer. Guess it’s those lines, “Into the flood again, same old trip it was back then.” Maybe.

Mom is doing okay. Made her stay in bed yesterday. Ordered the same for this morning. I’ll let her come down for lunch. Let me tell you, having her obey isn’t as easy as it’s written, but she’s in good spirits and accepted my directive. No visits from nurse, PT or OT today, a good thing, as people drain her. Except me, she says.

Alright, coffee has arrived. Rather, it’s finished brewing and is teasing, “Heeerrre’s coffee!” Okay, I’ll be right over, I answer. Stay positive and test negative. Stay dry, safe. I know it’s bad in Cuba today, Puerto Rico is still recovering, and Alaska, and the thinking is that Florida might not have a good day. Do the best you can to help yourself and others.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Inspiring sunshine scored the morning clouds, lighting the valley and the house’s eastern face. I put my face to it and breathed in cold, fresh air, admiring birds, squirrels, and chip monks as they took up business.

This was 7:30 AM, just after Tuesday’s sunrise at 7:12 on this 27th of September, 2022, in the Common Era. Umbrellas are called for this day as clouds have taken over and rain scents pepper the air. 55 F now, they tell us not to expect anything over 60 today. Yet I’m in shorts. Wear jeans, back to shorts today. Not like they’re glued or stapled to me. I can always swap my shorts for pants before sunset at 7:09 PM, if needed.

Mom had a rough morning. So did her partner, and my sisters, and me. That’s how it rolls. Diarrhea caused as a side effect of her antibiotics debilitated her. That all happened before 6 AM. She was to see her cardiologist but he went out sick. They still wanted Mom to come in and see the cardiologist’s nurse, but she convinced them that she was too weak, and the appointment was cancelled. They’ll reschedule after the cardiologist returns. A health care nurse is coming by at 2 to check on her, per a schedule set up yesterday.

My younger sisters vent a lot to me. This has impacted them, along with their children. All regularly visit Mom as they live in the area. I act psychologist to them, listening without giving advice. Seems to help.

Their thoughts about change and mortality prompted The Neurons to pull up a favorite song of mine. “Breathe (In the Air)” by Pink Floyd was part of the monumental album, “The Dark Side of the Moon”, released in 1972. I saw the group perform the album in concert. It felt like a transcendental experience. I’ve since seen them in concert several more times. I originally had the album on 8 track, then got it on cassette tape, vinyl, and finally, a digitally remastered CD. Yes, I like the album.

As the song says,

Run, rabbit, run
Dig that hole, forget the sun
And when at last the work is done
Don’t sit down, it’s time to dig another one

h/t to genuis.com

So life seems to be for so many, dig a hole, and then dig another, metaphors for work, work, work, work, work.

Hope you enjoy it. Stay positive, test negative, take care of yourselves and others. I’ve had coffee, thanks. I am ready for lunch and will have leftover chicken tortellini soup which my sister made and brought over yesterday. There’s plenty, if you care to have some.

Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Autumn has turned down the temperature here. Nights are cooler. So are days, despite a sunshine filled sky that chased out darkness at 7:20 AM. Speculating about others around the world watching sunrise and sunset is an intriguing engagement. Someplace is always experiencing a sunrise or sunset. It’s a never-ending mechanism and inspires and instructs us in multitudes of manners, as it’s been such we first realized as creatures that a sun is in the sky.

The sun’s tenure for my area will end at 7:25 PM. Temperatures will float up from its current 46 F t0 62 and back down to 45 tonight. This is Friday, September 23, 2022.

I was thinking about the toss of the dice this morning, a stretch out of a previous conversation with others about rolling the dice and how arbitrary results seem on the surface. And while we were speaking, I thought of chaos theory, but didn’t speak to that group about it. Anyway, The Neurons, observant as an NFL ref, picked up the thinking and pitched “What It Takes” by Aerosmith from 1990 into the morning mental music stream.

Stay positive, test negy, and so on. Now, I must hunt down a cup of coffee. Hope your Friday rolls up the way you need it. Here’s the beats. Cheers

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Thursday’s Wandering Thought

Looking back on his life, he was amazed by how lucky he was in where and when he was born, and the gifts and talents he had. He didn’t cultivate or use many of them, something he was realizing too late, as many people. He always thought there was a little more time.

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