Yeah, it is a Friday. May’s final Friday for 2022.
It’s a chilly one, rain and clouds moving in, asserting their influences, sending the sun under cover. Sunrise was before I rose, 5:40 AM. Sunset is due at 8:36 this evening. Our temp now is 52 F and we only expect 67 while undergoing showers throughout the day. BYOL: bring your own loofah.
The neurons have Journey singing “Any Way You Want It” from 19 what playing in the morning mental music stream. This is a response to the felines and their food demands and petulance. I was just giving in, like, “If that’s the way you need it,” etc, and the neurons jumped all over it. The video is a kick to watch, with its throwback to a mechanical jukebox sliding vinyl in to be heard. Then there’s the boys in the band, long hair and skinny bods, sneers and smirks, rocking away.
Coffee needed. And brekkie. Stomach is telling the neurons stop with the typing thing and feed me, Seymour. Stay positive and test neggy. Wear masks as needed, when needed, etc. Here’s the music. I’m off to answer other needs. Cheers
Ah, today is Thursday, May 26, 2022. Sunrise came around without much surprise at 5:41 this morning. Clouds have strung out a thin haze on top of the blue sky. Today’s sun is weaker, thinner, milder. It’s 70 F outside. The high will probably find 76 around my house before the sun takes it light and moves on at 8:36 PM.
Today’s song emerges from many different things, partly from interactions with cats, but also from news and politics. The song is “Maybe” by Janis Joplin. Janis didn’t write it but did a great job of delivering it. My mind was full of maybes, you know, maybe this will happen, maybe people will wake up and changes will grow roots and places. Ultimately, I’m an optimist, always looking for the arcs of justice and freedom to bend toward equality, and for humanity to come together and find and develop solutions instead of whining, bickering, and backstabbing. But also, I went outside at 11:30 last night. The cats were out; Papi, aka Meep, the ginger blade, is usually out back. So I popped the door open and waited for him to arrive. Nothing.
The air was cool, the sky was clear, dark, and quiet, and the stars and planets and galaxies were up there, enticing me to step out and take them in. I was out there, breathing in air and admiring heavenly bodies, when I heard Papi’s familiar mewing. I called him; the mewing grew louder but more frantic. Although dark, I can usually discern his pale body. I couldn’t. I called again; louder and more urgent answers were returned.
WTF, over. I turned on the patio light to find him. Walking around, we engaged in call and response. And finally, thinking I was hot on his trail, I speculated, “Maybe he’s up in the tree.” He then looked down at me from the gutter attached to the roof about five feet above my head. Anyway, he got down fine on his own once I walked over to where the height difference between the fence and the roof was lowered to three feet. He jumped down there, no problem. I imagine that’s where he went up but that he became disoriented.
But that maybe, along with the other maybes, had stirred up the neurons. By this morning, “Maybe” was playing in the morning mental music stream. Yes, the song is about personal relationships, but I was hooked on that chorus – “Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Now, of course, I had to find a video or recording of it. Luck was with me as I found her on Ed Sullivan belting out “Maybe” in 1969. Love it when a plan comes together.
Stay positive, test negative, and enjoy this music while I enjoy coffee. Have a better day. Cheers
Full sunshine, full leaves. Leafy trees square up shadows across the back lawn, ripe with weeds. Bees visit the slumping dandelions. Sunshine jumps into the open spaces.
It’s a lazy morning for me and the cats. Done eating, they wash up and chat up birds, twisting heads to regard a squirrel’s noisy trespassing, resuming their grooming after the squirrel takes his business away. I tend a cup of coffee, sneaking hot sips past my lips, waiting for the caffeine’s magic to jump into the blood and brain.
It’s Saturday, May 21, 2022. Had blood tests done yesterday, routine matters to see what’s what, mentioned because I was asked to sign my name and date a document. The neurons were instantly amused; how long has it been since I was asked to do these things that were once daily routines?
Sunrise was sprung on us at 5:44 AM, I’m told. I didn’t witness it, staying in bed at that point to wrestle dreams. Sunset will come around at 8:31 PM. We had a cool morning, 50 F when the cats and I went out back, but sunshine was rapidly warming it. The weather masters say that the high will be 73 F. I will do yardwork, I decide, regarding the bushes and trees.
Later, inside, awaiting the caffeine’s arrival, I surfed the net and hummed a song. For some reason, the neurons had dumped “New York State of Mind” (1976) by Billy Joel into the morning mental music stream. “Surprise,” they shouted, when I recognize the song. “But why?” I asked them. “Why that song?”
One volunteered, “It’s a slow, bluesy, sleepy song about routine moments and found-again places.”
“So?”
The neurons shrugged. “It just feels like the morning.”
Impeccable logic.
Stay positive, test negative. The caffeine is pulling into the station. Brain cells are climbing aboard. Here we go. Cheers
As the world turns, we clock the date and time, making it out to be May 19, 2022, Thursday. Hah. Cold spring weather has returned on us. 50 F, with a wind barking out of the mountain snow. Will only achieve 60 today. Although there’s sunshine out there, and the sun rise was at 5:46 this morning, thick towering clouds loom over the valley. They look like they plan to stay here until past sunset at 8:29 PM.
Fred provoked the neurons into playing today’s theme music. Fred is a NIP character. I’d just finished writing a section from his POV yesterday, and was walking, preparing to move on from the writing day. He still resided in me as I walked. Picking up on that, the neurons fed “Silent footsteps crowding me, sudden darkness, but I can see.” That’s Fred. The song, “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature” by the Guess Who (1970) took over the morning mental music stream. It’s okay, though, because Fred is still on today’s writing menu.
Stay positive and test negative. Don’t get complacent. Telling myself as much as you. Here’s the music. No sugar in my coffee, thanks. Cheers
Yesterday was a gorgeous day locally, and today extends a promise that it came be the same. Today is May 17, 2022, a Tuesday, as it goes. The sun crowded into the valley at 5:48 AM. It was already in the mid fifties by then. Now it’s up to the low sixties, and we expect a high around 73 F. As I noted, it’s much like yesterday. Sunset should come at 8:27 PM.
We breakfasted out this morning, the first time we’ve eaten breakfast out locally since Feb. 2020. See, back in 2019, we participated in an auction to support exchange students with our sister city in Mexico. One of the things we successfully bid on was a gift card for one of our local favorite restaurants, Brothers. My wife has some anxiety that COVID-19 will surge back into the area as tourism kicks in and people become complacent, so we took advantage of the low local numbers to use our gift card. She had mushroom and onion omelet while I did the Mediterranean scramble with artichokes, dried tomatoes, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and spinach. It was a pleasant, relaxing, and welcome change to our routines of the past two years.
I ran into a very friendly big black dog while I was out walking yesterday. Muzzle grayed with age, his body went into a hyper frenzy of wagging, like we were favorite cousins encountering one another after decades away. I was in the street so I worried that he was a stray but his person came out and reassured me. The dog and I spent a few minutes together and then he went home with his person, back to his yard. After I resumed walking, the neurons unleased “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin into my mental music stream, where it still resides this morning.
So, here’s the music, and there’s my coffee. Stay positive and test negative, you know? Right. Cheers
Another lovely sunrise, full of bravado and promise. Then clouds announced, “That’s enough,” and blanketed the sunshine. “Save some for later.”
Today is Monda, May 16, 2022. The sun’s entrance was made five hours and forty-nine minutes after midnight. Sunset will begin at 8:29 PM. Our valley’s temperature is 52, with breezes running warm and cool playing around us. A high of 69 F is possible, they say.
One of my cats lost their fight with cancer two months ago. As always, it was a gritty fight. I wrote about his passing at the time and I’m dealing with the soft sorrow of reminders and gaps. Well, one of those happened. The late Boo had a specific nesting spot in the backyard. He’d face the back door and do a loaf in the sun. Whenever I came to the door, he’d been watching and say hello. My other two cats, Tucker and Papi, have taken to resting in Boo’s old space. They began this the past few days. First Tucker did it two days in a row, and then Papi.
My mind said, WTF? It of course channeled Boo back into immediate thoughts. This morning, seeing Papi out in Boo’s spot, watching him watching me, hearing him give me a soft hello, the neurons called out “The Needle and the Damage Done” by Neil Young (1972). No, Boo didn’t pass from heroin and a needle. Neil’s raw introspection and simple melody is what I felt when considering Boo’s absence, for that’s what the song is about — “Gone, gone, the damage done” — whether it’s by drugs, cancer, or other diseases. So, for Boo.
Stay positive, test negative, etc. I gotta see a cat about some coffee. They’re onto me. Cheers
This is Sunday. We’ve awoken to that fact. Other information filters in. May 15, 2022. Almost half of May numbered as the past. Almost half of 2022 joining the historic ranks. Sunrise, 5:50 AM, was bright and strong. There to see it, because Papi stayed up and outside to see it, and called me to come see it. Temperature is 56 F. Anticipated high is around 77 F. Sunset: 8:25 PM.
The neurons floated multiple songs through the morning mental music stream, creating, for a while, a morning mental music stream medley. Yeah, I went there. Most of these songs were from the late 1970s. Putting it together, I think they go well with the age I was in a dream and put it all down to wishful thinking about when, where, and was.
The medley eventually thinned. Linda Ronstadt rose with “Blue Bayou” from 1977 and took over the MMMS. I once won a small wager with this song. About ten years after it’d been a hit for Linda, a young guy was talking about the song. I realized that he attributed it to her as the original artist and told him that Roy Orbison had it as a hit when I was a child. He was flabbergasted. We went through several other songs that night, including, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”, which he ascribed to Guns ‘n Roses, and “A Hazy Shade of Winter” ‘by’ the Bangles.
I love that one line from the song, “If I could only see that familiar sunrise through sleepy eyes, how happy I’d be.”
Okay, coffee time. Stay positive and test negative. Be on guard, but chill. Here’s the music. Cheers
Rain and snow finds us today. The snow isn’t down at our levels, but we can look out and see it up around five thousand feet on the trees and mountains surrounding the valley on three sides. Freeze warnings are in effect but the temperature doesn’t stray below 37 F in our locale and elevation. 54 F is the expected high. Sunshine has been sparring with the clouds since sunrise at 5:55 AM. Sometimes sunshine punches through, pushing us toward the impression that the weather is clearing. But the clouds regroup and roll back in with a new dark menace, delivering swaths of rain. Sunset, at 8:20, should be interesting. Yesterday’s was a pink infused study of clouds in eggplant and gray.
The fur bois are not pleased with this weather change. The old man, Tucker, only goes out when it’s sunny and warm these days. However, comma, if the young blade wants to go out, Tucker must go see why he wants out and what he’s doing. The ginger prince, aka Papi (aka Meep), goes in and out multiple times, trying to find weather accommodating to his needs. But no, this side is too rainy, that side is too windy. Rapid drumming on the door follows as he orders, “Let me back in!”
I have a Sweet song from 1978, “Love is Like Oxygen”, in the morning mental music stream, put there by the rascally neurons. I was in the kitchen, mumbling to myself and the cats, asking the furred ones, “Are you hungry?” They were answering, “Duh, where’s the food? Give me food.” My mumblings to self were about the promise and lure of coffee. During some part of my interaction with myself, I thought, “Coffee is like oxygen.”
Well, yeah, the neurons jumped on that. First, they tortured the song’s lyrics to fit my sentiment, changing love to coffee in the lyrics. Abandoning that, they just started playing the song, you know?
In an aside, when I first heard this song, I thought, that’s an interesting tune. But it didn’t overly move me or anything. I was startled to discover it was by Sweet because it seemed strikingly different from their previous stuff, like one of my faves from them, the over-the-top, “Ballroom Blitz”.
Test negative, stay positive, wear a mask as needs dictate, get more jabs when it makes sense for you, etc. Coffee is at hand. Here’s the tune. Cheers
The records are in and it’s official: April was our rainiest on record. So, that’s good news.
But we’re still in a drought because so many previous years were dry.
Weather and climate change are as fascinating and challenging to contemplate as politics and quantum entanglement.
Today is Monday, May 9, 2022. An impressive sunrise, blasting around clouds, giving those dark boys silver linings, was struck at 5:56 this morning. The sundown show will start at 8:19 PM. Today’s high is expected to be 47 F, just five degrees from where we’re at. Storms are expected throughout the week, including today. Snow and rain showers are possible tomorrow.
All this weather had me singing “Stormy Monday” as recorded live by the Allman Brothers Band waaayyy back when. The neurons were taken by surprise; they were singing other things, filling the morning mental music stream with amazing melodies, but I called an audible. They’re still resisting it, so I’m about to blast it to impress upon them how serious I am.
Stay positive and test negative. Endure, succeed, thrive. Have some coffee. I know I will. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 