Category: memories

Thursday’s Theme Music

It’s crazy Thursday, where anything can happen to anyone at any time. In this regard, it’s very similar to crazy Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s also February 10, 2022, the only day it’ll ever be this day.

Sunrise was another sunshine-filled production. The mountains keep us fairly dark until the sun heaves itself over their edge, then it’s a fairly sudden illumination, a blazing concoction of light and heat. This officially came about at 7:14 this morning. Sunfall — or set, as many label it, for when the sun falls below the horizon as the Earth rotates — is due at 5:27 PM. Yesterday’s high saw us at 64 degrees F. They claim we’ll hit 75 today, about 23 degrees above our normal average high for this time of month and year. If we do hit that number, it’ll beat the record of 72, set back in 1992. What we’d really like is a bit of snow and rain. Our waters are steadily dropping, painting a despairing portrait of what the summer will be. Many growers are already lamenting that their produce will not grow again this year. Not enough water. Of course, that sends prices up locally, regionally, and nationally. It’s one big cluster growing.

Had beer with friends for a few hours yesterday evening. Six of us sat and toasted, recalled, lamented, and celebrated with a few pints at a favorite local brewery and restaurant, Caldera. We were outside, far from others. All six of us have been vaxxed and boosted, wear masks, isolate, and socially distant. None of had COVID, although two have tested themselves several times as colds and allergies kicked them in the nards.

Today has a 1975 Pink Floyd composition percolating in the morning mental music stream. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” was dedicated to a former band member, Syd Barrett. They’d terminated his relationship with the band amid his increasing health issues and inability to perform. I don’t understand why this song is playing today, but I have no problem with it; it’s a song that I enjoy and haven’t heard in a while. Of course, I’m only offering up part of it today. It’s a lengthy tune. I do recommend that you listen to the whole of it sometime.

Since someone mentioned percolating, I guess I’ll go get coffee. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Wednesday has bloomed, fresh as a middle-of-the-week day can be. The sun popped over the mountains and turned on its blaze at about 7:15 AM, immediately registering as a positive on the sky’s light and warmth levels, taking us up off our 38 degrees F low. It’s already 58 outside. Fingers crossed that we’ll reach 67 F as they forecast. Friends and I are going to sit outside at a local brewery and toss back one or three before the sun drops out, taking its heat and light with it, at 5:36 PM.

A dream I remember from last night called today’s theme music into the morning mental music stream. “In the Navy” was a 1979 hit for the Village People. It was one of those songs that suddenly arose to be played everywhere, it seemed. Of course, its simple lyrics and strong beat made it memorable, and the general goofiness to it — I mean, you couldn’t take it seriously — made it a popular dance and party song for a while. Like many eras and their memes, you really had to be there to understand.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. Now off to the kitchen, where I’ll sing, “In the kitchen, you can make a cup of tea,” to the tune of “In the Navy”. Cheers.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Tuesday’s sun is full of light and makes the day unseemly bright. Daylight kicked in at oh seven sixteen, sending night fleeing like misbehaving children. Temperatures were coldish, 35 at dawn, but has kicked up to 41 and will go on up to the mid-sixties again before sunlight flees just as the night did, at seventeen thirty-four.

Today’s song is out of a feline interaction. One floof habitually sleeps by my head at night. A second came a-calling in the pre-dawn minutes, snugging himself against my legs. I reached down and scratched his head, receiving purrs in the return. As this transpired, I asked him if he’d gotten cold in the dark, which brought up the Billy Squier song, “In the Dark” from 1981. Friends were huge Squier fans. His music seemed to play whenever I rode with them in the car later in the eighties when we lived in Germany. This song, “The Stroke”, and “Everybody Wants You” were frequent members of my friends’ playlists, so I came to know the songs well. I haven’t seen those folks since 1999 but I see and hear them as soon as one of those three songs play. The power of music, yeah?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when possible. Here’s the music. I’m off for coffee. Don’t wait for me. Just play the song. I’ve already heard it. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday has popped in. Only plans to stay for a day.

Sunrise on this Feb. 7, 2022, came at 7:18 this morning. It was another fine exercise in bright sunshine and mountain blue sky. The impressive color values and clarity could have been featured in a beer commercial. Was 35 degrees F at sunrise but it’s 43 now and we’re under the impression that it will reach 65 before sunset at 5:33 PM. Of course, we were promised 70 yesterday. Only 64 was achieved, so don’t get yer hopes too high.

Today’s music comes from my wife’s exercise class. Conducted by Zoom by her friend operating from the local Family Y, she sets up her laptop on the dining room table and exercises in that room. The dining room is part of the ‘great room’ and that portion affords her the space to move freely about. This morning’s exercise music was a medley of Beatles covers. Well, I was in the adjacent kitchen, making breakfast when “Eleanor Rigby” came on. The morning mental music stream sucked the 1966 song right into its environments. Soon I was singing it as I fed the cats (with some mods to the lyrics for the activity at hand).

I fondly remember the song. It came out when I was ten and my elementary school music teacher had my class singing it as well as discussing its aspects of weddings and loneliness. Some schoolmates’ parents were appalled because *gasp* death and a funeral are mentioned in the song. *What kind of song is that for children?*

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax and jabs when you can, and have a cuppa coffee with me. Mine is black and fresh. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s a gorgeous Sunday out there, pure blue sky and sunshine, the sort of day, in my working past, when we would leap up and say, “It’s a gorgeous day. Where should we go? What shall we do?” But today, we’re on our computers, in our books, in our chairs, in our office, reading, eating, communicating, writing.

The sun burst over the mountains at 7:19 AM and we’ll lose the sunshine at 5:32 late this afternoon. It only dropped to 38 degrees F last night and quickly reach fifty today, promising to, um, 70 degrees F. What? Can the weather service be right? Is this really mid-winter in Ashland, Oregon? Well, the record high, in 1992, was 72.

Today’s song trickled in as I thought about the landslide dream this morning. “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac was written by Stevie Nicks and released in 1975. Although covered well by The Smashing Pumpkins and the Dixie Chicks, I have connections to that original song. In ’75, I was nineteen, married, serving in the military without my wife in the Philippines. So when you’re sitting in your room after work at night, getting your uniform ready for work the next day, sipping some alcohol, listening to music, connections are created.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax and booster when you can. Time for a coffee break. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Night drew back its filmy, star-studded sheet, slowly revealing day. The time was 7:20 AM and the day was Saturday, February 5, 2022. Night had waited eons for this encounter, surmounting fears and doubts to finally look at day. He’d been chasing her for centuries. She didn’t know why. Their movement had evolved into obsession. She wanted to know who it was chasing her. Ironic, but she had originally been the chaser, pursuing another on the other end. He’d been fleeting and fast, always just ahead, beyond the horizon. This one, though, was coming toward. If she could just wait and see…

But the forces that kept her moving, moved her on again.

Our low was 30 degrees F when night attempted to find who chased her. No clouds mar the sky blue crowning the valley. It’ll be 60 here in the dead of winter, twelve degrees above our average high, before night comes around after the sunsets at 5:31 PM.

I have a song from 1966 by The Outsiders, “Time Won’t Let Me”, blasting in the morning mental music stream. Yeah, it’s an oldie but so am I. Listen to that driving rhythm, though, that brass, that rising tension and soft counter-tension. Ah, classic rock.

Why this song today? Don’t know. Maybe it’s something I ate or drank. Perhaps a dream inspired it. Could be modern frustration or nostalgia that called it up. The neurons that could shed light have gone AWOL. Maybe they’re pranking me. I can imagine those neurons giggling and snickering, calling up a song and then scattering, laughing at the mischief they’ve done. Oh, those cheeky neurons!

But, as with any song that’s stuck, it must be shared to get it out of my head, so here it is. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get yer vaxxes and boosts when you can. Coffee is in hand. I know what I’m gonna do. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Rotating and orbiting as the planet has done for billions of years, we now come to February 2, 2022. A Wednesday, it may be memorable to many people for many reasons, but how does it compare to the past trillions of days? Our human lifespans are so short compared to the universe’s life scale that little of what we do is memorable in the cosmic sense. It’s why we narrow our focus down to our personal spaces and calendars. Contemplating the greater scale may well lead to nihilistic conclusions or heavy consumption of coffee, alcohol, or other drugs. Or eating disorders. So let’s just keep focus on our smaller but amazingly impactful days. They are impactful on us and that’s what builds our memories and experiences and skew our emotions.

Anyway, the sun ‘rose’ at 7:23 AM and will ‘set’ at 5:27 PM. I’ll drink some coffee and eat some food. I’ve already done some of the latter. You’re probably doing something similar, eating, or thinking about what you’ll eat, even considering, perhaps, who you’ll eat it with. Here in Ashland, it dropped to 28 F last night. Now it’s 36 with a high of 44 expected for the day. Dollops of congealed gray and white cloud float on the blue sky. We do not expect rain.

I haven’t done any of my daily games. They’ll come soon. I guessed my first word in Wordle in two guesses yesterday. On the other hand, it required all six in two games. Four other games took three or four. Yeah, I like Wordle. Getting it in two is luck. For instance, in the first game when I guessed it in two, the last two letters of my first guess were green. On a whim, I entered poppy as my second guess. That was the word. Yea for me.

Weirdly, I have a song called “If Not for You” living in the morning mental music stream. Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song. Then George Harrison recorded it, followed by Olivia Newton John. I had the albums for the first two performers. I heard the ONJ version on the radio one day and then turned around and pulled out the vinyl 33-RPM album to listen to Dylan and an eight-track tape to listen to George’s version. Doing that back then in my bedroom in Pittsburgh somewhere around 1973 (all of the versions were out by 1971), I never imagined the technology that would allow me to sit at my computer and pull up the same songs. Trippy, innit? Just think of how it all might be in another fifty years or so, right?

Part of me thinks about memories like this and wonder why it stays so sharply in my memory today that I can look around that room from my vantage here and see and hear the details of my life then. A sliver of me muses that maybe there’s some cosmic entanglement taking place. Another facet of me shrugs and mumbles, who knows?

For today’s theme music, I’ve selected a recording of Dylan and Harrison playing it together. Makes me smile. Stay postive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. I’m off for coffee now. Looking forward to it. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Did the conveyor belt of calendar days speed up? It’s already Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. I feel like George Jetson sometimes. The cat and dog sped up the walkway and now it’s a runaway, leaving George shouting, “Jane, stop this crazy thing,” as he goes round and round. Yes, time can feel like a crazy thing.

This morning’s sunrise at 7:24 AM seemed sudden. I was watching out the window on the southeast side where the sun first makes it way over my house in the winter. The slow rise was expected, but then it was like the sun leaped up over the mountain, blinding me as it shouted, “Gotcha!”

It was up to 33 F by that point. The water in the outside pet dish was frozen. I told my cat last night, when we went out at midnight and gazed at the clear, star-filled sky, “It’s gonna be a cold one, dude.” Not as cold as other places; these things are relative. I guessed 29, 30, which was on the mark.

Our high will be like yesterday, about 45 F, which is our winter average in Feb. Sunset will come at 5:25 PM. That means ten full hours of sunlight today! Woo hoo! But — still looking for that rain and snow. Worries about drought, wildfires, the snowpack, and reservoir levels hover over the pleasant winter hours.

When I was out walking yesterday, my mind drifted through writing projects and DIY issues before the mental jukebox turned on. It was on random, but Whitesnake with “Is This Love” was left playing in the morning mental music stream. The song was released in 1987 and the song and video have such a glam rock 80s vibe — the hair, the women in tight dresses, the beat, the guitar styling. What a scene.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax when you can, and let’s get off this crazy thing. Here’s the music. Ah, coffee. Such a wonderful aroma. Now, to taste.

Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today feels like winter outside. Not as much like winter where snow thickens in growing piles on the ground and obliterates visibility as is happening in many parts of the northern hemisphere. No, not that wintry. But chilly, with a polar snap in the air and a muted sun obscured by an endless cloud layer.

Today is Monday, January 31, 2022. The last day of January. One month of 2022 in the books. About 8.5% of the year’s days are gone.

The sun’s live streaming shine began at 7:25 AM and will cease at 5:24 PM. Temperatures are kissing the upper thirties now and are predicted to stop at 45 F. But no rain. No snow.

I have a Michael Jackson song from 1979 called “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” circulating in the morning mental music stream. It was a large hit back in the late seventies and early eighties, kicking off a new MJ era. The song is cat related for me today. My cancer-afflicted feline was eating this morning. I encouraged him not to stop until he got enough. Good to see him trying to eat robustly. You can see the music connection, right? He’s in sad shape, with a tumor maligning his handsome face. His personality remains the same, though.

Watching the MJ video is a trip back. He looked and acted so much different just four years later, when he came out with the Thriller album. He reminds me of David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, or Madonna, re-inventing themselves. The Beatles, Stones, Who, etc., were less about reinventing themselves and more about shifting and refining themselves. Either way, it’s been fascinating to observe all these these changes throughout the decades, and the music shifts that brought us to now.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. I’m getting coffee now because I can. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sunday. A hazy day, with strips of white clouds torn off and hanging on the blue sky. The sun seems diminished, and the air feels chillier. The dueling high and low pressure systems that’s been delivering our pleasant weather streak seem to be moving. Although it’s 44 F, it feels different. Today’s high will ‘only’ be 53, instead of the sixties that we’ve been hitting. Rain is forecast for tonight. Tomorrow should be ten degrees cooler. For historic purposes, our January average high is 48, and we’ve been consistently exceeding sixty. The sun popped in at 7:26 AM and will pop out at 5:23 in the evening.

Today’s music comes from yesterday. It hit as I checked out the day. “A Beautiful Morning” by the Rascals was released in 1968. Mellow, relaxed, it’s good accompaniment to walking on a nice day, which yesterday was, all sunshine, birds, and mild breeze. But although the sun sets at five twenty something, the mountains block its presence about seventy-five minutes before that. It gets cold in that shadow. While it’s entertaining to look across at the lucky people in sunshine on the valley’s other side, brown but sun-blessed at this time of year, I’d rather be walking in it.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters. I’m getting my coffee. Black, straight up. Cheers

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