Saturday’s Theme Music
I’m just sitting here watching the weeks go round and round, I really love to watch them roll.
So we’ve rolled into another Saturday, designated by the powers and systems as November 20, 2021. Not quite as graceful as yesterday, when it was 19, 2021, but still, with a nice symmetry. Sunrise popped in on us in the valley at 7:07 AM, fog free, smoke free. Silky layered pewter clouds are lazily stretched over most sky. Just a little blue skin showing. While it’s 36 F now, the powers say that our high will be 55 before the world turns, the sun descends, and darkness throttles the land again at 4:45 PM.
Dreams were of an unusual variety with a distinct Chinese flavor, in which I was a boy in China watching a parade and observing other things. Can’t specify if I was Chinese, but I was about six to eight, I think, on a warm day, in shorts, in a city. I feel the book I just finished, When We Were Orphans, set largely in Shanghai, affected the dream, yeah?
Now, as I’ve started with John Lennon and “Watching the Wheels”, I think I’ll dub it today’s theme music. After all, it is going round and round through the morning mental music stream. Might as well put it to work. The song was released in 1981, after his murder, and I’ve always attached sentiments to it from that.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Don’t just sit there watching the wheels go round and round. Let them take you somewhere. Mine are taking me to a cup of steaming black coffee. Watch me go. Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music
Good Friday to you, Earth dwellers and guests. Today is November 19, 2021. Sunrise, when the sun brightened the marbled rain clouds for us, arrived at 7:06 AM, lifting temperatures to 46 degrees F enroute to a projected high of 50. Some solid rain fell an hour ago. Now everything is just soaking in it and relaxing. Sunset cometh at 4:46 PM in the sliver of time and space known as today, Ashand, Oregon.
We slipped out to see the lunar eclipse last night. The clouds parted enough to titillate us for about five seconds before sliding closed and dropping some drizzle on our upturned faces. Rain and moon thinking fertilized rain and moon songs in my morning mental music stream. Moon and rain feature heavily in the pop/rock era lyrics. Without trying, at least two songs of each arose for the occasion. No, really, it was about a dozen of each hardwired in my head. A youthful favorite took the top post and cemented its place as Friday’s theme music.
Here is Led Zeppelin with “Fool in the Rain” from 1979. Hope you enjoy it. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, stay hydrated, and get the vax and booster when you can. I’m off for coffee. Later, gator. Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music
A stick, a stone, the end of a poem, the beginning of the day, the end of the night.
Hello. Welcome to the new, improved, Wednesday, now with better flavor and new packaging.
Today is November 17, 2021. Last night’s temp dipped to 32 F under clear skies. By sunrise at 7:04 AM, it was back up to 41. But with that rise came a stout series of winds jostling the trees, rattling the windows, and urging the cats, get back into the house. A high of 56 is in the cards if we play them right (yeah, like we can do anything, right, but hold onto the cards as the wind tries blowing them away) before sunset at 4:48 PM.
“They call me the working man, guess that’s what I am,” was bubbling through the morning mental music stream today. Don’t know why the Rush song from 1974 has been called up. I’m not a working man; if anything, I’d call myself a non-working man, a label I attached to myself way back in…well, 1974, when I graduated high school. It might be the guitar solo that sprang to mind. It’s a pretty nifty turn by Alex Lifeson, the Rush guitarist. I’ve always enjoyed the group, but again, sadly, we lost the drummer Neil Peart, last year, and the group says they’re done touring.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. Stay healthy in general, and keep pressing forward. Here’s my coffee — hot and black — and the music. It’s a ‘live’ version found on the net that entertained me. Enjoy. Cheers
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Sun, glorious sun! Warm and bright sunshine. Makes me feel so fine.
Yes, the fog is gone. The cats and I were out at sunrise (7:02 AM), exulting that Tuesday, November 16, 2021, was fog free. A caveat was injected, though: sunny, but not overly warm. The temperature was hovering at 37 F at that point. It’s since climbed to 45 F. They claim it’ll scale the thermometer all the way to the mid-fifties today. Looks like solid walking weather. I’m planning a late afternoon excursion but will carry a flashlight in case I’m out there after 4:48 PM, when the sun does its disappearing trip. Good to have a flashlight when you’re out in the dark. Besides the cars who won’t see you and will whack you, bears and cougars have been spotted in the area. I’ll hold the flashlight up to my face so that they can see who I am, should I encounter them, and reassure them that I mean no harm and don’t appear too tasty.
Today is jab day for wife and me. We received the J&J vax months ago. Today we go for the Moderna booster. We’re excited.
My spirit has been juiced to audaciously high levels today. The song running in my morning mental music stream is “Roll with the Changes” by a little band called REO Speedwagon from 1978. It’s a fast-moving rocker with encouraging lyrics, though it has been posted as the theme music a few years ago.
So if you’re tired of the same old story,
Oh, turn some pages
I will be here when you are ready
To roll with the changes, yeah, yeah
h/t to lyricsdepot.com
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. Now coffee is singing in the other room, “Keep on brewin’, keep on brewin’.” I’m gonna go see what that’s about. Have a better one. Here’s the music. Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music
Hello, TPs. TP is net for Terra peeps, people of Earth. Catch up.
The pendulum has swung again, that never pausing pendulum that marks the weeks, bringing a new week on us. Today is Monday, November 15, 2021. Foggy and drizzly here in Ashland. Marks like four straight days of fog. Ashland likes holding onto one look. They promised us 68 F yesterday. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, those weather gods. We were never anywhere near that. Whiffed on spotting any sunshine. I suspect the same today. 53 F now. They speak in television tones of 63. I am doubtful. Maybe 56, 57. Sunshine dribbled through the fog at 7:01 AM. We anticipating it dribbling back out at 4:49 PM.
The music part of my morning mental music stream is occupied by “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star (1994). When I mention this song or Mazzy Star, I generally receive blank looks in response. Maybe it was the stations which I listened to, but it was regularly played when I cruised the SF Bay Area in the mid nineties. I also hear the song on television shows and in movies once in a while. Anyway, the song is with me today because, dreams. The song wasn’t in the dreams per se, but when I reflected on them, the song arose.
You live your life, you go in shadows You'll come apart and you'll go black
While I didn’t go black or come apart in the dream, the situation did, although I handled it in good humor. It was more about the ending, I guess, which faded like steam rising into the air as I drifted awake. Also, the nature of the dream provoked remembering some places and people as I reconstructed the dream’s layers. Sadly, David Roback, one of the forces behind this song and Mazzy Star, died last year, cancer, just 61 years old.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. Now I’m getting some coffee because I can. And I’ma gonna drink it, because I can, and be thankful about it, because I can. Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music
The fog thickens!
Good morn, Earth peeps. Today is November 11, 2021. Sunrise slivered in through the fog about 7 AM and will take its weak warmth away from us as the planet does it spin at about 4:50 PM, providing us with a robust ten hours of sunlight. Fog is depleting the sun’s gifts. Visibility in my locale is down to a hundred feet. The fog’s effect on the scenery always brings dystopian Twilight Zone ideas into my noggin. Like, reality is being eaten away; nothing can be seen because there’s not anything there any longer. With the fog, our temps will rise to 68 F! Are you a believer?
“I’m A Believer” has made itself cozy in the morning mental music stream. I’m not surprised. All that thinking about believing. I alternate between the Monkees version and the Smashmouth cover. I’m going with the Monkees from 1966. Sentimental value, you know. I was ten then. The song was part of our rotation during our basement star fantasies, where we used items resembling microphones, stood on chairs, and sang and played air guitars like we were in front of millions of adoring fans.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. A cuppa coffee is shouting my name. Be rude to ignore him. Here’s the music. Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
It’s a foggy Saturday out there, Earthheads. Today is November 13, 2021. The last month is sliding toward us like an avalanche gathering speed as it barrels down the mountain.
Sunrise peeked in at 6:59 AM and has pursued a peek-a-boo routine through the fog since. Temps aren’t bad, 56 F now, looking for something in the low 60s late, but rain is forecasted. It’s Ashland’s November weather.
Blues music hotwired the morning music mental stream. After some mental listening, “I’m Tore Down” by Freddie King settled in. I hunted down a suitable for the post version from a television show that serves. Always enjoyed Freddie King. His electric guitar playing can be heard emulated in droves of rock and pop guitarists.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get a vax or booster when you can. I’m going for my coffee. Can I get you anything while I’m up? No? Then enjoy the music. I’ll be back in a flash. Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music
Dateline: Ashland, Oregon, USA. Friday, November 11, 2021. Sunrise allegedly came to the valley at 6:57 AM after a night of mild temperatures that drooped to 42 degrees F. Three cats were said to have witnessed the sunrise. This reporter reached out for confirmation but all phone calls and emails were initially ignored before one cat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “Listen. Time exists. But that clock and calendar crap is all human.”
“Surely animals pay attention to time.”
“Sure, but we don’t try to carve it down to tiny pieces to eat like humans do. Listen, there’s small time and big time.”
“Small and big time?”
“You don’t know this? Humans are so dumb. Small time is eating time, sleeping time, bathing time, screwing time, and playing time. That’s all the time you need. I don’t need anything fancy, like seven o’clock, to know it’s eating time. And we don’t call eating time a bunch of different names. You’re eating. That’s all you need to know. Humans complicate everything.”
“But what about hunting and killing? Animals do these things.”
“As part of eating, or screwing, but most of us only do it when necessary. Killing takes a lot of energy.”
I was scribbling in haste but he was turning away. “What’s big time?”
“Being born and dying.” He sauntered away, speaking over his shoulder. “Now leave me alone. It’s sleeping time.”
For theme music today, I’m going with Rod Stewarts’s 1989 song, “Forever Young”. I’d never seen the video before. Was living in Germany for the military and didn’t get a chance. Probably could’ve but didn’t watch much television in those days.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed by situation, and get the vax and booster when you can. I’m scheduled for the booster next Tuesday. I’ll ask the cats to give you an update once it’s done. Now. Need coffee. Enjoy the tune. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 