Wednesday’s Theme Music
If you think this Wednesday is for the birds, it may be because it’s National Bird Day in the U.S. It’s also January 5, 2022. We have about three hundred sixty days until the new year, so hang in there.
The temperature has settled on 39 degrees F. We’re on the way to a high of 46 but clouds again have reduced the sunshine to graylight. Looks like rain out there, so bundle up. Sunrise came on like a slow spread at 7:40 AM and the sun will steal away at 4:53 PM.
My local friends are all buttoned down against COVID-19. All are vaxxed and boosted but all said, “Why risk it?” My wife and I had already decided the same. Gonna be a long winter.
As this is National Bird Day, songs with birds mentioned are in the morning mental stream. We have your robins, blackbirds, snow bird, freebird, night bird, nightingale, dove, and eagle. We also have a Flock of Seagulls. But then the neurons came up with Elton John and “High Flying Bird” from 1973. The album was Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player. Released in my high school junior year, I found that it dragged too much or the album felt sort of thin. But then, there were certain days, when events and words dumped my mood into the shitter, that this album was good to listen to as a salve for my teenage soul, a good counterweight to Dark Side of the Moon and Quadrophenia. Now the song is part of a pleasant trip back through my head to that place and those people, and the accoutrement wondering of what happened to different folks. Some stories have been told; others were swallowed by life.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed and distance, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Who’s up for coffee besides me? Here’s the music. Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music
40 degrees F. Rainy and foggy. Snow still clings to the Earth. The sun is AWOL behind a gray cloud curtain. We’re on our way to a 47 degree high.
Good morning. Welcome to Monday, January 3, 2021.
Windstorm last night. Sounded like highspeed trains encircling us. One wind slapped the house side like Thor’s hammer. No apparent damages, though.
Sunrise: 7:40 AM. Sunset: 4:51 PM.
“Higher” by Creed (1999) is the morning mental music stream’s resident song. Ruminating about the night’s rations of dreams invited the song in. The song is about dreams, although I sometimes feels like a religious paean: “Can you take me higher? To a place where blind men see. Can you take me higher? To a place with golden streets.” It could be drugs, too, couldn’t it? But I thought I’d adopt it for this new year’s first Monday: can you take me higher? Keep climbing, you know?
Stay positive, test negative, wear masks and drink coffee as needed, and get the jabs. I’m off for my coffee now. You just sit and listen to the tune. Cheers
A Short Tale
He sipped his beer, a locally brewed IPA, and then set the mug down. “I came to Ashland for love in 1972. I’d met this woman in Ohio. She lived here. So I followed her here.”
“Did you marry her?”
“No. We were together for ten years. Then she moved out and we moved on. She lives in Tacoma now. Married, with children.” He smiled toward the wall. “We remain on good terms. We talk to one another on the phone. Once in a while.”
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Welcome to Tuesday, December 28, 2021. It’s 28 degrees F out there, so wear your warmest sandals.
Sunrise came at 7:39 AM, showing that the snow is still out there. Had fifteen inches on the ground yesterday. We shoveled off the walk and driveway and removed the snow wall the plow had kindly built for us. This morning, all was covered by a fresh two inches. Everything was closed, canceled, or shut yesterday in our little town — well, everything except grocery stores, hospitals, and emergency services. They all functioned. It’ll get up to 36 F today, so we might get some relief if the weather system can move on the clouds and let the sun in. After sunset at 4:46 PM, the temperature is expected to drop locally to 19 degrees F. Yes, that’s chilly for us.
These snow levels are not consistent across the area. We’re in a valley. Houses are on the valley floor and up the mountain slopes. My house sits at about 1800 feet. Some friends higher than me reported that they had two feet of snow. Others who are lower in the valley received two to three inches. Up the Interstate twenty minutes where the valley is broad and wide, a buddy reported he had two inches. Three thousand feet higher than me, down the road ten minutes, they received sixty inches.
Weirdly, I have a song by the Beatles in the morning mental music stream. “I Feel Fine” came out in 1964. I remember neighbor girls playing a 45 RPM record of the song on a little pink and white portable phonograph on their back patio but that was a few years later, probably in 1966. I guess that because, while I was young, we’d moved to a new neighborhood then, our fourth one in five years. A lot of moves, houses, and schools, but it helps organize and structure my memories, if you know what I mean. I suspect the song is housed in the stream because my wife and I were talking about The Beatles with friends last week. My wife confesses that she didn’t like the Beatles. Never thought them that great. Which, shrug, is fine, because tastes are different, as are choices and circumstances. That’s life, which is another song now playing in my head (covered by Frank Sinatra), but we’ll go into that another day. I think “I Feel Fine” is in my head because I like that opening bit of feedback they incorporated. I’ve gone with a live version of the song so that feedback note is missing (ironic, right), but I enjoy flashing back to these live performances of groups and the changes between now and then so sharpy etched. Guess it feeds my nostalgia.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs and boosters as needed. Speaking of getting, I’m getting some coffee. Make it hot and black.
Here’s the tune. Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
Happy Saturday and Merry Christmas. If this is Christmas, then it is also December 25, 2021. If you had white Christmas on your wish list and live in my region, congratulations: you have won! Yes, we have 30 degrees F outside and about three inches of snow. Beautiful to take in, and shoots childhood memories through the neurons. Out last night, breathing in the snowy cold air as snowflakes flirted, I stood as a child and young man again, as I’d stood on many such nights in a string of diverse locations. I’m fortunate to have such memories and to still enjoy them.
Sunrise popped in with Christmas light at (drumroll) 7:38 AM and the sunshine will head at 4:44 PM. Our high temperature today is 34 F. During the and into the night, we’ll be celebrating on a low key this year, just the wife and I, although phone calls have been made, and Christmas baked goods are here to help put caloric joy into our bodies.
Thinking of Christmas memories, I was in the Philippines in the military in 1976. I’d been married less than two years and my wife was living with her parents in the United States while I lived in a dorm room. She and her family sent me a huge Christmas care package and I celebrated the holiday with other unaccompanied and single peers. We had a good time despite being away from family.
One song from that year is “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen. I would say that my wife is my best friend — certainly my longest friendship. We met and hit it off in June of 1971. Married four years later. Still together decades later. I’d never tell her she’s my best friend because she bristles at such sentimentality. But, here we are. I’m using it as my theme music on Christmas, 2021, half a century after meeting her.
Stay positive, test negative, enjoy some holiday cheer, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when you can. Make yourself some memories so you can pause on a dark night, look up at the sky, feel the weather, and recall who you were. Excuse me, a coffee has my name on it. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 