Category: memories

Tuesday’s Theme Music

It’s a chilly Tuesday morning, April 20, 2021. I wanted to put the year as 2015. I don’t know what’s causing that faux temporal shift.

We had our first sun peek at 6:22 AM and expect to bade farewell for the day at 7:58 PM. It’s chilly because clouds are shading the edge from the sun’s influence. Still, 55 degrees F is better than, say, ten, twenty, or thirty degrees colder. The cats are eating it up, diving outside as the sun breaks, staying out in the yard, floofzing away, awakening when yard work or birds disturb them. 76 degrees was seen yesterday, which was great for walking, sitting outside in a chair reading, etc. I expect today to be about six degrees cooler.

For music, I’ve trapped an old Ramones song in my brain. “Blitzkrieg Bop” is a short but rousing ditty that came out in 1976. I’d always interrupted the lyrics ‘tight wind’ as ‘time wind’. I thought the idea of a time wind was really cool. “Hey, it feels like the 1960s blowing through here.” A little disappointed when I learned the true lyrics.

They’re forming in a straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They’re piling in the back seat
They’re generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Hey ho, let’s go
Shoot ’em in the back now
What they want, I don’t know
They’re all revved up and ready to go

They’re forming in a straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Boom — it’s Monday. It’s like it happens every week. Today is April 19, 2021, which doesn’t happen every week. In fact, this date makes this day unique. Meanwhile, over in the sky, the sun came creeping around my back window in Ashland at 6:24 AM. It’s fully out now, and will steal away at 7:57 PM. Speaking of sun and long hours, yesterday cracked 80 degrees F but didn’t take us to the heat they’d been forecasting. We’ll strike the mid to upper seventies today.

It’s day three of our three-day green smoothie fast. It’s working well. Hard a handful of raw almonds, another handful of raw walnuts, a few celery sticks, and prunes, along with three smoothies. My favorite was the mango-pineapple-banana super-greens offering. Other than when I was out doing yard work and smelled someone’s Italian meal preparation floated through the air did I think, gotta eat. Didn’t, though. The smell reminded me of good food, but also things that Mom used to cook when I was a kid. Need to stop writing about it now because it’s having an adverse effect on my willpower.

Musically, “Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders (1979) came to me after my shower, when I was drying off. Brass in pocket? Don’t know. My wife and I take little book-cations this year. A book-cation involves taking the book you’re reading, getting into the car, driving to the park, getting out of the car and finding a place to sit and read for a while. It’s just a break in routines and fresh air/experience nature opportunity. We went yesterday (got a new book to read, “The Resisters” by Gish Jen”) (yeah, finished “Circe”, “The Night Watchman”, “The Sentinel”, and “The Death of Vivik Oji”). When we did, though, I also took notebook and pen, like the old days, to think about the novel revisions and write through my thoughts.

How does “Brass in Pocket” fit in with that? Well, the song always struck me as a cocky attitude, a sort of ‘I can do this’ stance. I later saw confirmation of that in a Christine Hynde interview (she wrote the song’s lyrics). So, I suspect my mind pulled it out as an affirmation. It’s a good song for re-attacking a project, and a good song for a Monday.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

TGIF! Yes, it’s Friday, April 16, 2021. Sunset is expected at 7:53 PM in Ashland while sunrise took place over thirteen hours before, at 6:29 AM. Summer’s shoulders are crowding into Spring’s thing as temperatures this weekend are expected to jump into the 80s. Controlled burns are underway around our small town. Smoke scars the blue sky and the burnt-wood smell lingers, an unpleasant reminder of past wildfires, and the ongoing threat.

Are you one of those who said, “Thank God it’s Friday”? I definitely am. I think that with so many people saying it, happy for the weekend, it lifted our collective energy. Still gives me a jolt although Fridays have much of the same flavor as most days of the week in these days.

“Name” by the Goo Goo Dolls (1995) came to me yesterday. I was in the car, waiting for my wife. She’d gone into a store to pick up two items. I wasn’t interested in going in. As I sat in the car, watching people going in and out, waiting in cars, etc., I remembered the song. I first heard it while on temporary duty in New Hampshire, visiting a satellite tracking station. The song always struck me as about anonymity, about being a person in a crowd of people where no one knows one another. Not a party group, but people going about the business of life.

Anyway, the song stayed with me. I present it to you. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Glory to you and welcome. Today is the old U.S. tax day, Thursday, April 15, 2021, when taxes needed to be filled, or an extension requested (and even if you get an extension, you’ll pay penalties and interest on any taxes owed). The tax deadline filing date is slipped back to May 17 this year, so you got time if you need it.

Sunrise came to Ashland in southern Oregon — boom — at 6:30 AM exactly. Sunfade is anticipated at 7:52 PM. What a bright sun it is, too, already warming our cool mountain valley air to 55 degrees F.

Been out shopping this morning, the usual Medford supply run for food and treats. Restocked my coffee (we are saved!). Love that French Roast stuff.

My mind started noodling the old 10,000 Maniacs song, “These Are Days”, when I was masking up while I was out. By old, I mean, 1992. These are days we’ll remember, I’m sure. Those just being born will hear about it. Those gathering again at high school reunions in ten years will be talking about, as will those getting married, and those of us just skimming along, doing our thang. Makes it an apropos song for any time, though I wonder what they’ll say about these days in a hunnert years.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

“Wednesday, Wednesday. Can’t stand that day.”

Yes, happy humpday, April 14, 2021. I have nothing against Wednesdays, myself. I enjoy Wednesdays. It’s a nice midpoint. I guess I’m a ‘week is half-done’ sort of person.

The sun snuck up on us at 6:32 AM and will shy back behind the planet at 7:51 PM. The weather is strolling away from winter, gaining more spring confidence everyday. Green thickens in the trees around us and adorns the rolling hills. Although it’s now 49 degrees F, we expect the thermometers to see 73 before beginning its evening descent.

I found myself singing a 1982 song. I dreamed of a Porsche 911 SC, which was produced between 1978 and 1983 (yeah, I looked it up to confirm what I recalled). Thinking of the car and the years the model was produced led me through the memory vaults. I recalled that I lived in Texas in 1978, having been assigned there in the military after I returned from the Philippines, then got out, moved to West Virginia, went back into the military a year later, was assigned again to Texas in 1979, and then ended up on Okinawa by 1981. The song that came to mind then was “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, get the vax, and enjoy the music! Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

We’ve landed on Earth, Tuesday, Coffee 13, 2021. Coffeerise was at 6:34 AM and coffeeset is expected at 7:50 PM.

Sorry, have coffee on my brain. Was walking around the kitchen singing the old round to myself, “C-o-f-f-e-e is what I need. It’s a drink some people wake up with. That it makes you nervous is a myth. Slaves to a coffee cup, they can’t give coffee up.” I learned that thing in grade school. Sing it often as I make my coffee.

Speaking of singing, between the coffee song, I was singing “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, 1976. Except, I subbed coffee for dancing. “You are the coffee queen, fresh and strong, that’s why you’re in this song. Coffee queen, felt the heat from the coffee machine, oh, yeah.”

Tres popular, topping the charts in multiple nations, that song was relentlessly played everywhere in 1976. Disco club DJs loved it — or the dancing crowds did. This morning, it’s in me like a strong cuppa. So I share it with you, a magnanimous gesture on my part, to get it out of my head. You’re welcome.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, get the vax, and have a cuppa. Doesn’t need to be coffee, but it’s what I need.

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Going-out Day

Going-out day was coming up. Just twelve days until they would toddle out to re-discover the world.

He thought, what should I do about my beard? He played with it during the thirteen months, twice shaving it off to begin again. No matter. It wasn’t the beard that dissatisfied him but the foundation underneath it. The sagging on display. As for his hair…oh.

She brought out her clothes. Examination of style and fit was conducted. Her shoes followed. She thought about what to do with her hair. A lot could happen to hair in thirteen months.

They made tentative plans. Cautious. Visits to new old places were broached. Small dreams of where they could go and what to do were nurtured. They would still wear masks. Of course. Wash hands. Avoid contact. Socialize outside.

She marked her calendar. Hairdresser. Dentist, hard times in cautious ink on the calendar, the first mark on its fresh pages. He planned a day in his mind. Beer with friends. He’d not seen them in thirteen months, except one of them. Two who were there before would not be there.

A lot of life happened in thirteen months. It was a heavy weight.

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A War Games Dream

I dreamed I was playing war games. Not the kind where troops are loaded into aircraft and dropped somewhere while aircraft fly sorties and ships maneuver, such as the ones I did as an adult in the military. No, this was the board games type where famous battles are played out to see how you fare compare to the real deal, on boards pre-home computers. I used to play these all the time. I’d started with Battleship, progressed to Risk, Axis & Allies, and then got into more complex games. I’d even gone so far as to invent my own.

In this dream, I was a teenager. Like a movie, I was watching me. Walking around outside, I found small hills shaped like mountains and forests that rose to my thighs. Pieces about two feet tall were all around. Each was shaped as a tank to represent armor units, infantry, jets, destroyers, aircraft carriers, submarines, etc.

I realized I was on a huge board game. I wasn’t sure if I was a player, so I walked around, regarding the different pieces. They were very cool to me. The first pieces encountered were of WW II in Europe and north Africa, I discovered pieces from the American Civil War in one section, then found the Napoleonic Wars.

Someone told me it was my turn. I asked questions about what was going on, like, which side am I on, and what I was supposed to be doing. As the other explained it, I realized it was my father as he was when I was young. I was just grappling with pieces to make my first move when the dream ended.

Awakening, I chuckled about the war the subconscious neurons like to play as they engage in their own games.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Hey, today is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Sunday. It is also April 11, 2021. The sun came creeping into the windows in Ashland about 6:37 AM this morning and is expected to creep away at 7:48 PM.

With regards to the temperature, the sky cleared last night, which meant it grew cold. Temperatures clipped the lower thirties. Robust sunshine has already pushed us up to 45 F. We expect to bounce off the high sixties before the temperatures sink again. The cats are loving it. Each has gone out and found sunshine, sitting there like worshippers with their face to the sun. You can almost hear them purring, “Ahhhhh.”

Got my COVID-19 vaccination yesterday. Did the ‘one-shot’ J&J option, because that’s what was available. No ill-effects were felt yesterday. Feel fantastic today.

Song-wise, we’re looking at “Gonna Fly Now” by DeEtta West and Nelson Pigford from 1977. My wife drove this choice. “This site says that the number one song on your twenty-first birthday will tell you how your 2021 will go.” “Gonna Fly Now”, from the film, Rocky (1976). Here are the lyrics:

Trying hard now
It’s so hard now
Trying hard now

Getting strong now
Won’t be long now
Getting strong now

Gonna fly now
Flying high now
Gonna fly, fly, fly

h/t to Genius.com

I recall visiting Mom and my little sisters (just entering their teens) while on leave from the military in 1977. (I’d been in the Philippines on duty on an unaccompanied tour but returned home when my little brother was killed in a car crash.) The littlest sister (now a mother of two teenage boys herself) told me that this was her favorite song. Anyway, it’s become hooked in my head today. I must put it on the net to set it free from my mind (or free my mind from it…).

The wife’s song was “Shadow Dancing” by Andy Gibbs. She’s a year younger than me.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get a vax. Hope you fly. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Hello. Welcome to our show.

Today is Saturday, the tenth of April, 2021. Weatherwise, clouds have rolled in with ominous harbingers of rain. Their presence has kept us cool. Sunshine spilled into our southern Oregon valley at 6:39 AM, bringing a token of warmth. We’re up to 55 F now, and think, maybe ten degrees more will be achieved, before the sun retreats at 7:47 PM.

The post is a later than usual as we were out getting the COVID-19 vaccination. That’s done.

To the music! Today’s offering is cat-influenced, or as animals say, infloofuenced. (They — my cats — always insist that the word, ‘influence’, was originally, ‘infloofuence’. I point out that there’s no history supporting their claim. They smirk back. “We’re older than words, boy.”) Youngblood (aka Papi, Meep, and the Ginger Blade) loves going out throughout the dark hours. He loves coming back in during those times, as well, and then going back out again. He’s developed his knocking patter, coming to the bedroom slider for entrance and exit. Although socks are sometimes tossed his way to stop him, he’s a persistence boogerfloof. So I let him in and out, in and out.

Well, that in and out thinking dredged up a 1975 song by The Who out of the memory mines. “Squeeze Box” was an international hit for the group. The lyrics are all about an accordion, which is also known as a squeeze box.

Mama’s got a squeeze box
She wears on her chest
And when Daddy comes home
He never gets no rest

‘Cause she’s playing all night
And the music’s alright
Mama’s got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night

Well the kids don’t eat
And the dog can’t sleep
There’s no escape from the music
In the whole damn street

‘Cause she’s playing all night
And the music’s alright
Mama’s got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night

She goes in and out and in and out
And in and out and in and out
She’s playin’ all night and the music’s all right
Mama’s got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night

h/t to Genius.com.

Wear a mask, get the vax, stay positive, test negative, and carry on. That is all.

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