Wednesday’s Theme Music
Hello, my fellow homo sapiens. Today is Wednesday, October 27, 2021. A dreary day in the valley of my home. Clouds blustering about rain. Winds whispering about storms. And the sun, quietly hanging back after its 7:38 AM, is a wallflower on this dance. A mild 52 F degrees now, we expect some of these clouds to skate away and leave us in the upper sixties before sunset takes over at 6:43 PM.
I was feeling philosophical last night. A power outage of five hours changed the day’s dynamics. It was a bit of a release, a staycation, as my other and I sat and chatted for most of those hours. I walked later, admiring the gowns the trees brought out for their fall collection. Russets have sprung into many, but there are mild browns, deep scarlet, brilliant red, and most impressively, lemon yellows that still your sight. Some of these leaves, especially on maples going red, seem like they’re lit with an inner light. Before that, I was enduring the monthly dark funk that likes to shroud me once a month for a day or two, spooning bitterness and weariness into me while maligning my energy channels. The walk helped reversed most of that, refortifying shaky defenses and infusing new determination back into my spine.
Out of that came a 1989 Indigo Girls song, “Closer to Fine”. Closer to fine is a good place to be. Not perfect but better than before.
Stay positive, test negative, don a mask as needed for the situation, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Here’s the tunes. Listen while I head off to the kitchen for my coffee. Cheers
Tuesday’s Theme Music
A little late with my typical posts. Power was out for over five hours today. Just back on line. Here we go.
The wheel has turned. We’ve all landed on Earth on October 26, 2021, a Tuesday. Speaking for my planetary sliver, it was a rainy night. Hungover rain clouds still drift aimlessly around, like they’re ready to go but don’t know where they’re going. A mild wind blows. It’s a cold 46 degrees F right now. The sun’s presence between now and sunset at 6:13 PM should add another ten degrees, giving us a high of 56 F. Sunrise, mild as an infant’s burp, arrived at 7:36 AM.
Our power is off. Yes, a power outage. Been out for half an hour now. Rare in our area. We had one a year ago, I think. They typically last one to three hours for us. The city has its own electric company, so there’s no outside company to blame. Like most, the questions of what happened and when will it end are foremost in our mind, with attendant worries about what it’ll do to our plans. I’m typing this in Word. Once power returns, I’ll connect to the net and post this, at which time, the power will be on. Follow?
I have “Heavy Fuel”, a 1991 song by Dire Straits, in the morning mental music stream on this Tuesday. BO – Before Outage – I’d a busy day planned. As I made and ate breakfast BO, I didn’t make my coffee but thought I’d do so soon because I’d need heavy fuel for the busy day. So I’m without coffee at the mo. I do have some Starbucks Via – think that’s what it’s called – instant stuff, and a gas stove, so I can boil some water and make do if I need. (Edit: which I did.) That’s why that instant coffee is on hand. It’s part of my emergency evacuation go bag. Meanwhile, I’ll go work on the novel until power is restored. Before the laptop’s battery dies. I replaced the battery a few months ago. The laptop is charged and says that it can give me another two hours. We’ll see.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Here’s the music. Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music
Season’s greetings to you, my fellow autumnites. Today is Skunkday, October 24 2021.
Yes, Skunkday, where everything is coming up skunky this morning. Sometime about 2:43 AM, a massive skunk front swept through the house. It was Phase III of the Night of Nature. Phase I was furious winds beating up the house and trees. Wind died. The second assault began: heavy rain. Didn’t mind it. Then Phase III: the skunk assault.
Don’t know what transpired. Dawn at 7:34 AM brought no evidence for this amateur sleuth. No wind damage; just nose damage. Woof. The air purifier is on. Some windows open on the non-skunk side. We’ll see if the air is fresh by sunset at 6:15 PM.
More rain is expected today. Temperatures remain in the mellow zone — low, 42 F, high of 60. Winds have calmed again but we’re being warned that the bombogenesis that’s churning storms out off the coast will be sending more our way. BTW, I love that word, bombogenesis. I think whoever came up with it was probably stoned or tipsy. Sounds like a word my friends and I would come over cups of wine or mugs of beer.
No songs in the morning mental music stream this AM. Made coffee. No song. Fed the cats. No song. Figure that between my dreams — it was a heavy dream night — and the skunk and weather, my brain was too full to register music. But then, there, thinking my head is heavy with dreams brings up Collective Soul playing “Heavy” from 1999. Which is a relief. Thought my mental Alexa had gone on the fritz.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, like when the skunks battle, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Here’s the music. I’m going back to my coffee. Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
We interrupt this morning with a special news bulletin. Today is Saturday, October 23, 2021. Sunrise was at 7:33 AM and sunset will be at 6:17 PM. It’s windy and rainy, 50 degrees F, with an expected high of 60 and a low of 42. Clouds splashy with gray and white sprawl across the sky. Every few minutes, sunshine and blue sky bolt through the clouds. Their escape is short as the clouds gang up to shut them down again. From appearances, I’d guess this struggle will be going on for a few hours.
Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill from 1993. I haven’t heard this song for at least twenty years. Probably more. But it was featured in a television show I streamed. Hearing it, I remembered how much I enjoyed it. It’s a straightforward, rambunctious punk sound, hard on a steady beat, thick with a driving guitar sound, sustained by heavy bass. Always inspires my head to start moving with it. And it’s a great sing-along chorus.
Sorry for the interruption. We’ll now continue with the morning and I’ll return to my coffee. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music
Give me an F! Give me a U! Give me a —
Oh, wait. I started to spell Friday but diverted onto a Country Joe and the Fish route. Some of you may not understand.
Starting over. Welcome to Friday, end of the work week for many, beginning of the weekend for multitudes. Today is October 22, 2021. Storms roared around us all night, giving drum solos worthy of a Rush concert. Sunrise stole in, infusing light and color into the gray day at 7:32 AM. Sunset comes around at 6:18 PM. A blustery wind has brought us balmy temps. We’re hovering around fifty right now and expect to reach the low sixties. Not as fine as yesterday, when the thermometer kissed the low seventies, but we’ll take it so long as it comes with rain.
Songs about rain and storms are naturally mingling in the morning’s mental music stream. I featured “Stormy” by the Classics IV a few years back. I thought I’d present the Santana cover, done in 1978, for today. Carlos stayed with the original song’s mellow feel. Of course, for me, the line so well known at the end of the chorus, “Bring back that sunny day”, isn’t about a woman, but just better times. Deliver us to some better days — some sunny days — around the world, s’il vous plait.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and vax up and booster up when you can. I’m behind on my coffee rations this morning. Need to go fetch that first cup. Here’s the music. Hope you enjoy it. Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music
I’ve rolled the dice. They’ve come up sixes. Moving my piece — which, by the way, is a beer mug — half full, thanks — I land on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Shadows are long and the sunrise is slow where I am. A weak, lethargic sun, debilitated by distance and angles, hindered by clouds. It began its journey through our sky, a function of the world turning, at 7:29 AM Pacific, and will retreat from our region at 6:21 PM.
Rain sang to us all night long, sometimes soft as a kitten’s swat. Othertimes it burst into a long Buddy Rich drum solo. The wind came in with demonic shrieking and wolfish howling. Now it’s calm. We hear it’s a momentary thing. We’re happy for the rain as it feeds root systems and replenishes our water sources. While it rains here, we keep our fingers crossed that it’s snowing in the mountains, building up the snowpack.
We’re at 46 degrees F. right now. High will be about 56. Air quality is good, at 7.
The morning’s mental music stream is entertaining me with “Eminence Front” by The Who from 1982. Not a favorite song nor album. I felt their mojo had waned by then. But — should be noted — I’m comparing this song with the music I knew from them ten years earlier. I believe front was the trigger for the song’s entrance into the MMMS. I was reading about weather fronts. I think the mental Alexa jumped on that and said, “Playing ‘Eminence Front’ by The Who.” She’s so cheeky.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vaxes and boosters as recommended. Then, chill. Have some coffee. I know I will. I hear it whispering to me from the other room. Here’s the music. Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music
Monday motivation has arrived. Yes, it’s Monday, October 18, 2021, the third Monday in October. Monday is often thought of as a new week and a new start. That works for me, part of the inculcation process begun with school and continuing with my work existence. I now work every day, writing, so there’s no new start to that process. Yet, Monday still starts a new work.
We’re trending toward winter. Winter weather warnings. Snow on the mountains albeit still mostly above four to five thousand feet. Colder and colder at night. Night will come after sunset at 6:24 PM tonight. Sunrise came, sluggish through the gray miasma, at 7:27. Precipitation isn’t forecast for our area today but showers arrived yesterday and hung around through the night. Dampness rules outside. The cats are displeased. Besides the cold and damp, the street cleaner made its regular journey over the roads, much to the cats’ disapproval. It’s like a giant vacuum cleaner to them, I think, circulating the neighborhood with its infernal noise.
The morning mental music stream is featuring U2 with “With Or Without You” from The Joshua Tree. The album was released in 1987 and I was immediately enamored with it. I was stationed in Germany at the time, where weather often seemed a damp, cloudy, and chilly. Neurons connected today’s weather with that German experience and brought the song forth. Yet, “With Or Without You” does fit with a sullen day that seems chilly and ambivalent about rain. The song begins introspective and searching but then expands and explodes.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax when you can. Here’s the music. I’m off for a coffee break now. Be back in a few. Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
Hear ye, hear ye, Saturday, October 16, 2021, is underway. Let the games begin.
Sunrise spanked us at 7:25 this morning in the valley. Warmer air dominates today. It’s already 56 and we expect a high of 79 degrees F. Should be a glorious autumn day before sunset takes place at 6:28 PM. Our air quality is stellar at a clear and fresh 10 as rain and cooler air helps us in the fight against wildfires. Containment is increasing. We take a breath of relief that another season has been survived. It has its costs, though, as wildfires destruction in 2021 in the U.S. is expected to cost between 70 and 90 billion dollars, along with lives lost.
I found myself walking around in circles this AM. Catering to cats, you know. Fickle felines. Want in, want out, want that food, this food, no, pet me, pet me, pet me, let’s go play! I did the feeding, a little ear and chin scratching, and then attempted to deal with my essentials — food and coffee. When all settled down I chuckled at hearing a song by Soul Coughing called “Circles” circling the morning mental music stream. The song was released in 1998. I probably wouldn’t be familiar with it but I had a friend and co-worker, Saba, who knew it. She’d already introduced me to the Squirrel Nut Zippers and Violent Femmes. Now, on a lunch run where she was driving, she called up “Circles” and introduced me to Coughing Soul.
So, here’s to Saba and her wonderful influence. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get a vax if you can. Enjoy the music while I ensure the dark deliciousness served as coffee. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 