Category: memories

Saturday’s Theme Music

A little late getting here today.

For that, blame my ‘puter. It suffered a severe case of Microsoftitis.

Last night, the blessed machine told me, “Install Updates and Shutdown”? Why, yes, seems reasonable.

The little machine went about its business for a while. Percentages passed. Twelve…fourteen…eighteen…twenty-three.

I drifted away for a time. On my return, the machine said, “Couldn’t install update. Trying again.”

Okay, go for it.

Off I went to do other things. The machine was shut down when I returned. Well, it must’ve succeeded.

Maybe yes, maybe no. I experienced the latest version of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and went into an endless loop of trying to start, failing to start, running diagnostics, failing to repair the problem (kmode_exception_not_handled). Taking matters on for myself, I ran various diagnostics. They claimed that everything was great. Updated BIOS. It was great. Checked the image. Super-duper. Well, WTF?

Tried Restore Point. Failed: unspecified error OxO8OO70570. Using another computer, I looked for solutions. Tried logging into safe mode but couldn’t.

Geez. Eventually, I again refreshed and reinstalled matters.

(Funny, but just the other day, I mentioned that I felt great, but I was anxious, because this is 2020, and 2020 has a habit of biting people in the ass, as it did me today.)

Onto the music. Today’s song is Paul Simon’s 1980 hit, “Late in the Evening”. For him, it was late in the evening, and the music’s seeping through. For me, it was late in the evening, and all the news and my writing muse was seeping through. I swear, the muse seemed like she’d guzzled tankloads of coffee. Or maybe she’d gulped down sugar. Whatever it was, she was hyper-active. All her ideas just kept seeping through.

So here we go. Since I liked Simon and Garfunkel and enjoy recorded ‘live’ performances, I’m offering up S&G in Central Park. As always, hello, and see you later.

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Blueberry Hunter

Quinn was a compact cat. His silky fur and bushy tail made him look larger than he was and often drew compliments. I was partial to his sharp, jade eyes. His nickname was black paws for the dark fur that covered them.

He passed away almost a year ago, succumbing to cancer. With us for about twelve years, he was a refugee from another house on the street. He’d come in during a cold and windy night when I was out calling my felines. We fed him and put him up. I put out posters. He was identified, and his people came and got him, but he kept coming back to ours until the people gave up and moved away without him. I’m flattered that he chose us.

A strong-willed feline, he prompted me to write about him numerous times. My favorite was just called “Quinn”, which I posted just over four years ago.

Life’s a rush,

When you’re Quinn.

If he’s out,

He wants in.

If he’s in,

He wants out.

And to find a way,

He’ll rush about.

He was also my inspiration for one of my favorite posts, “The Catfood”, from a few years ago. He was always a picky eater, forcing me to procure new offerings. Hence I found myself in a Walmart store contemplating chicken and waffle cat food.

I’m thinking about him today with fondness. My wife is harvesting the last of her cherry tomatoes. Plucking them from the vine, she sets them in bowls in the kitchen to ripen.

Today, she’s talking about using some of the ripe ones in an arugula-pasta-cherry tomato salad. One of our favorite dishes, it’s healthy and easy to make. Sorting tomatoes that could be use, she dropped a green one onto the floor where it disappeared from our sight.

That’s where Quinn would’ve come in. He was terrific at finding things on the floor, and then batting them around. Most frequently, blueberries were involved. We’ve picked blueberries almost every year since we’ve lived here. After picking, we set some aside for immediate use, and then freeze the rest. Freezing them meant spreading them on trays and then placing the tray in the freezer. Once they’re frozen on the tray, they’re transferred to plastic storage containers. We’d need to do that multiple times. Inevitably, blueberries would hit the floor.

Quinn would immediately rush to them and sniff the dropped berry. From the look that jumped into his face, he hated their smell. So offensive was it to him, he’d immediately start angrily whacking the blueberry around until a human interceded and took it away.

Such a fun sweetheart, he was also a bit of a slut. More than once, I saw people passing by notice him and say something. He’d hurry up to them for love and attention.

But he always returned to us, and slept snuggled up against me. I could’ve used him during this week, when tension from the combination of pandemic life and presidential elections is higher than the moon. Besides, he would find that cherry tomato that was dropped.

As it is now, we probably won’t find it until one of us steps on it or we move away.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Despite the feeling that I’m walking on broken glass that I’m having (thanks to the presidential elections in the U.S.), I woke up feeling terrific and eager for the day (with a caveat that I told myself, just ignore the news for a while).

But, hey, man, I had a sweet sleep after a pleasant day. The wife had made pumpkin dougnut muffins (mmmm). I tested them with my coffee. And yes! They went great! (Might need to have another…or two. Hey, they’re minis.)

And coffee! Got coffee! I feel it coursing through me, kickstarting my heart, firing up the old neurons and synapses…

Ahhh, coffeee…

And then there is the sun and sky, with the autumn foliage, a gorgeous and uplifting sight.

Now, given how 2020 has gone thus far, I expect (and am bracing myself) for calamity. (I know, such a pessimist, yeah?). Oh, yeah, did I mention writing? Going fabulous (knock wood). I have that weird feeling I get when I begin realizing, hey the tale is coming to an end. It’s pleasing, because, accomplishment! But then, it’s sad because it’s an entertaining ride, a diversion from everything else that stirs rants, frustrations, and irritation. Hey, I would claim it’s because I’m a crotchety ol’ man (I am in my sixties), but really, I’ve been this way for the better part of three decades. Guess I turned old and crotchety early.

Today’s song streamed into my head without problem. Here’s Love and Rockets and their 1989 song, “So Alive”.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I went with an old familiar from David Bowie and Queen today. Queen’s Freddie Mercury is gone, along with David Bowie, unnecessary reminders about our final destinations.

They made their marks, though. Thanks to technology, solace can be had by listening to their performances again and again.

As today is election day in the USA (prompting some mental hearing of Alice Cooper and their song, “Elected”), but “Under Pressure” (released in 1981) seems more of a fit. Sadly, that’s because Trump and his followers, abetted by the GOP, are working hard to create obstacles for this civic duty. Once upon a day, the United States had low turnout but the elections themselves were flawlessly executed. A lot of that changed with the hanging chads debacle in Florida in 2000. At least, such is where it seems to start in my mind, as the SCOTUS was called upon to interpret state laws, halt the recount, and declare a winner. Since then, campaigning and elections have become more contentious in the USA.

The nature of Trump’s campaigning and the attributes of his base have added to the pressure. Trump wants votes to not be counted, squalling like an infant over cheating that doesn’t exist, threatening to challenge results in court beforehand, obviously attempting to intimidate voters. Gun and ammo sales are up. The FBI is warning of the threat of violence from armed Trump supporters.

More pressure yet comes from COVID-19. Again, politics are in play. Republican led states are leading as COVID-19 cases climb. As cases climb, hospitals fill, but our healthcare system under greater and greater pressure.

That pressure comes atop the economic pressure instilled by necessary measures to flatter the curve. Experts consistently warned that a sizeable chunk of the US population is working poor, without emergency savings, living from paycheck to paycheck. All that was swept under the rug. Now, coronavirus has curtailed the service and consumer economy, and people are under pressure to have enough money to pay the rent and buy food.

Yeah, it’s a mess. All of that is just a tiny fraction of the mess we’re in – so many things weren’t mentioned because I didn’t want to go too ranty before my coffee – but it all adds to the pressure that we face in the United States, part of the pressure we’re facing in the world, making the Queen/David Bowie song “Under Pressure” my choice for today’s theme music.

Now I need to go see a machine about some coffee. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Computer issues drop-kicked my Sunday into Sourday yesterday. Naturally, I blamed 2020. Made more sense than blaming myself, or HP, Microsoft, Kaspersky, or anything else. No, this was 2020’s fault. Because, 2020 has been a helluva memorable year for all the wrong reasons, from my perspective.

Like, yesterday, I went for a short walk. Golden leaves were flaring bright against the sky blue. The air was warmish at seventy, but clearer than a new 4K television picture. Yet, given my ‘puter issues, my mood was sour. Walking out of the house and up the hill, I remembered the four small, beautiful cats who used to greet me when I came out. Pepper, Buddy, and Mimi (aka Princess) all were neighbor cats. Quinn was my own. None were big. Three were long-furred but all were sweet and happy. All were here last year, last fall. Now, all were gone, victimized by life and death, as we all will be.

Yeah, some mood, right?

It’s natural for my mind to provide theme music, background to whatever I’m doing. Yesterday’s chosen song stayed with me for today. Probably did this song as theme music before; I didn’t bother to look. Frying other matters in my head, you know?

Here is Green Day with “Wake Me When September Ends” (2005). In place of September, feel free to insert anything else. I inserted 2020, as in wake me when 2020 ends.

Cheers

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This Sunday

Sunday morning started with the usual Sunday morning white man with cat issues, which is replying to the demand, “Feed me, feed me, feed me, and get these other cats away from me,” in surround sound because I have three of them. They didn’t care that we’d fallen back an hour, clock-wise, here in ‘Merica. Their clocks weren’t affected.

Eventually, the beasts were fed, watered, and released back to the backyard wilds, freeing me to be me. I slid to the computer. That’s when the morning took an oomph turn. My mighty HP laptop wasn’t connecting to the net. Everything else in the household was connected; why was I selected for this cruel honor.

Something about the machine was off. Memories of being a younger person and working on my cars were awakened. I started car life with a 1965 Mercury Comet sedan. Forest green and automatic, a lively 289 V-8 was under the hood, as we said in those days. It was a stoutmobile. She’d run.

She was like my first girlfriend. I learned to do things, and did the standard stuff, from gapping and replacing plug and points (and all the wires) to brakes, muffler, and shocks, and all the fluids and fuses in between.

I think, because of that car, I’ve always since tried to fix things myself. Tried is a key verb in that sentence. (Is it a verb? I don’t know. I used to know these things.)

Details of what I did and the results will be avoided. No need to restore my stress levels by recalling those excoriating details. I worked on the computer for hours, returning it to connectivity. Doing so demanded a need to run recovery, a Microsoft Windows 10 process that’s not as nice as it sounds. Lots of personal files were removed (yeah, they said that wouldn’t happen, and they were wrong), along with apps and programs that I’d installed.

I had back ups of files, and MS does have some file recovery stuff. Eventually, though, I had almost everything. For some reason, I lacked the bible for the latest novel in progress. Don’t know what happened to that doc.

Reading old files slowed the process. Oh, there was The Soul Stone written years ago, never submitted nowhere. I read and enjoyed its first pages, along with Spider City, Everything Not Known, Everything in Black and White, and some stranger works, and the first draft of the self-published words, like the Lessons with Savanna series and Returnee. All still there, waiting for me to turn my attention back to them and do something more with them.

Not on this Sunday, though.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Okay, take me to court. Today is a repeat from 2017. Sue me.

I awoke with Billy Idol blasting “White Wedding” into my mental stream. I knew I’d posted it before and looked it up.

It was a brief post pre-NC (novel coronavirus).

But, then, naw…”Rebel Yell” began streaming, and quickly segued into one of my favorite Billy Idol tunes, “White Wedding.” “It’s a nice day to start again.”

It’s cooler today, with a projected high of just eighty-eight under clear blue skies. Definitely a nice day to start again. Here it is, Billy Idol, from nineteen eighty-two, when I was just a wee man of twenty-six years. Boy, what would need to be sacrificed to be twenty-six again, hey?

Which is exactly where my mind is today, you know, the start again part. It seems like we’re always starting again, beginning again. You clean the house, and then it’s time to clean it again. For me, it’s the bathroom and the yard. Did the front yard on Monday, went polished the wooden cabinets in the kitchens and bathrooms, and polished the furniture in the master bedroom. Now it’s, clean the bathroom, vacuum the office, and work on the back yard.

Oh, yes, and there’s writing.

“It’s a nice day to start agaaaiiinnn.” Right after I have a cup of coffee. Maybe two.

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Bag It

Tucker Carlson has a problem with disappearing papers. From NY Mag Intelligencer:

On Wednesday night’s show, Tucker Carlson reported that his team had acquired incriminating documents. However, they sent them from Washington to Los Angeles, and the documents disappeared. And they neglected to make any copies. So now the only copy of the documents that would nail the probable next president of the United States are gone:

Few believe poor Tucker. He’s being mocked to hell and back.

I understand, though. I’ve been there.

I was taking university classes with the University of Maryland (go, Terps!) around my schedule when I was stationed with the Air Force at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, back in the eighties. My wife and I lived with two cats in a tiny place off base outside of one of the gates.

Finishing a paper, I put it on the bookcase by the door so it’d be there when I departed and I was less likely to forget it. This was pre-computer days. I’d pounded out the paper on my used government IBM Selectric II typewriter. Our cat, Jade, jumped up on the bookcase and puked on the paper. Gross as was, there was no way I could turn that in. I thought about bagging it for evidence but laughed that off.

Abashed, I reported what happened to my professor and asked for another day. Dismayed, he said, “Well, I’ve heard that before, or variations, but I never expected to hear it from you. Well, okay, I’ll give it a day.” It really pissed me off that he clearly didn’t believe me, but he gave me the day.

Next time, I’ll bag it and turn it in.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Owe this song choice today to the second season of Fargo. That was the season about the Sioux City massacre, introducing us to Molly Solverson as a child, and her father, the medically retired state trooper. Keith Carradine played Lou Solverson (Molly’s father) in season one; Patrick Wilson played the younger iteration of him in season two. The story of this year is briefly mentioned by Lou Solverson in year one.

Anyway, the song is “I Got A Line On You” by Spirit came out in 1968. I had to look that year up. I was twelve then, and the song was a regular on rock stations for a long time. Yet, I’ve not heard it in a while, until Fargo brought it back to mind last night.

BTW, I enjoy Fargo. Its characters and non-linear style speaks to me. Each of the seasons I’ve watched featured strong casts. Year one included Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman as main characters, along with Colin Hanks and Allison Tolman. Jordan and Peele show up as FBI agents. Stephen Root is a murder victim.

Year two includes Ted Danson, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Jean Smart. All do the impressive job that you expect of them, along with Bruce Campbell as Ronald Reagan. My favorite, though is Zahn McClarnon. Although I’ve seen him in multiple films and television shows through the years, he really stood out as Matthias in Longmire. Where we knew exactly who he was in Longmire, he’s enigmatic, smart, and unreadable in Fargo, yet manages to portray sad weariness.

Okay, on with the music. This is a fun live version. Hope you enjoy it as I did, as a sharp look back to what was. Please wear your masks. Cheers

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