Category: memories

Saturday’s Theme Music – Round and Round

Ashland, Oregon — Saturday March 21, 2026.

56 F, spring is holding on against a late winter effort. Today’s sky favors heavy cloud blanketing and pots of sunshine. Blue has been shouldered out of the scene. Our high will tap the low sixties and tomorrow is supposedly going down into the 30s at night.

Round and round is going round my head. I began writing about the news. It became so Trumpcentric, I split it off.

I’m also going round and round with health matters. It’s bizarre to me because I feel pretty damn good. Could lose a few more pounds, and if you’re giving out miracles, put some hair back on my head.

They found a mass in my bladder yesterday. Not big, something like 2cm. We’ll check it out next week, see what it is, deal with it. The CT scan said liver, intestines, spleen, pancreas, appendix all look good. No loose fluid. Kidneys are intact and the right one has come calculi. The summary says all those things look just like they did in the 2021 scans, when kidney stones advanced out of my left kidney. Oh, what a night.

Everything with Mom is going round and round. The tale is familiar and old. Mom seems happy, enjoying others’ company, goes silent with all. All seems well. Then WHAMO. We’re bowled over by unexpected news and then wait for updates. Mom is being very cagey. We’re letting the assisted living home and county adult social services run the show.

So round we go, weather, health, Mom, Trump. The Neurons have blessed me with “You Spin Me Round” by Dead or Alive in the morning mental music stream. The song’s sentiment is about seeing and wanting someone. The disco beat just has me hooked on the idea that things keep me going round like a record.

Amusing: do the children know what it means to go round like a record?

Probably as much as I knew about ‘going spooning’ or a bicycle built for two.

Going round with a cup of coffee now. Hope your day goes well and peace and grace came around.

Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music — Nobody Knows

Ashland, Oregon — Friday, March 20, 2026.

Spring has officially sprung north of the equator. It’s 56 F in Ashland with high, thin white clouds coalescing in our blue sky. 72 will the high.

Just returned from a CT scan with iodine contrast. Had blood and clots in my urine last week. Urinalysis earlier this week showed cloudy urine with high levels of blood, along with particulates associated with kidney stones. Not a surprising. I passed a kidney stone on my left side in 2021. One was found in my right side, but at 15mm, it was too large to pass. That one seems to be getting cranky, agitating the kidney around it.

Texts are arrived talking about Mom moving and contacting an attorney. Details are sketchy. My app seems to have missed several texts. A new phone is being ordered. This one is now almost ten years old.

The Trump partial government continues to cause travel congestion due to long TSA lines.

Gas and oil prices continue to rise due to Trump’s war on Iran as Trump moves more troops into the middle east. Trump’s war is also producing an increase in mortgage rates, which have reached their highest level in 2026. 2025 home sales were already the weakest in three decades.

Trump’s tariffs continue to drive up food and housing prices. Have you seen the recent price of coffee?

The national debt is going up fast, thanks to Trump’s fraud and waste.

And more rural hospitals are closing, especially in Trump strongholds in the Midwest and South, accelerating a rural hospital crisis.

— Just in from Mom’s assisted living place, Mom has put in a notice to vacate by April 17th and contacted a lawyer about elder abuse.

With these topics and uncertainty inhabiting my thinking, The Neurons are assisting by playing “What Happens Now” by Duran Duran.

Hope your change of seasons bring the best to you. Whether you’re going into spring or fall, may peace and grace find you.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Ashland, Oregon — Thursday, March 19, 2026.

80 degrees F and sunny, it’s just after 3 PM. We’ve just returned from community theater where we had brunch and watched a play called “Sherwood”.

I’ve not read much news today as my routines became overcome by events, making this a short post.

Basically, my feelings remain that the United States and its situation is worsening. Trump’s situation is also worsening. The Iran War and the middle east are worsening. All are basically going down.

Hearing that thinking, The Neurons fired up Jeff Beck from 1972 in the morning mental music stream. This is “Going Down”.

May your life and times go up to better places and a better future.

Cheers

0

Tuesday’s Theme Music — What we don’t know

Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, March 17, 2026.

It’s 39 F outside. Wisps of white clouds are spread around the blue sky like clumps of pet fur. We’re expecting to visit the upper seventies today, lower by a few degrees which was originally forecast. Still, it’s good weather, more easily endured than the snowstorm striking parts of the U.S.

Snow out here would be welcomed. We’re in a snow drought. We’re below 50% of what’s ‘average’. This unseasonable warm weather will melt the snow faster, causing us even more problems this summer because we depend on snow melting throughout the year to keep our water levels up.

My wife and I were reminded yesterday that we’re not Boomers but Joneses. Generation Jones were born between 1954 and 1965, and that covers us. My wife rejected it before and rejected again, insisting, “We’re not like the Joneses.”

I embrace it, though. I like not being a boomer and being able to tell that to others. Makes me smile and laugh.

Last night, I read Heather Cox Richardson’s March 16, 2026 newsletter. In it, she recounted some of the battles and actions associated with the American Revolutionary War which ended 250 years ago.

I found it a good reminder of the period. I reject many of Trump policies as un-American and think that he’s ignoring the Constitution and multiple laws while breaking political norms.

The colonists of the 1770s were not united, as Ms Richardson points out. But enough were fed up with being ruled by a king that they rebelled.

Trump, aided by the GOP, supported by MAGA, is ruling like he’s a king, ignoring the will of Congress and the needs of the people. Just as it was said 250 years ago, “No kings.” Not then, and not now.

Yet, we’re as much divided now as we were during the War for Independence and the American Civil War. At least some of us are. I read an article in which Kimmel called Trump a bonehead. This comment was left about it:

“Obviously the president is not going to tell a reporter what his plans are just to have them give the enemy (people on the left like Kimmel) the plan. Trump has you liberals so screwed up in the head that you convulse at every word he says. Liberal is now synonymous with weak brained fools.”

From my POV, it is the right wing and conservatives that has Trump so screwed up in the head. They idolize everything he says, including the inane, lies, and bluster.

Trump has those MAGAts so messed up that they can’t understand the need for clearly stated goals and exit strategies. This was the same failing in multiple earlier wars, which using more reductivism, explains to me that Trump has cratered right-wingers’ abilities to learn or remember history.

They forget that Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the wall. Trump said he would release the Epstein files. After he didn’t, he tried to convince them it was a hoax by the Democrats.

Trump has the MAGAs so messed up, they forget that he said he would lower food prices on day one and end the Ukraine war on day one. He’s done neither.

It’s my niece’s birthday, so happy birthday to her! She’s a wonderful adult, with three growing sons, including a teen. Nothing is planned to celebrate her birthday, per her preferences, but I wish her a wonderful life.

Today’s music is “Me and Mrs. Jones”. This is a 1972 hit performed by Billy Paul. It’s been used in movies, recorded by others, and provides a good base for parody. The Neurons raised it in the morning mental music stream because of the whole Generation Jones thing, of course. *smile*

May your day be filled with peace, love, and understanding — cuz, what’s wrong with that?

Cheers

2

The Trend…

Excluding oral surgeries, I’ve had four surgeries in the past half dozen years.

A urologist did the first for a blocked bladder. Next came a broken arm and orthopedic surgery, followed by an orthopedic surgeon repairing a ruptured tendon. Then, last fall, a different surgeon removed my gallbladder.

What’s interesting about this is that these four surgeons left the system within a few months of doing my surgery.

My suspicions are inflamed. Were they just put there to operate on me or did operating on me give cause to have them removed?

Either way, it’s a troubling trend.

I’m keeping an eye on my oral surgeon. At least he’s still here.

For now.

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Monday’s Theme Music – Simpler Times

Ashland, Oregon — Monday, March 16, 2026.

Hazy but sunny, it was 43 F out when I got up this morning but now it’s 61, with a high in the upper 70s expected. This is part of the California coast heatwave. Being Oregon, we don’t get as much national attention as our southern neighbor, but the conditions striking California are also nailing us. We might set a new record high for the date tomorrow as analysts say that the low 80s are possible.

The news cycle brought more war news along with stories about Academy Awards winners and losers. The Trump Iran War continues. Suggestions swirl that both the United States and Russia will deploy ground troops to Iran. Despite Trump’s claim that Iran’s military was 100% destroyed, Iran hit a UAE oil port and Dubai airport.

Trump doesn’t always understand percentages, though. He promised drug prices would go down by 1500%, which is factually impossible.

Friends yesterday talked about the current political atmosphere. Many were dismayed by how easily Trump launched new military attacks and dragged us into war. While we naturally recognized, this has been an ugly trend by the left and right for decades, it’s really disturbing that a person who often speaks like he’s high is able to launch powerful, deadly weapons almost at will.

Others brought up how Brendan Carr, chairman of the FCC, is threatening the freedom of the press. One friend said when that Democrats return to a position where it can happen, there should be some Nuremburg-style trials. There wasn’t much further discussion of that, but the general consensus is, changes are needed.

I later received an email from another friend, who wasn’t at our little gathering. She wrote,

“We need Nuremburg-style atonement. Without it, we’ll just continue on our late-stage capitalist descent into the ranks of failed experiments with democracy. But hey, at least we have energy sucking, water guzzling generative AI to make silly videos of pets in bathrobes enjoying the spa to distract us from all this while data centers drink our future…”

Today’s song came from a concert by the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band yesterday. I’ve always enjoyed it so it’s no surprise that when The Neurons heard it yesterday, it resurfaced in today’s morning mental music stream.

The concert’s theme was Echoes of Oregon and featured composers who lived in or were educated in Oregon. One of these was Mason Williams, who came out with “Classical Gas” in 1968. The song is an instrumental featuring an acoustic guitar and symphony. I’ve always been drawn to its soft, contemplative beginning and then its urgent, more soaring sound later. A simple melody, the song reached number two behind a song by The Doors. Pretty remarkable.

Someone else who was at the concert and heard “Classical Gas” lamented she wished we were in a simpler era. Several of us scoffed, reminding her of all that was going on in 1968. All of us remembered headlines about the civil rights movements, riots and protests, the Vietnam war, space race, dark, filthy air with rivers on fire, and the cold war and its nuclear threat.

We were left wondering, when were simpler times?

Hope your day is simple, carefree, and satisfying to you in important ways. Off we go, one more time.

Cheers

2

Sunday’s Theme Music: Plans & Mistakes

Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 15, 2026.

It’s 38 F outside with bits of blue sky and an overwhelming gathering of gray clouds. We’ll again see a high in the low 50s as we march on toward Spring.

As I read the news last night and today, I was reminded of President George Dubya Bush’s declaration on an aircraft carrier, “Mission Accomplished”. Oh, what theater as the commander-in-chief landed a jet on an aircraft carrier and emerged in a flight suit. Republicans swooned.

Bush said that he was declaring that the military objectives had been achieved in his invasion of Iraq, and not necessarily that the war was over. His speech came on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the invasion began. The war grew and kept going, with the U.S. in there for eight more years.

I’m thinking about that now because the Trump administration is a diluted version of the Bush/Cheney administration. Bush/Cheney worked in secrecy and cherry-picked intel to support what was happening. One of Bush’s administration compared their plans for war to the marketing campaign for a new product to sell the war. Ignoring what UN weapons inspectors had been saying about Iraq’s weapons, Bush managed to put together a coalition of military forces from allies around the threat of WMDs

Trump did none of that. He just attacked, going in without a plan. Now Trumps thinks he can just declare it over whenever it suits him, just as Bush tried to do.

In the end, the Iraq invasion and war was a costly, disastrous mistake. Less than a quarter century later, and we wonder, how much of what Trump has begun will end with history repeating itself?

In comments on news articles about the war, some were saying, “I’m a Republican and I don’t support this war.” They go on, the timing is wrong, there is no plan, etc.

The thing is, their comments mean little to me at this point. Polls show that Republicans are mostly supporting Trump’s Iranian War. Few Republicans have stood up against anything Trump does, undoing a lot of the checks and balances in our government.

Trump and the MAGA movement co-opted the GOP. But the GOP allowed it to happen. The guiding principles and policies for the GOP are now, “Whatever Trump says.”

I think they made a mistake.

In the same sense, I was thinking of the problems with Mom. We saw what was coming years ago and tried to negotiate with her to improve her situation long before a crisis was reached. She refused, blaming her partner, Frank. But when Frank died, we saw that it was Mom as much as Frank that refused to see the truth and plan for what was happening.

It’s understandable. Many of us go into denial. But looking back, I still shake my head and think, what a mistake.

Not surprising that The Neurons have a song by Men At Work, “It’s A Mistake”, playing in the morning mental music stream. The anti-war song was written during the cold war and reflects worries that nuclear war might erupt.

Hearing it in my head makes me ruefully chuckle. How many times have I told others, “It’s a mistake?” Likewise, I think I was told multiple times, “It’s a mistake, but it’s your life.” I sort of smile because one of them was marrying almost 51 years ago. Dad said, “I think it’s a mistake.”

Sometimes the mistakes work out.

I hope your day goes well, with the mistakes kept to a minimum and of the minor variety, like, “Eating at that restaurant was a mistake. That food just wasn’t very good.”

Onward into another day.

Cheers

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