Almost Bookends
My sister, Gina, sent some photos out to the family this morning. They’re almost bookends of Mom’s adult life.
This is Mom with her first born, my older sister, Debby.
This is actually a photo of a photo that hung on the wall. Mom is 19.
Here is Mom with me and my wife at Mom’s house about twenty years ago, in much happier times for Mom.
What’s wild in thinking about this photo is that I was fifty and Mom was my current age, 70.
That’s why taking these photos, which may not mean much at the time, can become timeless and special.
Bandon Sunset
Fired At Work Dream
I was working for a small startup. Don’t know what the business was supposed to be but the dream featured many real-life co-workers. Among these was a person I worked for, LD; LD fired in my dream.
The firing shocked me. But I had made a stand against not doing something which LD advocated that I found shady. (That, BTW, is completely contrary to LD’s real-world ethics.) Telling me that I was fired, LD added that I was being given $28,000 in severance, along with $6K to $8K in other expenses. Not a bad package but I still brooded over being fired. Given till the day’s end to clear out my desk, coworkers, the CEO, and several of the directors from other departments, came by, expressing support for me.
I then had to feed the cat. That was my real-life cat, Jade, who passed away twenty years ago. Not feeding her right was apparently part of the complaint against me, which I found laughable as she gobbled up the food I gave her.
Then I left. I ended up hitching a ride with four co-workers in a red VW Beetle. Two of them were female. A friend of mine from current real-life, Bob, was present. Bob was very drunk and angry about me being fired. He was playing something called ‘the dictionary game’. I couldn’t figure it out. Bob, having won, got out of the car to go home. He beat on the car’s window then, telling me that they were wrong to fire me. Then he walked off.
Dream end
Saturday’s Theme Music — Circles
Bandon, southern Oregon coast. Saturday, August 15, 2026.
We’re in Bandon to do the Circles in the Sand walk. Back then, it was about 60 F. Clouds played keep away with the sunshine. I dropped my wife off at the Face Rock Wayside at 8:15. Then I drove back to the hotel and walked back to do the walk with her. We finished the walk at 10 AM, then I walked back, got the car, and picked up my wife. So it was a refreshed, relaxing morning by the sea.
Back in the room, I spoke with the house sitter. She and Papi are old familiars so he’s comfortable with her presence.
After that cool morning, it’s a gorgeous afternoon — 61 but feels 71. Sunshine washes over the coast.
Now:
The labyrinth — well, a third of it, from the parking lot overlook:
A few news headlines attracted my afternoon attention.
‘The government cites no binding authority’: Trump admin’s losing streak continues in lawsuits seeking ‘unredacted’ voter
The buck stops somewhere else: Trump takes blame game to a new level
‘This is Trump’s economy‘: Nobel winner butchers president’s claims
Retail sales collapse as Trump slump continues
Trump Is Still a Loser: Courts Edition
These aren’t news headlines so much as they’re affirmations of who Trump is, and how his poor decision-making and aggressive power moves are backfiring on him.
Trump and his administration refuses to learn or change course, so we keep going in circles. Trump attempts the same policies; they’re taken to court and are often denied or overturned. Trump then tries another tack to see if it’ll stick.
Over and over again — round and round in circles.
Meanwhile, the United States economy is circling the drain, along with many political norms.
Not surprising that between Trump circling the drain and walking the circles in the sand, The Neurons put a song about circles in the morning mental music stream. “Circle in the Sand” was released by Belinda Carlisle in 1977 and was a global hit.
I signed my name at the beach. The tides will erase it by tomorrow, but I have the photograph and memory — as long as they don’t fade…
Cheers
A Dream of Dad & Others
Last night’s dream featured three dead people: my friend, Randy; Dad; and my mother-in-law, Belle. It also featured a high school English teacher, and my father’s second wife. He was married three times, although he also loved with another woman for about ten years.
I was young. At the dream’s beginning, I’m up above, in a house, with others. Down below is a large green lawn with some green maples or oaks. Dad, stumbling drunk and very loud, was down there with his second wife by the trees. She was pregnant. Dad had two long rifles.
A man and woman were walking backwards across the grass, away from Dad. The man wore a straw hat. He also had two rifles.
Although I could hear them yelling, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. But they were having some kind of argument, and it was escalating. From what I saw, the man seemed to threatening to shoot Dad.
Turning, I found two weapons beside me. Picking up a sawed-off shotgun, I pointed it down at the man and called out.
He acknowledged something about, “Oh, now you have a shotgun in the fight.”
Another man and woman seemed to be approaching from the other side of the lawn to join that man and woman.
I realized the shotgun would be ineffective because of the range so I picked up the long rifle and aimed it at the man.
He moved back forward toward Dad and raised his rifle. Then he backed away again, turned and began walking away.
At that point, Dad threw his rifles into the air, hurling them away from the house.
The man left and Dad and his wife came in.
Dad could barely walk because he was so drunk. He went into a room where he said with a sloppy grin, “I’m going to lay down.” Then he passed out on his back on the floor.
Meanwhile, I had homework to do. I shifted to being in a classroom with my high school English teacher. She was explaining to us, a small class of students, what she wanted in our assignment.
The assignment excited me. I went home and worked on it on my computer. Then the file crashed, which upset me. I had two other assignments due but now didn’t have enough time to complete it all. Thinking about what to do, I concluded that I needed to tell the teacher that I couldn’t get it in on time and go from there.
I then went out to join the others. We were in a very large, well-lit house, brick, with many windows. All of us went to one small room. My mother-in-law (Belle) was in there. Something she said or that we saw satisfied us. We concluded, “That’s taken care of.”
Moving back into a hall, I said, “Now we need to figure out where we all sleep.”
Randy, my dead friend, began walking down the hall, talking with me. We were looking into the bedrooms. They were small, with a small bed, and no doors. I saw one and thought, I’ll sleep there, though I said nothing.
Randy led me into another small bedroom. “I can put someone in here,” he said. I noticed that there was hall attached. Saying, “What’s in there,” I went into the hall, which turned out to be a huge, well-lit bedroom. As I walked in, astounded, I saw an enormous room, with a huge king-sized bed, and two other, smaller beds.
I said, “People can sleep in here,” then I realized, oh, this is Belle’s room. If we put people in here, where will Belle sleep?
Dream end
Saturday’s Theme Music — Games
Ashland, southern Oregon. Saturday, August 8, 2026.
Cooler today. Although now 74 F, it will get only to 96 today. Officially, I think we hit 99 yesterday. My house saw 102 again.
There’s another fire burning. This one is to our northeast. Already at 19,000 acres with no containment, we’ve added it to our fire watch.
Trump urged his Attorney General to open prosecutions of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool again. Given the plethora of bad news for Trump this week, I’m not surprised.
That’s part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! When things get bad, Trump tries to change the topic. Bad economic news came out. Trump would normally bluster about bombing Iran again. Can’t: low munitions, so they’re supposed to be ‘negotiating’.
Fallback number two would be to talk about how great everything is. But with prices still up and affordability still in crisis mode, he’s probably been advised to not talk about that.
Trump’s other topics would be calling climate change a hoax but with so many fires burning in the United States, he’s been silent about them — after stupidly threatening to impose tariffs on Canada because their wildfire smoke was bothering the US. While the US has ‘only’ burned over 6 million acres compared to 9 million in Canada, the United States’s fires outnumber Canadian fires 45,000 to 3,900.
Trump sure as hell can’t talk about Epstein…especially after a Federal court ruled that tearing down part of the White House to build a new ballroom was outside of Trump’s authority. That sent Trump off on an angry frenzy; since Trump lives there, he thinks he can do what he wants to it and fails completely to understand that the White House belongs to We the People. He’s just an occupant, and many of us are ready to kick him out.
With celebration of the nation’s 250 Anniversary going poorly so far, Trump is staying pretty mum about the Patriot Games which are starting this week. They had to move them from D.C. to Ohio. This is a classic Trump thing: the Freedom 250 Indycar race is coming up in a few weeks. Guess what? You can’t set up for an Indycar race at the same time that you’re running Patriot Games. The operations clashed, setting up a logistics nightmare.
So the Hunger Games — sorry, Patriot Games — were quietly moved.
I’m not overly impressed with those games, either:
The DC Indycar race — arrives later this month. The event has free admission, but many are angry about it. 1) Trump ignored getting approval from anyone for the event — surprise! 2) Although ‘free’, people attending aren’t permitted to bring in anything: chairs, foods, suntan lotion, drink, etc. 3) Locals are upset about how the race and its logistics are going to affect their lives during hot, humid August, especially when the race was forced on them without their approval.
So, back to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool for Trump. It’s a mess that he created, a blot on his recorded, etched into his legacy, along with the Iran war, Epstein files, poor economy, and his corruption and ineptitude. He created this mess, and he’s going to go down swinging, pretending it’s not his own fault.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Yes, he’s had some great polls, if you ignore over half the nation.
Trump is weak, ineffective, losing power and losing face. He’s struggling to save it, but too delusional to do anything meaningful. So he’ll continue with the same ol’ same ol’ fantasies, ranting, raving, threatening, and bullying.
With all these thoughts of games — Trump’s games, pretending that he’s doing great, the ‘Patriot’ games, etc — Les Neurons supplied the morning mental music stream with an Alan Parson Project fave, “Games People Play.”
May your day bring a winning hand your way today and every day.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 