Category: miscellaneous

‘Nother DIY Done

I reaffirmed my firm position as a budgeteer DIYer. My wife kicked this one off.

“I think we need new breakfast bar lights.”

A zillion responses went over my brain’s hill and dale. One landed. “Sounds good. What do you have in mind?”

She had a general description. Phase I began: we began the search. Found them. My wife asked, “Do you think you could install those?”

“Of course,” I confidently replied without consulting any Neurons. The Neurons freaked. “You fool, what are you saying? Did you learn nothing yet?”

“Pshaw,” I replied. The Neurons knew I was nervous but my wife’s easy acceptance that I could the job. I couldn’t let her confidence in me down.

Phase II, we ordered them, received, and inspected them. They came across the country from Philadelphia, PA, on a truck. Eight days in transit.

Next phase: install the suckers. Installing lights aren’t a BFD. Technically. However…they’re mounted on a high vaulted ceiling. I dragged out our tallest ladder and climbed. At a few hairs short of being five feet eight inches tall, I could’ve used two to three more inches to have a comfortable reach for the screws and wires. Beyond that physical limitation, the hardest thing was removing and adjusting the stems to make them level and a height that satisfied us.

But it’s done. Results achieved, and no injuries scored. BTW, those bulbs are our emergency bulbs. Batteries built into them. They work like normal digital bulbs. But when the power goes off, they become emergency lights which provide illumination for six to eight hours. They’ve proven to be a great buy in the last two power outages. Coolest of all, they can be unscrewed and carried around like flashlights.

Next: a new dining room light. I have no doubt I can pull that off. The Neurons are a little worried, though.

3

Mundaz Wandering Thoughts

Well, Steve died. 85 years old. Diagnosed with cancer in his liver, kidneys, and lungs, his decline was a full slide down a steep hill. Just a few months ago, we were laughing, talking, enjoying drinks and music at a lake in the late afternoon sun. The question before us is, did he use the cocktail? This is Oregon where we have right to death laws. Steve had requested a cocktail to end his life and planned to use it. Laws control when the cocktail can be used. His wife was just requesting the cocktail last week, so we suspect that Steve died on his own yesterday, September 21, 2025.

I support the right to death, BTW. I’ve witnessed too many people growing feeble and drained by their disease to wish that on others. Many people can no longer probably communicate as they hang on by their skins. Sickness, pain, disease, and medication twist and torture their personalities into new folds. By the time of their death, they’re barely the person they used to be. But I also understand and respect others’ needs and desires to hold on as long as they can. Dying and death are complicated matters.

The thing about Steve is that we only knew each other for about three years. Our rapport was immediate. Our wives were good friends and we all became good friends, socializing multiple times at plays, concerts, and dinners. It just seemed like he and I knew each other forever.

Meanwhile, sis reports Mom has moved into her new room. Except Mom’s clothes are still upstairs. That’s a major matter. Although Mom tends to wear a series of night clothes and casual active wear these days, her closet was rigidly organized by season, color, and fabric. Tough transition for her, to cull the threads to current needs only.

This growing old, though. Coping. It’s tough. I’m at the coffee shop thinking and typing. A casual friend of two decades comes by. She uses two canes now to get around but her smile remains as bright as sunshine off snow brilliant.

All just thoughts to help me sort matters, matters which I’ll probably continue sorting until I do my own self-checkout. I won’t even try to predict when that’ll come. From what I’ve seen, change can be sudden and complete. Then again, some demises are a long trip into night.

4

Satyrdaz Wandering Thoughts

A spider set up behind my toiletries. They were a large one of the daddy long-legs variety, often also called a cellar spider.

Sighing, I advised the spider, “That’s not a good place for webbing. I’m always picking this stuff up and moving it around. I think you need to go.” I gently prodded the webbing a few times.

Dropping to the countertop, the spider strode with dignity across the counter, then slipped in between the drawer and the cabinet, disappearing. I admired them. They knew where they were going with amazing surety, and they went unhurried, unruffled.

I wish I had as much poise as they displayed.

5

A Cheetah Dream

I dreamed that my wife and I and several family members were traveling together. Just ending a journey together, we arrived at my house. This was a tiny but crowded place with bare cinder block walls. Included among my family was a sister and one of her daughters, and several of her grandchildren.

I was first into the house. Getting in there, I discovered a full-grown cheetah in our house. My arms were full of grocery bags, limiting what I could do. My dream brain said something like, “Holy shit, there’s a cheetah in the house.” The house was a friggin’ mess, so cluttered with junk that I struggled to walk across the floor. As I did try to walk across the floor, the cheetah gently took hold of my shirt tail in its mouth and tried pulling me in another direction.

My wife and others entered. I warned them, “There’s a cheetah in here.” They didn’t seem to pay attention but I continued, “I think he wants me to feed him. I don’t know if it’s male, to be honest, but I think he’s trying to pull me toward his food.”

That’s what the cheetah did seem to be doing. I talked to it like it was my housepet, explaining that I’d feed him in a second, but I needed to put things down and food his food first. Whenever I’d go toward where I thought the food was, the cheetah would get happy and chirp small, high-pitched mews at me. But if I turned away from its food, it’d would swat at me. Never with true menace, but still, it’s a cheetah.

Sometimes I would swear. Then a second sister, who’d joined without being noticed, would remind me of little ones being present, and I’d apologize. My niece’s husband also joined us, making my place very crowded. All through this, the cheetah paid no attention to anyone except me. Meanwhile, I kept asking the cheetah, “How did you get in here?” The dream ended as I reached for food to give the cheetah.

0

Twozdaz Wandering Thoughts

This here is what they call one of those unsolicited testimonials.

My wife follows a vegan diet. I do not. But I try to accommodate her dietary choices, so I eat plant-based foods, etc. Well, two weeks ago, I spied some vegan cinnamon-toast-muffins made by Rubicon Bakers. I thought, they look good, so I bought them and took them home. Well, my instincts were right in this case, as my sweetie and I both found them moist and flavorful. Great with hot coffee.

https://www.rubiconbakers.com/muffins-gallery/vegan-cinnamon-toast-muffin

Following that success, I purchased another Rubicon Bakers product, the lemon-raspberry cupcakes. We just finished off a package — one cupcake for each of us yesterday, another one each today as dessert after dinner. We’re not total pigs, you know. And these were also wonderfully tasty.

https://www.rubiconbakers.com/store/vegan-lemon-raspberry-cupcakes

We wholeheartedly recommend them. If you see Rubicon Bakers vegan products, open your mind and give your taste buds a treat. You’ll thank me later.

4

Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

My thoughts are drawn to our local political scene. Ashlandia is a small town, dependent on tourism for most of its business revenue. Ashlandia is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which puts on several plays from March to November. A local university, Southern Oregon University, supplements the employment base by hiring people for its needs. Adjacent to rivers and a ski resort helps draw more tourism for us. We also have multiple local breweries and wineries. Other than that, we’re mostly restaurants, coffee shops, a couple bookstores, head shops selling THC and CBD products, and several grocery stores.

With tourism down, we’ve been struggling as a town. Tourism was driven down over ten years ago by droughts which lasted several years ago, deepening into a serious problem which called for water rationing, followed by smoke pollution from wildfires. Plays were cancelled due to these threats. Outdoor activities were curtailed. Then the pandemic struck, with all that it delivered to the table. Finally, Trump has struck. Just as tourism was beginning to rebound, his xenophobic policies and tariffs take another axe to our numbers. Local services were also curtailed due to grant cuts and budget cuts. SOU enrollment is down…again. Tuition is up…again. SOU programs and classes were cut…again.

With all this afflicting us, the city was strapped for cash and has a budget deficit. Besides those issues, we also have a homeless problem. Trump’s cuts did us no favors on that front.

Into this cauldron of difficulties come our local government leaders. Their solutions.

  1. Cut back on park maintenance and add service fees to local utility bills to make up the parks deficit.
  2. Build a new park. Mind you, they’re short of funds to take care of the existing parks, but WTH.
  3. Shut down the senior center and pool. Because they’re short of funds, they couldn’t hire the people needed to keep those open. But let’s build a new park that we don’t have the money to maintain.
  4. Give BIG pay raises to the city management staff, especially the city manager. Because, hey, with this budget deficit, revenue down, and tourism down, we need to ensure they’re better compensated than We the People, the Ashlandia denizens.
  5. And let’s cut essential service staff after giving those pay raises because you know, less people are better. We’ll also cut the hours to the utility and city offices because we need to cut expenses.

They even, from time to time, talk about doing away with the police department because it costs too much.

The city manager states, without evidence, that the new park will draw tourists. Ashland already has Lithia Park, Hunter Park, Garfield Park, Clay Street Park, and a half dozen more. Their facilities are being closed because of budget deficits. Sure, the water park shut off the water this summer because we lacked the funds for the water and staff to run it, and Mountain Park is mostly closed for the same reason, but let’s build another park to draw more tourists.

That makes a lot of sense. Not.

1

Well, It’s Obvious

Daily writing prompt
Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.
View all responses

I’ve not read others’ posts about lessons they wished they’d learned earlier in life yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if others express the same lesson learned which I learned, a lesson I’ve learned several times. It’s simple: trust yourself. Though I’m not the smartest or wisest individual, I need to trust my intelligence. Though not the most talented, trust my talents. Pay attention to the little voice when it’s trying to encourage me and pay attention when it’s warning me.

Pause, here, to note, I feel naked staking this claim, naked, vulnerable, egotistical, and needy. But I’m swallowing those things to push myself to be honest and open here, to share this so that others can take a lesson from my lesson.

My self-confidence was frequently smothered when I was young. I kept getting bludgeoned by a stepfather who told me I was stupid. He told me that all the time: “You’re stupid. You don’t think.” That recurring process eroded my self-confidence. I started shutting my mouth, retiring to a place to be stupid by myself, becoming a loner. I was and am comfortable as a loner, so that wasn’t that great a change. But my doubt about my potential was really a killer. Since I stayed quiet and didn’t participate in things, I constantly surprised classmates with high test scores, good grades, and accomplishments. When honors came my way later, people were astonished. Then, later, people nicknamed me ‘The Professor’.

Yet, I continued to doubt my skills and abilities. I still do. Everything I attempt requires not one but several pep talks. That usually accompanies procrastination until I build up the courage to make an attempt to myself out, to brace myself to be exposed as an imposter. It also causes me to overtry, which can also end in bad results. In short, like bunches of other people, I’m a headcase.

I have come a long way. Some minor successes have fed that. My wife’s trust in me has fed it, too. So have comments and support from friends and bosses. And teachers; my teachers often saw and cultivated good things in me, and I owe them a doubt too large to ever be fully repaid. I’ve been fortunate in that I have had good friends, good teachers, and good bosses. Despite them, I keep forgetting that lesson about myself. My self-confidence gets smothered again and again. I still hear my stepfather telling me, “You’re stupid.” I do keep learning the lesson that I’m not, but I wish I could keep that lesson in the forefront of my being: trust yourself. You’re not stupid.

You’re better than you imagine yourself to be.

2

A Dream of Quinn

I dreamed last night that one of my cats came back to me. His name is Quinn. He was a tiny, long-haired, blackfoot sweetheart. In the dream, I was cleaning a house, dusting, sweeping, etc. The house seemed to be mine although it was no house recognized from real life.

Quinn, back in the day.

Quinn, a meticulously groomed cat, was matted in my dream. Seeing that, I made plans to thoroughly wash him and brush his fur and get it unmatted. Per his personality, Quinn dashed around. An intelligent and inquisitive beast, he always was there to see what was going on, but he despised change, and loud noises unsettled him and sent him scurrying off to a quiet safe place. So, in my dream, I ceased cleaning and making noise and just worked on coaxing Quinn to me and gaining his trust to de-mat him. I was just beginning to do so when the dream ended.

Papi, my current floof-in-residence, asks, why are you dreaming of other cats?

Oddly, awakening from that dream and reflecting on it stirred memories of living with Mom when I was young. Mom’s home would be noisy with cleaning. She’d get up and leap into action. After scrubbing the kitchen, she’d turn on the dishwasher. Next, a load of wash would be started. While dishes and clothes washed, she’d vacuum, creating a cacophony of modern cleaning. Then would be dusting and a thorough attack on the bathroom. We only had one. If home, I’d often be volunteered to vacuum and dust. Mind you, the house was already spotless before Mom started cleaning, but she always cleaned to the nth degree. In reflection, part of her house-cleaning approach was that her home reflected her abilities in her mind. I also think she reveled in the routines and sounds, as well as the results.

The other thing, on days like this, where clouds handicap the sunshine and cool air dishes it to the land, Mom would busy herself with making hot food like chili. Her chili depended on several cans of dark red kidney beans, a large diced white onion, a chopped up green pepper, a tin of tomato paste and another of stewed tomatoes, and a couple pounds of browned hamburger. I know this because I was also volunteered to help with this process.

I learned a lot at Mom’s elbow.

0

I Might Just Be Okay

When I say I’m alright

I might just be okay

But there could be such a heavy load

That it takes too much to say

You can look for clues in my face

These things usually leave a trace

But what’s going on in my inner space

Is really not in play

I need time to process

To evolve an understanding

Of where I’m at and who I am

After this last round of changes

So when I say I’m alright

I might just be okay

Then okay, I could be miserable

I just don’t want to say

6

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