Category: miscellaneous

Sunday’s Theme Music

Spring is flirting with summer. It’s 60 now, but isn’t expected to be as warm as yesterday’s 83 F. Temperatures this week will be dropping. Rain is expected this week. It’s the last day of April, 2023 – 4/30/23 – and Sunday. Sunrise was between letting Papi out and letting him back in, sometime around six AM. Sunrise will come later, when it starts getting dark. Days like these are known as sprummer.

Fire south of us near Merlin, Oregon, in Hog Creek County Park, keeps the air from being fresh and clear. I was looking forward to the windows delivering cool healthy night air. Smoke from the fire kept that from us. Don’t know what caused the fire. News is delivered in drops, skating among titillating tidbits to keep us watching. “A race from another planet landed in the downtown area. But first, do you know what bees and spiders have in common? These stories and more, along with weather and local sports, after the commercial break.” By then, I’m long gone.

The news isn’t local, BTW, except in the sense that we’re part of southern Oregon, adjacent to northern California, an hour or two from the coast, a few hours from the capitol. That’s the stretch of our local news. Our local paper is gone; so is the larger one that served the area described. Our local coverage is due to be more truncated soon with the Sinclair Broadcasting affiliate being cut to one local news staffer. News from the nation and region will instead be delivered, unless that one person comes up with something big. See, we don’t have enough nation and region; the cable news channels can’t do it, no. Nor can all the websites and national newspapers. No, there must be another.

I later learned after the news posturing ended, the cause of the Hog Creek area fire is under investigation.

We still lack net at home. In our semi-smart home, this means we also lack all but basic over-the-air television, and our home phone line is down. So is our weather source, Alexa. We mock her but we depend upon her.  I’m at the coffee shop now, gone there early to surf before writing.

In many ways, being netless is like the good old days. What shall we do to occupy ourselves, we ask after cleaning. Clean more is suggested. Snide remarks and laughter come back. Read except, I’m short of reading material on hand. Guess I’ll hit the library today. I’ll also cut more grass, pull more weeds, trim more bushes, etc. Meanwhile, the situation caused The Neurons to dump The Stokes and “Someday” into the morning mental music stream.

It makes sense for once. We talk about the good ol’ days but they vary by age group. Saturday morning cartoons and breakfast cereal for one generation was going to the market in the wagon for another, driving to church for others, or fasting and praying. The good ol’ days are solid as slushy ice.

Been drinking my coffee. Time to punch on. Stay pos whatever happens to you, as best you can, if you can. I know, sometimes we just sink and there’s nothing we can do to stop ourselves.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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The Writing Moment

The final hundred pages were attacked. He brooded. My god, this was boring writing, wasn’t it? Did it advance the story? Not to his mind today. Slash, cut.

After tough decisions on two chapters, the rest went with stunning, engrossing speed. Fifty pages were read and edited in the next two hours.

Just fifty pages remained, for this go-around. Then there’d be another. Because he needed to ensure the book made sense with the cuts made. That he hadn’t inadvertently destroyed continuity and coherence.

But for today and now, he felt pretty damn good about it.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Thursday, April 27, 2023, was on the radar yesterday. It arrived in Ashlandia without fanfare, slipping in under night’s protection at midnight. The day and date has little baggage and comes well-stocked with sunshine and spring warmth. It’s already 58 F with intentions of plying the mid-80s, the weather heads tell me. Sunrise was between six and six fifteen. The butt end of the daylight hours will be seen after eight, if you’re looking.

So I have “The Heat Is On” in the morning mental music stream. We spoke about the song at our beer gathering last night. Some thought it was done by Foreigner. Others believed it was Don Henley. I and another were certain it was Glenn Frey. Getting home last night, I queried the net for confirmation. I like the song and employed it as theme music twice but I never researched it. I was surprised. Frey didn’t write it; didn’t play the music. He was selected as the vocalist after trying out by invitation. The Neurons said, “What?”

Here’s a Songfact excerpt:

“The Heat Is On” was written for the film by Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey, and they needed a popular artist to sing it. The Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack album was on MCA Records, which Glenn Frey recently signed with. MCA asked several of their male rock singers to audition for the lead vocal for the song. At first Frey thought this wasn’t something “rock stars” did, but he decided to go along, just for fun, never thinking they’d pick him. Harold Faltermeyer was impressed by Frey’s vocal (the instrumental tracks were already recorded) and shocked Frey by using his version. It was Frey’s biggest solo hit, reaching #2 in the US…”

In other things learned, I’ve been told that young people don’t use the word straight as we used to normally use it. For example, they do not say, “Drive straight.” That, to them, I was told, is about sexual orientation and can be construed as a slight to others. It’s astonishing to me but, it’s another emerging culture, I guess. Words and their meanings and impacts change year by year by generation, geography, and society. Instead of driving ‘straight’, they say, drive forward. Not the same meaning to me but…

For today’s theme music, I’m going with a crazy theme and “I’ve Always Been Crazy”, a 1978 song by Waylon Jennings also rotating in the morning mental music stream. I have a history of being contrarian with friends and family, and this seems like an appropriate song for me and the day.

Stay pos. Hope your weather is treating you well. As we used to say, ‘have a nice day’. That’s looked down upon now as meaningless, trite, and superficial. Some even respond, “Don’t tell me how to feel.” Here’s the music. I’m off to the coffee machine. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

He thought changing browsers had resolved his WordPress issues. Not so. Longer posts still struggled with the autosaving function. It was like Schrödinger’s WordPress. Never knew what was going to happen.

He was in the coffee shop so it could have to do with their bandwidth or his net connection. Whatever it was, there was no fix. Just coping the post onto a doc, break the connection, start again.

Once it went was into the autosaving hang up, there was no saving it.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

A college-aged woman entered the coffee shope as he was walking toward the door to leave. Seizing the door, she held it open from inside, pushing it out — or tried, as the door slid closed, mocking the angle and effort she made. Besides that, she was inside, which didn’t leave much space for him to pass in the narrow space.

But he appreciated the effort and sprang forward, catching the door’s edge, relieving her of the duty, smiled, and said, “Thank you,” because that’s how it was all done.

But he wondered, what were doors like in the past that people make such an effort to hold them ajar for one another? Must have been massive, heavy beasts. It was another matter to research.

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Through the Years

1973 found me living in West Virginia, having moved there the previous year, after moving to Ohio from Pennsylvania, and a high school junior. Yeah, changes were underway.

1983 – an adult, in the military, married, stationed on Okinawa with trips to Korea, China, and Japan that year

1993 – still married and in the military, in Sunnyvale, California

2003 – retired from military but still married, living in Half Moon Bay, California, working for IBM

2013 – married and in Ashland, Oregon, still with IBM

2023 – Ashland, married, retired from everything except writing

Different places and careers through the years, but the same marriage since ’75

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The Job Dream

I was in an ocean with others. Waves bobbed, moving me, but the water rose to my chest and I was standing on the sea floor. We were all waiting to hear if we were released by our company. We were all almost certain we were, so we were eager for a new position somewhere.

I’d learned of an opening and applaud, writing up a small resume of my skills and experience. The water shifted into a large room. People were at workstations, busy with their tasks. I’d never worked in an environment like that, I thought. Always had at least a cubicle but mostly had an office. Someone from the potential new company said, “We’ve set up a mock up of the new position workstation.” We all went up to take a look.

The station looked like a toy. Small green desk, tiny green chair, hardback, with a cushioned seat, and a small task lamp. A man was asleep beside it. No computer or phone. Someone asked if there would be a computer provided. “No,” was the answer given, “computers aren’t needed for this position.”

Disappointment roiled through me. I knew, I’m not getting that position. After soaking in that for a few minutes, I learned that I didn’t get the position. I also learned of friends and co-workers and their positions. I decided I would appeal to them. See if they could put in a word for me, knew of an opening, or hire me as their assistant.

Dream end.

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Sunday’s Wandering Thought

He and his wife were talking. She used the idiom, ‘like nobody’s business.’

“Why do we use that?” he asked. “I mean, I know what it means in this context but how did it come to be used in this context to begin?”

She didn’t know. He did research but didn’t find much that satisfied his need.

It was bugging him like nobody’s business.

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Sunday’s Wandering Thought

Just one of those days. WordPress locked up in its eternal ‘autosaving’ groove and a post was lost. He usually copies it all and saves it to a Word doc or writes it in a Word doc and then copies and pastes it to WP. But he was lazy today. Should have known better. WP locks up like that about twenty percent of the time — a ‘technical glitch’, you know.

Well, lesson learned again. Don’t trust WordPress.

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Broken-down Cars Dream

Let’s begin in the middle. As the dream seemed to do.

My wife and I were out somewhere. Broken down. Limited view of the setting, like, not important, but seemed like thin scrub brush, black asphalt road, and dry. Vehicle was a black sports car. Could have been a Jaguar XK-E or a Mazda RX-7. Its identity fluttered and shifted, always black, a sleek sports car, but different makes each time I looked at it.

Another man, in a faded yellow short sleeve short and torn blue jeans, was there, trying to go somewhere else. Seemed homeless, with little going for him.

Also present was a young woman, also with a broken-down vehicle, a sixties era white Volkswagen Beetle.

We needed parts and tools to fix the cars. I could get mine running. Plans were formed and tried. We couldn’t get all four people into my car. Should someone be left behind? Maybe her Beetle could fit into my car.

The VW’s body was removed. They tried fitting it in. Sort of got it in there but the consensus rose, that’s not going to work. We had to get it back out but it was wedged in tight. I told them, “Stand back. I got this.” I reached into the car, picked it up, and pulled it out using leverage. “Impressive,” everyone said. The woman said, “You’re really strong.” My wife said, “He’s always been weirdly strong.”

I decided, “This is what we’ll do. Leave the VW here. Get in my car. Go to the nearest town. Get the tools and parts needed, fix my car, then I’ll return and fix the other.” I finished, telling the woman, “You’ll go back with me to your car.” Everyone accepted the plan. I got into my car’s driver seat. Wife got into the passenger side. The car had a hatch. The other two got in there. We left the hatch open and drive the twenty something miles to town.

First, we met a group of other people. They needed help, rides, money, etc., to get elsewhere. For some reason, they thought my wife and I were there to help them. That surprised us, but we agreed we would.

Next, we decided we needed clothes, shirts and pants, and entered a crowded discount store. I found an orange pullover with green trim. After putting it on, my wife came up in a new shirt. “I went with a sports team on my shirt,” she said. “Looks like you went with something else.”

The others needing help were white haired, elderly, thin or thick, men and women. They followed me around. After raising the hood and fiddling, I announced that I’d fixed my car. Now the woman and I would go get her Volkswagen. The woman said that she would sell it after it was fixed and buy a larger vehicle. She and I got into my car and zipped away. Seconds later in dream time, I was back in town when she drove her VW in.

Dream end.

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