Saturday’s Theme Music

Pulled a piece of bread out of a bag yesterday and sniffed it, then gave it the eye test. That bread had been in the basket for a while. The basket is the bread basket that’s won counter territory. Nominally for bready goods, bulk granola, nuts, Kind bars, and Lararbars often camp there, too. It’s the place to rummage when a food is trying to tempt you but you’ve yet to identify its song. A couple forgotten goodies are usually to be found.

I found two heels of Dave’s Bread yesterday. Dave’s Bread was, is, an excellent healthy, tasty, robust bread, even though an evil corp. bought Dave out. Two heels; I could slap together a classic PB&J. The bread passed the eye and nose test, yet doubts lingered. A feel test confirmed: yeah, this is stale.

Per habit, my neurological Alexa said, “Playing a song with the word stale in it.” Eve 6’s offering, “Inside Out”, gained volume.

But yeah, stale is an appropriate word for the sit. in the USA. Trump’s attacks, tantrums, finger-pointing, and whining are stale, as are the faux discussions about re-opening the economy, ‘safely’ playing pro ‘sports’, and sending children back to school. My weariness with it is stale, as is my disbelief (hey, what do you know, Roger Stone has been pardoned) and disappointment. It’s all gone stale.

Ja, a stretch for “Inside Out” (1998), a wondrous melodic blur of rhymes and images, but I’m going with it.

It’s in my head now.

A Few Things Friday

  1. Typing with one hand. Broke my radius and ulna on my left arm last Tuesday evening. (Yep, just two days after b-day 64.) Always appreciated having the requisite number of things in good working order. I appreciate two hands and arms afresh.
  2. Was a clean break. None of my wrist bones were damaged, and the wrist cartilage et al looked good. Broke this same wrist back in July, 1988. Required two pins to hold that in place till it healed. Having those pins removed at the end was an ordeal. One pin went through my hand bones, and the pin had become bent while residing in my bod.
  3. Time was passed at the ER by eavesdropping on others’ issues and complaints. Woman next door was 186 pound (hey, that’s what I weigh!), was less than five four (okay, a few inches shorter), and ninety-six years old (got me beat there). She was having problems breathing, her heart was beating too fast and out of rhythm. She also refused to wear a mask. They insisted: “Put it on or we cannot help you.” She was tested for COVID-19. Learned via a friend today that she was negative.
  4. Everyone was masked and social distancing was practiced, but one person wore it wrong. That happened to be my ortho surgeon.
  5. Didn’t require surgery. Lots of pain was involved in this (quoting my attending physician), “Gnarly trauma.” I was sedated, ortho doc reviewed the film, shoved my hand back in place, tweaked it some, splinted it, and put it in a cast. I’m on  a Percocet diet, one every six hours. Didn’t have any the first night, though. Not a comfortable night.
  6. Spent fours at the ER. Actual procedure consumed about four minutes.
  7. How’d it happen? Either it was a rock climbing incident, a doe defending her fawn, or something else. Yeah, it was a poor dismount from a high place at home while effecting a repair. Should be in the cast one to two months.

The curse of 2020 has gotten a little more personal.

Thursday’s Theme Music

‘Ow ’bout a little Bob Marley and the Wailers from 1973? Thinkin’ ’bout the high level of eligibles in ‘Merica who don’t vote. (Have you seen the numbers?) “Get Up, Stand Up” seems like a fittin’ song.

Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight
Most people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything
And make-a everybody feel high
But if you know what life is worth
You will look for yours on earth
And now you see the light

You stand up for your rights, jah!
Get up, stand up (Jah, jah)
Stand up for your right (Oh, hoo)
Get up, stand up (Get up, stand up)
Don’t give up the fight (Life is your right)
Get up, stand up (So we can’t give up the fight)
Stand up for your right (Lord, Lord)
Get up, stand up (Keep us struggling on)

We sick an’ tired of your ism-skism game
Dyin’ ‘n’ goin’ to heaven in-a Jesus’ name, Lord
We know when we understand
Almighty God is a living man
You can fool some people sometimes
But you can’t fool all the people all the time
So now we see the light (What you gonna do?)

We gonna stand up for our rights (Yeah, jah, jah!)
So you better
Get up, stand up (In the morning, get it up)
Stand up for your right (In the night)
Get up, stand up
Don’t give up the fight (Don’t give it up, don’t give it up)
Get up, stand up (Get up, stand up)
Stand up for your right (Get up, stand up)

Get up, stand up (Don’t be a nigger in your neighborhood, yeah)
Don’t give up the fight (Get up, stand up)
Get up, stand up (I don’t think that should be very good, Lord) (Get up, stand up)
Stand up for your right (Get up, stand up)
Get up, stand up (I said, don’t be a nigger in your neighborhood, yeah)
Don’t give up the fight

h/t to Metrolyrics

Wednesday’s Theme Music

After reading headline bullshit about more Trump lies (and other pols, but mostly the mano one) and general bullshit that’s out there, a 1984 Queen song entered the mental music stream.

I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies

You’re so self-satisfied, I don’t need you
I’ve got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free

h/t to Genius.com

“I Want to Break Free” wasn’t a big hit in the U.S., but I was travelling through Europe on mil biz that year, and heard it on their media. I thought the thingy ’bout the lies worked for this pandemic year.

Give ‘er an ear.

 

Saturday: Four Things

There has to be four things today because it’s the Fourth of July, Independence Day in the U.S., right? 

  1. Best fourth of July celebration for me is the first one with my wife. She wasn’t my wife or girlfriend yet. I was fifteen and she was fourteen, and she was just a girl I’d just met a few days before. Yep, just a smart, long-haired girl who captured my attention from the first time I saw her. Fortunately, I had the same impact on her, she claims. Guess it was fate.
  2. I subscribe to the Hulu service with commercial breaks. I don’t like spending money on streaming services. They’re an indulgence, so I try to minimize the cost. I’m watching two shows on Hulu, “Cardinal” and “Justified” (again), so I don’t think it’s worth paying more for it. They’re like an awkward, gamboling puppy with their commercial breaks, erupting in odd points in a scene (butchering the tension or mood). They usually show two or three commercials, and they usually cut off , and then cutting off the last twelve seconds of the final commercial. If I was that advertiser, I’d be demanding better service. My cynical aspect (which occupies about ninety percent of my mind) suggest Hulu does their breaks deliberately to motivate me to pay a few more dollars a month to avoid commercial breaks.
  3. Watched Hamilton on Disney Plus last night. Had the captions on, and it’s a good thing. It’s a continuous flow of life, song, revelations, and relationships, and worth every damn piece of praise that I’ve read or heard. I recommend it to you so you can witness for yourself.
  4. Gonna be a mellow day in spirit. I’m going for a walk in a little while…after I write. A pair of jets did a flyby to mark the moment when the parade would’ve begun but there are no parades in town, although our friend and state rep did a singleton parade. Pam Marsh wears the Statue of Liberty outfit every year, has for years. The mask is new…so is the Black Lives Matter sign…and the coronavirus on a chain… We’ve watched the town parade from her front year for the past ten years. It’s a potluck where everyone attending brings a food or drink. We’ll miss the parade but Pam is carrying the torch for it (yeah, get it?). We’re fortunate to have such an intelligent, energetic, and concerned person as our friend and rep. Did I mention her sense of humor?Pam July 4

Yeah, got my coffee. Yes, it’s a holiday, and it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time…

Friday’s Theme Music

A cool mountain wind came by late yesterday, serving to dispatch summer’s edgy warmth.

Such a welcome combo. I was relaxing after another wall-painting session. I wanted to take a walk but was ambivalent, mostly because it was about eight PM.

(‘Take a walk’ is an interesting expression. When I hear/write/read that line, I often imagine people with numbers waiting in line. You know, take a number, take your place, take a seat, take a walk. Just word associations.)

Decided not to go walking, but as I was thinking and enjoying the mild, cool wind and watching the change from day (distant apricot sunset in the west, indigo sky rising at the zenith, the moon, clear and shiny, riding the southern sky), a Scorpions song came to mind.

“Wind of Change” (1991) is such a mellow song, it definitely answered the moment.

The wind of change
Blows straight into the face of time
Like a stormwind that will ring the freedom bell
For peace of mind

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Listen.

 

Thursday: A Few Things

  1. Still walking. Sounds like I’m bragging, right? I’m talking about exercising. My progress goes up and down. My 28-day average is just 7.51 miles (sixteen thousand plus steps), with my best being last Thursday, ten and quarter miles. I try to get in more, but stuff. I’m in a heavily hilled area. Examining results with where I walk is interesting. My flights will increase to fifty to sixty a day, and my activity level will increase, but my miles decline. That’s because the steep hills really slow me down. Coming down is less of a physical exertion, but requires a lot from my legs to keep from just pitching forward. Great views, though, and getting the exercise outside is worth it.
  2. COVID-19. We have people who shunned masking, attending rallies (see Herman Cain and Tulsa), church, and parties, who are now testing positive and being hospitalized. Some, like Cain, had underlying conditions. Cain is seventy-four, and I guess he’s okay with getting sick, possibly going through what others have endured, and dying, but what about spreading it to others, and putting them through it? Yeah, nobody say this coming.
  3. COVID-19 Redux. Other crazy reports have one, teenagers trying to deliberately contract COVID-19. Let’s play a game and see who can get infected. (Alabama Teens Are Throwing Coronavirus Parties with Cash Rewards for the First to Get Infected.) Oh, the young… Proves that life can be stranger than fiction. Beyond that, some people who are testing positive are refusing to help with tracing. (Party Guests Wouldnt Talk After 9 Tested Positive.) Hit with subpeonas and facing fines of $2000 a day for not helping, they caved. Florida setting new records for their state with ten thousand cases in one day, a one hundred sixty-eight percent rise. Of course, commentators are blaming the protests or riots, and Gov. DeSantis has vowed that Florida wills stay open. Paul Krugman has an interesting threads based on Opentable reservations for Texas, Florida, and Georgia. After reservations rose with re-opening, reservations began declining as positive cases surged. Here in Oregon, cases are rising. Gov. Brown has declared masks mandatory inside businesses, but several sheriffs have declared her policy unconstitutional and have refused to enforce it. I always thought it was up to the courts to decide constitutionally, not the sheriffs, but they know better. Even Oregon State Police aren’t even masking as they enter businessesTo quote one officer who wasn’t wearing a mask, “Fuck Kate Brown.” That’s protecting and serving for ya. Shows why trust and support for police keeps declining; they’re deciding what laws they’ll obey and enforce, and mocking what they don’t like.
  4. I’m not good at celebrating. My sixty-fourth birthday is this week. As with every year, my wife asked me what I want to do to celebrate. I don’t have an answer. Parties don’t generally entice me. Socializing in general doesn’t entice me. She knows these things about me. I feel pressured to ‘do something’ to celebrate to mollify her.
  5. Still painting walls. We have high ceilings in the dining-living-kitchen combo. Three hard to reach corners where the walls and ceiling met. I’ve bought an extender that telescopes out to twelve feet. I have an edger, brush, and roller that can be attached. Control, though, is challenging, and a bit comical, and a strain on the neck, squinting up there at the wall from twelve feet away. Refreshing the paint on them is also an interesting process.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

Thursday’s Theme Music

Took a walk into the steep hills of southern Ashland, where you lean forward like you’re walking into a hurricane gale to progress up the incline. Looking back over the browning valley, across to where vineyards sprawled under a blue sky and the Interstate snaked by with semis full of goods, the song, “Bullet the Blue Sky” by Oasis (1987) stole out of memory into consciousness.

And i can see the fighter planes
i can see the fighter planes
Across the mudhuts as the children sleep
Through the alleys of a quiet city street
up the staircase to the first floor
Turn the key and slowly unlock the door
A man breathes into a saxophone
Through the walls we hear the city groan
Outside is America
Outside is America

h/t to Metrolyrics.com

Not surprising. I’d be writing in my head as I walked, picking up where I’d stopped for the day, moving the chains to the next day. As my story companions travel, they stop and watch things and wonder.

Basically, as I was doing today, wondering about the past, the future, the present, politics, you know…the world.

Here’s the music.

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Someone said something about complaining. I thought, oh, boy, a new complaint.

I guess my mind’s Alexa thought that I’d requested a song with those lyrics. Next thing in my mind was Kurt Cobain shouting, “Hey! Wait! I got a new complaint.” Then it was on, and Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” (1993) was raging.

Such a dark song it is. Despite the morning’s sunshine, these feel like dark times. We were being pretty self-congratulatory about flattening the curve. Rona said, “Hold my beer.”

Out here in our little semi-rural county, we’ve seen a jump. Announcements came today that the jump was traced to a party. The original carrier was found to be from out of state.

Hey! Wait! I gotta new complaint.

I was reading about the chaos in other states yesterday. There’s little consistency between counties and cities. There’s no consistency between states or across the nation. The Golfer-in-Chief is more concerned about his rallies, convention, and poll numbers to bother about doing something decisive about the friggin’ rona.

Hey! Wait! I gotta new complaint.

In an ironic twist, the GOP, at Trump’s urging, dumped Charlotte, NC, for the convention site because, masks! Now Jacksonville, Florida, new site of the convention in eight weeks has ordered, masks!

Hey! Wait! I gotta new complaint.

Give me a little time. I’ll think of it. Here’s the music.

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