Rain claims the sky again. May not stay. Bursts break out of clouds, and then the sun breaks show with a flash of light. Brisk winds burst through the valley, shaking the trees and sending shivers through my knees, before rain kisses us again.
This is spring. This is Friday, March 29, 2024. It’s 50 F and several y’s are present — sunny-cloudy-rainy-windy-chilly. Think we’re within 2, 3 degrees of the thermometer’s upper level for this March day. Snow comes and leaves on the northern and eastern peaks over the last three days. How’s the weather in your life zone?
First, a floof update. Tucker continues a trouble-free recovery. I knocked off the opiates. Just thought he was being over medicated. He’s eating, sleeping, and moving well. I make him a cup of grain-free kibble softened with hot water, and he dives into a bowl like an osprey coming down from the sky on a hunt. After eating today, he gently washed his face and paws before tucking back into nap position. Fingers crossed that this all continues.
The Neurons loaded “Alone” by Heart into the morning mental music stream (Trademark plummeting). The song was invited into the MMMS by the line, “No answer on the telephone.”
I’d called a friend. No answer. No voice mail or answering machine. Seems ominous.
I talked to the cats about it (they were the only ones around). They agreed with me, no answer on a telephone call is surreal in this era. Some mechanized or e-response is typical if a live voice isn’t heard. But to hear the ringing continue…strange. I called again to ensure I had the number correct. I let it ring until twenty rings had filled the air. Twenty rings, an absurd amount, before giving up.
The song commenced in the MMMS a few seconds after I relayed my experience to the floofies. We — me and The Neurons — went from there. Personally, I always enjoyed the hard rock ballad. Then again, I seem drawn to hard rock ballads. Could be that they appeal to my romantic side, or the solitude inculcated by my work and travel draws me to that sort of music.
Persist to be positive and strong, lean forward toward progress and a better future, and Vote Blue. Coffee has caffeinated my brain cells, so I’m good to go. Here’s the music. Oh, wait, it’s sunny again, and the wind has become a friendly zephyr. For now.
Now it’s cloudy. Wind is beating the coffee shop umbrella. Rain veils are crossing the mountains.
Round and round, here we go, another March in another year (yeah, still 2024), another Thursday in another week. It’s the 28th. This month of this year is almost done, and with its passing, one fourth of 2024 is history.
Chilly, cloudy, rainy. That’s my adjectives for today. Snow capped the highest peaks around the valley to the north yesterday. The rain just fell and fell.
Rain has stopped today. After dropping to the upper thirties last night, we’ve crept up to 51 F degrees. That’s close to the day’s upper limit.
The big news from my perspective is that Tucker survived his surgery. Back home, he’s recovering, mostly hanging out in the office where we hang out, by the space heater where my wife hangs out. Slept with me last night, purring away. He’s doing well after having all teeth removed due to refractory stomatitis gingivitis. The RSG often led to inflamed, bleeding gums for my boy, and just became progressively worse.
Recovery involves a great deal of painkillers. Painkillers mean sleep. Buprenorphine two to three times a day. A mild opioid, this makes Tucker glassy eyed. It’s on top of his other painkiller twice a day.
He’s also on a soft food diet for the next two weeks. That’ll be a challenge for the kibble chief. The black and white fur fellow loves his kibble.
Today’s song is by Ratt. “Round and Round” was released in 1984. It’s Ratt’s highest charting song, and it’s probably the best known number for the group.
It began going around and around my morning mental music stream (Trademark in the mail) after reading news. First, again. These days just go round and round. I cycle through the news cycles. Other than war, murder, and disasters, the rest of the news seems to be on permanent spin. Trials. Elections. Misinformation. “Biden is too old! Biden is too old!” Give me a break.
Round and round, Marjorie Taylor Green is threatening to unseat a GOP House Speaker again. Same ol’ antics that she did before. Hey, dear, what goes around comes around, you know? Just ask Ronna McDaniel, previously of the RNC, more recently of NBC News. The stuff she spread during her RNC days — just doing her job, officer — has come back to haunt her.
Or ask President Biden’s predecessor. Now facing prosecution for the things he did and said. Round and round, what goes around — you get it, right?
BTW, for those unfamiliar with Ratt, they were glam rockers, part of the big hair movement of the 1980s. The big hair glam rockers had lots of hair. We could often barely see their faces because of their long, frequently curly, wavy, fluffy, and well, BIG, hair. One of our past rock movements. What goes around is supposed to come around again, right? It is happening among the TikTok Alphas. They like fat leg pants, which is what I wore in the early 1970s. And I hear many embrace the old-style phones.
Well, we’ll see if big hair glam rock returns from the grave.
Stay positive, hang on, lean forward, and Vote Blue. Please. Coffee has cometh and is being consumedeth. Here’s the nostalgic video. Hope your day is a powerful one for you.
Hi world. Began this Wezday, March 27, 2024, with a recap of weird dreams.
The ‘Wezday’ thing came from this cute little girl visiting the coffee shop today. Looked like she was two. Dressed in yellow, with pink plastic boots with pictures on them. She was in line with her group a few yards away. I don’t know what was being discussed by the adults but she suddenly announced in a huge stage voice, “I know tomorrow is Wezday. Tomorrow is Wezday. I know.”
That bought a laugh from many of us.
It’s rainy today, 50 F, with an expected high a few degrees north of 50. Blue sky and sunshine are both shying away from our valley for the moment. They might emerge to show they exist later.
Left the house at 7 AM to take Tucker in for his surgery. Arrived there ten minutes early. He was not pleased. He’d been cut off from eating last night at 10 PM. I fed him the best that I could because I know what was coming.
Today at 6 AM, he went to where his kibble usually resides. When he discovered it wasn’t there, he began grumbling. It was soon as loud as approaching thunder, if the thunder had a meow sound embedded it. I get him back between three and five this afternoon. My fingers are crossed, etc, that all goes well. I have a good feeling about it, but these things can go awry fast.
So after my dream recap, I was talking to myself, Tucker, and Papi. Papi wasn’t going to be fed until after I left. My wife would give him food. I wasn’t eating until I came back from dropping off Tucker. Just a sympathy thing; wasn’t fair for me to eat if he couldn’t.
Anyway, while having this conversation, I might have employed the expression, “I’m not crazy.” Within a short while, The Neurons had Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty singing, “I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell,” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark evaporating). The 2003 song, “Unwell”, sat well in my pscyhe as music for today. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote. Is that too much to ask? Ask me again after my coffee, okay?
I used to be on Twitter. Left it when the infantile X man took over. Others convinced me to return.
I get new followers every day. Most are women. They put up photos of attractive women. They usually have hundreds to thousands of followers.
And they have zero to few posts.
I don’t follow them back. I think they’re bots. Lures for something going on, maybe.
A few reached out to me via X’s messaging system after they follow me. Their missives typically include, “Nice to get in touch with you. I see that you are also paying attention to some political matters. What do you think of the current political situation?” They almost always use similar words.
I hate taking my floofs to the vet. I recognized that today. I’d put off taking Tucker for a long time, probably to his detriment.
Veterinary offices and animal hospitals harbor bad memories. Cats hit by a car and dying in a room, waiting for treatment. Feline fur friends taken in to see what’s going on to learn they have cancer. Nothing to be done. Four friends over seven years, three spread over a four-year period, nine altogether in my lifetime.
I know. Shame on me. I should be stronger. A better human for them. Accept that death, injuries, and pain are part of life.
I do understand. Doesn’t appease my feelings of loss at their demise. It’s not all ’bout me, though. It’s about what my little friends ended up enduring, even before their illness was diagnosed. Vets always validated that they’re suffering.
We took Tucker back today. Check on his thyroid. Those numbers look good now. Other numbers don’t. He has high blood pressure. He’s gained weight, which was good, but his kidney numbers are worrisome.
A prescription was given for the hyperthyroidism. Another for the high blood pressure. Nothing for kidneys – yet. Monitor them for a bit more. See if it’s a side effect of meds or situation. Meanwhile, we continue his pain meds and his thyroid meds. Twice a day, twelve hours apart.
He goes in for surgery on Wednesday. Dealing with refractory stomatitis gingivitis. All his teeth are to be removed. Well, all which remain. Many of his teeth are already gone.
All this came to mind because my wife interpreted some comments made by the vet at Tucker’s last appointment as dismissive of us as pet mates. I didn’t see it myself. I saw it as being weak on my part. A coward, really.
Now, fingers crossed that all goes well for my black and white buddy. He remains upbeat and loving.
I can’t believe the video I just watched. It shocked me. It scared me.
This video shows Donald J. Trump, former President of the United States, inspecting a military. This military was south of the U.S. border with Mexico. They were Mexican troops: Trump’s private army.
He founded and established it. Members of his Mexican military were enticed to join with promises of land and rights in the United States.
His idea, according to the video: “President Donald J. Trump wants to control the southern border with Texas so that his army can be let in once the 2024 elections are over, whether he wins or not. Governor Abbott of Texas is working with President Trump to control the southern border. That’s the driver pushing Gov. Abbott’s fight to take over control of that border from the Federal Government.
“President Trump has gained the trust and co-operation of the Mexican government. First, he paid key officials to be consultants and commanders. Then he promised Mexico that on Day 1 of his administration, he would stop imports of any consumer goods, including automobiles and trucks, from anywhere. The exception would be those goods made in Mexico.
“With accomodations and support from Mexico and Texas, and assistance from Florida, Trump’s army will spread across the United States. Detention centers will be set up for Democrats, and Trump’s army will lock them up and imprison them. Democratic members of Congress will be executed.”
A chyron stayed on the screen’s bottom. It said in capital, italized yellow block font, “PROJECT MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
The narrator was General Mily. He also showed a meeting between Trump and over a dozen red state governors who swore their allegiance to him and promised him that they would activate their national guard units to support him. Besides Trump inspecting his troops, the video gave data about the size of his army. It was sickening that these forces have been set up to overthrow the rightful and legal government of the United States and install a military dictator.
I was so sickened by it, I couldn’t watch more. Especially when they started interviewing right wing militia groups who were staging to join Trump from Idaho, the Dakotas, Michigan, Kansas, Wisonsin, and Oklahoma.
As an American, I am shocked and appalled that the GOP has gone so far.
Yes, if they’re out of information bubbles and get all the information.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Many Americans live in information bubbles where the full truth is rarely heard or seen. Instead, they’re fed a steady diet of misinformation to support their hardening views. The other side is being painted not just as a political opponent, but a threat to Democracy and freedom. A threat which must be put down by violence.
Mr. Jordan is upset because he believes the social media companies are removing more conservative, Republican, and right-wing info after it’s deemed misinformation. So he’s trying to stop them from removing anything. The media companies are backing off as a result.
So I suspect that someone ‘on the left’ is going to begin retaliating on the scale of misinformation that the right wing is putting out. Then they’ll exercise their own free speech and spread misinformation. In the end, it’s just gossip. No harm at all.
Because Americans are smart. They’ll see through pieces like mine for the fictions that they are. Just ask people about the shadow government.
I so love it when I go on a net page in Chrome to read something. Google covers part of it with ads. I can ask that they close the ad, and do.. They want feedback when I do that. Four options are included. None allow me to tell them, “YOUR AD IS BLOCKING THE FUCKING PAGE’S CONTENTS WHICH I WANT TO READ.”
No, that’s not an option. Guess that’s the price of technology.
Contrails were etched across the bright blue March morning sky.
Mark had a couple problems with that. One, this was 1859. He didn’t think he should know about contrails. Didn’t think contrails should exist, for that matter. As far as he knew, they didn’t exist yesterday, when he was cutting his lawn’s grass.
But, hold up. Yesterday, he was walking to town. Like he was doing today. Except, he was thinking about the contrails, byproducts of jet aircraft slicing through the atmosphere. Jet aircraft, commercial and military, with the former being used to travel between airports, enabling people to quickly and easily traverse the country which had taken him a couple years. Jet aircraft, which should not exist in 1859.
He puckered his lips like he was about to whistle. Should they?
Seeing contrails and thinking about them were the seeds of several potential problems. “Shit,” he loudly uttered. His tongue flicked his lips. Fingers pinched together to smooth down either side of his fat graying mustache. He stamped his big boot once, then considered the mildly worn brown boot, which he knew he’d purchased at an REI. Chances were that REI didn’t now exist. Might have in the past. Or the future.
“Shit. Goddamn it.” Expanding the lungs inside of his huge chest, he bellowed, “Vonnegut.”
Mark looked around like he expected Vonnegut to appear. Nothing — not the wind-swept grasses or the one lone, high bird, or the far, snow-covered mountains — responded to him.
He expelled a sigh and sound like he was blowing the candles out on his last birthday cake. That’d been number sixty-six. Julie baked the cake for him. Such a sweet person. And so fucking smart. Fun being with her.
“Fucking Vonnegut.” Vonnegut was the cause behind the past few episodes like this. Mark figured there was a high likelihood Vonnegut was behind this one as well.
He looked east. South. West. North. No, he hadn’t been going north. South was also considered and rejected. His orientation was a matter of the coincidences of then and now, and the lay of the land. Mountains north and south. That never changed, though the stuff that occupied the land — buildings, roads, people, and other such bullshit — changed.
A qualification was appended to his thinking. Depending. Depended on how far Vonnegut took him back in time. Or put him forward. Same thing, different direction. The land changed if he went — if he was tossed, like he was a cat toy or something — into the past or future. He’d experienced each of those once. Once had been more than enough.
His broad shoulders sagged. “Why me?” With that plaintive question beginning an internal dialogue with himself about the matter, he turned and began trudging east.
East would hopefully return him to his own time. That’s how it happened a couple times. But there’d been that once.
TL/DR: It’s spring. Today’s song is “Why Worry” by Dire Straits. President Biden’s predecessor and current GOP candidate is enamored with dictators, promises a bloodbath if he doesn’t win, and thinks some humans “aren’t human”.
Hello, my traveling peers. It’s Sunday again, March 17 again, but adding the year, 2024, makes it a whole new date.
The average daily high for Ashland in March is 58 F degrees. We expect to hit 71 F. I think I’ll be higher.
I checked a local weather station’s temperature, along with the SOU (Southern Oregon University) weather station, and a web weather source. Here are our temp variations:
My house: (Clay Street, southern end, in early morning mountain shadows, 1836 feet elevation): 45.5 F
Wimer Street: (2 miles west of Clay Street, above downtown, 2050 feet elevation, in mountains): 46.2
SOU: (1.1 miles southwest of Clay Street, 1890 feet elevation, in sunshine by East Main Street): 42.1
MSN.com: 50 F.
Honestly, SOU’s elevation — 1890 feet — seems suspect to me. We descend to that location via a series of hills. For the record, Ashland’s official elevation is 1949 feet. We consider ourselves ‘the valley’, but the valley floor is a little bit lower than us. It’s a pinched and rolling place on this end of the Rogue Valley.
Whatever the temp, it’s a spring day out there, with colors along the spectrum breaking out all over the region.
Then there’s the story circulating about Trump’s other comments during a campaign speech. This is from an article on TheHill.com, but it’s in WaPo and others, too.
“I don’t know if you call them people,” he said at the rally. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”
See, I am ‘the radical left’ because I think others are people. I base this on biology. Genetics. Not politics, religion, or circumstance. It doesn’t matter where they come from. Or how they reached our land. But in Donald J. Trump’s opinion, some people are not people. That’s just laying the foundation to treat other humans as less than human as justification for inhumane treatment.
Okay, class, can anyone name a fomer world leader and dictator who said things like that about other humans?
Well, no. I agree. However, a surprising chunk of Americans seem to disagree. People — and I was one — overlooked how many Americans backed Hitler before WWII and even during WWII. There are Americans among us who still back Hitler because they’re antisemites. They want someone to blame, and remain willing to claim Jews are causing them problems.
That’s one reason they like and support Trump. Trump isn’t bothered by Hitler’s record. His former chief of staff related that “Trump said Hitler did some good things.” That’s worrying for someone threatening bloodbaths if he doesn’t win, and chatting and joking about being a dictator on day one if he does win.
But what about the greater Republican party? I share Ms Pequeño concern, “Will Republicans ever care?” I’m concerned that many don’t know and don’t care because they’ve convinced themselves that Trump is something else, someone special to them. They write off the rest of us and our dire threats about Trump as the lies of outsiders who don’t see Trump as they do.
I agree, too, with Ms Pequeño’s final assertion: “So, everybody who is bothered by this, Republicans and Democrats alike, should keep pointing to his comments for the rest of this election. Then voters can ultimately decide if they support this or not.”
Today, The Neurons posted “Why Worry” by Dire Straits to the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). I know exactly what’s going on with me this soft 1985 song by Mark Knopfler.
I’m a worrier and regularly talk myself down. I recognize that the view I get of the world is skewed and imperfect, no matter how many sources I use. Many of those sources are political or commercial. Each uses buzzwords and headlines to gather attention. Some of them are just trying to rile me up or say things to help their revenue streams. So, while I will continue to worry and voice my thoughts about my worries, I’ll also try to talk myself down.
The cats are outside in the fenced backyard, loving the warm air and sunshine. I’m about to do the same. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote. Hope your weather is to your approval at your place. Here’s the music. There’s the coffee. Let’s bring it all together. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 