Category: weather

Saturday’s Theme Music

Blinding sunshine crashed through today’s window early on, piercing the hazy cloud layer with mocking ease. That happened at 6:18 AM. Temperature was in the forties then, now they’re at 52, and we’re expecting a day of sunshine with a few clouds, and a high of 66, 67, F, before sunset at 8:01 PM.

Welcome to April the 23rd, Saturday, 2022.

I have “Love Me Two Times” by the Doors in the morning mental music stream. It’s coexisting alongside a second song.

My neurons started playing their version of “Name That Tune” with me the other day. They said, “Remember this song?” Then two notes or part of a word would flash among them. “No, I don’t remember that,” I answered. “I need more.” Begrudgingly, they gave another word here, a sound there. I would try to focus and recall, but the song wouldn’t come to me. DKAY, but when something like that happens, i.e., I’m trying to remember a place, event, name, person, song, and it doesn’t come, it’s like small piece of hell. “Why can’t I remember that?” I ask myself. It was almost there, then, whisked away by malicious forces once more.

This went on about three days before I caught enough of the words to go, “Wait,” and hit the net in search of. The song is “Sleep the Clock Around” by Belle & Sebastian. I’d heard it several years ago on the American version of “The Killing” and looked it up. It’s a fascinating duet to me.

Whew. Glad that’s out of my system. Stay positive, test negative, and you know, right? You’ve lived through 2020, 2021, and 2022’s first quarter.

Got my coffee. Here’s the song. Enjoy.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Sunrise cracked the night apart at 6:21 AM, flooding the southeastern windows with glorious, warm light, putting an end to a night of rain. Other than that, today, Thursday, April 21, 2022, is copying much of Wednesday’s weather. The wind has abated but the temperature will range up to a 54 degrees F high from its current 46 and then fall back to 38 tonight. Rain will drop by and dash off. Clouds will linger, mingle, and part. Sunset will begin at 7:59 PM.

The reservoirs are filling so we appreciate the rain. Snow keeps dropping and piling up on the mountains, and that’s appreciated, too.

Today’s theme music is a little different. I read a summary about the most popular music for productivity. The article discussed lo-fi, full of hissing vinyl and imperfections, and chillhop. At the end, based on search results from Spotify, is piano music by Ludovico Einaudi. So, I’m filling the morning mental music stream with his greatest hits.

Stay chill, don’t neg, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when prudent. It’s prudent for me to now reward my neurons and tastebuds with a little darkly roasted, ground beans drenched in hot water.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Rain drops tune up on windows and vents for a melody I don’t recognize. Wind chases the cats back into the house’s security. The sun crested the southeast ridges at 6:22 AM but sunshine remains a wan, flighty element. Our temperatures will range from 46 F to 54 and back down again before the sunset show at 7:58 PM.

Today is Wednesday, April 20, 2022 — yes, 420. A lot of people have fun with this aspect of calendaring, you know, the code for marijuana or cannabis consumption, but it doesn’t move me much. I’ll probably joke with friends about it later.

I watched a fun drama, Metal Lords (Netflix), about high school boys pursuing a quest to be a heavy metal band. Lot of entertaining references to metal throughout helped, but there was strong acting and directing, and solid production values. While the usual high school tropes permeate, they’re lightly employed, because, come on, the usual tropes of bullying, social awkwardness, hormones, and cliques, do exist in RL HS, DB Weiss, who brought Game of Thrones to HBO, also deftly delivers some intelligent nuances to the tropes. I enjoy it and recommend it.

Anyway, the movie left me with a taste for a favorite of mine when I was on puberty’s cusp. “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath (1970) is in the morning mental metal music stream. Hope you enjoy it. Speaking of taste, my tastebuds are yearning for a little black magic brew. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

At first, I was contemplating a bland sky. One gray, undecorated sheet cake dominated, and had since sunrise at 6:24 this morning. Then, at ten, clouds tore apart and sunshine made a blazing, grand entrance. Twenty minutes later, clouds discreetly covered the sunshine once again. I think the day’s script can be summarized as ‘variable’.

Today is April 19, 2022, a Tuesday, as it happens. It’s 46 F now and the ground is wet with drying rain. Snow caps the higher ridges and mountains. Our valley’s high is expected to go no further than the low fifties, with most saying that it’ll be 52, but we might see 53 or 54, depending on small local shifts. Sunset will be at 7:57 PM.

I have the Traveling Wilburys in the morning mental music stream, a result of my wife relating a conversation about her coffee peers being ignorant about who the Traveling Wilburys were. The Wilburys were an ad hoc supergroup made up of Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Bob Dylan. The guys were friends, lived near one another, and come together as friends to make music, using guitarist and sound engineer Dave Stewart’s home (his kitchen, for a large part of it), as their base.

I shrugged off the others’ ignorance about the band. The coffee mob members are a few years older than my SO, music tastes vary, and much of pop culture depended upon what radio station your car was on and your commuting habits in the late 1980s. So, you know, not knowing about them isn’t a big shocker.

Anyway, a Wilbury favorite for me is “Dirty World” from 1988, where they play with words and consumer ideas. Lot of fun.

Here’s the music. I’m going to forage for coffee in the kitchen. Later, gator.

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Monday’s Theme Music

We’ve reached the beginning again, following another calendar cycle, another week, as the world turns, giving us day and night, and we revolve around the sun, flashing through seasons, while the solar system revolves around the galaxy and the galaxy heads somewhere in the universe. And the universe itself might be going somewhere. It’s a lot to take in on a Monday in April, 2022. Thank cat I’ve had some coffee.

Today is the 18th. More than half of April has been lived, and almost a third of 2022. Sol crested the hills and mountains at 6:26 this morning, illuminating the area, showing us some idea of our weather. It’s hazy, cloudy, misty, wet, and sunny. It was 34 at dawn but now, just a few hours later, we’re arrived at 49, and have the low sixties in our sights before sunset at 7:55 PM.

I have 38 Special singing “Caught Up in You” from 1982 caught up in the morning mental music stream’s flow. It’s just the neurons playing with memories and word association and so on, saying, hey, remember 1982? Hey, remember this song? While so many memories are dependent on smells or deeply linked to them, I have similar linkages with music and television shows. I don’t think I’m anything special in that regard, more of part of the new shift in senses and memory associated with evolving technology. I think smell got a head start on memories because smell was ubiquitous and music wasn’t around much, and television wasn’t invented in humanity’s early years.

Ah, that gave me a laugh. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, etc. I have my coffee but I think a leftover cinnamon muffin is trying to get my attention in the kitchen. Here’s the music. Enjoy your day. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today is Sunday, 4/17, 2022, Easter in America. Sunrise at 6:27 AM was a bright but not sharply warm affair as a cottony line of clouds pilfered the sun’s impact. The valley will spin away from the sun at 7:54 PM. Right now, it’s reached 40 F locally, up from 36 at dawn. We anticipate hitting 60 today, but it’ll be a slow cook.

We have Easter plans. Besides calling Mom later, my wife and I are joining some pagans, atheists, Christians, and Jews for an outdoor brunch. We’re taking roasted potatoes and cinnamon swirl cupcakes. The cupcakes were made yesterday, all the wife’s doing but from a mix, while we prepared the taters this AM. They’re roasting now.

“Renegade” by Styx from 1978 is playing in the morning mental music stream. This came about from a conversation last night. We were in the snug. I was watching an episode of the Swedish show, “Beck”, focusing on the subtitles. My wife said, “It looks like somebody wants you.” I knew she meant the orange boy, Papi. He enjoys sitting in the doorway and firing green-eye lasers at me, barking out an occasional truculent mew to announce he needs something. Looking over at the feline, I said, “Looks like I’m a wanted man.”

Boom! The neurons slotted “Renegade” into my mind music, where it has played sporadically ever since, sometimes alternating with “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”. Of course, “Renegade” is a song the Pittsburgh Steelers play at Heinz Field, and I’m a Steelers fan since 1969, so there’s sentimental attachments with the song.

Here’s the music. Enjoy the sound while I enjoy my coffee and dress for my brunch. Stay positive, test negative, etc. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Patchy snow is scattered over the ground like confectioner’s sugar on pastry. Weak sunlight bleeds through a porous gray quilt of clouds. Welcome to April 16, 2022.

Yes, we’re having unseasonable weather on this Saturday, as we’ve had unseasonable weather last season and the season before. When it’s unseasonable like this, it’s unseasoned to my taste.

Snow is in the forecast. The high will be 46 F, up ten degrees from the thermometer’s current stop. Sunrise came — look, there’s some shy sun looking our way now! — came at 6:29 AM. Sundown will steal in around 7:53 PM.

Another night of dreams, but it was a car drive with my wife yesterday, running local errands. As we passed a local landmark, we were, like, hey, something is different, and then remembered, oh, that’s where that drunk driver took out the tree used for the holiday lighting. We wanted to see it again, so I turned the car around. Well, just thinking, ‘turn the car around’ inspired the neurons to begin playing “Shattered (Turn the Car Around)” by O.A.R. from 2008. The song remained in the morning mental music stream today.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. Here’s the music. Now, I’m off on a vision quest. My vision is a cuppa hot coffee. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Friday has arrived. Around the nation, in work stations and meetings, cars and on Zoom, I hear people smiling and telling one another, “Thank God it’s Friday.” TGIF. For shift workers, it might not be Friday. And wait staff, hospitals, and others associated with jobs whose tasks and activities don’t recognize a standard work week, they’re probably muttering, “Is it Friday?” Then they think how the weekend might spin. It’s a four-day weekend in the U.S. For, this is Good Friday and the First Day of Passover. Sunday is Easter. Many schools are closed for today and Monday. The change will do some folks some good. Your life might vary. Let’s hope some shooter somewhere doesn’t decided to make this a more memorable weekend.

Today is April 15, 2022. Hey, your taxes done? Sunrise was another glorious show, a sharp dawning of light piercing the sky as the mountains were cleared at 6:30 AM. Temperatures are at 37 F outside of my house on the valley wall. Sundown will take over at 7:52 PM. Our high should be in the fifties again. Another winter weather advisory is in effect, for snow over 2500, 2-6 inches. A lot of snow for April, but appreciated, given our dry winter and drought conditions.

My dreams featured waterfalls. Naturally, the neurons are playing “Waterfalls” by TLC (1995) in the morning mental music stream. (In fairness to the neurons, they first started with the theme song to the Mouseketeers.) 1995 was the year I retired from the USAF, and I remember the song playing during my commute in my final months, wondering if I was chasing waterfalls. It worked out well, though, for me. The AIDS epidemic of the era was behind the song’s lyrics, something I later learned. While I took it as a song about doubt, it’s more of a song of worry, pain, and desperation, and a parent trying to protect their child. It’s much different from my dreams, where I remember realizing I was standing in a waterfall, looking over its edge and thinking, “Neat. What power and beauty.” In the manner of dreams, the waterfall infused me with a sense of strength, and I walked away feeling invigorated.

Stay positive, etc. Hope your weekend goes well, whether it begins today or another day. I’m off for coffee. Here’s the song. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today finds us at the juxtaposition of winter and spring and the week called Thursday, April 14, 2022. Snow on the mountains is a hopeful sign for us in our drought-struck state while the buds and flowers remind us of spring’s promise of life and growth.

Sunrise was a solid showing of light and warmth at 6:32 AM. Showers have drifted away, the clouds moving on for the moment, muttering about, “maybe coming back later,” perhaps after they go off to chill and have something to eat or drink, maybe even coffee. Although just 41 F right now, the sun’s presence makes it feel warmer to me. A 44-degree high is all they say we can hope for before sundown at 7:51 PM.

Reading the news, I can’t stop the conclusion from jumping into my head that Putin is a terrorist. “Don’t you dare join NATO, or I will nuke you,” he metaphorically shouts in his cold, threatening tone. Isn’t that the way of war, though, “don’t do that or we’ll do this,” pressing an escalation of tension with fear and the threat of violence. If not a terrorist, he’s certainly a bully. I know, the U.S. has its own version of bully tactics, too. At least we haven’t overtly attacked another nation recently.

The neurons have planted “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison in the morning mental music stream. Released when I was fourteen, its slide guitar, rhythms, and lyrics mesmerized me. Yes, I know of the later copyright infringement action and the obvious connection between “He’s So Fine” and “My Sweet Lord”. While “He’s So Fine” is an excellent song, its lyrics and slide work didn’t have me sitting there listening again and again.

Stay positive, test negative, drink coffee, wear a mask as or when needed, and get the jabs as, when, etc. Sorry about the coffee bit; it just jumped in there because it’s that time. Not trying to influence you or anything, no, about the promise of what that hot, dark beverage can do for the body and soul, no, not at all.

Here’s the music. Look – sunshine! Hey, it’s raining. Cheers

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