Category: weather

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Rotating and orbiting as the planet has done for billions of years, we now come to February 2, 2022. A Wednesday, it may be memorable to many people for many reasons, but how does it compare to the past trillions of days? Our human lifespans are so short compared to the universe’s life scale that little of what we do is memorable in the cosmic sense. It’s why we narrow our focus down to our personal spaces and calendars. Contemplating the greater scale may well lead to nihilistic conclusions or heavy consumption of coffee, alcohol, or other drugs. Or eating disorders. So let’s just keep focus on our smaller but amazingly impactful days. They are impactful on us and that’s what builds our memories and experiences and skew our emotions.

Anyway, the sun ‘rose’ at 7:23 AM and will ‘set’ at 5:27 PM. I’ll drink some coffee and eat some food. I’ve already done some of the latter. You’re probably doing something similar, eating, or thinking about what you’ll eat, even considering, perhaps, who you’ll eat it with. Here in Ashland, it dropped to 28 F last night. Now it’s 36 with a high of 44 expected for the day. Dollops of congealed gray and white cloud float on the blue sky. We do not expect rain.

I haven’t done any of my daily games. They’ll come soon. I guessed my first word in Wordle in two guesses yesterday. On the other hand, it required all six in two games. Four other games took three or four. Yeah, I like Wordle. Getting it in two is luck. For instance, in the first game when I guessed it in two, the last two letters of my first guess were green. On a whim, I entered poppy as my second guess. That was the word. Yea for me.

Weirdly, I have a song called “If Not for You” living in the morning mental music stream. Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song. Then George Harrison recorded it, followed by Olivia Newton John. I had the albums for the first two performers. I heard the ONJ version on the radio one day and then turned around and pulled out the vinyl 33-RPM album to listen to Dylan and an eight-track tape to listen to George’s version. Doing that back then in my bedroom in Pittsburgh somewhere around 1973 (all of the versions were out by 1971), I never imagined the technology that would allow me to sit at my computer and pull up the same songs. Trippy, innit? Just think of how it all might be in another fifty years or so, right?

Part of me thinks about memories like this and wonder why it stays so sharply in my memory today that I can look around that room from my vantage here and see and hear the details of my life then. A sliver of me muses that maybe there’s some cosmic entanglement taking place. Another facet of me shrugs and mumbles, who knows?

For today’s theme music, I’ve selected a recording of Dylan and Harrison playing it together. Makes me smile. Stay postive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. I’m off for coffee now. Looking forward to it. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Did the conveyor belt of calendar days speed up? It’s already Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. I feel like George Jetson sometimes. The cat and dog sped up the walkway and now it’s a runaway, leaving George shouting, “Jane, stop this crazy thing,” as he goes round and round. Yes, time can feel like a crazy thing.

This morning’s sunrise at 7:24 AM seemed sudden. I was watching out the window on the southeast side where the sun first makes it way over my house in the winter. The slow rise was expected, but then it was like the sun leaped up over the mountain, blinding me as it shouted, “Gotcha!”

It was up to 33 F by that point. The water in the outside pet dish was frozen. I told my cat last night, when we went out at midnight and gazed at the clear, star-filled sky, “It’s gonna be a cold one, dude.” Not as cold as other places; these things are relative. I guessed 29, 30, which was on the mark.

Our high will be like yesterday, about 45 F, which is our winter average in Feb. Sunset will come at 5:25 PM. That means ten full hours of sunlight today! Woo hoo! But — still looking for that rain and snow. Worries about drought, wildfires, the snowpack, and reservoir levels hover over the pleasant winter hours.

When I was out walking yesterday, my mind drifted through writing projects and DIY issues before the mental jukebox turned on. It was on random, but Whitesnake with “Is This Love” was left playing in the morning mental music stream. The song was released in 1987 and the song and video have such a glam rock 80s vibe — the hair, the women in tight dresses, the beat, the guitar styling. What a scene.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax when you can, and let’s get off this crazy thing. Here’s the music. Ah, coffee. Such a wonderful aroma. Now, to taste.

Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today feels like winter outside. Not as much like winter where snow thickens in growing piles on the ground and obliterates visibility as is happening in many parts of the northern hemisphere. No, not that wintry. But chilly, with a polar snap in the air and a muted sun obscured by an endless cloud layer.

Today is Monday, January 31, 2022. The last day of January. One month of 2022 in the books. About 8.5% of the year’s days are gone.

The sun’s live streaming shine began at 7:25 AM and will cease at 5:24 PM. Temperatures are kissing the upper thirties now and are predicted to stop at 45 F. But no rain. No snow.

I have a Michael Jackson song from 1979 called “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” circulating in the morning mental music stream. It was a large hit back in the late seventies and early eighties, kicking off a new MJ era. The song is cat related for me today. My cancer-afflicted feline was eating this morning. I encouraged him not to stop until he got enough. Good to see him trying to eat robustly. You can see the music connection, right? He’s in sad shape, with a tumor maligning his handsome face. His personality remains the same, though.

Watching the MJ video is a trip back. He looked and acted so much different just four years later, when he came out with the Thriller album. He reminds me of David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, or Madonna, re-inventing themselves. The Beatles, Stones, Who, etc., were less about reinventing themselves and more about shifting and refining themselves. Either way, it’s been fascinating to observe all these these changes throughout the decades, and the music shifts that brought us to now.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. I’m getting coffee now because I can. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sunday. A hazy day, with strips of white clouds torn off and hanging on the blue sky. The sun seems diminished, and the air feels chillier. The dueling high and low pressure systems that’s been delivering our pleasant weather streak seem to be moving. Although it’s 44 F, it feels different. Today’s high will ‘only’ be 53, instead of the sixties that we’ve been hitting. Rain is forecast for tonight. Tomorrow should be ten degrees cooler. For historic purposes, our January average high is 48, and we’ve been consistently exceeding sixty. The sun popped in at 7:26 AM and will pop out at 5:23 in the evening.

Today’s music comes from yesterday. It hit as I checked out the day. “A Beautiful Morning” by the Rascals was released in 1968. Mellow, relaxed, it’s good accompaniment to walking on a nice day, which yesterday was, all sunshine, birds, and mild breeze. But although the sun sets at five twenty something, the mountains block its presence about seventy-five minutes before that. It gets cold in that shadow. While it’s entertaining to look across at the lucky people in sunshine on the valley’s other side, brown but sun-blessed at this time of year, I’d rather be walking in it.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters. I’m getting my coffee. Black, straight up. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Gold filled the cloudless sky as the sunblast kicked off at 7:27 AM in our valley on this Saturday, January 29, 2022. With the sun rising, the gold dipped. Blue flooded in as the sun’s beams surmounted the mountains at last. The temperature was 32 F. Now at 36, we expect to see 63 before the sun takes its show over the western horizon at 5:21 PM. Look at that, almost ten hours of sunshine and February hasn’t started it session yet.

In bummer COVID-19, all the county libraries are completely shutting down for a week. All materials due during that period will be automatically extended as the drop boxes will be locked shut. Hold pick-up periods will be extended, too. All this is because of personnel shortages driven by employees or their families sick with COVID-19.

While that’s happening, some genius suggested in an editorial that the best way to deal with the skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers is to open all the businesses and not restrict any of them. Save the economy and give everyone’s morale a boost. But…as the numbers are skyrocketing, people sicken, and the hospitals fill, who is going to be there to work?

Sadly, many see this bizarro logic as an ideal solution. Yet, hospitals across the nation are pressing nursing students into working for free to help with the caseload as personnel fall sick. Other nurses are being ordered to work longer hours, sometimes while foregoing pay, because of shortages. These are the same people who think that bare shelves are a political issue which can be resolved by just making more people work. They completely miss the dynamics engaged.

Enough of that. Sorry for the rant. Haven’t had coffee yet.

Today’s song is a repeat. “Maneater” by Hall & Oates came out in 1982. I was stationed in Japan, on Okinawa, at Kadena AB in the military at the time. That has nothing to do with the song’s occupatoin of my morning mental music stream. The song is there because of the cats. Why, yes, of course.

Sometimes when I’m feeding the cats, maybe just five out of five times, Boo and Tucker will suddenly become oblivious to me. After begging me for their morning meal with patient meows as they follow me around, I’ll put the bowls down and say, “Here you go, Tucker. Here, Boo. Come and get it.”

Hearing that, they’ll sit. Look around. I can hear their minds saying, “Boo? Tucker? Never heard of ’em.”

Papi, the young ginger, will dart pass them to the bowls, give me a meow, and begin eating. I then say, “There you go, Papi, eat up.”

Hearing “Papi”, Boo and Tucker will rise and come. “Papi,” they say. “Why, that’s me.” They say this even though I tell them, “No. You’re not Papi. You’re Tucker and you’re Boo. You two are black and white. He’s a ginger.”

They act like they can’t understand a word of what I’m telling them.

Of course, when they finally came is when I said in my head, “Here they come.” Which started Hall & Oates and the bassline for “Maneater”. Thus is how my mind works. At least before coffee.

Here’s the tune. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, as get the jabs when you can. I gotta get that coffee in me, you know? Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Some call it the end of the business week. The last working day. Others call it the start of the weekend. In this 24/7 world, it’s none and all of these. We can agree that it’s Friday, January 28, 2022.

The sun’s golden light silently came up and over the valley’s horizon at 7:28 AM and will take its light and leave at 5:21 PM. Our mild temperatures, a result of stalled systems, continue. Last night’s low was about 36. It’s now 56 and pleasant, and we expect a high of 62. Meanwhile, I’m reading about the bomb cyclone hitting back east, also known as winter storm Kenan, about to do a massive white dump on the U.S. Two feet of snow in places, flooding, possibly hurricane level winds. That, friends, is winter.

I have a David Bowie song fluttering through the morning mental music stream. “John, I’m Only Dancing” was limited in release. Just too risqué for the U.S. in 1972, the very important people in charge (VIPIP) pronounced. I heard it through some small Pittsburgh station who liked rebelling against such restrictions and then I later owned it on Changesonebowie, which came out in 1976, a terrific album for Bowie fans. I could listen to it forever and a day, as Mom would express it.

Here’s the music, and my coffee, right on schedule. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

The last Thursday of January, 2022, is upon us. We’ve already passed an entire month, as we’re now on the 27th. Does that seem too fast to anyone else? Who is in charge of the speed of time?

Sunrise hit like a bowling ball slowly rolling through the pins at 7:29 AM. Sunshine will flee the scene at 5:19 AM. It’s 44 F now but is expected to hit 61 before descending back down to 32 at night. A fine day, but I will tell you, it gets cold fast when the sun starts making its day-end run. I was with friends, outside, having a beer at 4 PM yesterday. All of us were dressed for it but that sun slide away and took all warmth with it. We dropped from 58 to 45 fast, and it wasn’t a friendly 45. What we endure for a beer with friends.

“Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass (1972) is riding my mind’s rails in the morning mental music stream. I can honestly say I don’t know why. It’s a song I know well from AM pop on transistor radios. It’s also showed up in a number of movies over the decades. Something about the song, a story with pop rock atmosphere, about a girl in a fishing village in love with a fisherman, settles into the mind groove and plays without offending. I also used it — twice — as part of the floofinitions when the floof-rock (flock) group Looking Floof and their hit “Brandy (You’re A Fine Pet)” was featured.

Here’s the music. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when you can. I need some coffee. See if that’ll help me match January ’22’s speed. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Well, happy birthday Eddie Van Halen, Paul Newman, and many others. Yes, today is January 26, 2021, a Wednesday, as it happens. Sunshine invaded our valley at 7:30 AM. Lovely to not be stumbling through a dim house but instead stride through sunshine washing the floors and windows. The temperature is 40 F and we expect to reach 63 before the sun takes its rays and leaves at 5:18 PM. As expected with these sort of winter temperatures, clouds are skipping the valley today.

I singled out Paul Newman and Eddie Van Halen from the long list of Jan. 26 birthday notables listed on a webpage because of their influence in my life. Paul Newman was a big star by the time the cobwebs cleared from my infant mind and I started paying attention to the world. He was one of Mom’s faves. Whenever something involved Paul Newman, Mom talked about it. Frank Sinatra was the other one like this for her. Guess she had a thing for blue-eyed men.

Meanwhile, Van Halen was born the year before me. Started his band when I was sixteen and then rose to become one of rock’s pre-eminent guitarist and another star in my rock universe. That he died so young — just a year younger than I am now — bothers me just because I admired and enjoyed his playing. I’m sort of fatalistic about death on the one hand, believing it’ll happen to all of us, while also wondering if there’s another side, something that does happen beyond death. Many accuse me of mysticism when I speak of these things; they are sure that death is final and there is nothing more. But, abiogenesis remains a mystery that exists but can’t be explained, sort of sliding it into another mysticism category. Then there’s the matter of what was here before the Big Bang? I think understanding everything is still a work in progress and that as we learn more, we’ll discover many more baffling components of consciousness, existence, time, and reality.

Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is “Over the Mountain” by Ozzy Osbourne (1981). The song arose yesterday while walking. I was at the top of a crest, about 2900 feet. Across the way, the sunset was spreading a rosy jam across the golden mountaintops that stood against a blue sky. Spectacular. In came “Over the Mountain” as I thought about what was happening on those mountains and on the other side. So much life that we know little about except in general terms until the shit gets real, right?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when you can. I’m popping off for more coffee. You stay and listen to the music. I already heard it. Cheers

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General Updates

Watching, walking, reading, writing, cats…that’s my world. Oh, and the wife. And eating and sleeping. And games. Cleaning house. Shopping. Can’t forget Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Sudoku. And two DIY projects. And keeping up with the news.

All family except my wife are several thousands of miles away. Literally on the other U.S. coast. We’re on the west and they’re on the east. Visiting under COVID conditions is problematic. The best way would be to drive across the country. I supposed we can pile the cats into the car and do that. I don’t think it would be a pleasant trip for cats or humans.

  1. We’re watching The Expanse. When Amazon began airing the final season, my wife proposed that we watch the series from the start and then indulge in the final season. It’s worked well. We find ourselves speaking in Belter slang after watching an episode. We limit ourselves to one per night.
  2. Also on the watch list is Anxious People, Cowboy Bebop, Bordertown, and Undercover on Netflix, Myth Quest on Apple +, and Third Watch and The Rook on The Roku Channel. Vera and Would I Lie to You are back in play on Britbox, and PBS offers us Around the World in Eighty Days (a rebooted series with David Tennant) and the new season of the rebooted All Things Great & Small on PBS.
  3. We just finished Upright, an Aussie series about a man with issues taking an upright piano to Perth, and Firebite, another Aussie original, with an interesting twist on vampires. These came to us via AMC+, along with Ragdoll, Kin, and Stella Blomkvist. I usually keep three to four channels on subscription per month. I rotate the subscriptions. I figure, why not? A monthly subscription usually costs between one and two coffee drinks or beers. Not bad, to me. Funny, but the most expensive subscriptions are from Showtime and HBO Max, and they usually have the least enticing fare. I watch for them on special. Amazon and Roku both chase new subscribers with deals. My AMC+ subscription this month and my Showtime subscription last month were both just $.99 for the month. Very good deal.
  4. Reading is a constant. I’m now reading Binti by Okarafor and Bewilderment by Powers. Both are beautifully written. Just finished were Harlem Shuffle, When We Cease to Understand the World, Fortune Favors the Dead, Find You First, When We Were Orphans, Hell of a Book, and Telephone. Ondeck is an old Jack Vance novel bought at the library for $1, Louise Penney, Caleb Carr, Amor Towles, and others.
  5. My average walking distance per day remains 11.2 miles. I range from 75 to 80 miles a week. This warm weather, my improved ability to walk and run in-place while reading or watching television, and the longer periods of daylight, all contribute to the sustained average. Also, there’s nowhere else to go with COVID still playing hot and fast.
  6. Despite all my walking, I have gained weight. Twelve pounds. Gads. The discovery shocked me. Beginning to work on the plan to whittle that off. Just don’t like carrying it.
  7. I did put together one jigsaw puzzle this year. I did start it last year, though. I enjoy them, but they absorb me and steal focus. So, no. I reluctantly set them aside.
  8. My poor fur friend, Boo, continues to cope with his cancer. He’s a mess. A mass on his jaw keeps him from eating properly. It’s a challenge for him and me. I’m his primary caregiver. He often drools after eating and can only eat small portions at a time. But he’s still trying, so my wife and I will keep trying. I crunch his grain-free kibble and make it into a sort of chunky soup as his favorite. His drooling means that we chase after him with tissues to catch the drool. It’s hit and miss, as we’re not up twenty-four hours a day. The hardwood floors take hits and require mopping a few times a day. I put several towels down for him to sleep and eat upon. Those are changed each day. We wash several loads of Boo material each week. We wonder, how long can he go on like this?
  9. The other two cats are doing well. They give Boo space, which he and I appreciate. Tucker and Papi are endearing characters.
  10. Still editing The Constant, my novel in progress. Halfway through the process. I’ve begun the next novel in that series. Working title is Fiveland. Couldn’t help myself. Was reading Bewilderment when the next novel’s plot and opening both slammed into me. Trotted on in and wrote the first chapter and began sketching the plot and story in my mind.

That’s all my happenings. Hope you’re all staying busy and healthy out there. Drop me a line. Let me know. Time to return to writing and editing like crazy, then go for a walk. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Sunny and windy, and a little chilly are my first descriptors for today. Add in a weak sun — all things being relative — and a thin layer of fading white clouds, and our current axis and place on the Earth, and you arrive at a winter day that’s 46 degrees F and will get fifteen degrees warmer. Sunrise came for us on this Tuesday, January 25, 2022, at 7:31 AM and the setting will come at 5:16 PM.

I have an old song by the American Breed rolling around in the morning mental music stream. The American Breed had a hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me” in 1968. I was twelve, living in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA known as Penn Hills. Going to Washington Elementary School. We took buses to and from it every day. My best friends were my cousin, Rick, who lived up the street, along with Bruce, Curt, and John. The five of us hung around a lot in those early years. I had crushes on Vicky, Joy, and Marla, very smart and pretty girls. I was learning the guitar then with dreams of being a rock store, but I didn’t have the focus and discipline to keep playing. I’d rather daydream, read, draw, or play sports.

Ah, good times. Groovy times. Don’t know what prompted all that to spirt up out of my head today. But there it is. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vaccine and boosts. Oh, and watch out for Opposite Day. Yes, today I Opposite Day in the U.S., but don’t take it too seriously, you know? Here’s the music. Guess I’ll get the coffee. Cheers

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