Yes, it is the Fourth of July in 2025, Independence Day in the United States. May the spirit of the 4th and its ideals of freedom, justice, and equality be with you wherever you may be in the world.
Not an overly warm day on this Ashlandia holiday Frida. Now sitting at 55 F, clouds shroud the sky and cancel the sun. Today’s high will be just 78 F.
Thunderstorms roamed the region late yesterday afternoon, putting us on wildfire alert. Two are noted down in California, in the Klamath and Happy Camp. Both are lightning strike products.
Trump is out there and spreading garbage again. He never takes a break. This time he claims his ‘beautiful bill’ rescued two billion farms.Sure. And he’s pretending that the social security tax exemption for seniors is for everybody. Maybe he’s lying; maybe he just doesn’t know. There’s often an appearance that he’s not connected to what’s going on. Just wondering how many people he’ll have ICE disappear to celebrate the holiday.
Going with Bruce Bruuuuuuce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” for the holiday. Kind of has The Neurons snickering over using an angry anti-war song that many mistakenly think is patriotic as the theme song on this holiday celebrating independence is in my morning mental music stream.
Got coffee. Heading down to Pam’s house to join in a buffet, see old friends, meet new ones, and watch the parade flow with stops and jerks down Siskiyou onto Main Street. The parade starts early this year to beat the heat. Have a better one. And away we go.
Hello. Excuse me. Is this Thirstda, July 3, 2025? It is? Well, I guess this is where I belong, then.
It’s 74 F now. Gonna be 84 F. Dropping down to a chillier temp tomorrow: 80 F. Nice having a not blazing hot summer. So far, knock wood.
The jobs reports of a 147,000 gains surprised everyone, especially after ADP’s report yesterday that the private sector lost 33,000. Experts are now clamoring, gosh, the U.S. economy is more robust than we thought, and the markets hurtled up with glee. Sure, tourism is down and the national parks are a mess, and manufacturing lost 7,000 jobs and teen unmployment and Black unemployment rose and DOGE cut loose a bunch of people, but all is well. Well, we’ll see.
Kudos to Rep. Hakeen Jeffries for putting himself out there and making the effort. He set a new record for speaking on the House floor, 8 hours and 44 minutes, rebuking the GOTP for that ugly bill that they bizarrely call the One Big Beautiful Bill. It passed in the House, so it’s on the way to Trump. We’ll see what happens next. I expect Trump will celebrate with a new product like Trump Beer, a bargain at $60 a six pack. Then maybe he’ll set up a presidential kissing booth. Loyal MAGAs can pay good money to sidle up and kiss Trump staffer ass.
Today’s music is “Children of the Revolution”. I don’t know why The Neurons put the 1972 song into the morning mental music stream. After going in search of a Rex version, I came across a cover by the Violent Femmes and used it, because I used the Rex version back in 2023 and I like the Violent Femmes. So, here we go.
The sun is shining and the coffee is consumed. I’m off to my physical. Have a better one. Cheers
It’s Wenzda, aka humpday, but also July 2, 2025. Cooled down to a comfortable level last night some and the morning ingredients are calling birds, blue sky, sunshine, and 72F. High will be 83 F, a drop from what I saw yesterday at my casa, 95 F.
I realized this morning that I’m in a metaphorical holding-my-breath state. So many balls in the air. I scan horizons for ‘the next’ in six different directions. Out there is the One Big Beautiful Bill, known in some places as the Big Ripoff, the Great Screwed Up Give to the Rich bill in others. Trump was again idiotically blithering on TV like someone who shouldn’t be allowed out on their own again. Russia and Ukraine’s war continues. Iran and Israel are still out there glaring at one another. Israel bombed some more people in Gaza. Don’t worry: they’re ‘investigating’ how it came to be that they bombed a cafe and killed reporters and workers and such. Yep. Tariffs hang all over everything like toilet paper from trees after Devil’s Night. Supreme Court rulings have been issued and the storms building behind those will come out. It’s Hurricane Season. Europe is suffering record heat and it’s not that cool in ‘Merica, either. Wildfires burn and FEMA is ready to shrug because Trump says states should be doing it for themselves. DOGE has had access to personal data; can that be good? The U.S. measles outbreak has ‘plateaued’ according to the gov’t but has it really? And what will happen with all that new guidance from the science and medicine skewed HHS led by worm brain Kennedy? Killer Noem’s ICE Troops seem more reckless, sanctuary and blue states are being threatened by Trump, he has a new eua-du-shit out, and Musk and Trump have taken their insults to new levels. Then there’s the personal and family stuff.
Hold my breath. Wait to see. What. Is. Next.
Quickening to my mood and thoughts, The Neurons unleashed “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons into the morning mental music stream. The song came out in 2012. Led by Marcus Mumford, the band has a different sound but it works for me and enough others that they’ve established a solid career. Hope you find it okay for your Wenzda’s beats.
My follow up dental appointment went well yesterday. All is healing, no problems, no complaints. Biopsy showed nothing of concern from the cyst removed from my gum. Have another appointment, different dentist, for a cleaning.
Coffee-fueled energy is ascending. I’m off to early morning yardwork. Have the best day you can. Cheers
A new day, a new month, but it looks like the same ol’ times. It’s Twosda, July 1, 2025. Yes, we’re through half of 2025. Trumpification of the U.S. in which he brings his special brand of destructive failing shit to the nation and declares it’s wonderful.
The weather has again shifted, so today will be cooler than first forecast. We’re now in the low seventies in Ashlandia but we’re creeping toward the low 90s. Supposed to be in the upper 90s today but the thunder mass made an early stop, coming by Munda instead of Twosda. Some sources claim we’ll only kick the upper 80s today. Time will tell.
2 AM, I stepped outside to view the sky, check the weather, and say hello to the new month. Heat’s hold was softer but it was still as a frozen pond. Stars and planets and galaxies watched me but otherwise I felt unwatched, alone and comfortable. The Neurons took the moment to turn on a 1981 arena rock song by Billy Squier in the morning mental music stream, and “Lonely is the Night”‘s opening filled my headspace.
[Verse 1] Lonely is the night when you find yourself alone Your demons come to light and your mind is not your own Lonely is the night when there’s no one left to call You feel the time is right, say, the writing’s on the wall, yeah
[Verse 2] And it’s a high time to fight when the walls are closing in A-call it what you like, it’s time you got to win Lonely, lonely, lonely, your spirit’s sinking down You find you’re not the only stranger in this town
[Chorus 1] Red lights, green lights, stop and go jive Headlines, deadlines jamming your mind You been stealing shots from the side Let your feelings go for a ride
I was reading an account of a book about Trump and last year’s campaign and the shooting in Butler that had me doing early morning headshaking.
“They thought I had four or five bullets in me because there was so much blood,” the president said, referring to his would-be White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, future director of communications Steven Cheung and future deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino.
LOL. I bet they never thought that and never said it. Many people exaggerate things and their role and impact and others’ reactions. Some of that are honest errors and memory flaws. But Trump always does this to a hyper extent.
Here’s another quote from another individual that inspired some early morning weariness:
“Bezos said Trump’s instincts showed who he was, and he wanted them to have a friendship,” according to the book.
LOL, again. Anyone paying attention for the last ten years already realized that Trump the grifter, serial womanizer, and huuugggge liar had already shown who he is. Trump showed who he is with his eagerness to shoot United States citizens who were exercising their First Amendment rights. He’s shown it with his golfing hypocrisy, constantly golfing after saying in August of 2016, “I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf.” He showed who he is after calling military members loser for being a prisoner or for dying for their country.
But Bezos’s comments don’t surprise after that gaudy wedding display he put on. Bezos is becoming more Trump like with each new moon. Whereas he once showed a social conscience, he’s just another power hungry, greedy leech on society.
On to July. Hope your month brings you joy and satisfaction. Got my coffee. Carry on.
Sunshine hangs long and hot. The temperature rests at 95 F. The sky darkens, heralding a fleet of clouds. The fleet burgeons as more clouds drift over to see what happens. Darkening and darkening under added layers of clouds, the sunshine skips out on the rest of the day. So dark at 4 PM, we’re forced into turning on houselights. Thunder cruises through with long throat clearing. We look out, talking out our thoughts, “Looks lik it’s going to rain.” “It’s going to storm.”
Wind dashes around and through the trees. Then it sinks.
The day grows still and dark. Feeling bored, the thunder slinks off. The darkness stays, the clouds remain, and the temperature puts it hat on 87 F, and stays there. Tension builds as we wait and look, asking each other, looking outside for clues, surfing the net for information. Friends share on the net, “weird weather.” No one knows nothin’; we wait.
Boom, and it’s June’s last day n 2025. Boom, it’s another Munda.
Today is Munda, June 29, 2025. Boom, it’s gonna get hot again in Ashlandia. 99 F. 73 F at the mo. My friend in Melbourne, Australia is miserable with cold, wet rain. I feel for him. The weather rarely satisfies us for many consecutive moments, especially if you’re a prince like me, cognizant of every ripple casting anything less than perfection.
Despite a heavy load of dreams, today’s music comes from PINO Trump’s “One Beautiful Big Bill”. News outlets are generally roiling with disgust about the bill. It’s a grab bag for the rich and strips away help for the poor and sick, and shreds protections for our land, water, and air. The bill removes gun controls and taxes so it’ll be easier and cheaper for people to pay guns. This, in a nation already slathered with gun violence. Just this weekend, two fire fighters were shot and killed and others were wounded in an ambush in Idaho. People polled are heavily against the One Big Beautiful Bowel Movement, for just reasons.
Yet, this bill is the perfect bill for this nation at this point. Filled with what the fuck provisions, sponsored and pushed by a liar and a cheat (yes, that’s Trump), it’s a bill by a billionaire for a billionaire. One that encourages and rewards greed, violence, and selfishness. Perfect for the ‘Christian Nation’ visualized in Project 2025. I have always considered Trump a con man; now his con has come to full light, and his supporters are the main marks.
Today’s song, then, is “Nasty” by Janet Jackson. The Neurons popped the song into my morning mental music stream after I read about the bill and the GOP capitulation and hissed, “Nasty.” That was all it took, and I was hearing, “Nasty. Oh, you nasty boys.”
Just read that Trump is to visit America’s newest Florida funpark, Alligator Alcatraz. Maybe a gator will get ‘im. It’s good to have dreams.
Hope your weather fits your needs and your day works out beautifully. I’ll do my best. Give me a cuppa. Here we go. Cheers
June is going out on a heat wave in Ashlandia. Topping out at 99 F today, Sunda, June 29, 2025. It’s okay out there for now, 62 F but the sun is already flexing its heat. Went out there for my morning circadiam rhythm adjustment and the sun heat drove me into the shadows fast. It’s not to last; by Wenzda, we’ll see it drop back down into the mid and upper 80s.
Active dream night. From one of them comes today’s theme music. The dream was about delusions, illusions, magic, and tech. Hearing of that, The Neurons came up with a few songs for the morning mental music stream. First up was “Abracadabra”, a 1982 rock song brought into the world by Steve Miller and his band. It’s pretty standard rock radio fare. Diana Ross apparently partly inspired the song. From Wikipedia:
The song is said to have been inspired by the American singer Diana Ross, whom Miller had met when they each performed on the same episode of the pop music television show Hullabaloo in the 1960s.[3] The lyrics “Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows” are a reference to the spinning wheel segment from The Original Amateur Hour.
Speaking on The Howard Stern Show in June 2016, Miller said at first his record company Capitol Records did not see the potential hit it would become. “Capitol didn’t believe in it and didn’t want to release it. I had a different deal with Phonogram in Europe. When it came out in Europe, I cancelled my American tour because it was No. 1 everywhere in the world, except the States.”[citation needed] After seeing its success overseas, Capitol released it in the U.S. and it also climbed to No. 1.
Ah, good ol’ “Hullabaloo”! I remember watching that with Mom and my sisters.
But, as The Neurons will do as I’m busy humming “Abracadabra”, they thrust the Lady Gaga song by the same name from 2025 into the morning mental music stream. Jarring as a train wreck as the two songs are well different. But singing that abracadabra refrain with her is fun.
Got my hot coffee. Keep cool or warm, safe and dry, whatever need be, wherever you’re at. Here we go. Cheers
If my grip on reality is sure and we’re sharing the same reality, today is Satyrda, June 28, 2025. A strong sun lords over us with a hot hand. Mid 80s to upper 80s is the sun’s upper reach for us. Funny, but Mid 80s to upper 80s was what I remember as a new house price range in South Carolina in the early 80s when we lived there during a military assignment.
Upon scouring the news for lowlights yesterday and cringing through the Roberts Court rulings, The Neurons told me, “That’s it. We’re out of here.” To where, I asked the squirrelly gray beasts. “Kathmandu,” they replied. To reinforce their notion, they sprang the Bob Seger song on the morning mentl music stream. So here we go with the fifty year old song, “Katmandu”.
Seger related that the song was born out of frustration and exasperation, so it’s wholly fitting for this era for many of us. At least, in theory. The Neurons were speaking out of my disappointment with my country, the United States. I love it and don’t plan to move away, but the current political atmo leaves me panting for some friggin’ other place, at least until TACO madness has subsided and we get back to being a democratic republic.
Time to rock and roll another summer day in the U.S.A. Hope you’re dealing, wherever we’re you’re at. Cheers
Ashlandia remains in a stable weather pattern for today, June 27, 2025, Frida in our reality. Like yesterday, our highs will encroach on the mid 80s while we enjoy 62 F at the mo.
Ashlandia’s current problem are aggressive deer. This has been an off and on thing and doesn’t usually get as much press as other animals, like cougars and bears. The cougars haven’t been in the news much. The bears have just bee Yogi-ing trash cans. The deer, with new fawns being born, have declared war on dogs and people coming too close. Some of them are bold and forthright, imitating Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, insisting, “You shall not pass.” The dog-walking people, dog leashed, respond to the deer, “But I live there.” It’s a challenge. A city committee studied the issue in 2008 but no effective solutions were found. With four aggressive does finding the NextDoor spotlight in different city areas, it’s recycled into our awareness. That cycle itself is a product of drought; the deer were out of the area when we were parched and conserving water for more than a decade. Now that we’re water rich with thick greenery, the deer are enticed back into the area. Humans (with leashed dogs) and deer are getting acquainted anew.
A pause for silent reflection for Bill Moyer, journalist, press secretary, writer, 1934-2025. Watching him and reading his commentary and essays informed me and shaped my thinking.
Thinking that I wanted to break my current dark cycle, I asked The Neurons to please come up with some chill music for the morning mental music stream. They delivered Carlos Santana with Michelle Branch from 2002 and the “Game of Love”. Wikipedia provided some background to the song that I didn’t know.
The song had originally been recorded with New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, but album producer Clive Davis felt a female voice would maximize the song’s appeal and a recording of Santana performing “The Game of Love” with Tina Turner as vocalist was completed. When Turner declined to participate in making a video for the track, Davis recruited Macy Gray to record a replacement vocal. When Davis was not satisfied with that version, Michelle Branch was asked to record the song,[2][better source needed] with Branch’s rhythm guitar playing also added to the track. Branch said, “It was the first time for me to sing somebody else’s song. Usually I’m like: ‘Oh I want it this way’ and I’m in charge…I didn’t meet [Carlos Santana at the recording session], I didn’t know what was going on…It felt to me like wow it seems like there’s so much at stake, I’m going to go in there and just sing my heart out and just cross my fingers.”[3]
Coffee is arriving at my major internal waypoints. Time to rock up again. Hope you have a great one. Cheers
My phone was ringing and dinging with a plethora of text messages. I clicked on the app to see WTF was going on. My phone tried calling people. Sighing, I rolled out of bed. 6:48.
Sunshine was again championing the blue summer sky. 58 F now, it’d be 84 F later. A thin line of nascent white clouds trouble the sky blue from being as rich and pure as possible. I tried again to check messages but they wouldn’t come up on an app. My sister, though, corresponds with me on a separate app. Her summaries detailed an overnight firefight in The Mom Saga between Mom, her boyfriend, his family, and my family.
I exercised to engage my muscles and get blood moving in the right direction and consulted my Fitbit for the results. Fitbit hadn’t registered anything. Some scrolling revealed that my Fitbit was fritzing. WTF.
Thirstda, June 26, 2025, was not off to an inspiring launch. Maybe coffee and perusing the news would help. Meanwhile, I would reboot my Fitbit and phone. I mean by that, turn them on and off. That’s often modern technology’s rudimentary fixes: turn it off and back on. It failed this time, leaving me with some WTF mumbling to my caffeinating self. Almost in parallel, I went to the net via computer to search for help. Blank pages came up. Really, WTAF?
Finagling of computer settings were engaged. Results showed. Turning off the Fitbit and turning it on again a few times, I drank coffee and considered the failed results. With coffee in, brain neurons engaged in what was going on.
Hey, they said, did you notice that the time is going backwards on the Fitbit?
Whaaat? I answered. Yes. Each time I turned the FB off and on, the time it showed went further back.
The Neurons said, This has happened before.
I’d tried snyncing the Fitbit with the app. That failed. The app kept telling me that an update was available. But It also told me that the update was already installed.
Well, hold on, partner, The Neurons said. The app is probably hung.
Of course.
Bringing the app up, I worked a hard shutdown on the phone. Yep, that fixed all Fitbit problems.
Thank god for coffee.
Tethered to my computer and technological issues, The Neurons are huddling with songs about freedom. The morning’s hours have sprinted away. Solomon Burke ends up singing “None of Us Are Free” in the morning mental music stream. A line resonates with me: “If you don’t say its wrong, then you say it’s right.” Yep. That’s how I view those Trump voters who say, “I didn’t vote this. I don’t support it.” You spoke with your actions. “The truth is shining bright right before our eyes.”
On into the day I go. Hope you have a better one. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 