Category: weather

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: hopeful

We’ve begun streaming daylight. It’s Friday in Ashlandia, where the winds are kicking the trees around and the sun is acting tired, September 22, 2023. The cats are like, “Who turned the wind on? Find them and turn it off or kill them.” It’ll be 79 F today, although we’re at 59F now. First day of fall, according to the net, so you know it’s true. No leaves have revealed their autumn colors in my realm yet.

Brekkie is made and being consumed, and the coffee is ready, waiting for its turn. My hot water has been drunk. I’ve been drinking hot water first AM thing since I was about nineteen years old. We acquired the habit because of the Edgar Cayce readings. We were big fans. Still are.

First, an update to my sister’s cancer surgery. Removing her rectum took three hours and was successful but painful. She’s in hospital now. Was on morphine yesterday for the pain. I imagine she is on something today. She has eaten oatlmeal and French toast for breakfast. Our new family mantra is no chemo and reversed by November. She’ll be in the hospital for a week. The clock has begun.

The phone rang at 6:45 AM. My wife was up, getting ready for her exercise class but Tucker and I were purring in bed, and halfway spilled into sleep. Realizing the time, my parents’ health and age, my sister’s surgery, and other matters, I rolled out of bed and raced for the phone. Point of order, we don’t have a phone in the bedroom. I keep my cell in the office, and we still have standard cordless phones running on VOIP. I’ve had that since 2008. That’s what was ringing

So I ran down the hall. Two rings had finished. After four rings, it goes to voicemail so I needed to get there before the fourth ring ended.

But my wife had grabbed the office phone. I heard her answer and veered that way. As I went in, my wife said, “Here he is,” and put the phone toward me. I was trying to read her face when she said, “It’s the flower people.”

Relief and confusion. My wife and I ordered flowers yesterday for my sister to be delivered today. I had my sister’s phone number wrong. Extra digit. I took care of it and went back to Tucker. We snooze well together.

Today’s song is “Fix You” by Coldplay. You know, because it’s about trying to mend others who are sick or hurt. So, I pulled it up for my sister and all those others suffering diseases like cancer, or injuries, or whatever problem, mental, emotional, physical. I wish I had the power to fix others. Instead, I try to send positive energy to them, zapping them like it’s an extremely accurate healing ray.

So here is Coldplay, with guests Billie Eilish and Finneas. Stay pos, be strong, endure, and progress. The coffee has been tested, and the results are exemplary. Time to stream the day. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: cheery

Back home from the trip east to visit family, and now it’s morning. Turn up the daylight. Fill the sky with blue. More. Now, some sun heat, please. Right now, Ashlandia — where the crows are chippy and the streets are under repair — is 51 F, up from the overnight low of 42 F. The cats are happy with this weather, heading outside to sleep, groom, and puzzle out the ways of the world. The weather is going to try to slap 70 F today but rain is pretending to be in the picture, at least in the weather seers’ minds. Gotta have clouds for that, I believe, so I’ll be monitoring the horizons.

Thinking about the weather had The Neurons bring up “Some Might Say” by Oasis (1996) into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fiction). Those first lines are something like, “Some might say sunshine follows thunder, go tell it to the man who cannot shine.” I should look the lyrics up but I’m lazy. I’m sure my dreams were part of the catalyst for The Neuron’s choices; as I thought about what they meant, I thought, “Some might say that these are good dreams.” But also, “Some might say that they’re meaningless products of neurons playing.

My sister went into surgery this morning and had her rectum removed as part of a cancer scare. It’s the beginning of a long road for her. Now recovery begins as analysis and monitoring for cancer continues. She’ll be in the hospital for a week and then bedrest at home for two weeks, and she’ll be wearing a bag, which really bothers her. That’s the plan. Many are stepping up to help her. My other sister, who is her big sister but my little sister, stayed the night with her in sister’s hospital room, along with a few others. They sang “Hey Jude” to her before she went into surgery this morning. We’re ready to send flowers but we need a room number first! That won’t be assigned until she’s out of recovery.

Got many things to do regarding house and writing, so I’m cutting this short. Sweeping floors — hasn’t been done in over a week, you know — and airing the tires in the cars, things like that, along with some small yard jobs. Then revising, yeah? Yeah.

Coffee has been consumed so I’m feeling it. Stay pos, be strong, and help others if you can. Here’s the bebop. Cheers

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Winceday’s Theme Music

Mood: ambivalent

We’re at 37,000 plus feet, 480 miles per hour. It’s Wednesday, 9/20/23. We just left Illinois behind, heading for San Francisco to Pittsburgh. Bumping ride right now, above a fuzzy streaked gray puffy cloudscape. We left coolish fall weather in Pittsburgh’s area, 56 and cloudy. The computer is reading weather from below and tells me that Chicago is 56 and rainy. We’re heading home to Ashlandia, where the dogs are above average and the cats are good looking. Ashlandia is currently 42 F and clear, but we expect sunny and 68 F as the day’s overall approach.

All went well back to the airport and onboard. Perfect timing all around. Glitchiest part was returning the Sixt rental car. Place wasn’t open, just a receptacle for the key. Say what? Nothing else? I’m suspicious. Dubious. I await the next phase of this. UPDATE: I done did it right: just drop off the keys. Nothing else required. Shazam.

Once onboard our United 737, things aren’t as rosy. Going first class because we’re fortunate, which gives us much more leg room and width, and demands less of proof of our. But my wife’s seat doesn’t go back much and her entertainment system is malfunctioning. I offer her mine; that’s imperiously dismissed. Her mood has changed fast. She engages the flight attendant about it. I can’t hear the conversation because of space and noise. The spouse doesn’t share with me what’s going on; that is the mood. Knees up against her chest, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes closed, she’s gone to a silent but angry place. I try engaging her but she doesn’t want to be engaged.

For music, I end up with “Ridin’ the Storm Out” by REO Speedway splatter through the morning mental music stream (Trademark dissected). That’s directly related to my wife’s state of mind after her issues with the flight issues with her seat. It’s like the gods of united airlines were deliberately pissing just on her.

Stay pos, be strong, stay cool, and press on. Fueled by black coffee, I’ll do the same. Here’s the music.

UPDATE: late posting, connectivity issues on der airyplane. We’re home safely, and those floofs are so over the kibble ecstatic about it. Had to feed them twice and love on them each three times. And the weather here is decisively cloudy, with dark skies beckoning rain. Hello, autumn.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: restless

Yes, it’s Tuesday, 8/19/23, and we’re ready to go home. Leaving on a jet plane tomorrow AM around 7, pushing us to leave the hotel at five, pushing us to get up at 4:40 AM. Ah, the inconvenience of modern travel. Still better than what it was one hundred years ago. Trying getting a flight back in the 1920s.

Meanwhile, this last day has extraordinary weather to me. Overcast, with a casual threat of rain, temperatures are hanging around the mid 60s F with some spitty hope it’ll hit 70. Don’t think it will, but the smell and feel is tres comfy to me. Sort of nostalgic and invigorating, a delightful blend, which would make a fortune if I could bottle it.

Sort of saddish ending to the trip. My sisters are busy with personal matters and their lives and we can’t get with them for that. Would like to have spent more time with them but after the wedding, the spouse and I sort of crashed, probably a reflex to relief that we’d made it, had done our part, and so on.

Now we’re focusing on getting home — see that first paragraph. We spoke to our floofsitter yesterday. She assured us all was well with the Tucker & Papi show. It’s been hot so they haven’t been eating much, which is how they often become. I’ll get home and indulge them with some extra late evening feeding and treats.

We are visiting Mom with the spare hours, and enjoying her company, along with her partner, Frank. Mom had an energy explosion in the afternoon. Inspired by the song “Hey! Baby” by Bruce Channel (1962). She was struggling to remember the song and as she spoke, the song came to mind and I sang it for her. That was it; Alexa was instructed to play it so she could sing along.

Then came David Lee Roth’s 1985 cover of “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody”. She and Frank began dancing, which was fun to see; her health issues, especially with balance and mobility, have curtailed her dancing, and that was the couple’s favorite pastimes, besides eating. They still enjoy eating; I don’t know how and why they don’t wear more. They always have food on hand, and it didn’t help that my spouse and I took more food to them several times — cannolis, rolled eggplant, and one of their favors, KFC.

Well, that second song caught Les Neuron’s attention last night. They dropped it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark faltering), along with “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fear, which arose from a dream. I went with ‘Mom’s song’ for the theme music.

Stay pos, be strong, don’t worry, be happy. Love life as best as you can. I’ve have had coffee, but help yourself. Here’s the beats. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: lethargic

Today is Monday, September 18, 2023. We awoke to light fog and mist and an overcast sky. It’s transitioned to broad sunlight cut by dark swirling clouds. Temps were hanging in the low 60s but working its way up to 70 F. We’re here for two more nights, and we’re ready to head home and our normal life. Being away from floofs, routines, and habits is an energy drain.

We’re both tired, in our third hotel in six days. This one didn’t work out as well as the other two. The first was a new, modern Holiday Inn Express. They’ve become my hotel of choice in the last ten years. Second was a Hyatt House which had was heavily renovated and modernized, and we had a mini-suite. Third — current place — is a Comfort Suites which is in the throes of a long term renovation, and, sister, that renovation is needed. It’s quite a shock after the first two hotels. Breakfast in all three was fare made up of fake eggs, packaged pastries, instant oats, cereals, and breakfast meats and potatoes. Fortunately, we enjoyed the close proximit of several satisfying local eateries.

Where the hotel is located always affects our attitude toward it. In that regard, the Hyatt won. Located in Shadyside, we easily walked around to local places, encountering people who live in the area. Lot of kind, thoughtful, good-humored people were met while ordering or looking for directions. The Comfort comes in last; just out there on a busy road. So was the Holiday Inn Express, but more could be reached via car, quickly. None of the three establishments let us open the windows. We were sealed against the world. I totally dislike that. Love smelling the air and hearing the sounds.

Musically, The Neurons are pumping “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News into the morning mental music stream (Trademark haphazard). Why it? The Neurons weren’t sharing at all. No insights into where they were coming from or where they’re going. I’m just a helpless prisoner.

Stay pos, be strong, and keep moving it forward. Coffee has been consumed; time for the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: bounding

This is it, W-day, the event planned for over a year, the wedding day for my nephew, David, and his GF, Andrea. Charming, intelligent, fun people. I wish them the best and I’m happy to be here to take part. He’s 35 and we were a little skeptical he’d ever marry. He had a steady GF for twelve years but she didn’t want children. So, the chasm was there and off they went, their separate ways.

Their wedding is so different from my own experience, just me and my wife, with two friends in a chapel on Wright-Pat with a self-described broken-down boxer officiating. That was over 48 years ago of ups and down, in and outs. We’ve come to a comfortable balance, forgiving one another for irritations, supporting one another, and making each other laugh.

I met her parents last night, learned how they met, and where they live, and what they do. They lean different politically than I do, as does most of her family who I spoke to. All are from the midwest, mostly from small cities. The bride and groom share my political philosophies and live here in PGH. Don’t know how much all that matters as far as relationships; we were all amiable last night.

One woman I met works for a gun manufacturer. She walks a tightrope, her words, to strike a balance between the two sides. She told me that when growing up, her father, a Vietnam War vet, didn’t allow guns in the house. He told her, he knows what they can do. He also seemed to worry that the sight or sound of a gun might trigger a reaction in him.

W-day weather is finely shining, coolly comfortable, with a cloudless embrace and teasing light winds. High: 72 F.

Still tracking what Lee is doing to the Northeast, following tales of Hunter Biden, Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Elon Musk, Aaron Rodgers, etc. Once begun, the cycle goes on until it’s spun dry.

“The Load Out/Stay” with Jackson Browne is in the morning mental music stream (Trademark underwater). The Neurons put it in there as I talked to people’s mode to arrive here. Many drove nine to eleven hours to get here, accomplishing it over two days. Don’t like the airlines and the pain inflicted by travel — anxieties and irritations over flight connections, security, personal space, and the expensive ticket prices. I can understand that. Why, exactly, “The Load Out/Stay”? Because hearing them talking, I visualized loading up the car, just as I did when younger to go cross country, and what I still do for in-state vacations.

Stay pos, be cool, be strong. Coffee has been consumed; time to walk about, visit a part of Pittsburgh no longer familiar to me. Here’s the song. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Posting note: once again victimized by WordPress; post went into autosaving mode and never left it. Had to start over, once again. And then, one more time. Sigh. Tech can be capricious but conversely, where would we be without the dang stuff?

Mood: variable, sunny to moody to frustrated to pensive

W-1. Wedding is tomorrow night. Tonight is the meet n’ greet cocktail gig. Don’t know who will attend, so anticipation has a ragged edge. Several sisters and their spouses bowed out. Bummer but they have issues they’re dealing with, such as preparing for surgery or dealing with a teenage son dealing with his newfound health issues. The son loved playing basketball; now, due to fits of dizziness caused by medication used to combat seizures, he can’t play b-ball. His weight has ballooned by twenty pounds and he’s of course, depressed. Not a good place for a fourteen year old or his parents and family.

We’ve moved hotels. The first, a Holiday Inn Express, was chosen for easy access to family and familiarity with the area, Monroeville and Penn Hills. Now we’ve shifted to the Hyatt House in Shadyside, where the wedding will be.

Weather here continues to be big sun and cool air, a pleasant, refreshing, relaxing combo. Sounds like a drink advertisement: “Drink weather, a pleasant, refreshing, relaxing flavor that your body and mind will love.”

Still reeling from the Libya flooding disaster. We just seem to pivot from disaster to disaster: within the past few weeks we surfed from Hawaii’s fires to Morocco’s quakes (over twelve thousand dead) to Hurricane Lee to Libya’s flooding (over one thousand dead) to the tropical storm formerly known as Lee, with some domestic and political drama (auto worker strikes, Hunter Biden’s legal issues, China’s missing defense minister) sprinkled over it to add depths.

Los Neurons have activated Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with “The Waiting” (1981) in the morning mental music stream (Trademark unheard of). It’s fitting. Although well-practiced in waiting (I’m 67, been married over 48 years, and was in the military for over twenty years, things which all reinforced the need to wait for things to happen), I’m not good at it. After months of slow pacing toward the day, acceleration exploded this week. Suddenly days are falling off the cliff and the moment is here. But that sort of time change happens with many things we’re anticipating, doesn’t it.

Stay pos and be strong, and try to stay sober. I’ll do the same. Hand me that coffee, wouldja? Here’s the beats. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: brisk

It’s W-2: two days before the wedding. The women have been comparing dresses and shoes for the event and talking about their hair.

Men have been complaining about how their clothes fit.

Nervous excitement is burgeoning.

It’s September 14, 2023, in the burgh of Pitts, Pennsylvania. Lovely fallish weather with a low 70s F high. Sweeet. Family visits have been fun. Instructional. We catch up on matters of health and recent experiences, with a common refrain about how conversational matter has changed through the years; we used to talk about many other matters. We still do, but the proportions have shifted. Mom looks good, better than expected from the daily text message complaints and updates she provides. My sisters and their hubbies look well, healthy, happy, but that defies some of the topics and details they go into.

My wife and I are enjoying a swell time, although sharing a bathroom demonstrates privilege and how we’ve taken for granted having two bathrooms to spread out and do our morning things. With one BR, regimenting and rationing time and functions is required. We’re used to two places, where it can all be done in parallel, without interference from the other.

For a while, The Neurons entertain me with the song “Sisters” by Irving Berlin from 1954 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark laughable). Both parts were sung by Rosemary Clooney. I know the words well because both Mom and my wife would sing that song, although I’ve never heard the two of them sing it together. It’s a terrific ditty about love and relationships.

But those those Neuron scamps brought up D. Bowie with “Changes” from 1972, because, you know, I’m driving around the old life zones from my youth around Penn Hills and Monroeville, spotting changes and differences, right?

Stay pos, be strong and brave, and keep pressing forward. I’ll try doing the same. Coffee helps me on my journey. Hope you got something that helps you, too. Okay, pressing on. Here’s the beats. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood:

Good day to you from Ashlandia, where the road construction continues as we move into autumn’s waters.

It’s 9/11, and you know what that means in 2023. It’s also a Monday. Everyone will be looking back on the 9/11 part. We’ve already had 60Minutes do it. No doubt, that brave journalistic effort will be repeated with solemn broadcasts across the country. Some will probably speculate, could 9/11 happen in America today? Others will remember how the tragedy ‘brought the country together’. More will point out that many of the security measures installed after 9/11 were kneejerk reactions that created the cumbersome Homeland Security. Another faction will discuss the intelligence failures and whether we’ve fixed that while more pundits will write that, noting how Americans reacted to fear, the GOP has seized on fear as their Big Tool for getting voters’ attention and scaring them into supporting the GOP. The GOP will blow things out of proportion and flat lie to that end in these days. We have the videos.

So, first, a correction; I’d seen a weather report that said we were going to be climbing into the upper nineties in our area. I don’t know if I imagined that or if they changed it, but that’s all gone. We’re going to stay mostly in the 80s F. Today we’re at 60 F and we’ll hit 82 F. It’s good tedium to have these manageable, predictable temps.

Sirens are going by down on the main road. I listen and wonder about the story behind them. They stop abruptly; I listen and watch to see if they come up our street. Muses in me automatically created a speculative vignette about what’s going on. My rational mind wonders, what type of vehicle is driving that siren. Worries about fires and friends butterfly around my head.

Flying out tomorrow, so we have prep work underway today. Packing, final cleaning, final coordination with the house/floof sitter. She’s a good friend and good person who enjoys floofs. We’re lucky to have her. It’ll be a day of traveling tomorrow, beginning pre-dawn thirty, flying across the nation from left coast to where the three rivers meet in western Pennsylvania. We’ll be there a while with a wedding in the middle of the visit this weekend.

The Neurons are feeding “A Day in the Life” by les Beatles (1967) into the morning mental music stream (Trademark in jeopardy). The lyrics also hooked my mind and take me into more introspective places. I’ve always thought it was a telling commentary on different points of view with one enjoying drugs, shaking their head at the endless news stream, and the other just dealing with the mechanics of existing and working, doing little thinking about anything outside of that. To those end, I considered it a yin and yang statement on where we are as a modern civilization. But that’s just me. The more existential question is, what are The Neurons up to, feeding this into me? Well, this time my guess is about watching and reading the news and noting others’ reactions to these cycles. They tune in and tune out; and I do the same.

Off to wage peace on the day. Stay pos, be strong, and keep chill. Coffee mug is warming my hand whenever I pause, sipped and gulped to stir the gray beings populating my brain. There must be billions of them. Here’s the music. Cheers

2

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: spirited

Seems like Indian Summer is on its way here in Ashlandia, where the peaches were sweet and juices this year, and the cherries were no-shows. 64 F now, 82 is today’s high, but get ready; we’re heading into the upper nineties this week.

It’s Sunday, September 10, 2023

Technically, if one can say such a thing for an expression like Indian Summer, it can’t be Indian Summer now, as it’s September, and it’s still summer. According to the sages, Indian Summer happens in October or November, and at least after autumn commences. But they’re not sure about the phrase’s origins, and can only make educated guesses about it. Then, they applied those rules about when it is and isn’t.

Horrific news out of Morocco as the death count after the quake rose and rose. At least 2,000, were killed by the ‘strongest quake in 100 years’, and more were injured and displaced. In other news, someone is killing trees in a wealthy enclave around Sidney, Australia. Locals theorize that someone is doing it to improve their view of the water. Sadly, as one person mentions, property values are all about things like views. It seems totally possibly in this age, doesn’t it? And as another interviewee said, they’ll probably get away with it. Another grrr moment in life.

Playing with Whichbook.net, a tool designed to help you find your next read. I’ve never had a problem finding my next book to read. So many books at there waiting to be read, my problem is that I need to make more time to read them. But that then takes away time from other things. Terrible, ugly circle of time and things to do. But I checked out the tool because I was curious. Twenty-four attributes you can look for in a novel are listed. Things like, “Short, Long”, “Happy, Sad”, “Optimistic, Bleak”. You can select four. A slider feature lets you put greater emphasis on one side of the scale over the other. I suppose it can be useful if you’re really in a muddle about to read or at a lost because you’ve tired of a genre and you’re trying to find something different. It’s interesting that it doesn’t address genre or era.

Once again, The Neurons pried a song out of the vault and tossed it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fishy) without giving any clues about their logic. In this case, the song began while doing various tasks at home under the general umbrella of housekeeping. Then the song started: “When I think of those East End lights, muggy nights, pink curtains drawn in the room downstairs.” Yes, it’s the 1975 Elton John song, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”. Although other songs came and went for a while as I cleaned, this song arose in the MMMS this morning. It could just be that The Neurons started roaming through my mind as I worked, bored with what I was doing, and brought up this and those other old songs to alleviate the tedium. But why’d they put it back in the MMMS? Another question which I can’t answer.

Time to commence things, like drinking coffee. Stay pos, be cool, be strong. Here’s the music. Cheers

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