Category: weather

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: blllleeeack

I’m sitting in the house, staring at that air. Don’t need the air qual folks to know that’s hazardous stuff. Step out and you’re on a beach by a bonfire and a dull breeze is blowing the smoke into your face. We have fires to the south, north, west, and now east. Picked up one a few days ago. Whereas an easterly wind was delivering fresh breaths to us, now the wind from any direction carries smoke.

Fires to the south, in NorCal, are the most problematic, because that’s rough country. Power was cut to Crescent City, CA, out of worry, so they’re without over there on the coast. Up Highway 101 in Oregon, hotels and motels are full and price gouging is in full swing. Supply and demand.

And there go the trash people, picking up our refuse in this stuff. It’s early for them, so I think they’re hustling through it to get out of it.

Haven’t seen the sun yet. It’s light, so we know it’s out there. 59 F, it’s a chilly morning, post-night rain. No petrichor last night; just wet bonfire.

It’s Tuesday in Ashlandia, where the problems are real and the solutions are few. But that can be said for many places, yeah?

August 22, 2023. We as a people are gearing up for many things but that’s life, isn’t it? Gearing up. Getting ready. Preparing for the next big thing.

Smoke songs had Les Neurons by the throat this AM when I looked out and saw the situation. The morning mental music stream (Trademark iffy) boiled with smoke songs. Give it a second; hear any in your head? No “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”? Or “Smoke on the Water”? “Smoke From a Distant Fire”? “Smoke Two Joints”?

I told Der Neurons, “Don’t give me that stuff. I’m turning away from it.” Which started them on turning songs, like Pink Floyd, “On the Turning Away”. “No; that’s not what I meant,” I interjected. “I want clean air. Sunshine.” “Annie’s Song” began. “Closer. Think beach. Ocean. Water.” The Neurons came up with Jack Johnson, “Upside Down” (2006). I owe this to the line, “I wanna turn the whole thing upside down.” Noble sentiment, isn’t it? A world upside down for us would be a world where we’re working together as a species, caring for our planet, one another, and the animals, indivisible by borders, politics, wealth, religion, race, and gender. I always thought that’s what the US was aiming for, “One nation, indivisible.” Yeah, I left out the ‘under God’ aspect. I don’t put God into government.

Be strong and stay pos. Judging from my own balance today, it’s a challenge. Maybe coffee will help. One, two, three, what are fighting for? Oh, wait, wrong moment.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Flipday’s Theme Music

Mood: streaky

Hey, it’s flip day. Monday, August 27, 2023. Call it flip day. Happens to be a Monday, but it’s a day when you flip your energies from weekend mode – or time-off setting – to business mode or work setting. It’s a state of mind. For me, this day is about businesses being open so I can call and make appointments to get matters attended.

Nature is having its way with us on the west coast. Count among the issues, fires, thunderstorms with lightning strikes, tropical storm with heavy rain, and earthquakes. Asteroid strike and Godzilla are missing but they could show up at any minute.

Ashlandia, where the deer roam everywhere and bears and cougars are frequent visitors, is cool and humid now. After smoke in the morning and in and out of the day, a rainstorm squatted over us and dumped a solid wet load. Struck the temperature down from the eighties into the low seventies like the current GOP taking down the last fifty years of progress.

So, 66 here. Supposed to clip mid-eighties today. Hints of smoke playing with the sky’s color, blending with the clouds, and striking our olfactory nerves. Several hundred lightning strikes recorded in our region this weekend. A few started fires. Those are being attended. Can’t get an update. Net keeps dropping on us. Been out a dozen times in the last twenty-four. Probably the storms, right?

My assumption is that the storms are wonkifying the net connections. Funny how the ancient diagnostics built into this Windows-based system assumes otherwise. They’re about checking your connections. Plugging in an ethernet connection. Checking your adapter. Making sure you’re not in sleep mode or your wireless is turned off. Like, when was the last time that these were problems? In my purview, the problems are generally outside of my walls; it’s the net down, and typically due to weather or power outages somewhere.

To deal with the outages, I’m writing posts in Word with the hope that a connection will come and I can post them. If you’re reading this, that worked. Update to that: went to the coffee shop. They have a connection. So what’s up at my house? Something to pursue once I go home.

Would it surprise anyone to hear that Les Neurons are feeding the morning mental music stream (Trademark stormy) with music about weather? There’s “Stormy” by Classics IV, and that blues staple, “Stormy Monday”, along with songs that feature rain, like “Here Comes the Rain Again” by the Eurythmics, and that one by Guns ‘n Roses, “Sweet Child of Mine”, and its lines about a woman’s hair:

“Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place, where as a child I’d hide. And pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by.”

Then we had B.J. Thomas (“Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”). CCR offered a few songs about rain. The Beatles had one. “Fire and Rain”, James Taylor, very appropriate. Elvis. GNR again with “November Rain.” Can we overlook Prince and “Purple Rain” or that ancient classic, “Singing in the Rain”? My Neurons didn’t. How ‘bout “Laughter in the Rain”, “It’s Raining Men”, and “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”? That’s just a drop in the rain bucket. I’m sure your neurons are peppering your thoughts with more.

But in a quiet moment, as the clouds were contemplated and the humid cool air threw itself against my face, came Gordon Lightfoot with “Rainy Day People” (1975). Cuz there’s a line, there, “Rainy day people all know it hangs on a piece of mind.”

Okay, coffee has landed. Stay pos, be strong, and have a good flipday. Fingers crossed and positive thoughts for all the peoples of the world dealing with weather disasters. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Smokeday’s Theme Music

Mood: weary

Sunday, August 20, 2023. Ashlandia, where the sky tries to stay blue but the smoke rolls in from the south. 74 degrees F, eyeing 88 F as the heat’s top end.

Smoke is back. Air is filthy. Very unhealthy to hazardous. Easterly wind blowing but it’s so light, leaves are barely stirred, and the smoke mocks the effort. Not as bad as the other morning; the sun displays some semblance of its standard morning coloring. Depressing is rolling in. Coughing. Stuffed up noses. Watering, itchy eyes.

The cats aren’t pleased, neither, confined to quarters, their normal routines halted. Forced change is not fun. Well, Tucker is okay with it. He’s older and is, okay, fine, I’ll just nap in here. But Papi sometimes breaks into crys of freedom. Then I tell him no and he walks off.

In another of those WTF America stories, a woman, mother of nine, the story says, was shot and killed by a man angered by the rainbow flag on display at her store. Senseless.

Weather eye on Hurricane Hilary and California. Fire eye on Hawaii and their recovery. Fire eye also on California, Canada, and Oregon. Heat eye on most of the US.

The Neurons loaded the morning mental music stream (Trademark preposterous) with Ricky Martin, “Livin’ La Vida Loca”. Song came out in 1999. I mostly remember it from my Paris business trip a year, maybe two, later, when I went about singing living la vida mocha. Yes, I am a silly person. Figure it’s a good song for this era, when it all seems a bit crazy. I can speculate that most eras had people thinking that it’s a little nuts outside.

Speaking of mocha, I’m havin’ my coffee now. Stay pos, be strong, maybe have a little fun. Pretend it’s life and it’s worth living, even if you live it a little crazy. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: thankful

Thankful this morning, for the firefighters around the world fighting fires, including those fighting fires in Oregon and California. Thankful for a lot of things which I have and enjoy, including good health, comfort, and security. Thankful, too, for the easterly wind which took the smoke out of our end of the valley. I’m cognizant that our good fortune is now someone else’s misfortune. Smoke goes somewhere as long as the fires burn.

The hourglass called Saturday, August 18, 2023, is running. Sands are pouring through it. The sands of August and the sands of 2023 are also rushing through through glasses. Guess they’re not truly hourglasses; just time glasses. Do they measure time’s passing, or are these mythical things creating time for us?

It’s a cool morning. A little smoke still crazes the sky’s blue facade and discolors small patches but the sun is the right color. 63 F was the overnight low. We’re up to 70 F now but will climb to 92 F in Ashlandia, where the political differences could be called the Deer Party and the Dog Party. Then there’s the Parks Party. DeP, Dop, and PaP.

The cats are so pleased that smoke vacated the area and cool air rides the day. After making morning rounds of the year, they staked out positions, washed, and settled into napping configurations.

I’m looking forward to the GOP debate coming up. First, I’m impressed that the GOP has verified that it’s about money; only those gaining enough monetary donations are able to participate. I guess the theory is, the potential candidates put themselves out there and convince people to give to more their candidacy forward. Works on a built-in assumption that all donors have the same power and money to give, contrary to the reality we’ve seen perpetually demonstrated since the age of capitalism began. But who are we to attempt to force reality onto the GOP? That, demonstratively, no longer works.

Although, fairness, the GOP is not homogeneous. The NYTimes published an article about the GOP’s factions this week. They included estimates about how much of the GOP each faction made up. While many have held that five factions dominate the GOP, the NYT identified six ‘types’ of voters in the GOP. The interesting aspect of reading this is that while they specify only 36% of GOP members support Trump, they show by their groupings that only one, Moderate Establishment, which accounts for 14% of the party, is the only Never Trump group. Dominated by an alliance between Trump’s biggest support factions, the Right Wing and the he rest either enthusiastically endorse Trump or they’re willing to swallow it and support him because they either agree with his positions or because they like him more than they like Democrats. Not really that different from Democrats and their position on President Biden.

For music, The Neurons have fed “Crossroads” by Cream (1968) into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fishy). This is their cover and interpretation of Robert Johnson’s “Cross Roads Blues”, layering it with a faster tempo and hard rock sound. I figure it’s right for this day, these times, when every day in the US seems to be about being at some kind of cross roads regarding the rule of law, ethics, democracy, climate change, etc. The rest of the world also seems at cross roads about multiple matters as well; some are the same as the ones affecting us in the US. So it’s a good song for t’day.

Have coffee, will travel. Be brave, be strong, be positive, and keep on being you. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

Tinted by smoke, the sun was a tangerine as noon rolled up. A short man walked through the warming, stifling day. Someone caught in middle age’s trenches, hard-edged in his slenderness, pale as a grub, bald as a newborn, walking fast. Unbelievable sight in this nasty air. White-grey ash collected on surfaces, dulling car polish, stinging nostrils with high magnitude burnt-wood flavors, usually encouraging tears, runny noses, sniffing, coughing.

But this guy walked down the sidewalk like the town’s proud owner, the only one out there, protected by sandals, a white tee-shirt, and light blue denim jeans. He also sucked on a cigarette and blew out his own smoke.

That might explain a lot.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Might as well call this Smokeday. It’s August 18, 2023. The air in Ashlandia, where the roads are wide and the sidewalks are numerous, has gone into the trashcan. Yesterday, Purple Air showed the air quality jumping into the hazardous range and lurking there for the night’s entirety. Today finds it still mostly in the hazardous or unhealthy zones. We’ve gone all Twilight Zone apocalypse out there, with the mountains hidden behind he dirty air and no view of the valley. We could be the last island of civilization, if this view is the guide.

We’d been hoping we’d miss the smoky air this year. So far, we had done well, but lightning lit up the Klamath complex southwest of us, and its smoke drops a pall over the region. The fire centers on Happy Camp, which was also the source of our 2014 nasty air.

In good news, we’ve dropped out of the high temperatures. 72 F now, today’s high end is believed to be 92 F but I postulate that this thick smoke will keep us from reaching that high. Winds are from the east, clearing the smoke out right now. Sunshine has cleared its way after a long red dawn morning. It’s raining on the coast, which will put some moisture in the air around Happy Camp. That keeps us hope that the fire won’t be around into November.

The cats aren’t pleased with the smoke, as we’re keeping them in. Tucker the elder is fine with it but Papi issued declarations that staying in was not in his bucket list. He mostly makes his home in the master bath, with its cool and quiet, I suppose, and no one can slip up on him without being sighted. I’m thinking of Tucker in that, who gets passive-aggressive at times, and outright aggressive at others. TC is being mellow, though, but already a little under the weather with some respiratory issues brought on by the smoke. I’ll give him some Lysine L, which generally helps him deal.

Songwise, I have Croce in the morning mental music stream (Trademark worthy). Jim Croce arrived there after a convo in which someone said, “You just don’t do that.” My Neurons leaped into action, adding, “You don’t pull on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.” So here we are with “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim”, some fun story-telling music from Jim Croce and 1972.

Time to coffee up and face the day. Be strong, stay pos, and don’t get sucked into the vortex of negativity. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: disconcerted

August 17, in the year of 2023, has graced us with Thursday, the after Lousy Wednesday and the day before Waiting Friday. It’s cooler, cloudier today in Ashlandia, where the workers are busy and the politicians are idle. We expect some storms of thunder, maybe rain, with 91 F as the designated stopping point for the day’s heat. 83 F right now, pretty comfortable, except the humidity is pressing in to make its point that rain could be coming.

Met with the beer gang last night, ten strong. Our first toast, breaking with standards, was to Fani Willis. She’s the Trump breaker indicting the former POTUS with some RICO brew that looks strong on paper and has gained some gushing reviews. First blush, it doesn’t look good for Trump and his gang of eighteen. These were the criminal masterminds trying to work an overthrow of the 2020 election, you know, the one Trump claims to have been stolen after he was soundly beaten. Refusing to bow to reality or lack of evidence, he’s kept on about it. My beer comrades are all looking forward to the moment when Fani Willis brings the wood.

You know Trump is concerned about this turn because he’s come out fast with multiple false claims. He says he has facts that will immediately exonerate him. Then he attacked Willis’ reputation by claiming that she had affairs (pretty laughable, coming from Trump and his shady history), while trying to undermine her role by spewing some lies about Atlanta having a record number of murders, suggesting it would be better use of the DA’s time to pursue murderers. Of course, all these things have been debunked, but since when are facts important in Trump World?

For music, I started singing “This Wheel’s on Fire” to myself yesterday while walking. Written by B. Dylan and Rick Danko, numerous entities have covered the song since its release, but I was singing The Band’s classic rendition, released last century. I think The Neurons’ inspiration was the walk to the brewery where we’d sip our beers. Bit smoky, spattering rain through ninety-nine degree heat, I wondered where the smoke originated, speculating about fires. Then the song started. Still remains in my morning mental music stream (Trademark worthy).

Alright, be strong, be informed, and stay positive. Time to rock Thursday so we can move on to Waiting Friday. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Hypercharged weather continues in Ashlandia, where the pastries are gluten free and the coffee is organic and fair trade.

August 16, 2023 and Wednesday are here, for the records. If you’ve got an August bucket list, you might want to be applying yourself. Same with the summer BL. Summer’s end is rushing up like a horse coming to the Derby’s finish line.

It’s 89 with smoke here right now, 11:30 AM. I’m late getting started due to two matters. One, AC didn’t kick on last night. Lots of cursing about it, basic troubleshooting commenced, and a loose wire in the low-voltage sub system was discovered on the outside condenser unit. Reconnected and taped with electrical tape just for luck. Second matter was a plea for help from some friends for their Roku. It wasn’t running! One of my first questions was, did you change the remote’s batteries? They had. After we did a hard reboot on their system and were still getting nowhere, new batteries were installed. Voila.

Gonna be 102 F today, they tell us. Reached 102 or so at my house, on my system yesterday but the town only saw an official high of 99 F yesterday. Fortunately, yesterday’s cooldown was fast. Doors and windows were opened at 8 PM as the temperature drop commenced and fell into the low eights. Night took over and dropped us into the mid-seventies. Rain and thunderstorms are forecast for 7 PM this evening. We’ll see if they come, but they can be good, lowering the ground and air temp, but also could be dangerous, starting new fires with lightning. Fingers crossed about which way it goes.

Air quality is moderate due to smoke. Which fire is gifting us that? Don’t know. Might be a combo of all four — yes there’s a new one to the south, in the Klamath National Forest — as the heat dome has killed most breezes. Damn still air out there.

I’ve been reading more political news. One matter that disturbs me is how often Republicans say that they need to get rid of Democrats or liberals. Not win office over them; not work with them; get rid of them. Sad state when one half of the country basically professes to hate the other half. I don’t hear liberals/Democrats/Progressives talking about getting rid of the GOP. They talk about voting them out of office or maybe trying to discuss issues with them. Frankly, I am at a loss about their thinking many times, although I think it’s because they’ve sealed themselves in red wing information bubbles. Yes, red wing is deliberate; it’s beyond right wing, the home of the MAGAs. Like, we regularly check Red State to see what’s being reported over there. The skewing of news and information creates a harsh noise. Little of it aligns with what the rest of the world is thinking about. Like, Steve Bannon is already trying to blame Hawaii’s disaster on liberals, claiming that ‘actors’ kept people from fighting the fire or evacuating, etc., as these ‘actors’ started more fires. Evidence? Yes, just like his other claims, he has none.

It’s troubling, though. You can’t advance, you can’t be secure, you can’t grow as a society, nation, or civilization, if one half insists on spreading misinformation and fomenting distrust of the other. How are we to work together in such an environment? And that seems to be the red wing goal. To what end or purpose do they pursue such an agenda? It seems like, logically, it can only be for power. But then, much of what they do seems to defy the logic which the rest of us try to employ. Of course, from extensive polling and interviews in which we try to understand what they’re thinking, we’ve learned that the red wing supporters are mostly rural, dominated by men, and seem to feel victimized by by the rest of us and left behind. They blame ‘elites’, women, or racial minorities for their struggles as factories were moved to other nations.

Anyway, thanks to that, The Neurons have fired up Starship in the morning mental music stream (Trademark gifted). I’m hearing “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” from 1987. The Neurons point out that it’s about building a world together. That’s what’s hoped and needed. Silly Neurons, they’re frequently squinting at the world through rose colored lenses.

And now we come to the coffee drinking segment of the blog. Make mine black, of course. Stay pos and be strong, my friends. Here we go, one more time.

But let’s listen to some music first. Cheers

Post script: here I go, in the WordPress autosave bug that keeps a post from being published. Can’t even click ‘Publish’. Seems to happen at least once a week for me. Only thing to do is copy it all to a new post. Just the things I need to open up my cranky side.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: bouncy

Tuesday has been plated and is ready for serving. It’s August 15, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the ground is dry and the rivers are low. It’s currently 79 degrees F, but the thermometer’s final destination is 102 F for today. The indicators on my weather station hit 108 F yesterday afternoon but it looks like the official top was 105 F. The heat stayed until close to midnight, when it finally dropped into the mid 80s. Yes, air conditioning’s influence was sought when the house’s interior popped over 85 F in the evening.

I watched lightening shyly flickering and dancing on our southern border with California. This was just after midnight. Come 6:20, I thought, it feels like it’s going to rain. I imagined that as some slight barometric pressure changes felt, along with a tilt to the smell, coupled with experience of like times from beforedays. Over an hour later, 7:33, the drumroll began. Never got heavy nor fast, and lingered but five minutes, but the petrichor and sound were a welcome morning interlude in wet. Thunder accented a few seconds and brought Papi, the ginger wonder, to my side, as he is a firm disliker of thunder, but that ended before the rain. Now comes fire watch to see if any new fires have been discovered in the dry mountain forests.

Can’t say it’s a blue sky today. Conniving smoke and clouds are keeping that title at bay. But the sun and high pressure system are determined to keep it hot. This will last until Thursday, we’re told.

The Neurons have locked “Wasted” by The Runaways (1977) in the morning mental music stream. I haven’t been able to trace the impetus for this song. Don’t think I have heard it in decades. I remember being with a friend while in the US in the mid 80s. This song came on. A younger guy, he asked, “Who is it?” The Runaways, I answered. “Never heard of them,” he replied. “They kind of sound like Joan Jett.” That’s ’cause Joan Jett was The Runaways’ lead vocalist on that song. He was like, oh.

Time for liftoff. Stay pos, be strong, and look ’em in the eye. Coffee service has commenced. Make it black and pure for me. Here we go. Let’s start with the video. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: bold

The arrival board clicked; yes, Monday had arrived on schedule and was pulling into gate 8/14/2023.

It’s hot in Ashlandia, 84 F at 9:45, heading for 105 today. Cooled down to 70 during the night but it was a late cool down and the sun cracked the whip on the heat as soon as it showed up.

Spend a pleasant day yesterday away from Ashlandia, where the businesses are average and the tourists are good-looking. Went to Jacksonville, a thirty-five minute drive via highway and country roads. Bon voyage party for friends, who are moving to Spain. They’ve been planning it for years, and have lived a few months at a time in the past few years. Now they’re awaiting their visas and putting their stuff in storage, and doing the paperwork through a lawyer to ensure everything is properly accomplished regarding health insurance, etc.

We met them in 2005, just after moving to Ashland. The mechanism was the Y exercise class. My wife, who enjoys exercising, joined the Family Y and began attending that class every M-W-F, and met the woman, Linda. Coffee, lunches, shopping adventures, book clubs, and going out for dancing so followed. Linda and her hubby are terrifically social, friendly, happy people. They always had something going on, and they just started including us.

The Neurons ended up lifting good-bye songs from the grey matter on the drive home. Simple Minds carry the morning mental music stream with “Don’t You Forget About Me” from 1985.

Well, gonna go do yardwork before it gets too hot, than off to write. Shoot down a cuppa coffee first. Stay pos, be strong, remain sane. Here we go. Cheers

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