Tag: 1985

Thursday’s Theme Music

They call it snowy Thursday. Early afternoon yesterday, sitting at the coffee shop. 41 F out. Rain falls, turning to snow as it drops. Temperature loses its grip, slipping to 39 F. Snow begins sticking. Within an hour, we had an inch. Two and a half inches before the snow stopped two hours later. By then, it was 36 F.

Yes, it was a very wet snow. As temperatures tumbled for us to the upper twenties last night, visions of slippery roads and sidewalks filled conversations and emails. But this morning, it was wet but not slick. Snow had iced but was rapidly retreating. 34 F now, snow clouds rule the air. We’ll see how that goes. None of us were expecting yesterday’s snow.

It’s Thursday, January 19, 2023. Winter snow finally came to Ashlandia’s valley.

Sun influence came over the peaks and ridges 7:36-ish this morning. Sun’s retreat from the valley will be about 5:08 PM. A 40 degree F high temperature is expected.

I have Simply Red with “Holding Back the Years” from 1985 swirling around the morning mental music stream. A mellow song, I can’t trace its origins in today’s head, but I blame dreams. I also blame The Neurons. They can’t be trusted. I will say that when I was driving long distances in 1985, as I was frequently required to do, I didn’t like it when “Holding Back the Years” came on the radio. Out on the road on assignment, away from family for a week to months, the song was just a downer.

Speaking of downers, time for me to down a cup of coffee. Stay positive and do what you need to be healthy. Merry Christmas. Just thought I’d get an early start on that season. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

High white cirrus brush strokes marble the pale blue sky. Monday, November 11, 2022, begins with sunshine and 33 degrees F in my foot of the valley. Although autumn fashion still imbues most neighborhood, eau de winter fills the air. It’ll be 54 F today, and mostly sunny. Sunshine crept in at 7:08 this morning like a cat sneaking in through the pet door. The day’s final rays will grace us at 4:45 PM.

We’re planning our soups. Soups in winter is a household favorite. Post Thanksgiving, we’ll resume a soup a week. I listed my favorites. Top of the list is harvest soup, which is all roasted veggies with mushroom broth. Second is chicken white chili. Tortellini soup comes next. Black bean veggie chili fills the fourth slot followed by lentil in fifth. Nothing like soup and warm bread on cold days to fill you, and these are all healthy and filling. Their simmering fragrances are a lovely bonus.

Musically, The Neurons were influenced by another’s post. Jill shared a song by Mike +the Mechanics, “In the Living Years”. It traditionally makes me pause to consider my relationship with Dad. Not the best, nor the worse, but a damaged one and a fount for personal frustration. He and I try but there’s just too much piss in the snow to completed the connections. I’m from his first marraige but he has children and stepchildren from a few other marriages. Dad was in the military and finally living in the continental US when I was a teenager. Another one of Mom’s marriages was imploding so I took refuge with Dad. He married again in my high school senior year. I became an adult and was gone. You see how it is. He just celebrated his 90th birthday last month.

That song prompted memories of other M +tM songs. The Neurons began playing “Taken In” from their 1985 album. I had it on CD and played it while driving across the southeastern U.S. I did that a lot in that life era. While stationed at Shaw AFB in South Carolina, I deployed on temporary duty to Florida, Somalia, Egypt, and places in Europe. I’d drive to stateside places, but before deploying, I’d sometimes take my wife and cats up north to stay with her family, as I’d be gone a while, four to eight weeks. So there were the trips there and back to taker her home, and there and back to pick her up. I put 54,000 miles on the car in eighteen months. Besides music, I’d listen to books on cassette tapes from the library. They weren’t yet on CD in our base library. It was an interesting time of transition.

“Taken In” is a mellow song and was ideal as a vehicle to help past the day speeding down the highways. I’d never seen the video before, but I love the period touches — the phones, the clothing, the cars. Hope you enjoy the video and music.

Here we go. Got coffee and a plain blueberry bagel. A cat monitors my progress on my left. The other sleeps in another room, where sunshine slices in past the slats on the blinds, generating a cozy ambiance. Stay positive, test negative. Cheers

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Numbday’s Theme Music

Happy Numbday!

Today is Numbday, August 8, 2022. What makes it Numbday is personal. For some, it’s because of the work grind that commences with Monday. Others find the news creates Numbday — they just can’t take it anymore! Like when Trump was said to say that he wished ‘his’ generals were more like Hitler’s and denied that Hitler’s generals ever tried killing Hitler.

Price shock causes some Numbday reactions when folks buy a bag of groceries for $75 dollars or fill their car’s gas tank for $100. Smoke and heat exhaustion, flooding, and other weather events can cause Numbday. Revelations about a loved one’s halth or a deep personal betrayal have also been known to cause Numbdays.

My Numbday is caused by one of the oldest and most basic reasons: not enough sleep because of sleep interruptus CAUSED BY A CERTAIN FLOOF — yes, I’m talking about you, Tucker, and don’t you try to pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about — and the need to get up early for an appointment. Woof.

The sun sprang up as if it were not a day over a billion, leaping into the sky at about, um, 6:11 AM, where it’ll stay until 8:22 PM, if standard rotation and orbital mechanics follow, which they should, unless there’s suddenly a black hole the size of a bowling ball coming into the scene. More on that later. Our temperature is a weirdly warm 68 F (20 C). We’ll be creeping up to 97 F today, so a little cooler than yesterday. Yeah, fires still rage out there, but our air remains clear. Fingers crossed, etc.

It was a bright moon last night, lighting up the local night as it waxes toward its full greatness. Out in the backyard to admire the night sky, because the moon was rendering it difficult with its light in the front, I caught a meteor’s streak. Blink and its gone. That kept me there for a few more minutes, hoping for another. No luck.

It did cause The Neurons to erupt with “The Reflex” by Duran Duran (1984). Simon and the lads remain in the morning mental music stream, a reflexive song in response to my reflexive need to try to see another meteor. Listening to the song, I often end up wondering, what exactly is the reflex? I know it’s a lonely child, yeah, I hear that, and it’s waiting by the park. Then there’s that chorus.

Oh, why don’t you use it?
Try not to bruise it
Buy time, don’t lose it
Oh, why don’t you use it?

h/t Genius.com

Is it the helping hand or the reflex that I’m thinking about using and trying not to bruise?

Well, some volunteer coffee has arrived to go down my gullet and lift my energy. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. Here’s the music. Enjoy your Numbday. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

‘Fire season’ officially started on June 1 for 2022. This is the June 7; I’m a little late in reporting it. Guess I was beguiled by the cool temperatures and generally damp conditions. Essentially, certain activities are curtailed during fire season, or potentially curtailed. It gets down to the local level and the fire threat/danger depending on the soil and vegetation conditions, humidity, and air temperature. It’s all about being alert and ready, vigilant, and cautious.

Despite sunrise at 5:35 this morning, the temperature remains a springish 56 F right now, but a high of 76 is anticipated before the sun dips at 8:45 PM. This is Tuesday.

In other news, we’ve set up appointments for our COVID-19 booster shots. We’re starting to socialize more, cautiously creeping out of our shells, and we have some travel plans for this summer, so we decided, do it now. Like most people, I have collected a list of friends and relatives who have contracted COVID-19. My relatives are all distant. Only four that I know died; the rest have survived but we’re waiting to see if they’ll experience long COVID. Four friends tested positive for COVID-19 last week. Four more were exposed. One tested positive and was rushed to ER with a spectrum of issues. All of these people had vaccinations and boosters. Most were diligent about masks and social distancing. As the CDC and virologists note, vaccinations help deal with the viral load, but your results can vary.

I’m repeating a song that I’ve used before. It’s a good song, though. I haven’t watched the new season of Stranger Things yet, but I hear that Kate Bush’s song, “Running Up That Hill” from 1985 is featured in the show. Well, my neurons caught wind of that and just launched it into loop in the morning mental music stream. Thus, I need to share it to get it out of my system. I don’t make the rules.

Stay positive, test negative, etc. Coffee? Why, yes, of course. Here’s the music, there’s the day. Seize it. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s 36 degrees F, with rain and snow. Happy Mother’s Day.

Yes, it’s Sunday, May 8, 2022, the second Sunday of May, which makes it Mothers’ Day in the U.S. Moms across the country are receiving cards and gifts, and are being taken out to brunch, or being served breakfast in bed in the best traditions of the day. But, that’s not how it works for some. Many mothers endure hardship and still work on Mother’s Day. And some women are not mothers; they’re women who couldn’t or didn’t want to have children for millions of different personal and biological reasons. We do have the flipside rising, where men are being noted for being mothers, because that’s their family role. The world’s twists and curves grow complicated.

Anyway, I did my duty, wrote Mom a letter and sent her a card. No flowers or foods, as I used to send, as she started complaining about getting so many flowers, she was tired of them. And the foods became less appreciated or desired as she aged and her appetite and diet were reduced. I tried gift cards for a while and learned that she was re-gifted them to my sisters, who really don’t want or need them. So I’ve fallen back on the basics. I’ll call later today, because I know the MD returns, and that she’ll be busy and can’t talk now.

Today’s high temperature will be 46 F. A freeze warning is on for tonight. Sunrise today was a slow graying of the day that began at 5:58 this morning. Sunset is expected at 8:16 this evening.

“Kyrie” by Mr. Mister is circulating around the morning mental music stream. Once again, it came about as I was feeding the cats. For some reason, my neurons felt that the 1985 rock song was the ideal soundtrack for the moment. I believe it was because I was looking up and across at the mountains, wondering if that was snow decorating the pine tops. The wind was blowing and the neurons might have been reacting to the first line in “Kyrie”: “The wind blows hard against this mountainside.”

Stay positive, test negative, and so on and so forth as they say. Time for coffee and brekkie. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Clouds and suns are clashing on this Thursday, Feb 24, 2022 morning. Winds are relatively calm, most snow have slipped into being as small residual mounds hazed brown and black, and the temperature is up to 29 degrees F. Like yesterday, we expect a high of 44 in our valley. Sunset will be at 5:55 PM, eleven hours and one minute after sunrise. In news, Russia has attacked Ukraine, as expected. Because, yeah, the world always needs another war, and more refugees. Yes, that was snark. Russia’s intentions had been transparent for some time. Also as expected, Trump praised the aggressor and told some lies in relation to the event. sigh

Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble inhabit the morning mental music stream. I have three younger sisters. I regularly check on them on Facebook. All are mothers, two are grandmothers, two are tremendously fit, and two are very successful. All are a treasure to me. Anyway, my Facebook scanning prompted my neurons to fire up “Look at Little Sister” from 1985. The original was from the Soul to Soul album. I listened to it frequently; my wife listened to it more. Weirdly, she didn’t start doing that until after his passing from a helicopter crash in 1990. I enjoy this live version from Austin City Limits and the guitar swap toward the song’s end due to a broken string.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when ye can. Here’s the tune. I need to step into the kitchen to help a cup of coffee with finding its destiny. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Excitement is building. They’re forecasting some snow for our state and area next week. Maybe a few inches. Oh, heaven! Snow on the banks. We need it. We’re all worried about the heat, drought, fire, and smoke endured for the last several years. We’d like to avoid more of the same. Some say that last year was the worst because the COVID-19, wildfire, and smoke sucked enjoyment out of going anywhere or doing anything. But the year before, fire struck our town and heavily gutted two neighboring towns. Toss up, to me.

This is Saturday, 2/29/2022. Sunrise kicked in at 7:02 AM. And what a sun. Let’s give the sun a hand. Heat, light, very impressive display. The sky is blue forever and on. Whatever storms and clouds are lurking out there are doing so beyond the mountains that hem our valley. It’s presently 46 degrees F and we will see something in the upper fifties for a high today before the sun downs itself beyond the world’s curvature at 5:48 PM.

Today’s theme song comes from the film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. I’ve used “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” (1985) by Tina Turner before. It came to me today because I looked at my poor sick black cat and said, “Aren’t you a sight, raggedy cat.” Which reminded me of a line that Aunt Entity said to Mad Max. That lined up the neurons to begin playing the song. So here it is, friends and neighbors. Give it all or nothing.

Stay positive, test negative, wear masks as the situation warrants, and get vaxes and boosts when you can. I’m off to meet my maker and pour a cuppa, right? Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Ah, Thursday’s floof is full of food, moping around with little to do, washing off their paws and face, showing off their furry grace.

Today is January 20, 2022. The sun’s daily visit commenced at 7:34 AM and will stretch to 5:10 PM. During these hours, meteorologists project that the temperature will rise from its current vicinity of 48 degrees F to a high of 58 degrees F, giving us another warm winter day. We really need snow on the mountains to build up the snowpack. Time to break out some snow dances.

I was out walking yesterday, enjoying sunshine and fresh air since it’s here, in our little city, and began playing a favorite writing variation of what-if. This what-if project involved walling the city and unfolding ideas about why it would be walled. Naturally, alternative timelines are involved, such as creating a medieval kingdom for this area, or walling and doming it in the future.

The activity summoned forth the spirit of Sting. His 1985 song, “Fortress Around Your Heart”, began playing, where it remained in the morning mental music stream. I always enjoy how he enunciates ‘city’ in various lines, such as, “It took a day to build the city”.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vaccine and booster when you can. Here’s the music. I’m afraid I must go find the coffee. Think it’s in the kitchen. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music – Fixed

We’re striding through the week, marching through Tuesday, October 19, 2021. The winds here think it’s March. They’re roaring like a lion. Sunrise arrived sans fanfare at 7:28 AM, with sunset due at 6:23 PM. Temps will reach into the mid sixties from their present point of 56 F before dropping down into the low forties tonight. It’ll be a dry day, with a bit o’ wind. If the wind ceases later, as expected, I’ll head out for a walk.

Was a beautiful walk yesterday afternoon. Two miles burnished by bright sunshine and cool, mild breezes. Colorful trees provided companionship, along with deer, squirrels, jays, and cats. With an AQI of ten, the view across the valley was unhindered and inspiring.

With the cooler temperatures, we have the house heat turned on for the season. We keep the house at 68 F during the day. While that’s the agreed temperature and I find it comfortable, my wife likes it hotter. Not so much a personal request on her part; more a matter of coping with her health conditions. As compromise to the situation, we have a small electric heater employed in the snug. It’s like a little sun in there. She cranked it up to Medium yesterday, or, as I call it, broil. Had the room a toasty 81 degrees F. That inspired the morning mental music stream, of course. I ended up singing lyrics to myself from “Some Like It Hot” by The Power Station, way back in 1985.

Feel the heat pushing you to decide
Feel the heat burning you up, ready or not

Some like it hot, and some sweat when the heat is on
Some feel the heat and decide that they can’t go on
Some like it hot, but you can’t tell how hot till you try
Some like it hot, so let’s turn up the heat till we fry

h/t to AZLyrics.com

The last time I used this song as theme music was June, 2019, when a heat wave was crashing o’er us. Whenever I think of the song’s title, I can’t stop the movie, “Some Like It Hot”, from crashing in. A silly farce from Billy Wilder that won six Academy Awards, it had a helluva cast, with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe headlining. Not PC for these times. A remake would require substantial re-scripting. But it came out in 1959. I saw it on television, of course, a looong time later.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Time for me to rassle up some coffee. Cheers

Well. Left the link to the video out. Sorry. That’s what I get, trying to post without hot-starting my brain with spot of coffee first.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Thunderstorms passed through yesterday. A spritz of rain, some threatening rumbling, a bite of wind, done. Checked on new fires caused by lightning strikes. Nothing new found yet.

Today is Saturday, July 31, 2021, the final day of July, 2021. The year is half gone. Up in the northern hemi, daylight grows less. Heat still remains, though. And drought, out here in the American west.

Sunrise cometh at 6:02 AM. Sunset is at 8:31 PM. With more thunderstorms expected, our high is projected to top out at 95 degrees F.

A Mötley Crüe song pesters me today, leftovers from a walk the other evening. Caught up in my stride, enjoying a cool breeze, absorbed in writing in my head, I went further than planned. Suddenly, oh, it’s twenty minutes until sunset and you’re three miles from home. Turn about and start walking, dude. I kicked up my pace and did so, time to get home. Which led to home sweet home. Which invited in “Home Sweet Home” from 1985. This rock ballad features plenty of guitars, a touch of wistful piano, and strong vocals that range from soft, reflective humming to belting out, “Home sweet home”. The video depicts the rock and roll circus that so many of us think of when pondering the expression, ‘hard rock concert’. These bois were mos def into the glam.

Stay positive, test negative, wear mask as necessary, and get the vax. Wearing a mask seems like it has become more necessary once again. Case levels have leaped to April’s levels. Might even overtake those levels. Not surprising for here. Jackson County is a Trump stronghold. They eschew masking and vaxxing. My little town holds to both but it’s a destination spot for others. Tourism, you know? Interesting enough, we had to run an errand yesterday, sevenish PM. The vacant streets and empty parking spaces belied it being a Friday night. Were people voluntarily home, sick, or in isolation?

Here’s the music. Cheers

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