Friday’s Theme Music

And another Friday has attacked.

My energy is low this March 4, 2022. All three of my floof companions are sick. That begs the question, WTF? One is cancer, and we’re just doing comfort and quality of life for him. He fights on, impressing me with his spirit and determination. Death not going to take him by the neck without feeling his murder mittens and their deadly devices. The other two…is it a cold? Malaise? COVID for cats? Another matter? WTF.

It’s a gray and cold, damp day. Like charcoal briquets from last summer’s final grilling. The sun’s energy today would lose a heating competition with a fast-food restaurant’s lamps. Rose before quarter to seven this morning. Gonna stay up there, dealing with the clouds, until just after six this evening. Temperature is now 37 F and weather services say a fist of degrees more will take us to our high. The clouds — must be more than one, but who can say — are a featureless gray monolith, like someone infused the typical blue with a squirt of gray so pale, it doesn’t seem like a color.

The neurons folded a Tom Petty song into the morning mental music stream. The neurons thought it an appropriate response to my chatting with one of the ill felines. “You Don’t Know How it Feels” from 1994 seemed right, though. I was trying to understand what the cat was feeling. It’s him singing it to me. I know little about his life. He goes out, is gone a bit, returns and seems fine, but what did he witness out there? Anyone try to get him?

Those sentiments can be glued onto just about anyone. Beyond their physical manifestation, we rarely glimpse their true history. Their inner world is shut off to our senses. We don’t know how it feels to be them. They don’t know how it feels to be me.

Definitely time for coffee. Stay positive, test negative, etc. You should know it by now. And it’s changing. Fingers crossed, right? Sure.

Here’s Tom. Cheers

Monday’s Theme Music

Hello, TPs. TP is net for Terra peeps, people of Earth. Catch up.

The pendulum has swung again, that never pausing pendulum that marks the weeks, bringing a new week on us. Today is Monday, November 15, 2021. Foggy and drizzly here in Ashland. Marks like four straight days of fog. Ashland likes holding onto one look. They promised us 68 F yesterday. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, those weather gods. We were never anywhere near that. Whiffed on spotting any sunshine. I suspect the same today. 53 F now. They speak in television tones of 63. I am doubtful. Maybe 56, 57. Sunshine dribbled through the fog at 7:01 AM. We anticipating it dribbling back out at 4:49 PM.

The music part of my morning mental music stream is occupied by “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star (1994). When I mention this song or Mazzy Star, I generally receive blank looks in response. Maybe it was the stations which I listened to, but it was regularly played when I cruised the SF Bay Area in the mid nineties. I also hear the song on television shows and in movies once in a while. Anyway, the song is with me today because, dreams. The song wasn’t in the dreams per se, but when I reflected on them, the song arose.

You live your life, you go in shadows
You'll come apart and you'll go black

H/t to Lyrics.com

While I didn’t go black or come apart in the dream, the situation did, although I handled it in good humor. It was more about the ending, I guess, which faded like steam rising into the air as I drifted awake. Also, the nature of the dream provoked remembering some places and people as I reconstructed the dream’s layers. Sadly, David Roback, one of the forces behind this song and Mazzy Star, died last year, cancer, just 61 years old.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. Now I’m getting some coffee because I can. And I’ma gonna drink it, because I can, and be thankful about it, because I can. Cheers

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Salutations to the inhabitants of Gaia. We’re continuing a new theme of calling days this month ‘November’ and numbering them. Today is Wednesday, November 3, 2021. Sunrise kicked in like a toddler at 7:46 AM and will waddle out at 6:02. While it’s battleship gray this AM, with sunlight relegated to the level of a dim bar at happy hour, we expect the temperature to go from its current realm in the low fifties to the upper sixties. I’m meeting with friends at a brewery. We’re all vaxxed and we’ll be sitting outside at a picnic table. There, we were enjoy a local brew. Maybe two.

With rain and it being November, you’d think I’d be thinking of “November Rain”, but I didn’t. Instead, trudging up a steep, steep hill during yesterday’s constitutional, I told myself, gasp, “Breathe in, breathe out.” Quickly, my mental Alexa picked up on the words and introduced “Machinehead” by Bush from 1994. It’s one of the songs I frequently listened to on my short morning commute from NAS Moffett base housing where I lived over to Onizuka AS, where I worked in California during those years. The commute was just long enough to listen to one song, then done. I enjoyed remembering it, and introduce as today’s theme music.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, distance when necessary, and get the vax and boosters when ye can. Here’s the music. There I go. Into the kitchen. That’s where the coffee is. Cheers

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today is August of 2021’s final day, the 31st, a Tuesday. Tuesday’s child – what are they, full of grace? Or maybe they’re lost, out in space.

Sun popped in on us at 6:34 AM. Expect it to hang around and bring moderate warmth — in the eighties — until about 7:47 PM.

A strong and sustained wind blew in from the west yesterday. Cleared the air. Improved our air quality all the way from an extremely unhealthy rating to a moderate. Woo hoo. This was an hour before sunset. Dinner had been et. So we went for a walk. My wife only wanted to go so far due to her RA foot issues but I pressed on. Ended up walking two and a half miles. Coming back, walking toward the east, a huge smoke bank was visible. Gray and blue highlighted with air. My guess is this was the smoke being blown out of our valley. Horrifying, fascinating sight. If the wind shifted to the other direction, that would all pour back in on us. Also, while we were free, how people in that area must be suffering. Wasn’t far: just the end of town. Less than a mile straight down 99. Also, what of all the places in California, Oregon, et al, still on fire. Places where homes, businesses, and forests were still burning down. Also, places where the animals fled, where people evacuated. Couldn’t help but contemplate how miserable, worried, and anxious all of them must be.

I had several crazy dreams last night. Reflecting upon them as breakfast was made and consume and coffee brewed, I thought of crazy songs. Like “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley and friends. Patsy Cline. Ozzy with “Crazy Train”. “Let’s Go Crazy” — Prince. “Crazy in Love”. FYC with “She Drives Me Crazy”. But out of the shuffling came Aerosmith with “Crazy”. Crazy, isn’t it? I thought I’d go with it. Just felt right.

Stay positive, test negative, wear the mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music and my coffee. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

5:49 AM, 8:44 PM. Those are today’s times for the sunshow on Saturday, 7/17/21. Rise comes first, with a lethargic unveiling. Set comes later, a gradual withdrawal. Between those times, the sun will work its heat on us. Not too bad today, upper eighties to lower nineties. Forecasts say get ready for a new rampup.

Although the Bootleg Fire and numerous others still burn, our southern Oregon’s valley air is clear and ‘safe’. Went up and down yesterday. Down in the evening, which helped make a summer concert a pleasant time. Listened to a regional band, East Main Street, play covers of the Eagles, Beatles, CSN&Y, Seals & Croft, CCR, etc. You get the feel, right? Had beer, wine, drinks, BBQ. Celebrated birthdays. Wondered how many were vaccinated. But we were outside.

Today’s music is a Nirvana song called “About A Girl” (1994). My mind brought it up to entertain and distract me as I ambled around town yesterday. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

Called Mom yesterday to exchange holiday greetings. She lives in a suburb east of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania where they’re more or less snowed in. Four to six inches were on the ground and the snow was still falling. The roads had been plowed and salted, and appeared outside her window. But snow still fell and temperatures were low. Those are treacherous conditions. If you don’t need to go out, you don’t.

So she and her fiancée spent Christmas at home alone. They seemed fine with that. Stocked with plenty of food, they know how to entertain themselves and one another. She conveyed to me the news that the governor had announced that Allegheny county, where she resides, had received the Pfizer COVID-19. Residents seventy years old plus would be the first vaccinated. Mom is awaiting word on the schedule and details.

Conversation ended up including food — of course (Mom and my sisters love holiday meal planning, and endless discussions, texts, and emails ensue to make it all happen — which it didn’t, this COVID year) — relatives, and then music. Mom relayed to me that her two favorite songs are “Blue Christmas” covered by Elvis Presley (1957) and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey (1994). “Blue Christmas” has been around a while. In cassette days, one sister always bought her a new cassette for the holiday. Mom would pop it into her Walkman and wear it out as she listened and went about activities.

The Carey song stuck in my head. So, thanks to Mom, your after-Christmas theme music is “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Whenever I think of this song, it’s lifted from the movie, Love Actually (2003). Enjoy the music, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vaccine. Happy holiday!

Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s music comes from 1994 and REM. “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” was a phrase repeated when two men attacked newsman Dan Rather in New York. It was a person’s refrain who wasn’t connected to reality.

So it’s a perfect song for now. We had an election in the US. Joe Biden won 80,000,000 votes, which translated to 306 electoral college votes. Trump won 74,000,000 votes and 232 electoral college votes. The U.S. government declared these the most secure elections ever. Yet, Trump keeps making declarations about fraud and cheating. His legal team took that to court in several dozen cases. Unable to provide any evidence of fraud, the cases were tossed again, again, again. Appeals were made, and the cases were again rejected.

Despite all this, Trump’s administration refused to participate with transitioning the government, trying to weasel out of the facts. They questioned the meaning of traditional phrases, like, ‘president-elect’. The madness and insanity was broad; the connection with reality and facts were nebulous.

Trump lost; of course, he lost. There was and is no fraud. But, as always, that man, that low-class, clueless ‘grab-them-by-the-pussy’ fraud, liar, and con man, has his supporters echoing, “What’d the frequency, Kenneth?”

Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

R.E.M. – What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? (Official Music Video) – YouTube

Sunday’s Theme Music

I’ve been thinking about tomorrow. In some sense, it was about delaying something that I want to do, like rake leaves. Stagnant air shrouds the sky. The temperature floats up and down, thirty-five to thirty-eight and back. Too chilly and uncomfortable for this sugar cube. I’ll do it tomorrow, I tell myself, knowing tomorrow is forecast for more of the same. Shrug.

Then there’s the broader version of tomorrow, a new time, a new year, and not quite a new era, when Trump is out of the office and Mr. Biden takes the oath as POTUS. Come on, tomorrow.

Several songs come to mind, but the 1994 offering by Silverchair, “Tomorrow”, takes over my mental musical stream.

So here it goes, in honor of tomorrow, and its promise.

Silverchair – Tomorrow (Australian Version) (Official Video) – YouTube

Tuesday’s Theme Music

I was spying on neighbors this morning, verifying that they followed their regular routines. All seemed alive (although some moved like zombies) and in good health (but such appearances may be deceptive, no?). Each followed their recurring and regular, sharply predictable, Tuesday morning routines.

My routines are not predictable — in the mornings. Writing, I set my structure. As socializing and common activities like shopping or heading out for a cuppa are curtailed, my day is a freeflow form. What do I want to do, and when do I want to do it, along with what needs to be done regarding health, house, and history, right?

All that thinking about busy activities stirred thinking about insects, spiders, and ants. That invited the 1994 song, “Ants Marching”, by The Dave Matthews Band.

When all the little ants are marching
Red and black antennae waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way

h/t to Genius.com

What’s funny about human ant activity is how it may seem so same each day while inside, all manner of activity is happening.

Or maybe not. Maybe the thinking is like the activities, the same thing every day.

Time for my morning coffee, said the ant.

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Chose “Better Man” by Pearl Jam (1994) as today’s theme music. While it’s focused on a woman’s predicament, the song is all about rationalizing decisions and choices. As we approach election day, what better song to summarize the challenge? Many who voted for Trump in 2016 because they couldn’t support Hillary Clinton for POTUS. That most of the reasons that she couldn’t be trusted were outright bullshit, they went with the flow.

Four years later, lot of them seriously claim they still support Trump. That’s why “Better Man” is dedicated to them.

She lies and says she’s in love with him
Can’t find a better man

She dreams in color, she dreams in red
Can’t find a better man
She lies and says she still loves him
Can’t find a better man

h/t to Genius.com

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