Sunday’s Theme Music

Here we are, at the top of June, 2022, and the winds are roaring in like it’s March. Yes, strong winds today, along with strong sunshine, after a day of rain and clouds yesterday. Sunshine blazed in at 5:43 AM, turning the lines of gray clouds into neon gold. It’s 60 F now and feels balmy. 73 F is possible before sunlight calls it a day at 8:43 F.

The dream parade continued last night and this morning. I came away from it with a Tom Petty song called “Room at the Top”. I hadn’t heard it in a long time and used Wikipedia to refresh myself on its details. After confirming it was released in 1999 and was off the album Echo, I read that Petty considered it depressing and intensely personal and refused playing it in concert once the Echo tour ended. Well, maybe that’s why I’d not heard it much. My neurons were just riffing off thinking about seeing things, per a dream, which is why they brought the song up into the morning mental music stream. I always like Petty’s declarative statements that he uses in songs. In this case, he sings, “I ain’t. Coming. Down.”

Stay positive, test negative, and so on, as needed. Here is the music. Hope you don’t find it depressing. I’m going to find coffee. Cheers

Friday’s Theme Music

Ah, the air has a fresh smell today. Sunshine glints through cloud breaks enough to lift the flowers and spirits.

Today is Friday, May 13, 2022. I won’t bore you with the headlines. War and politics continue, murders abound, economic worries are riff, and then there’s sports and entertainment. Sunrise began officially at 5:52 this morning. We’re at 52 F and expect a high of 63 before sunset rolls up at 8:23 tonight.

As part of the morning rituals, I fed the cats. I’ve tried skipping this part, but they have ways, called claws and meows, to remind me. Opening a new box of kibble for their pleasure, I told them, “This is a brand-new box.”

Strains of Steve Wonder playing harmonica began. Soon the neurons had Sting singing “Brand New Day” in the morning mental music stream. The 1999 song is a good antidote for depression, hopelessness, weariness, and frustration. It goes well with coffee and threatening rain clouds.

Stay positive, keep bringing home those negative tests, pay attention and take care. Here’s the music. Cheers

Thursday’s Theme Music

Road Trip! The air was warm and growing hotter as the clouds took to other areas. Our pod was feeling cramped and crowded. An impromptu road trip was suggested. After the voting was finished, the idea passed, 2-0. (The cats voted against it, but their vote is only symbolic. They were left in the house with extra food and water.)

We departed at 8:30 AM and just rolled north on the Interstate to Eugene. Light lunch and shopping followed. We were back home by 6:30 PM. The point was to break away, even if only for a few hours. Mission accomplished.

For the record, today is Thursday, March 7, 2022. Our high was around 85 degrees F. It’s 7:03 PM. Sunset is due in forty minutes.

Road trips always provide a fountain of ideas for the neurons to toss out. But I went with Fat Boy Slim and “Praise You” from 1999. It all started with a television show called “The Outlaws” which we’ve been watching. Stephen Merchant is one of the creators and writers and also stars in it, along with this guy called Christopher Walken. Walken, an actor for several decades, is also a dancer. After watching an episode of “The Outlaws”, I pulled up “Weapon of Choice” by Fat Boy Slim, which features Walken’s dancing through an empty Marriott. I always enjoyed that video, but the neurons then brought up “Praise You.” And here we are. BTW, Mickey Rooney’s son, Michael Rooney, directed the choreography for “Weapon of Choice”. You should check it out, even if it’s familiar to you. It has a good vibe.

It was a great trip – excellent weather, light traffic, little construction, no problems, etc. Stay positive, etc. Gonna go chill with the boys, aka, Tucker and Papi, our house floofs. Here’s the music. Cheers

Sunday’s Theme Music

We’re in cloud city this Sunday, March 27, 2022, facing a temperature of 54 F. It’s expected to go up to 70. The sun bounced a feeble few rays our way at 7:02 AM. Sunset is expected at 7:31 PM.

Some of my balance has returned. It feels like a proper Sunday. Yardwork plans are in the offing. I’ve gone out, pulling weeds and trimming things, in the afternoon a few days this week. We cleaned yesterday, then I walked for a few miles on my own. The sun was full and strong, and it was beautiful to see the flowers in bloom, green flushing the lawns again, and leaves filling trees’ branches.

On the DIY front, I did buy a new thermostat and installed it Friday, which fixed the heating issue. Fifty dollars at the local hardware store, it’s a mild upgrade to the one I’d installed in this place about fifteen years ago. I reckon it’s the fifth thermostat that I’ve installed in my lifetime. The first was one with a mercury switch, a long time ago in a duplex that we rented.

My neurons are having fun with me this morning, inserting an old song, “Polly Wolly Doodle”, into the morning mental music stream. I haven’t heard that song in ages but remember singing it in an elementary school class with the teacher at the piano. You should hear my neurons snickering and chortling as the song goes round and round. I answered their efforts with that classic retort, “How old are you?” That should’ve put them into their place, but they reacted by pumping the 1999 Blink 182 song into the stream, “What’s My Age Again”. More of their mischief. Although it’s been a featured theme song before, I haven’t had any coffee and don’t feel like arguing with them. So, here we go, folks.

Stay positive, test negative, adjust as needed to the changing situation, and stay alert. Don’t let complacency take you down. I won’t, once I have some coffee.

Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

Congratulations. You have won a beautiful, brand-new Saturday, March 12, 2022. What will you do with your new day? Maybe clean the house, go to a concert, talk a walk, run errands, do general chores, read a book, play an instrument, knit, cook, eat, party, celebrate, sleep?

Day overtook night with sunrise at 6:28 AM. Tomorrow, as we spring ahead, sunrise will be at 7:25. But tomorrow’s sunset will be an hour later than the 6:14 PM of today. I don’t care. Just stop with it. Does it accomplish anything any longer?

Spring-flavored weather is in the air, with March’s roars shaking tree branches. A mild shower is expected in the afternoon. We’re at 60 degrees F now, with a high of 68 in the works.

A cover of “Blue Monday” by Orgy (1999) (which was originally released by New Order in the early 1980s) is running around and around and around the morning mental music stream, a writing derivative arriving because I was asking characters how they feel about a moment, and how I felt about the new novel in progress and its emerging, evolving directions. The neurons picked up on the quest for feelings and began playing the song. And here we are.

Stay positive, etc. You know it by now, don’t you? Keep Ukraine in your well of good outcomes. I’m going for coffee, as my well has run dry. Cheers

Monday’s Theme Music

40 degrees F. Rainy and foggy. Snow still clings to the Earth. The sun is AWOL behind a gray cloud curtain. We’re on our way to a 47 degree high.

Good morning. Welcome to Monday, January 3, 2021.

Windstorm last night. Sounded like highspeed trains encircling us. One wind slapped the house side like Thor’s hammer. No apparent damages, though.

Sunrise: 7:40 AM. Sunset: 4:51 PM.

“Higher” by Creed (1999) is the morning mental music stream’s resident song. Ruminating about the night’s rations of dreams invited the song in. The song is about dreams, although I sometimes feels like a religious paean: “Can you take me higher? To a place where blind men see. Can you take me higher? To a place with golden streets.” It could be drugs, too, couldn’t it? But I thought I’d adopt it for this new year’s first Monday: can you take me higher? Keep climbing, you know?

Stay positive, test negative, wear masks and drink coffee as needed, and get the jabs. I’m off for my coffee now. You just sit and listen to the tune. Cheers

Sunday’s Theme Music

Season’s greetings to you, my fellow autumnites. Today is Skunkday, October 24 2021.

Yes, Skunkday, where everything is coming up skunky this morning. Sometime about 2:43 AM, a massive skunk front swept through the house. It was Phase III of the Night of Nature. Phase I was furious winds beating up the house and trees. Wind died. The second assault began: heavy rain. Didn’t mind it. Then Phase III: the skunk assault.

Don’t know what transpired. Dawn at 7:34 AM brought no evidence for this amateur sleuth. No wind damage; just nose damage. Woof. The air purifier is on. Some windows open on the non-skunk side. We’ll see if the air is fresh by sunset at 6:15 PM.

More rain is expected today. Temperatures remain in the mellow zone — low, 42 F, high of 60. Winds have calmed again but we’re being warned that the bombogenesis that’s churning storms out off the coast will be sending more our way. BTW, I love that word, bombogenesis. I think whoever came up with it was probably stoned or tipsy. Sounds like a word my friends and I would come over cups of wine or mugs of beer.

No songs in the morning mental music stream this AM. Made coffee. No song. Fed the cats. No song. Figure that between my dreams — it was a heavy dream night — and the skunk and weather, my brain was too full to register music. But then, there, thinking my head is heavy with dreams brings up Collective Soul playing “Heavy” from 1999. Which is a relief. Thought my mental Alexa had gone on the fritz.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, like when the skunks battle, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Here’s the music. I’m going back to my coffee. Cheers

Thursday’s Theme Music

If you heard a sharp screeching sound earlier this week, it may have come from our area. The seasons hit the brakes on the weather. We had been warmly progressing toward summer. Nice weather, if you can get it. But then, some power shouted, “Hit the brakes! Reverse.” Temperatures scaled down the thermometer overnight, taking us into the mid thirties. Rain stormed in. Clouds unfurled, mocking the sun’s 5:45 AM arrival. While the sun is expected to hang until 8:30 PM, the temperatures won’t go much over fifty, they say. Enjoying the rain, though, and the snow in the mountains. We haven’t had enough of either. Give us more, please.

This is Thursday, May 20, 2021, in the valley where Ashland is homed, where I am homed. Our vaccination rate keeps climbing (knock on wood). We’ve climbed over fifty percent of peeps with at least one shot. Our local Family Y has set up a J&J one shot clinic, no appointment needed, all day when they’re open. As with most of these things, it’s not advertised well. All of my local friends and acquaintances are fully vaxxed, but I tell them so they can tell others. Pitter-patter, let’s get ‘er at ‘er, and get this thing done.

Reading about why people aren’t getting vaccinated brought Tracy Chapman’s 1995 song, “Give Me One Reason”, to mind. Vax hesitancy usually falls in four groups. Dominating it are those individuals who don’t believe that COVID-19 exists or have convinced themselves that it’s not that bad. A lot of them defiantly demand, “Give me one reason.” But, what’s the use? You don’t believe the news stories about survivors and deaths. What one reason can I give that’ll change your mind? I fear that if you’re one of those people, your mind won’t be changed until you’ve personally experienced COVID-19 hell.

For the music, I’ve selected a collaboration between Chapman and Eric Clapton recorded in 1999. It’s a different take, a little fatter on Chapman’s gem of a song. Stay positive, test negative, mask as necessary, and get the vax. Please. Here’s the music.

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