Tag: 2001

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Adieu to August. Hello, September! So many September songs dive straight into the mental music stream. Amazing.

Yes, this is September 1, 2021. 9/1/21. Wednesday. Hump Day. Some interesting holidays are observed on this date.

  • Building and Code Staff Appreciation Day 
  • Chicken Boy Day 
  • Emma M. Nutt Day 
  • Ginger Cat Appreciation Day 
  • Global Talent Acquisition Day – September 1, 2021 (First Wednesday in September)
  • National Cherry Popover Day 
  • National No Rhyme Nor Reason Day 
  • National Tofu Day (UK) 
  • Pink Cadillac Day 
  • Save Japan’s Dolphins Day 
  • Toy Tips Executive Toy Test Day 
  • World Letter Writing Day 

Each one has a story. Like Chicken Boy Day. How did that get started? Ginger Cat Appreciation Day. I do have a ginger cat. Papi, aka Meep, aka Youngblood and the Ginger Blade. I will show him my appreciation. It’s not a choice. He demands it. I willingly surrender.

Sunrise overtook us at 6:36 AM. Sun fade will be at 7:43 PM. Our smoke is back and blah, blah, blah, it sucks. High temperatures will be in the low 80s so a cooler day again, if only we had the air to go out and safely breathe.

The musical mental stream kicked things off this morning with Doris Day singing “Sentimental Journey”. Listened to Bob Dylan’s cover of it. It’s just too mellow for me this September AM, ya know? I wanted something head thrashing. My mind responded with, stop wasting my time. Words which naturally flowed into the song by Default, “Wasting My Time” (2001). No, not head thrashing, but it’ll do. (Did anyone else channel a little of Babe there, and say, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”? No? Hmmm.)

Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed, like when it’s smoky as hell or you’re in contact with others outside of your house, like in a store. Get the vax. And be safe. Here’s the music. I’m gonna go get more coffee. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

20:16 – 06:13. Sunset, sunrise. I complete the math in my head. Daylight minutes are falling back. Sunrise is later. Sunset is earlier. An annual thing. Recurring. Yet, I let it dominate morning thoughts like the end is nigh. Probably a product of circumstance. Outside activity is limited. Another high dome is settling on us. Back up to 101-105. No humidity. The drought deepens. Its pervasive effects suck out life. Air quality is unhealthy as wildfire smoke curls up in the valley. Better the smoke than the fire, I remind myself with some weariness. Trying to be positive. COVID-19 cases are also setting new area records. ICUs are overrun. Hospital staff have contracted COVID-19. Then there are personal matters I don’t put in posts.

Good morning, and a happy Tuesday to you, too! Today is Tuesday, August 10, 2021. 2021 is hurrying by as a year but it’s gonna leave a mark.

For music, I’ve been sucked into a song by The Calling, “Wherever You Will Go” (2001). This was a cat issue. Tucker insisted upon being my bodyfloof, right there at my heels as I walked down the hall, jumping up on the desk when I sat to type, etc. I processed the usual requests – “Are you hungry? Do you want a treat?” Petted and brushed him. Gave him some nip. But he hung with me. Guess that’s what he wanted. Which prompted the song.

Stay positive. Yes, it’s hard, innit? Is for me. Life can be a wearying business. Especially if you’re like me, staring at the smoke, contemplating COVID-19, struggling to write, pondering the imponderables. But stay positive. Rant a bit. Let it go, if you can. Test negative. Wear the mask when it’s needed. Get the vaccination, please.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Flooding in Europe. Wildfires all over the U.S. west. Record heat waves. Drought. COVID-19 cases spiking. It’s too much for a Friday. I’m going back to bed.

Today is July 16, 2021. Bad news sometimes seems overwhelming. Dark stories past those headline blares paint scenes of death, destruction, and despair. Unless you’re wealthy. Then it’s woo-hoo, life is grand.

Daylight hours seems to be drawing down fast. Maybe it feels like that because of dark news. Sunrise was at 5:49 AM. Less than fifteen hours later will come sunset, 8:45 PM. Temperatures are at least down. Feels chilly with temperatures in the mid sixties this morning. The sky is clear, though, and we’ll probably see 90 F again this afternoon. Although forecast to have a high of 84 yesterday, we saw 93.

I’m always disappointed when Alexa is wrong about the weather. She’s never apologetic about it. Never mentions getting it wrong.

Today’s song is by 311. “Amber” (2001) is about the color of someone’s energy. My energy had been high. Then came irrigation drip problems disrupting my plans, requiring digging to learn what has gone wrong. While doing that, the song came unbidden to mind. So, here we are.

Stay positive — you know, as I do (hah!) — test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Here’s the music. I’m going to go get my coffee. It won’t necessarily lift my spirits but will inure me against feeling so damn down. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Look at this: Sunrise: 7:30 AM. Sunset: 5:18 PM.

We’re squirting toward ten hours of sunlight here in Ashland, Oregon. The delta has become just twelve minutes. Twelve minutes. At this rate, we’ll have ten hours of sunlight by the end of January. That, my friends, is progress.

Yeah, I’m a sunlight fan.

We could use more sunlight today but stormy clouds have paraded in. The clouds brought a sharp wind as their plus one. Present temp is a chilly 31 F, which feels like colder. Today’s high will be 39, so no relief. Still, we’re faring better than places where single digits or piles of snow reign.

Today’s song, “Last Nite” by The Strokes, came out while the century was still young, 2001. Sweet and young, the new century was naive and combative, as the 2000 election showed. We’ve been fighting ever since.

How does “Last Nite” fit in? It’s all about understanding, innit? Don’t know if you recall/are familiar with “Last Nite”, so let’s paste in some lyrics, courtesy of Genius.com.

And say, people, they don’t understand
No, girlfriends, they can’t understand
Your grandsons, they won’t understand
On top of this, I ain’t ever gonna understand

Which sums up a lot going on in U.S. politics to me, which is how the song got into my head this AM. I was thinking about how people don’t understand one another. We took about it a lot. How can anyone trust Trump? He’s a proven liar and failed businessman. I don’t understand. Meanwhile, over on the spectrum’s other end, they’ve been yelling, Trump tells it like it is. The left doesn’t understand. But, but, but, how he’s telling it are lies and bullshit. I don’t understand why they don’t see that.

Stay positive — I know, it’s hard — test negative, wear a mask, get vaccinated, and persevere. The list keeps growing.

Here’s the music.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Blue sky and sunshine are absent today. Snow and a 34 degree temp have control, though the snow is a mealy splatter pattern. Winter is taking control in Ashland, Oregon.

Today is January 25 of 2021. We’re racing toward the end of the first month of the year. Can the year still be called? How many miles must be acquired before we start referring to it as a gently used year? Sunrise came at 7:31 AM while sunset is expected at 5:16 PM.

Yesterday’s day of snow was entertaining. Snow sizes and styles morphed. I’d see little pellets shooting down, but a short period later would find fat flakes fluttering past. The consistent question shared between me and my wife was, “Is in sticking?” No, too warm.

I went out back, barefoot, in my jeans and shirt, to do a spin in the snow, catch some on my tongue and hands, watch them crash toward me, and breath in the frosty ambiance. After coming back from that, when I looked out later, I saw a person walking their dog down the street through thickening flurries. I thought, I see myself in the falling snow, remembering all the times when I’d walked through such snow, reflecting on the different periods of life and those locations. My mind provided background music by starting “South Side” by Moby with Gwen Stefani (2001).

It was an amusing twist on my mind’s part. Moby sings about seeing himself in the light and seeing himself in the rain. I’d been thinking about seeing myself in the snow.

Chuckle. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Computer issues drop-kicked my Sunday into Sourday yesterday. Naturally, I blamed 2020. Made more sense than blaming myself, or HP, Microsoft, Kaspersky, or anything else. No, this was 2020’s fault. Because, 2020 has been a helluva memorable year for all the wrong reasons, from my perspective.

Like, yesterday, I went for a short walk. Golden leaves were flaring bright against the sky blue. The air was warmish at seventy, but clearer than a new 4K television picture. Yet, given my ‘puter issues, my mood was sour. Walking out of the house and up the hill, I remembered the four small, beautiful cats who used to greet me when I came out. Pepper, Buddy, and Mimi (aka Princess) all were neighbor cats. Quinn was my own. None were big. Three were long-furred but all were sweet and happy. All were here last year, last fall. Now, all were gone, victimized by life and death, as we all will be.

Yeah, some mood, right?

It’s natural for my mind to provide theme music, background to whatever I’m doing. Yesterday’s chosen song stayed with me for today. Probably did this song as theme music before; I didn’t bother to look. Frying other matters in my head, you know?

Here is Green Day with “Wake Me When September Ends” (2005). In place of September, feel free to insert anything else. I inserted 2020, as in wake me when 2020 ends.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Cat number two was the first encountered. He began the dance.

Number two is number one in his eyes. We don’t know what he calls himself. We call him Boo. Sometimes he answers to that.

Seeing me slack-jawed with fading dreams moving zombie-esque from bedroom through hall, Boo said, “Mrr.” Mrr, I think, means, “About time,” “Feed me,” “Good morning,” or “Hello.”

He was in a sitting position. Standing, he began singing, “You can go this way, you can go that way.” Thinking he knew which way, he shifted his body that direction to inhibit my passage and bend my will to his.

Feigning left, I slipped right. One cat passed. Not liking it, Boo sang out.

Cat number two, referred to as Tucker (but as adept at ignoring his name as Boo) was sitting just beyond Boo. Responding to Boo’s talking, Tucker said, “I got him.” Standing, he said, “You can go this way, you can go that way,” and moved to cut me off.

A deftly executed double feint was executed by me, an impressive move by a sleep-lusting, coffee-hungering moving catatonic human, though not easily. Tucker is a wily veteran and countered each movement, singing on as he did, “You can go this way, you can go that way, you can go this way, you can go that way.”

This is why Fatboy Slim’s 2001 song, “Weapon of Choice”, is today’s theme music. Naturally, I’ve spooled up the Christopher Walken dance version. It’s a little fun, a repeat, but worthwhile.

Here’s the music. Wear your masks, please.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Remembering 2001 and thinking about the current crises — yeah, there’s a lot going on in parallel — brought 2001 Train song, “Drops of Jupiter”, to mind. The words appeal to my maudlin side and lift me.

But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance
To dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way?
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And did you miss me while you were
Looking for yourself out there?

h/t to Genius.com

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Sunday’s Theme Music

“Do you ever get restless?” my wife asked.

Do I ever get restless?

Do cats ever go to sleep?

Good lord, we’ve been sheltering in place with limited contact with others since the middle of March. I’ve had itchings to leap into the car and race away, to find some sanctuary at a beach. I’ve sighed over ideas of meandering through book stores. Favorite places get longing looks as I drive by. Small heartaches are felt as advertisements to travel slip past. When will we safely do these things again?

Last night, I sniffed the cooling summer breeze. The breeze smelled like that time I was on Sicily, and recalled a moment on Okinawa, and a summer night in the Philippines. The breeze reminded me of being in bed in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia when I was a child, and being on holiday with my wife in Astoria, Hawaii, and California. Recollections of living in Germany, standing under the Eiffel Tower, and visiting Korea rode that breeze in. A little bit of the Carolinas, Texas, and Florida came in on that breeze. Other times in Oregon and New Mexico rose on that breeze.

So, yeah, I get restless. After she asked, and I was outside later, staring at the night sky (cloudy, so saw nothing but clouds), a line from Weezer’s “Island in the Sun” (2001) streaked through my stream like a summer meteor.

We’ll run away together
We’ll spend some time forever
We’ll never feel bad anymore

That was followed by that lovely, low key refrain, “Hip, hip.”

h/t to Genius.com

Yep, feeling a bit restless today. I’d love to be on an island in the sun. Hip, hip.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Being limited in travel, my mind has been muttering about how it’s been a while since we’ve done different things. With many of these things, it’s been a while with or without COVID-19 and its associated policies and limitations; it’s just life that these things have been a while.

My brain likes to explore these thoughts, hook up with the main theme, and then regurgitate a song with that theme in it. Today, it’s Staind with “It’s Been Awhile” (2001). Because, brain does what brain does. (How do you like that tautology?)

Other than the self-questioning, my life has little to do with this song. “It’s Been Awhile” is about drug addiction, with a reflective nuance about the stupid things that he’s done which haunt him. Now I can relate to doing stupid things; I wouldn’t be me without executing a stupid idea once in a while. (“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”)

So, I can relate to it being a while since I’ve done some stupid things. Guess I’m overdue.

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