Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: weatherflective

It’s Monday, June 17, 2024. Ashlandia is drying out from yesterday’s late afternoon rain and more precipitation decorating the night. Branches are tangoing with the wind and a blue sky as dazzling as a diamond suggests, we have a nice day lined up for you, folks. It’s 50 degrees F out with humidity floating in the eighties and a chance for the thermometer to breach the upper sixties. Spring rules again, although all is fully bloomed, waiting for our entrance. I’m a little sneezy and itchy-eyed with allergies.

The neighborhood is so quiet, you can hear a cat meow. A flying crow chastises us as he beats wings to somewhere else. Cars roll up with stoic indifference, delivering a gentle rumble from engine and tires.

No updates on Dad. They were to call when opportunity for us to chat came. So, sigh, I wait.

Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania, Mom is stirring up issues by claiming her beau made up an invitation that included Mom to go to a party with his family. She went to the party but did not enjoy herself because, she said, they were surprised to see her. She doesn’t think she was invited; my sister suggested, “Mom, you told them you weren’t coming. Of course they’re surprised when you showed up.”

But no, the invitation didn’t include her; it was manufactured. We don’t understand why he’d do that; discussing it logically with her is a task for someone with stronger shoulders. She doesn’t hear us, and doesn’t want to hear us. I remember taking conversations with her about this same matter fifteen years ago. It’s coloring our memories of her, making her bitter, angry, and hostile in our memories. That’s the problem with aging and living longer: we begin with a vision of who we want to be, and push efforts that way, and then our mind and body twist, erasing our vision.

Dinner with friends last night was entertaining. A jigsaw puzzle was begun. Featuring odd-shaped pieces, it’s not as fun as those with uniform shapes, even though it was an interesting scene from a museum with patrons.

This morning, we deliver for Food & Friends, and then I’m going to slip on my customary writing routine, and frequent the coffee shop. Ankle is wrapped. Swelling remains a matter to address but I don’t know how much is ankle injury and how much is my recurring edema. Ice, elevate, rest, but it’s tedious and mood-altering.

Songs came together today from thoughts of summer. Specifically, the heat wave riding others in the U.S. Out of that train, The Neurons pulled in “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” from 1996 by Primitive Radio Gods. Starting with that B.B. King sample, it plays and repeats in the morning mental music stream (Trademark chillin’). See, it has a line in there, “Does summer come for everyone?” I think the ground for this song and its lazy, reflective tone by a song on another blog the other day, “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanna Vega. They have similiar feels to me.

Coffee is making the trip between the lips. Be positive, stay strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Let’s go get ’em, tiger. Here’s the music. Cheers

June 17, 2024 0

Saturday’s Theme Music*

*Began publishing this as Sunday’s theme music. Because I thought it was Sunday. My internal calendar is untethered with my routines disrupted. My apologies.

Mood: Springflective

Spring has taken over Ashlandia on this day in June’s middle. A flotilla of menacing clouds have surmounted the mountains surrounding the valley, blocking the sun’s effects, and holding our temperature hostage in the low fifties. Saturday, June 15, 2024, will likely only face high temperatures in the upper sixties today, ending our unusually warm streak — for this time of year, of course.

Fire season has begun and there are already several on the maps to be watched to see how they grow, what direction they take, how long until they’re under control, and what happens with the smoke.

Dad went into the hospital yesterday. He’s in his early nineties so a visit there once in a while isn’t a great surprise. I mean, he grew up during the cigarette’s heyday and was a smoker, first of Lucky Strikes, and then shifting to pipes and cigars. He quit smoking thirty to forty years ago but the damage was done. He also spent 20 years in the military and was exposed to carcinogenic stuff during his tours, and survived a tour of Vietnam, too.

His current issues began with an enlarged prostrate which blocked his bladder. One kidney has apparently failed, quite some time ago, according to his wife, though Dad never mentioned this. Nor has he ever mentioned that they wanted to start him on dialysis. But the issue du jour is fluid around his heart. He’s been stented before and has had edema issues but this is a new one. So they’re going to drain away that fluid. The stay is basically observation, they said *cough cough*.

Dad, though, was recalcitrant to go into the hospital. His wife said that after the doctor saw Dad’s test results, Doc called Dad and asked him to go to ER, which Dad did. But when they wanted to admit him for obs, he refused to give his permission. Went on for hours. Dad demanded a second opinion. So a second team came in and evaluated him, and agreed, he should be admitted to the hospital. Dad finally gave his permission at 12:30 AM Friday morning after arriving Thursday afternoon. His wife said she left the hospital bone tired but encountered a huge thunderstorm. Not wanting to drive the highways and Interstates of San Antonio, Texas, in the rain, she found a chair and spent the night sleeping in it.

Gotta call them to get the lowdown on here and now.

If you ever read my blog, you can imagine how The Neurons reacted to news about Dad and his health. All manner of songs, poetry, and essays skated through the mental scene while I reflected about who I think Dad is and how he influenced me. As I’m still trying to figure him at with me at 68 years old, I ended up with “Alive” by Pearl Jam from 1991 in my morning mental music stream (Trademark grandfathered). Of course, figuring out Dad is a moving target. I’m changing in slow ways most days, and so is he. We don’t see one another often — he lives in Texas and I live in Oregon — and we don’t talk often. We try, and we mean to, but we’re the same in that way, sort of strange loners who socialize well but aren’t terribly sentimental. We can hazard the company of others but we’re very satisfied being on our own.

Stay strong, be well, keep positive. Endure, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Got my coffee so we can rock on. Here’s the tune. Cheers

June 15, 2024 2

Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Some website claimed, “You’re getting old if you can identify ten of these objects.”

I had to laugh. I know I’m getting old. Don’t need some silly game to verify it. Didn’t need one after graduating high school in 1975, and need one now even less.

June 7, 2024 3

Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

The thing about growing old is how you accumulate memories of so many of your firsts. I don’t know how much of it is true, but my mind informs me about many remembered firsts. Kisses and sex, purchases and experiences.

A big first for me was watching John F. Kennedy’s funeral on television. Another was watching the first moon landing.

But I remember buying my first car, and my family’s first color television. A big Magnavox console with a 25″ screen, my stepfather procured it after it fell off a truck.

Other big first include my first broken bone, meeting my wife and the first time we told each other, I love you. Another memorable first was the first funeral, for a school mate. Firsts fall in line: aircraft flights, purchasing a microwave, VHS player, CD player, home computer.

Now my latest firsts are witnessing a former POTUS declared guilty by a jury of his peers for crimes he committed, and NAZI flags being flown by his supporters as we commemorate the Normandy Landings done to fight NAZIs eighty years ago.

June 6, 2024 0

75 Degrees F

Being here at Mom’s home and witnessing the thermostat follies fascinates me.

Back in my visit’s first few days, it was chilly, often rainy in the morning or at night. With the thermometer showing 75 F in the house, she and her partner would discuss ‘why it’s so cold’ in the house. I would be consulted but I was overly warm. I didn’t think it cold. My 89-year-old mother would put on a sweater but then ask for the temperature to be raised a few degrees.

It’s 77 degrees outside today, and in the house. Complaining about how hot the house is, she turned on the airconditioner and set it on 75 degrees.

May 24, 2024 0

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Momfrustrated

Thursday, May 16, 2024, has landed on us. It’s mid-May, and we’re slipping, sliding, gliding toward mid-2024. Then we’ll slip, slide, glide to the 2024 elections and race into holiday season in America. I expect Black Friday advertising to kick in any day.

Though we’re doing a spring and summer shuffle, we have pleasant weather serenading us. The sun did a stirring dawn solo. Sunlight lasered in like an attack from Emperor Ming. Clouds spy from the horizons. It’s 67 now with 77 F on the way. Thunderstorms are also expected. What I found watching the weather on TV last night is that these small cells are populating the Pittsburgh metro area. Rain gets limited to those little doughnuts. In our part of the Churchill Valley, we blinked and missed the rain. Evidence was left behind as small drops on the brown wooden porch rails.

The Mom Help Quest continues. She’s moved the goals on us. We — my sisters and I — believe she needs help getting out of bed and dressing. Mom vehemently disagrees. Sure, it takes hours, and exhausts her, but that doesn’t mean she needs help.

No, she just wants a person to come in once a week to clean, especially the bathrooms. That’s all. And her beau backed her, so my sisters and I backed off. I’ve told Mom I think she’s wrong. Didn’t help any but I thought it important to state my position and get it on record.

My sisters are more frustrated about this than me. They point out that Mom tends to hold off action until things reach a crisis. Then an emergency is declared, and everyone is expected to drop everything an run to help Mom. They’re weary of the circus.

I understand Mom’s stand. This steady decline and shrinking of her independence affects her self-image. She’d like to stay in denial about what’s happening. Of course, she’ll deny that, as well. There’s also probably a piece about feeling like a burden and not wanting to be a burden to others. She doesn’t see with our eyes, and can’t or won’t grasp that by refusing greater help, she makes herself a greater burden.

That’s life in ‘Merica, I guess.

One piece of good news is that her doctor’s office has scheduled an appointment to discuss Mom’s request for a hospital bed. I’ve become leery of getting it after Mom said last night that she didn’t think it was going to make much difference. Told me she takes a sleeping pill and sleeps six to eight hours every night. But she spends the day complaining about how tired she is and how she wants to nap.

Other worries and concerns outside of familia permeate my circle of being, like damaging storms elsewhere, the Canadian wildfires, the Trump Trial for falsifying document, the held breath for what the SCOTUS will say about Trump’s immunity, what actions states are taking to sabotage voter rights, the other Trump trials, inflation concerns, climate change activities, and the upcoming 2024 election.

There’s also a new sideshow, the Trump-Biden debate. I think Trump is a fool for accepting but I’m delighted that he did. I think Trump has a sense that he’s losing his mojo so he wants to be front and center. I believe Trump is in more denial about his condition and situation than Mom.

This debate is a beauty pageant. Trump thinks he’ll win it by looking better than Biden — younger, even though he’s just three years behind President Biden — and more articulate and knowledgeable. Those of us outside of Trump’s MAGA influence watching Biden give speeches know that his gaffes are much less than Trump’s crazy talk. I believe President Biden will come off as much more impressive than Trump. Fingers crossed that this will come to be.

Okay, today’s music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark warming) is “Just Like Paradise” by Diamond Dave — David Lee Roth. The 1987 song was selected by Los Neurons by a combo of me thinking about returning home to Ashlandia, where the weather is hotter and the cats are sweet, and a mockery of the situation in America.

The latter — the mockery of America — is delivered by the GOP’s continuing efforts to destroy America by governing as little as possible, remaining as an obstacle to progress, and even tearing down things, such as DeJoy’s destruction of an efficient postal system.

Working on the ridiculous idea that more is better, Postmaster Louis Dejoy has led an effort to consolidate and reduce postal operations, especially in rural areas. He’s slashed trucks and personnel and closed operations. Places like southern Oregon, where I reside, has suffered with continuing mail delays. Our local post offices are shuttering or severely limited in offered services. Customer complaints have soared. Elected officials in Washington, D.C., on both sides of the aisle are demanding answers from DeJoy, and he’s often just blowing them off.

Some of the increasing pressure is finally impacting DeJoy’s thinking, as he’s agreed to a pause. Many Democrats wonder why President Biden hasn’t fired and replaced DeJoy. Unfortunately, President Biden lacks that authority.

Well, here comes the darkening clouds. I’m already riding the coffee rain, so I’ll wish you a good Thursday and be off. Remember, stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music. Gotta admit, it’s tres Van Halen pop rock, even though it’s not Van Halen. Cheers

May 16, 2024 0

Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

I read a NYTimes article about Dr. Richard Restak’s new book on aging. His new book is “The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind.” The Times’ article’s title is “How to Prevent Memory Loss”, and that sums it up.

As I reach toward the end of my sixties, I think about memory loss, especially forgetfulness. Whenever a moment of forgetfulness strikes my wife or I, she tends to say, “We’re getting old.”

I dispute the idea that my forgetfulness is automatically a product of aging. I didn’t at first but then I began thinking back to previous episodes of forgetfulness in my life. I’ve had brain farts at one time or another, so I don’t think we should assign much importance to them now. Further, I think blaming it on aging is a sort of surrender that will propagate the myth and acceptance that my memory burps are all about aging.

For instance, if you will.

We’ve gone shopping without a list prepared and forgot to buy something. My partner’s almost kneejerk reaction is, “We’re getting old. We need to remember to make and take lists.”

Well, yes, dear, lists are useful. We learned that lesson forty years ago. That’s why we began using lists in the first place. So, it ain’t necessarily because we’re getting old now. It’s because, like those times in our youth when we forgot something, we were busy. We didn’t slow down to think. We let our mind wander from the task.

That’s almost exactly what Dr. Restak notes in his paragraph, “Some memory lapses are actually attention problems, not memory problems.”

That’s why I liked this article. Many of the suggestions and ideas Dr. Restak presents to help prevent memory loss were ideas I’d discovered for myself. So I find it validating. I think practicing self-awareness about how I approach it whenever I forget something is key. Think about the circumstances around why something was forgotten. Reflect on it: was it an isolated moment or part of a larger trend?

A larger trend is more problematic but dig for the roots of it. Don’t automatically react, well, I’m getting old, so I’m getting forgetful. No, be mindful about remembering.

Finally, what really triggered me to think about this as a post subject was his point about reading novels.

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Rainflective

Today is May 10, 2024. Sis’s 70 bday is tomorrow.

It’s spring with a wintry flush in Pennhillia, PA. The air is cold and wet. Last night’s rain lowered the temperatures, and clouds keep them down. I don’t know where this front came from but it feels like it was overnighting with winter somewhere.

Light rain is dripping down on us. Temperature is 53 F, which is about our day’s high.

Mother’s Day Cookout planning is ongoing. How many people? How many and what desserts? What about side-dishes, meats, buns and breads and salads, oh my.

Good weather isn’t a call we can make. Sunday is expected to be rainy and chilly, rising into the low 60s F by the mid afternoon. Little sister Gina is hosting us. Besides her husband, children and grandchildren, two other sisters with their husbands, children and grandchildren will be there, along with Mom, me, and Mom’s beau. Fingers crossed and knock on wood that we’ll have a good time.

Today’s music is Avril Lavigne’s “My Happy Ending” out of 2004. The Neurons parked it into my morning mental music stream (Trademark drifting) after my early AM cogitations. Besides dream surveying, I was out on the porch, tasting the cold air, listening to the rain, sucking down coffee and reviewing our family history. Highlights and lowlights came like breaking waves. I remembered this and then that.

2004 became mired in my mind. Mom was my current age in that year. I was but 48. So young, so young. Only two of the many the grands were born. Mom’s beau was justing coming into the picture. She was a healthy, energetic 68 year-old. No evidence of what was to come with all of us, but then how often do the harbingers of what’s to be appear to present a head’s up?

Anyway, from that came the 2004 song, “My Happy Ending”, a succinct song about what was tried and how it failed.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. I have coffee, thanks, and I’m sucking it down like it’s the elixir of the gods. Here’s the music video. Cheers

May 10, 2024 0

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Visative

My computer said, “Looks like you’re in Penn Hills, PA.”

I replied, “What ’bout it? You trying to start something?”

“No,” the machine said, “just asking, you know, you want the local time and weather?”

Yes, I’m at Mom’s house in Penn Hills, back to help out as I can. I went out to get fresh morning air at 9 AM. Humid, warm air slapped my face. I’m dribbling sweat from my pits. I’s 73 F with a high of 84 F coming up. Light rain is expected at 5 PM. The Neurons are like, what is this stuff, humidity?

A stranger in a strange land vibe flucuates. Mom and Frank are the same as ever but gravity is apparently stronger here. They move more slowly, even sluggishly. I’m noticed the same gravity effect on myself; steps I used to quasi-bound up — couldn’t do too much bounding, with their steep rake, narrow confines, and small tread — are carefully navigated. Humidity and gravity. I never expected them to betray me.

My visit is open-ended but I think it’s on a short leash. I want to give my sisters and Mom’s boyfriend a little break from having to do everything for Mom.

Yesterday was a travel day. Left the house at 11 AM and arrived at Mom’s place at midnight. Two flights. Both United. One of the two was on-time for a 50% rate. Not bad? I had to scramble between flights in Denver as the next flight was already boarding. It seemed like over half the people on my United Boeing 737 flight rowed were in the same straits. We rushed out of the jetway like ants scrambling from an anthill under duress.

I’m in the kitchen, sipping coffee, listening to the upstairs sounds drift back down to me as they awake and dress to meet the day. I let them sleep in. I know how good sleep can feel.

With that background, The Neurons fed Dire Straits, “Sultans of Swing”, into the morning mental music stream. Released in the U.S. in 1979, this was the one which first made folks like me ask, “Who are these guys?” Since its release, I’ve grown fond of Mark Knopfler’s many talents. This puts it all on display.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. As noted, I went onto the coffee car already and got my caffeinated assist. Here we go.

Cheers