Tag: air quality

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Opticoffeetized

It’s warm in the house. Windows were closed all night against smoke’s rising presence in our valley. I’m up early to see if the air has improved enough that windows and doors can be opened.

I clean the grit from my eyes. When the air quality gets bad, eye grittiness increases. Then, I tilt my head back. Saline nasal spray is applied to my nostrils. I blow the gunk out. Better.

The view outside is bad. Can’t see the mountains for the smoke. Higher elevations have worse smoke and terrible air quality. Down here, closer to the valley floor, the air is a health risk with the quality index hovering in the 150-160 range. The windows are cautiously opened. It’s already 70 outside but it’s 78 F in the house.

Today is Thursday, August 1, 2024. Our high temp will be 104’s neighborhood. 40 degrees C.

There are 96 days left until the 2024 elections. Turmoil has seized the GOP. Trump feels his advantages falling, so he’s twisting, attempting to change positions that are more amenable to voters. His twisting is disconcerting his party and straining loyalties.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are working more solidly together. The DNC is coming up and they’re moving smoothing toward it as glowing endorsemnts from prominent Democrats are given to Kamala Harris. I’m certan that they’re going to emerge with a solid and progressive platform, unlike the GOP, which is trying to distant itself from the Project 2025 playbook while simultaneously embracing it.

I read a NYTimes piece by former Governor Christopher Sununnu (R-NH) about what the GOP needs to do. Focus on policies and don’t depend on just attacking. Well, that’s basic, simplistic advice that Don Old Trump can’t follow. Attacking is what he does, especially when pressure on him increases. It’s his mojo, in is mind. Witness his attacks and hostility during his trial last May. More recently, look how angry and belligrent he became at the NABJ meeting, where he ended up questioning Kamala Harris’s race. Insane.

Today has The Neurons playing “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister from 1985 filling the morning mental music stream (Trademark roasted). I think the song came from triple points of view in my morning cogitations. One was about me and some DIY I’m doing, along with novel writing. I was thinking about things I need to fix. Then the thinking shifted into politics and the things which needed fixed. That was all just an invitation for The Neurons to bring up the “Broken Wings” line, “We can take what is wrong and make it right.” The rest just followed.

Smoke is flavoring the breeze. My nostils are stinging and dribbling. A headache has taken up residence and I cough and sneeze. Time to close the windows.

Stay positive, lean forward, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee and I are doing the dance. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: amcoffeedident

Ah, Friday has arrived, for what it’s worth. It’s July 26, 2024. A tumultuous month is closing down. Our air quality is ‘moderate’ right now. From my standpoint, the sky’s blue is sketchy with gray but no smells are assaulting my nose and I’m not tearing up or sneezing, knock on wood, etc. 66 F now, it’ll be 89 F as our high.

Last night was cool, though, and fresh air came in. Windows and doors were opened. The temperature inside the house dropped to 70 F. Sweet. Everything was closed back up so we have a cool house throughout the day. With intense, direct sunshine, inside the house will reach 81 F. That’s liveable. Besides that, we’ll have a fan going on us in the office when we’re in there reading, chatting, and surfing the net.

It’s a much quieter morning today. We’re monitoring several fires. Two big ones are in California. Several large ones in Oregon, as well, but most of the large Oregon fires are on the eastern side of the Cascades. One fire by Chico in California was apparently started by a man. He’s been arrested for suspected arson. My wife, a pacifist, advocates hanging him as over 174,000 acres have burned, forcing over 3500 people to evacuate.

Some bad news from friends. One has his physician telling him that he’s two steps away from hospice. It was a warning to get his attention. Hope it does. A second has a dying floof-friend, one of those situations that bring out sighs of despair, sympathy, and empathy. Little can be done but to offer comfort. Third friend was taken away by EMTs. He was conscious when he left but we haven’t been able to get updates after several days, which just keeps the worries simmering.

Reflecting on shifts, changes, and news updates this week has encouraged The Neurons to bring “Bitter Sweet Sympathy” by the Verve into the morning mental music stream (Trademark scorched). I mean, as the 1997 song says, “‘Cause it’s a bitter sweet symphony that is life.”

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: chillax

Today is Thursday, July 25, 2024. Still a little time to get your early Christmas shopping done.

It’s been a noisy morning in my Ashlandia. A parade of sounds. Garbage trucks banging on and roaring down the street. Motorcycles. Barking dogs, overhead jets, loud talking people. There may have been a marching band as well. Couldn’t tell for the noise. A jackhammer capped the performance.

Then Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah), my black and white thick-furred floofhead, settled on my pillow above my head and vigorously groomed himself, sometimes leaning on my skull to prop himself up in his washing process. Hello!

Of course, the noise can all be explained in rational ways, especially when you set them against the situation. Iit’s a chill morning. Up to sixty now as the sun breaks over the mountains and trees overseeing my home site. Things must be done before the heat arrives. Also, the air quality is very breathable, better than it’s been in days. Better want to get things done before the air goes bad and the day heats up. And the passing jet could well have been a fire-fighting tanker. Not sure why the marching band was out there.

But come on, if this is what I have to complain about, the noise of life and a cat’s activity, I don’t have it bad at all. Massive fires still rage in all compass directions. Pity the animals and people chased out of their homes and habitats who face the task of rebuilding and finding new homes. And thanks to all those individuals at every level, tracking fires, managing and fighting them, and keeping us updated on what’s happening. Imagine what it would be like without them.

While it’ll be cool here today, just 86 F is the expected high, other regions are blazing away. the Copernicus Climate Change Service reports that the record set on July 21, 2024, for the hottest recorded temperture, was broken on July 22, 2024. Something to think about and keep you awake at night, isn’t it?

So WordPress has some AI magic to help me write better. It highlighted ‘may’ above, citing it as an ‘unconfident word’. The magic suggests I replace it with ‘been’, so the sentence would read, ‘There been a marching band as well.’ Yeah, that sounds more confident, although, perhaps, a little asinine as well.

Had a good time with friends sipping a few beers out in the shade and wind of a local brewery. Moderate turn out of ten. Progressives all, we were jazzed by the energy and optimism the Kamala Harris campaign is generating. We also noted the GOP’s lame and increasingly desperate attempts to undermine the Harris campaign. The GOP is running scared. Other than that, we discussed dark oxygen being generated at deep sea levels, along with airships, you know, derigibles. I think it was unanimous that we’d all like to experience traveling like that, as long as you’re not in a rush.

I’m chillin’ with a cuppa coffee in hand, and cool fresh air wafting in through the window behind me. The Neurons turn Frankie Goes to Hollywood loose in the morning mental music stream (Trademark televised) with “Relax” from 1983. That’s the theme song for the moment.

Stay positive and remain fresh and strong. I’m trying to do the same. Let’s Vote Blue in 2024, and bring the United States its first female in the White House as POTUS. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sundaylax

It’s Sunday, July 21, 2024. Quiet rules the neighborhood. The cats and birds are all chilling. Haven’t seen any deer, cougars, foxes, or bears. I guess they’re off chilling somewhere, too.

Wildfire smoke crashed the scene yesterday. Gaining density, we were soon sitting in a yellow fog at 96 degrees F. The smoke carried out Air Quality clear up into the unhealthy zone, finishing just short of hazardous. The cats were forced in, the air purifying machine turned on, and the windows kept closed as sunlight fled and night swarmed in.

Dawn brought relief. Temperatures wre huddling in the low sixties. Smoke mildly grays the blue sky but visibility is much better. I’ve cautiously opened a few windows. Doesn’t smell overly bad. I experience some eye tearing and itchy now and and again, then a dripping nose, and a bout of sneezing, but overall, it can be endured. All the weather sources are agreeing that we’ll touch the high eighties as our temperature’s ceiling. That’s a welcome change.

I don’t know where the smoke is originating. California has several going. Southern Oregon where I live is relatively fire free. East of the Cascades delivers a different story, as major fires are going in Oregon on that side, especially by the Idaho border. Hope all stay safe and the fires are soon contained.

“Danger Zone”, a song by Kenny Loggins and associated with the movie Top Gun is storming the morning mental music stream (Trademark threatened). I don’t know why The Neurons pulled the 1986 song from the mental archives for this morning. It doesn’t seem overtly dream related. Could be smoke & fire thinking, I guess. I don’t believe that it’s a political manifestation as I swerved away from politics this morning.

It’s a kind of strange video. 80s music, 80s clothing, 80s dancing. But they’re my people. LOL.

Have a better one. Be strong, stay positive, and Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music and there’s the coffee. Help yourself. Here we go. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: crusty

Thursday, August 24, 2023. Ashlandia, where the crows are busy and the cats are wistful.

It’s like a different day out there. Sunny, good visibility, 68 F, light mountain breezes. The change chased me to the fire map to check on the fires’ statuses. Were they all miraculously put out overnight? No. Seems, after looking at the air quality map to see what the air is like, that we’re the beneficiary of some southeasterly wind. I’ll take it. With the cleared air and a different front moving in, today’s high will kick the mid nineties.

Didn’t watch the GOP debate last night. Just didn’t feel it in my bones. So I’m playing catch up, reading reports about what I missed. Except for DeSantis to a small degree — he held back more than I expected — they presented the impressions and delivered the expected comments. Nothing in any of the accounts I read this morning made me want to rethink who these candidates were.

Instead, I found myself more drawn in by two murder cases. Both killers were young women. One — 28 y.o. — killed a vocal coach by shoving them to the pavement and walking away; the other — 19, 18 when she killed — took her car up to 100 MPH and steered the vehicle into a building, killing her two passengers. The first will spend eight years in jail; the second was sentenced to fifteen years to life, eligible for parole in 15 years. Why my interest? Well, why did they do these things? What were they thinking? Anger played a role in both killings, although smoking marijuana was part of both stories. Both seemed to surrender control and acted out; these are the results. Very human and tragic. They received a lot of print and coverage. Maybe I just missed coverage of the others, but I searched for other young women who killed, and easily found three of the same age range and time period in other states in the news. Odd how the press clamps onto certain matters. Odd, perhaps, how they attracted my attention.

The Neurons have stuffed “Texarkana” by R.E.M (1991) into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fickle). Apparently, this was out of a dream sequence. My wife was mimicking Mick Jagger in the dream and I told her, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you fall.” ‘Catch me if I fall’ is repeated in “Texarkana”. When I first listened to the album, I would like for “Catch Me If I Fall” as a song title. Texarkana? Whaaattt? Anyway, here we are.

Stay well, be strong and pos. My coffee-fueled day has begun; here we go. Let’s hear the music first. Cheers

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Mewsday’s Theme Music

The Tucker floof awoke me with song at an early time. “Get up, get up, it’s time to eat. Get up, get up, no time to sleep. Get up, get up, feed me some food. Get up, get up, or I’ll keep up this tune.”

Which he did. So I did. That makes this Mewsday.

The sky crashed down on his last night. Well, starting just after two in the afternoon, winds shifted, bringing the Rum Creek fire‘s smoke right down the I-5 corridor, changing the color of our air quality indicators from green to red like a traffic signal at work. Although it looks and smells better today, we’re at 152, red, and not good. Actually, the peculiarities of the narrowing valley and slope that I live on brings the air quality down to a more endurable 105. A wind shift can take that away, making us like the rest of the city.

Sunrise was a mellow and uneventful period at 6:33 AM. Sunset cometh at 7:50 PM. Cool 54 F now but a high of 34 C is on deck.

Got a Tom Petty song in mind. Heard it on the radio the other day. The Neurons said, “We like this,” and kept it on as background music in the mental music stream since. The song is “Leave Virginia Alone”. I remember hearing the Rod Stewart version back in 1995. Didn’t move me deeply. I was unaware that Tom Petty wrote it, learning that later, when he covered it himself. It sounds more like a Tom Petty style song than a Rod vehicle to me.

Okay, where is the coffee, please? The cats have abandoned me. Tucker is silent and coffee is needed. Stay positive, test neggy, etc. Have a good Monday, whatever that means on your spectrum. Here’s the song. A little mellow for a coffee-less Monday to my ears but it makes The Neurons happy. Cheers

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Whensday’s Theme Music

Whensday, August 10, 2022, slipped in when our backs were turn. Looks like he’ll stay a day. Maybe two.

You feel that it’s Whensday, a day when questions rise like a two-year-old learning to talk is following you around. Your neurons bombard you with questions. “When is the pandemic going to end? When are things going to get better? When will I be able to relax? When is my package arriving? When is dinner?”

Yeah, I feel very Whensday today.

Sun arrived like a teenager sneaking into the house at 6:13 AM. Won’t go away until 8:19 this evening. I cannot help but notice the reduced time allotted for sunshine in my valley, the product of the orbital spins and revolutions. Temperature is cool but pleasing 18 C. Only anticipating the heat to push the mercury up to 86 F today. Our air quality leaped into the red zone yesterday. The air red zone isn’t the same as in American football. Air red zone means it’s starting to be unhealthy for breathing creatures. It’s dropped back down to the moderate zone this AM. All depends on the winds. Yes, the answer is blowing in the wind.

“Young Americans” by David Bowie (1975) is circulating through the morning mental music stream. (The stream, BTW, is like a rambunctious labyrinth with several connected levels. It’s a boulder strewn rockin’ place.) It arrived after reading through news stories and then taking a contemplative stance to question, “What will the future be like?” What will the young Americans be like? Will real and sustained change arrive. An eternal optimist, I reply, yeah, but it’s gonna be messy. Won’t be straightforward, will be more like a shuffle back and forth, left and right, up and down, just like most of history has been.

Anyway, here is the song. Hope you enjoy it. Speaking of enjoying, I believe young coffee is patiently waiting in the other room. When will I drink it? I think now is the time. Stay positive, test negative, etc. Cheers

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Sumday’s Theme Music

This is it, Sumday, the beginning and the end. The circle remains unbroken, and here we are at the culmunation of hopes and prayers, work and play, getting ready and relaxing, all in one. For some. Your day might be different.

August 7, 2022 is upon us. For me, a wedding anniversary; we married at Wright-Patt AFB in Ohio on this date in 1975. Yep, still going, for better and worse, etc.

It’s about 22 C right now, a climb from 65 F. 100 F is anticipated for today. Sunrise punched in at 6:10 AM. As the world turns, the sun will depart our sky at 8:23 PM. The clouds have taken the morning off but a mass assembly is expected in the late afternoon.

Air quality remains excellent. I slipped out last night just after sunset to do a visual of the sky. All looked good except the northwest sector, which glowed with dirty purple and red malevolence. Nothing has come of it, so far. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc. Fires still burn in the area. Containment is growing but the rising heat makes everyone worry. Might not surprise you to learn that the wildfires thrive on hot weather.

I traipsed out again later to enjoy the cooling, silent night. The clock was leveling midnight and the moon was cruising low in the western sky, perhaps pondering a landing path into the mountain’s trees. White with silver icing, it was shifting toward three-quarter fullness, an inspiring sight against the blackened blue expanse. Light pollution was low. Stars, galaxies, and planets were all sailing the nocturnal firmaments. I watched for a while, thinking about photos sent back from the Webb telescope, contemplating history and science, the future and now. The Neurons brought out no songs. I wondered if they were napping or out of the office for the night. They hadn’t said anything to me about leaving. I’m always the last to know when The Neurons leave.

Thoughts continued into the novel-in-progress. That brought The Neurons back. They kicked a song called “Between Something and Nothing” by The Ocean Blue from 1989 into the mental music stream. The song is lifted from that late 1980s and early 1990s era of softly glittering electronic music and high questioning voices. What a time, but then, weren’t they all?

Stay positive, test negative, and so on to do as needed to protect and sustain yourself and others. The coffee truck is ringing its bell and coming up the street. Got to grab some money and dash out to get a cuppa. Have a peaceful one. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Greetings from Terra.

Today is Wednesday, September 22, 2021. Fall is fully on us in my planetary niche. The sun poured liquid gold into the valley this morning at 6:58 AM. Sunset won’t come until 7:10 PM so we’re not really at equinox, yet. Not at that point when the daylight and night stand as equal. The pincers are closing, though. It’ll come soon.

Our air quality is still Good, but on the scale’s upper end of that part of the spectrum, ranging from the low twenties to the mid forties, with two places edging over fifty and into the yellow zone – Moderate. The region’s rains definitely helped the wildfire battles in Oregon and Nor Cal. It’s a relief that the rain came.

Temperature yesterday topped 90 F. Expect the same today. It’s easily endured with fresh air and temperatures cooling into the fifties at night. Yesterday also saw a windy morning. Drove the three house beasts inside. These cats are not fans of wind.

Which brought to mind a Gerry Rafferty song from the last century, circa 1978. As I surveyed the cats in their sleeping positions on living room chairs, I thought, look at them, sleeping right down the line. Naturally, my brain, acting like Alexa, said, “Playing Gerry Rafferty, ‘Right Down the Line'”. So it was the song entered the music stream and remains in the morning mental music stream. I don’t mind; the song refreshes memory from that year in my life — getting out of the military, going to college, owning a restaurant, working a second job, returning to the military — quite a year.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax, drink plenty of fluids and get some rest. Here’s the music. I’m off for coffee. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

We’re sitting under a robin’s egg this morning. That’s how blue and clear the sky is today. The smoke has cleared for now. Warnings that it’s returning. But now, air quality is hovering around 11. Good air. You can see it. You can breathe it.

Today is September 20, 2021, a Monday. Ten more September days remain. Then we slide into the final quarter of 2021. Cool this morning. 42 F. The furnace kicked on as the sun crested the mountains at 6:56 AM. With this lovely air, we expect highs in the mid to upper seventies. A good day to get outside.

As it’s Monday morning, a Monday song called “Monday Morning” from 1975 has permeated the Monday morning mental music stream. At least it’s not a manic Monday. That would then be a manic Monday morning mental music stream. Anyway, the song came about just because it is Monday. Lindsey Buckingham wrote the short and straightforward Fleetwood Mac song. My awareness of it came about through a female friend. She was a big Lindsey Buckingham fan, always talking about how willing she was to bear his children. She and I served together at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Wonder if she ever met him?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Coffee is ready. Breakfast is served. Here’s the music. Cheers

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