It’s a sign of the times! My spouse and I ventured into a Dollar Store for a 2026 calendar. Despite computers and phones, she still tracks things on paper calendars. Anyway, there in a Dollar Store aisle was a machine attached to a pillar. “Price Checker” said a large red and white.
A price checker. For the Dollar Store.
Well, yeah, as we all know because the Dollar Store announced it, inflation has caused the Dollar Store to start charging more than a dollar. In this case, the Dollar Store calendar was $2. Made in China, I expect the price to go up.
Today is October 5, 2024. It’s a Sattyday. For this post, I used the day’s original spelling. Sattyday was so named in the early days of designating days of the week in England after a dog, Satty. This was just as the Saxons were fighting with Dane invaders and trying to establish England. A conversation between warring participants took place in which they postponed the battle, allegedly because Satty was dying and the Saxon leaders wanted to honor the old, faithful companion. The name stuck as a joke but eventually, its origins story became lost for a while. As spelling was standardized around the 12th century, the name became attributed to Saturn, based off existed, earlier Roman calendars. That stuck. Researchers later discovered the true story. Their findings were published the day before Pearl Harbor was attacked, so the story was overcome by the bigger news and lost once again. I later read about it in Reader’s Digest.
It’s 55 F now. We expect to put 30 more degrees on the thermometer (originally named for the cat, Thermo, but that’s another tale) on this day before we strike the high. We’re fluctuating between summer and autumn, the transition season known as autmer. It’s so named because autumn’s features are stronger than summer’s features, whereas sumumn is reversed. Yes, trees are lively with reds in many parts of Ashlandia, and gold leaves abound, all under a sun drenched bright blue sky.
Today’s music is offered by the Alan Parsons Project. It has a straighforward path. Jill on her blog featured the Hollies. One of their songs is “The Air That I Breathe”, a song from my youth which I remember and enjoy. Alan Parson was the engineer on the song, as Jill mentioned. Hence, listening to the song in my morning mental music stream (Trademark engineered), I drifted toward Alan Parsons and then the Alan Parsons Project. As this was on top of reading bizarre and false political news generated by Trump and Vance, The Neurons called up “I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You” from 1977. As I’d never seen the original video based on the song, I decided to go with that.
BTW, it’s pretty fucking disgusting to me how Vance, Elon Musk, and other MAGAs like Matt Gaetz (who voted against addional FEMA funding just before Helene hit) eagerly embrace the disaster of Hurricane Helene to plant false stories about FEMA trying to stop help to Republican dominated areas. They really have no plans or strategy but to lie and obstruct. Exhibit two from Friday’s news cycle is how Vance was out there denigrating the strong jobs report by claiming that the new jobs don’t matter because they’re just taken by undocumented immigrants (paraphrasing). They’re such craven opportunists with no regard for the truth or facts, and they display this with same consistency as the Earth traveling around the sun. But of course, we know the Republicans aren’t casually lying; they’re brainwashing their base and hope to sway more by their relentless screed.
Here’s the music. Be strong, stay positive, and vote blue in 2024. BTW, I made all that up about Satty, as if you didn’t know that, right? Have a better one. Cheers
Today is June 10, 2023, a Saturday in this reality. Blame Pope Gregory XIII and the Gregorian calendar for that one. Although, since he’s just behind a mod for leap years and based his calendar on the Julian calendar, you can extend blame to Julius Ceasar. Of course, the seven-day week can be traced to the Babylonians even further back but diēs Sāturnī comes back to the Romans, although the Germans take some blame for popularizing and standardizing the name. Really, let’s just throw it on all the ancients and go from there.
We’re into summing, the season that follows sprimmer just before summer. Whereas sprummer is primarily springish with summery accents, sprimmer is summery with springish accents. It’s a subtle thing, a difference in blowing winds, overall temperatures, and expectations. 67 F and sunny now, with long, hazy white clouds drifting like a navy armada across the sky, Ashlandia is expecting a high somewhere in the low 80s today, with no rain or thunderstorms being mentioned in anyone’s forecast.
Oh, but the housefloofs, Papi and Tucker, are delighted with sprimmer. Both leave via the pet door at night, coming and going a bit until Tucker plants himself in front of said door and sleeps. That curtails Papi’s activity until he goads me awake with repeated beating on the slider’s screen door. Oh, that Tucker. That passive-aggressive Tucker.
When they’re out in the day, they’re asleep. I enjoy checking on them in their secret locations. Tucker haunts the front porch almost exclusively. He moves around according to temperatures and sunshine. He’ll often be found half in sun, half in shadow. Papi moves around. One favorite spot is on the house’s side under the dining room’s bay window, among the vinca, but morning finds him under the hawthorn in the back, below the center living room window. Other times of day, he’ll relocate to the front porch or the bushes under the office window.
Today’s music is “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult, 1976. I quite enjoy the song, with its layering of guitars and vocals and the intriguing lyrics and the story being told. But The Neurons planted it into today’s morning mental music stream because in a dream last night, I told another person, “Don’t fear the reaper.” Unlike several other dreams, that’s almost all which is recalled from that dream, but it was an astonishing moment.
Stay pos and enjoy your diēs Sāturnī . I think I’ll start with a beverage. Coffee, perhaps. Yes, coffee. Okay, ready. One, two, three, go. Here’s the music. Cheers
Read enough news this morning to irritate me for a month of Saturdays. Do videos help? Sure, the truth emerges. Man, though, the truth gets ugly. Of course, some dismiss the videos and dismiss the truth and the ugliness. Turn away, pretend it’s not there or didn’t happen, or rationalize why it happened. I’m sure you know the score.
We’re on the cusp of a new month of the new year. How long can we call 2023 ‘the new year’. At what point does it just become the year?
So far, there hasn’t been much change in 2023 over what was happening in 2022. Is the U.S., is the world, heading in the right direction? It reminds me that calendar notations like years and months are convenient for record keeping. The periods of changes and shifts, rise and fall, define themselves. We just use the calendar to remind ourselves what happened when. Think about if we lacked calendars and what it would be like to refer to the past without one.
Anyway, it is Saturday, January 28, 2023. Heard a little girl call it Sat’day in a store yesterday. Dad corrected her, “Sat-ur-day.” She seemed about five years old. She and her father were chatting and shopping. I assume it was her father. She called him daddy. “Daddy, can we get some fish? I think I would love some fish.” I was looking for miso paste. Never did find any.
Sunrise today came in at 7:30ish. Cloudy conditions marred the viewing. Some blue is squatting to the northwest but we’ve been warned, gonna rain at 4 PM and then snow at 8 PM. Not much of either on this day. It’s trending toward being a cold day, especially with the sun’s mitigating effects being squashed. It’s 38 degrees F at my house, reaching for a high of 40.
The big chill is on its way, arriving a few days earlier than they originally thought. But it’s not as bad as initially forecast, with lows dropping to 23 tonight.
I have Devo with their 1980 new wave song, “Whip It”, in the morning mental stream. It’s all about, “Crack that whip.” “Move ahead. It’s not too late. To whip it. Whip it good.” Those might not be the lyrics but it is how I remember them. All about working harder, but in a satirical manner. I’m trying to whip my novel into shape. I cracked the whip but the pages didn’t change at all. The computer was pretty pissed about being whipped, urging me, “For cryin’ out loud, print it out and whip it.” Which made sense.
That expression, “For cryin’ out loud”, is one that Mom often used while growing up. I asked her, what does that mean? She responded, “It just means I’m exasperated.” But why? Why those words? Along with, “Oh, for goodness’s sake.”
Alright, got coffee. Got to power up and get a move on. Those expressions, I understand. Stay positive. Hope you understand. To a happy Saturday and some kinda change. Here’s the tune. Cheers
Today is Friday, August 27, 2021. Had some issues figuring out the day yesterday. Thought it was Wednesday. Had a Wednesday vibe. My wife’s comments abetted the Wednesday vibe. But it cleared up. I’m flying right now. Because, you know, it’s important what day of the week it is…isn’t it? Well, that’s how I was raised. Chores, school, vacations, holidays, work, it’s all built on the calendar.
Sunrise was at 6:31 AM. Sunset will come at 7:53 PM. Temperatures will range into the low 80s F today. They claim that our air quality is good today – first time it’s hit that mark in weeks – but the looks and smell don’t align with a good reading. I kept the kitties in and the doors and windows closed.
I’ve been thinking about the 1900s today. Started with wars. Progressed to a pandemic. Then the dust bowl struck. Obliterated millions of acres and displaced families. Thinking of all of that due to comparisons with now. The 2000s. Started with war. Then COVID-19 struck. Half of the western U.S. is suffering drought and fire. (Might be a little hyperbole there.) Thousands are being displaced.
Also been thinking about the Rolling Stones. Of course. Watts, their drummer, passed away. Long life. I think he would say he had a good one. Better than many, for sure. His passing has prompted me to listen to Stones music. A universe of Stone songs are out there. I’ve used many favorites as theme music already. What to do? How ’bout “Living in A Ghost Town” from last year. Fits the general mood. Smoke casts a ghostly pall over my world. COVID-19 lockdowns and smoke slash unhealthy air forces cancellations. Businesses are closed or hours are reduced. Activity slumbers. Why not, right?
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax, celebrate life, remember that it’s Friday. Time for coffee. Enjoy the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 