Tag: change

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: superfrifeelife

The pendulum is swinging. It’s Friday, August 30, 2024, and the hours of daylight have noticeably reduced. It’s an advantage at sun soars through blue cloudless skies, working with the air to lift the temperature next to triple digits during the day, like 97 F today. But then the clear skies and longer night lets the temps skivvy down to the upper fifties, delivering relief. Slips of autumn have climbed back into my life. Some maples have shifted into fall fashions. Starbucks is offering fall drinks. School is back is session at every level locally. And football is again rolling across TV screens, carrying news through feeds.

But first: we must get through Labor Day. In the U.S., we have the bookend holidays of Memorial Day and Labor Day. To many, MD marks summer’s unofficial beginning, and LD is the unofficial end.

I read several news articles in depth this morning. One was about how Republicans have softened their climate change stance. They rarely outright deny it these days. I guess that with so much extreme weather killing and maiming our world, they recognize that they look and sound like fools when they do. Instead, they like to problemtize the solutions which Democrats — and much of the world — recommends. Like moving to more sustainable forms such as wind and solar. No, these caus more problems, they inform their constituents, even as they lie about what’s happening.

Last day of my theme of time in the song’s title. As many of age and are forced to cope with changes, we lament the same thing. The Neurons brought the song that asks the question into the morning mental music stream (Trademark timed): “Where Have All the Good Times Gone?” It originally popped onto the rock music scene in the hands of the Kinks in 1965. It’s since been covered by a chunk of performers, most notably Bowie and Van Halen. But I stayed with the Kinks for this day. Ray Davies of the Kinks wrote it and said in an interview:

“We’d been rehearsing ‘Where Have All the Good Times Gone’ and our tour manager at the time, who was a lot older than us, said, ‘That’s a song a 40-year-old would write. I don’t know where you get that from.’ But I was taking inspiration from older people around me. I’d been watching them in the pubs, talking about taxes and job opportunities.”

h/t to Wikipedia.org

I certainly feel the question more now as a young elder (68) than I did when I was ten, at the song’s release.

But let’s face it, things are so much easier today. Let it be like yesterday. Please let me have happy days.

Coffee has been extensively sampled. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue. Here’s the music, and away we go. Cheers

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The White Jaguar Dream

First, I was working for a friend I used to work for, Laura. She was a terrific boss, perhaps the best I ever had. Certainly in the top three.

I was injured in the dream and forced to wear a cast on my left arm. It struck me as an unusual cast but I can’t provide any details. Encumbering me, it was forcing me to do things in unusual ways.

Laura was at her desk, watching and talking. I suddenly had a brainstorm about how the cast I wore could be modified to make it easier to deal with the limitations it imposed. Laura began talking about it a split second after the idea came to me. We both started babbling about with growing excitement. Calling me to her desk, she said, “Take out the notebook from the inside pocket on the left side of my jacket.” I did, and handing her the small brown book. She opened it to a blank page and started writing.

With a dream shift, I was now in line. I needed a new vehicle. Five people were ahead of me. A female cashier was helping us. I saw a white Jaguar convertible with a red interior. It seated four. I decided, that’s what I’m buying.

The cashier told the first person in line, “We don’t have any small cars left.” Then she called out to the rest of us, “Is anyone in line interested in any car besides a small car.”

Raising my hand, I responded, “I am. I’m buying that white Jaguar.”

The purchase was done with dream speed. As part of my purchase, I was given a model of the car. They went off to get it ready for me to drive away. I went to a coffee shop and purchased a cup of coffee in a paper cup with a plastic lid.

A hard wind was blowing. I needed to set my coffee down but worried about the wind blowing it over, even though I was in an office. I opened a file drawer and set the coffee in there, thinking that the drawer will protect it from the wind. Then I set the little white Jaguar on top of it.

The wind immediately blew the little car off the coffee cup lid. I wasn’t surprised. I said, “That’s exactly how I expected that to go.”

Dream end.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Two lanes in each direction with a turning lane, Ashland Street is one of our little city’s busiest main streets. Besides connecting to the southern Interstate exit and entrance, it’s home to four shopping centers, a fire station, college dormitories, five gas stations, a Starbucks and another coffee shop, along with several other businesses, motels, and restaurants. Connecting to our main drag, Siskiyou Boulevard, which leads to downtown, Ashland Stret is divided by median stripes and cement dividers in numerous places.

The city has added white stanchions alongside the bicycle lanes on Ashland Street. Some call them bike lane delineators. A couple inches in diameter, they’re tubes which stand 36 inches high and help separate the bike lanes from motor vehicle lanes, making it safer for bike riders.

Questions have arisen from the people. Like, how are cars supposed to pull over to the curb to let emergency vehicles pass? Second question that everyone wonders is, how will the street sweeper handle the stanchions? There’s no clearcut answer for that, they say. As for pulling over for emergency vehicles, people insist that they can’t.

Except: I noticed that these stanchions or delineators are spring mounted. They bend over. I believe cars and street sweepers can go right over them. The question is, will drivers do that?

You know how it is with change. Some have a harder time with it.

We’re waiting to see what transpires next.

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The Wife’s Colors Dream

First, I had this dream about sharing my apple pie with a young woman. As she was eating my crust, my wife came along. I went off to talk to her.

My wife and I ended up in what seemed to be a living room. Other family members were vaguely int the area. But my wife came to me and said, “I want you to look at my colors and tell me what you see.”

And I was all, “Huuuhhh?”

Other than being Caucasian as my wife, this dream wife didn’t look at all like RL wife, even though she’d started out as RL wife. Her hair was darker, heavier, and longer, and she had this pale, long, face with bright red lippy.

Second, she was dressed like a goth.

Third, she was holding up some kind of panel in front of her.

I thought the panel was a mirror at first. Then I saw that it reflected with nothing but swirled with images that reminded me of melting steel. I was trying to answer my wife’s request to tell you what colors I was seeing and describe her clothes, skin, and hair. She unleashed a heavy exasperated sigh at me and said, “Not those colors.”

Then I saw the mirror thingy was changing. Yellows and oranges were emerging, along with lesser spots of apple green and pine green. There was also a stretched out blotch of purple that was so dark, it was almost black.

I described these things to her, and then, somehow, I knew the colors had to do with her health, and told her, “I think you can change these colors. Just think of the color that you want to be, and that’ll happen.”

She was doubtful but almost immediately, a soothing fair blue swept across the mirror.

Dream end.

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Saturday’s Wandering Thought

Don’t you hate it when you gain weight but you hang onto clothes which no longer fit you because you tell yourself you’re going to lose that weight, and then you finally give up on that idea and give the clothes away or throw them out because it just depresses you to see all those clothes that used to fit you, and then, about a year after you give them away or throw them out, you lose weight and could wear them?

Yeah, me too.

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Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts

Calvin is a local barista. He* dyed his hair pink last week. For the past several days, his name tag has Charlotte on it.

My brain reacted, “Charlotte? Really?”

Then it said, “Charlotte. Okay.”

His name is Charlotte, and my name is Michael. It’s that simple.

*While some people specify their pronouns on their name tags, I’ve not seen anything on Charlotte’s name tag.

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

Boys and girls in clean baseball uniforms come into the coffee shop and wait for drinks. Last names and numbers adorn the jerseys. The young players all wear their caps with its team insignia. Crocs, or Croc wannabes adorn their feet so they’re not wearing their cleats into the shop.

The parent situation varies. Sometimes a solitary adult accompanies the young athletes; less frequently, it’s a couple. I wonder about the family situation and whether about the significance of the adult situation.

None seem particularly happy. Phones are often studied, arms crossed, as they wait. But one father and the children talk, joke, and laugh.

All so different from my years of young ball playing. This is part of the new Americana, Starbucks, phones, and Crocs. I wonder how many times these scenes play out across the land on this Monday American holiday.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Mystified

It’s 65 F. That’s the low for Penn Hills in the Churchill Valley today. The house’s east side is being sunblasted. Clouds? Yes, some particles are stringing together thin white cloud structures. The thermometer is supposed to stop up by 90 F today. It’s Tuesday, May 21, 2024.

Mom’s energy was strong yesterday, a change from the usual. See, there was a birthday celebration on Sunday. Mom was there for about five hours. Normally, such outings deplete her energy stores, so the day after leaves her listless.

But not yesterday. She was spirited and energetic, good to witness. Did her exercises and was quite engaged. Holding my breath on today, but I hope we’re seeing a new trend’s beginning.

I was thinking about my brother-in-law. Married to my oldest younger sisters, he and I have known one another for fifty years, since we were seventeen. Long time to know another who isn’t related or married to you. Sad for me, he swung toward the right wing over thirty years ago and is now a full-blown MAGAr. That limits our conversation and introduces some awkwardness. We’ve tried talking around it, but he often introduces racist or sexist comments, and has that MAGA habit of ignoring one set of facts while adhering to another. Yet, I’m looking forward to being a guest at his house his weekend for a Memorial Day cook-out.

My family is big into gathering for holidays and eating food. Memorial Day cookouts are the standard, even though the starting lineup has changed, and new players have been added through marriages, divorces, deaths, and births.

The Neurons have introduced “Tin Man” to the morning mental music stream (Trademark well-done). I don’t know why. The 1974 song by America has no discernible links to my dreams IMO. Nor are there conversation or activity links. For that matter, the mellow, comfortable song has silly lyrics. Lots of hooks and easy to sing with, but little deep to it.

That’s okay. Maybe The Neurons are ordering me to chill.

BTW, today is birthday boy’s actual birthday. So happy sixteenth, Michael. May your days be as complete and fulfilling as you dream them.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue for 2024. Here’s a good summation of why Vote Blue is important this year.

Coffee has traipsed over my tongue and down my gullet. Here the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: sumeagerness

We’re expecting a summerish time today, Sunday, May 19 2024, in the Churchill Valley. 65 F now, they’re predicting high temperatures of 84 to 88 degrees F for us.

Quite believable with sunshine commanding a staunchly blue sky. No clouds are in sight.

My plans for today include a nephew’s birthday party. He’s turning over the leaf on number 16, dig? Happy to be here to partake of the grub and fun and fete his latest advance. Sweet and now a slightly quiet and withdrawn person, he’s endured some health issues that undercut the joy and happiness that he used to perpetually manifest. I hope he can regain some of that. He’s a good-looking, talented, and intelligent person with a wonderful smile.

That’ll be at the littlest sister’s house. “The Littlest Sister”: could that be a novel title? Maybe a dark humor murder mystery? Sounds possible. But it could also be a YA about kids with powers. Those seem popular now. Or the concept could be taken into the children’s realm and built around the littlest sister as an animal — perhaps a cat? Conversely, the littlest sister might be a time traveler, perhaps even an alien, escaping dire conditions on another world and looking for help on Earth.

Yeah, maybe not.

I feel a little better about Mom’s situation today. I think I’ve set her up for someone to come in once a week to clean. Mom has known that person over twenty years, it’s a neighbor, and Mom had suggested her. So that all sounds perfect, right? Yes, except this is Mom. Changing her mind about matters — especially matters in the health and home realms — are a solid part of her history. She’s protective of her routines, privacy, and territory.

Les Neurons posted “Long Road to Ruin” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark flopping). The ’07 Foo Fighters song is about dissatisfaction with the status quo IMO, and an eagerness to change it or leave it. The point behind it is do something. That’s what I’m always urging myself: do something.

Coffee has been introduced to my corporeal being and I feel my energy rising. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Hope your weather suits you as much as I’m facing today.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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