Saturday’s Theme Music
Ashland, Oregon — April 4, 2026.
Sunshine graces the valley again. 52 F, blues skies, spring. High in the upper 70s projected for our afternoon.
Yardwork and house chores are in my future. Looking forward to being out there and getting things done.
War continues in Iran. The quiet news cycle is about Trump thinking about more cabinet replacements as the war flounders in Iran. Two aircraft were shot down. We’re not sure why the A10 went down — yet — but the F15E Strike Eagle was shot down. Speculation swirls about what type of system took down the Eagle.
Personnelente had a comment on it in “The Price of Folly”: “Iran has shot down several US aircraft: at a minimum an A-10, and two F-15s. Russia is supplying advanced anti aircraft weapons to Iran even as Cadet Bone Spurs lowers sanctions on Russia and backs off helping Ukraine.”
Yes, Trump has baffled us by lowering sanctions on Russia, who supplies Iran with military equipment and advice, along with intelligence support. You gotta wonder…
Papi inspired The Neurons for today’s morning mental music stream. He’d come in from the sunshine and approached for…something. Papi isn’t really a communicator. But when I mentioned treats, he came to rest with an expectant gaze. As I got his treat, I sang out, “Gimme gimme good eating,” playing on a rock song from my youth. That’s Crazy Elephant with “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'” from 1969.
Hope your day is full of good things for you. My future sees coffee.
Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music – Far Away
Ashland, Oregon — Wednesday, March 25, 2026.
It’s a quietly rainy day out there. Clouds are cemented together against encroachments of sunshine and blue sky. Temperature isn’t bad, 51 F. 54 F is the prospective high.
Made an appointment with a urologist for a cystoscopy in May to figure out what caused the blood in my urine. It’s abated, far as I can tell but other tests show something growing in my bladder. They’re going to go in and see what that is.
I haven’t read much news this morning. A ‘something is about to happen’ vibe seems to be humming. Trump had threatened bombings which were against modern rules of war and gave a Monday PM deadline. Then, Monday morning, he reversed himself. That news changed financial markets. Traders made money by making moves just fifteen minutes before Trump made his announcement that he was holding off on further bombing.
What a coincidence.
I did read another comprehensive story about Epstein’s death.
I’m indulging in another day of reflections about Mom. We, her family, can’t just converse with her without it spiraling into deeply disturbing, frustrating patterns. She’s now saying the same thing about her primary assisted living contact that she said about my sister and about Frank. “She’s mean to me. She screams at me. I’m so unhappy here.”
It tears my sisters and I apart to see Mom be in this situation. We feel helpless and resigned.
I ended up with The Neurons playing “So Far Away” by Carole King in the morning mental music stream. Her songs with her singing them came out while I was in high school. Her album, Tapestry, resonated with so many young women in my life then. The songs were being heard everywhere.
I’m a rocker and leaned toward The Who and Pink Floyd as examples of my preferences back then. Yet her songs’ sensibilities and melodies worked.
The song arrived today because sis, who took Mom in, is really feeling it and reacting now. Venting a great deal. I can do very little except lend a shoulder because I’m so far away. And as I thought about it, Mom is far away in space and memory, far away from who she was. Going ‘home’ next time will be a very different place and experience.
Let me get off my pity pot. I hope your day and relationships surpass wonderful, it’s an excellent day of peace and grace for you.
Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music – Wasted
Ashland, Oregon — Friday, March 13, 2026. Ah, Friday the 13th.
I’m surprised that this is considered a day of bad luck. One, because our ancestors thought Friday was a scary day, the scariest of the week.
What? As someone who worked and partied, I always thought Friday was a good day. It was frequently regulated to a quasi half-day. How is that a bad thing?
The ’13’ part comes from the number being perceived as imperfect. “Ancient Romans and later European traditions also treated 13 as a break in the natural order, contrasting it with the “complete” number 12 (months, zodiac signs, apostles).”
Well, that’s kind of funny and arbitrary. The months are divided into different lengths — 28 (or maybe 29), 30, and 31 days. That seems imperfect. But there’s a ‘perfect’ set of twelve of them.
Yet, we only have two each of limbs, eyes, ears, legs. Just one mouth. Guess we’re not perfect or we’d have twelve of each.
It’s all so silly. That’s why I trust my lucky underwear, my lucky pen, and three beeps on the microwave. They’re proven to bring good fortune. I’d loan you my underwear but it’s just my bad luck that they need washed.
Today finds us cloudy but pleasantly warmish and coolish outside, with sun and blue sky playing peek-a-boo with the clouds. 46 F now, a high in the mid 60s is anticipated.
Quiet continues on the Mom front, and the news shows war, violence, chaos. Thanks, Mr. Trump. It feels like it was an unlucky day when you were elected — both times.
Today’s music is “Wasted on the Way”. The Neurons slipped the Crosby, Stills, Nash song into the morning mental music stream when I was thinking about how Trump wastes the world.
Lives are being wasted by Trump’s hate, biases, indifference. Opportunities wasted by his greed and ego. He’s creating a wasted world, ignoring warnings about climate change, starting wars that destabilize the diplomatic order, breaking agreements which fracture the business world, raising havoc and prices.
Then he tells us it’s all going great.
The biggest question on my mind for the peace president, unifier, and founder of the Board of Peace is, when will Trump stop the bombing and killing that he started, so that others can begin picking up the pieces and putting things back together?
I hope this day isn’t a waste for you. May peace and grace find and keep you.
Cheers
Tuesday’s Theme Music: Disruptions
Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, March 10, 2026.
Cloudy and 39F outside, dry with a high of 52 F projected.
This post is mostly about me and Mom. Pings erupted in the middle of the night. Mom had launched a text blitz, and the sisters were sharing and discussing them. I read many and saw it basically as the same old, same old on every front. One sister had helped Mom by picking things up at her house; another had responded, telling Mom that she’d created this living situation mess.
Meanwhile, searching for info and thinking late last night, I hunted for more about Heritage Grove, the assisted living facility where Mom now lives. I found this photo on their Facebook page. That’s Mom, the 90 year-old in the front left in pink in the ‘drive’ wheelchair. She’d won a Snickers bar at bingo.
Returning to sleep after the text barrage was a challenge. I finally slept but awoke when I thought I heard a man saying, “There’s a fire.” There was no man there and the house was silent. I rose, though, and walked through the house, trying to see if I smelled smoke or saw sparks or flames. Then back to bed, back to sleep, but ended up getting up late. Just eating breakfast now, 10:30, two hours late. Bah, humbug.
While I was awake in the night, I thought about yesterday’s news.
Trump urges Australia to give Iran’s Asian Cup players asylum
The story quoted Trump saying on Truth social, “Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed.”
Damn it, the only people he’s fooling are his unthinking supporters and the uninformed. This is the same person who has Homeland Security and ICE rounding people up and sending them anywhere he could get away with sending them, without one damn thought about whether they’d be killed. In the process of rounding up people and shipping them out, people were actually and being killed. And Trump always, always blamed the victims, labeling them as domestic terrorists, criminals, or thugs.
U.S. Deports Planeload of Iranians After Deal With Tehran, Officials Say
The NYTimes headline was from last October. Since then, the Iranian government killed thousands of people. And, were any of those people Trump flew back to Iran in 2025 killed when Trump bombed them in 2026?
It all has me shaking my head.
Which carries me into theme song territory. The Neurons came up with “Helen Wheels.” To which I responded, what?
The Paul McCartney & Wings song is about Paul’s Land Rover and driving around. How did it fit into my mind?
Well, it hinged on two salient aspects: “Ain’t nobody else gonna know the way she feels.” And yep, that’s Mom and life with Mom at this point. It’s a mystery. And the other part is the long-sigh “bye buh” I feel toward what’s happening with Mom, especially with my sisters.
The upbeat song feels like it’s driving me forward, pulling me off the night’s inertia.
I hope your day is going well, wherever you are, whatever you doing. May peace and grace nestle up against your efforts and help you move forward.
Cheers
Thursday’s Theme Music
Ashland, Oregon — Thursday, March 5, 2026.
We’re winding through winter’s last days toward spring in Ashland. History provides us reminders that Ashland often experiences late winter to mid-spring snowstorms. I’d like more snow in the area, especially in the Cascades where our snowbank resides.
Today, it’s overcast with uncertain, flexing sunshine. 48 F, it feels neither warm nor cold, and our high is arcing toward just 50.
My phone has developed problems with receiving text messages all of a sudden. I’ve added fixing that to my todo list. I did get some updates from my siblings about Mom before the system went tango unform on me.
Mom is reverting to the behavior displayed in January. I drift toward remembering who she was and the complex relationships my sisters and I have with her. I contrast what’s she’s enduring with who she was, what and who she was trying to be, and where she arrived as a person. Much of it now is beyond her control. Doesn’t stop my sisters from getting angry about it. But we saw this pattern emerging. There was little we could do, which we learned with time, because we tried to do things to change the course.
I smile at some things, like her potato salad. My wife insists nobody makes potato salad like Mom. My wife tried but when she asked for a recipe, Mom was more about the ingredients and less about the measurements. One thing I learned from helping her make it sometimes was that Mom depended on tasting it and how it looked — color, texture. That’s hard to translate through recipes.
I was just settling into checking on prices, the war that Republicans don’t want to call a war, and other matters when breaking news arrived.
Trump replaces Noem at DHS, taps Mullin for job
I think at first, “about time”. Her arrogance and attitude doesn’t fit with what I look for in public servants. I temper that, though, with the understanding that she was carrying out Trump and Miller’s policies, and generally working as a functionary for Project 2025. It’ll be interesting to see how much this change will actually manifest as change.
On the heels of that thinking, I scoff, but of course Trump has replaced Noem. She’s become a lightning rod for negative impressions about Trump. With his popularity falling, he made her his scapegoat.
Today’s music is “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones. When The Neurons first settled it into my morning mental music stream, I sang it as “Wild Kitties” for Papi’s entertainment. He did not seem entertained.
I’m not sure why the song is playing in me. I can see how its themes and melody is about yearning for another time, for a different outcome, even for hope. I suppose that’s where I reside now — wishing for other things than what now exists. It also came out in 1971, when I was fifteen, so I suppose remembering the song stirs some nostalgia for being back there — young, with Mom, facing a bright future.
I’ll close with best wishes for you and us to stay safe, be healthy and find new ways toward a peaceful, prosperous, and inclusive future.
Cheers
Thursday’s Theme Music
Thursday, February 26, 2026. Today is 02262026, February’s final Thursday. Two more days and February of 2026 will be history.
Ashland finds itself encased in fog with temperatures ranging from 39 F to 45 and a high in the mid-fifties called for once again.
Texts regarding Mom were non-existent today. Some suggest this is the quiet before the next storm. I agree, that’s probably true. I think Mom will again try to return home, insisting that she can live without anyone else there. All we can do is wait and see at this point.
Results for my comprehensive metabolic panel and tests for Hep B came back with no abnormal findings or Hep B indicators, a major change from the last CMP, done right before my gallbladder was removed last November.
I met with friends for beers last night. Someone turned to the conversation to Iran and the U.S. military buildup. Specifically, it was asked, what are the odds that Trump will order bombing to being in the next 30 days?
Four broad suggestions emerged from the conversation.
- Trump will not ordering bombing Iran until right before the midterms to generate the most political capital.
- The U.S. forces are there as financial leverage for Jared Kushner’s dealings and will withdraw without bombings once Jared has a better deal.
- Bombing will probably commence in less than 30 days because Trump is impatient.
- It depends now on what happens with Cuba.
That last was in response to the recent news that Cuba shot and killed four Americans in a speedboat in Cuba’s territorial waters. Cuba said that the Americans fired first. Trump’s response will be interesting, as he tends to strike to get revenge for American deaths, doing so with a heavy hand.
For music, The Neurons plugged King Crimson into the morning mental music stream. I’m hearing “21st Century Schizoid Man”, a real callback to my youth. The song was released when I was a teenager. Its intensity captivated me, and that intensity feels owned today. I had a terrific writing/editing day yesterday — best since my oral surgery weeks earlier this month.
I last used this song seven years ago. One commented that they’d never heard of it; two others cited the group and album as a favorite but mentioned that they didn’t like this song.
I hope you have safe and productive Thursday and can groove toward the weekend with new hope.
Cheers
On Mom
If I come and visit
Will you know my face
Will you talk to me
Like your son
Or lace your words with hate
Will your texts ever change
From anger and demands
Will you stand and hug me
As you kiss my head
Can we sit and laugh
Remembering what we ate
Playing games of Tripoli
Hoping for a good hand
Or will you stare
Not speaking
Leaving me
In silence
Michael Seidel, writer 