Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
In bed. Eyes closed. Cool breeze serenading me.
Then, “thumpa thumpa thumpa thumpa”.
Helicopter, my amused Neurons told me but opening an eye showed Tucker the thumper over by a wall, where his back leg hit as he scratched.
Sounded just like a chopper to a sleepy mind, though.
Mood:
Thwump thwump thwump…the helicopter goes on, up above the mountain high, hovering and waiting, waiting and hovering, picking up its load, going away again, dumping the load, coming back again.
Gotta be boring up there. Least the pilot should have a nice view, up above the trees so high, like a moon in the sky.
It’s a clear Monday, with blue running infinitely on and back again. Sunshine drenches the scene. 69 F now after an overnight low of 40 F, the thermometer is scaling the degrees. Probably stop at 76 F, they tell me. It’s April 22, 2024, for those keeping score at home.
The cats are as happy as floofs lazing in sunshine. An ear sometimes stirs. Another moment witnesses an eye cracking open a hair width. Other than those infrequent movements, they seem set for the next few hours.
Back in Pittsburgh, a new report has Mom feeling unwell again. Tests are being run. She’d been doing well and was scheduled to return home tomorrow. We’ll monitor all for the outcome. Little sister, aka grandma G, provides me with updates. She and her hubby had been sick herself recently. But they’re better know. Just seemed like a mild flu. I think we live in an era of health uncertainty. Sure the pandemic plays a role. I notice that many people around Ashlandia grow angry but resigned when they get sick. Wonder if that’s must my bias, or does this happen elsewhere?
Musically, The Neurons have “For All the Cows” ringing in my morning mental music stream (Trademark backtracking). Utilizing that song’s melody, I’d been singing about coffee. Actually, it was about my coffee cup. Like, I need a cup, a coffee cup, I’ll fill it up, if I had a coffee cup. I’d been wandering with the cup. It mindlessly departed my hand as I slipped through rooms and tasks. Found it in the third place I looked, my bathroom. Yes, I drink coffee in the bathroom while I’m shaving and dressing, okay. Although I didn’t shave today. Didn’t feel the need for a blade on my skin.
“For All the Cows” is a Dave Grohl/Foo Fighters production. Came out in 1995. It’s soft quasi-jazz opening and strange words are beguiling. I listen to it and search for some kind of meaning for what he’s singing about. I’ve always tentatively concluded it delivers an analogy comparing people to cows but also addressed success and the changes success brings to the herd, how you change herds with success. I don’t know. My understanding shifts, depending on my moo-ed. Heh.
Stay positive, strong, optimistic (that the same as positive?), and lean forward. Please Vote Blue. Now, more coffee and cow music. Cheers
Mood: Melloffee
The choppers continued back and forth, up and down. Thwump thwump thwump thwump. We can hear them in the house, windows closed and all. Outside, they’re much louder. This is day four of their presence.
This is Sunday, April 21, 2024. Or with those choppers going in Sunday’s calm blue silence, Thwumpday.
The helicopters seem to start at 8 AM and go until later afternoon. They’re out there as part of the project to clean up the watershed mountainsides to make the area less attractive to fire. So yes, they are a good thing.
They’re driving my wife a little crazy, she claims. Always there, rising and falling in volume as they thwump about.
I don’t mind them. Reminds me of being on military bases. Makes me a little nostalgic.
Beyond the choppers, blue is the predominate impression with my outward gaze through the glass. Clouds are resting on the horizon but over me is sunshine and blue skies. It’s 48 F at the moment. Some rain is predicted. The high will be about 66 F, a drop from our recent forays into the seventies.
The floof boys don’t seem to mind the choppers. Seem to have adjusted to them. They don’t fly directly overhead. The first days had Papi suspicious. He’d go out there and look and look, as if he worried that they were coming for him. He has a mysterious past, you know. Who knows what mischief he did in his youth.
On to the theme music. As I perused the weather this AM, I mildly complained to myself about the lower high. We’d just been in the seventies. Now —
Want something from the seventies? The Neurons asked.
I was blank and confused. Before I could summon a response, they were playing “Whatch See Is Whatcha Get” by The Dramatics in the morning mental music stream (Trademark trending). The song was released in 1971. I always enjoyed it. It made a comeback in my mind when the personal computer age burst upon is. “What You See Is What You Get” — WYSIWYG — was a big thing with software. The Neurons would play The Dramatics song whenever I saw that on the software box or in a glossy magazine ad.
Stay positive, dress appropriately, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee is being choppered in. I hear it coming. Thwump thwump.
Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 