Wenzda’s Theme Music
This Wenzda, February 19, 2025, is being rinsed off. Yes, it’s 43 F and rain is falling. Papi the ginger blade, aka Meep, Butter Butt and Butter Booger, has chosen to ensconce himself on the living room sofa, not far from the fireplace’s steady warmth. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) remains under the weather and is staying on a bed under the influence of antibiotics. He’s showing a slow but steady recovery. Fingers and toes remain interwoven, as in crossing.
I’m running late due to tending the cat but also because today’s lymphedema massage therapy appointment is at high noon. So I’m ’bout to bust out the door. I bathed with a wash cloth and then did my self-massaging and moisturing, but then washed my hair. A hope is lit that I’ll be done with the thick wraps today. That’s because I’ve shown steady improvement, and the swelling has drastically declined. My efforts certaintly contributed but she added some thicker padding at several locations, and I noticed a dramatic impact from that. Although the wraps only remain on my lower right limb and foot, I can’t properly bathe while working them. I’m aching for a solid, warm shower, you know?
The Neurons have a weird song playing in my head. Not a weird song, sorry; it’s an excellent song, emblamatic of an era and attitude. But why today? That is the question. The song in question plowing my morning mental music stream is “Super Bad” from 1970 by James Brown. Nothing to do with dreams, cats, weather, food, coffee, or news. So what the heck, right?
Love all the different dance moves of the period the young dancer employs.
Quick reminder. Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, is a planned day of boycott. Hope you’ll participate. We are. The more the merrier. While it’s targeted on corporations which rolled back DEI policies under PINO Trusk’s encouragement, like Amazon, Target, Best Buy, PBS, NPR, Coca Cola, Pepsico, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and more. Costco is one of the few major corporations which stood firm against DEI changes. Share the news. Make it real. It begins at 00:01 AM on Feb 28th and ends at 11:59 PM.
I approached coffee with an offer and it accepted, so I’m blissfully in a cup. Hope your day delivers for you. Time to funk out. Cheers
Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts
We went to Lake of the Woods Resort last night. The agenda was to dance, socialize, have fun, and unwind.
It worked as intended. Twenty-seven miles away up in the nearby mountains, we arrived in forty-five minutes. The smoke had retreated. Surrounded by tall trees, on the edge of blue water, the picturesque scene was fresh and sigh-inducing. Saucy was the band. They played pop, rock, and disco, like “Lady Marmalade”, “Rebel Yell”, “Life in the Fast Lane”, “Shut up and Dance”, “Bring Me to Life”, and “Honky Tonk Woman”. We ate barbecue meats with potato salad, cole slaw, and mac & cheese.
But the star was this little five-year-old in a red shirt. Up there on the steps to the stage, they entertained with Freddie Mercury and Elton John moves interspersed with inspiring air-guitar solos. Yet, the old man in me couldn’t help but think about the damage they were doing to their young ears, standing in front of a rock band’s amplifiers.
Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts
My wife is lamenting that Ashlandia has become a dancing desert. There are no venues that we know to go dancing. When we want to dance, we need to head out of town to wineries, breweries, or up into a resort called Lake of the Woods. That last is where we usually wind up.
Which pushed me to think, do young people still dance? I went onto TikTok for the answer. Instead, they have videos the young have made of their parents showing their dance moves — or videos made by boomers showing their moves.
Monday’s Theme Music
Mood: Monderous
Hi, fellow space voyagers. It’s Monday, March 25, 2024, on spaceship Earth. Rainy out here in Ashlandia this morning, the weather gods are now throwing sunshine our way. It’s 52 F.
I have bust a move in mind this morning. I awoke to dull sunlight pressing forward through the blinds. Tucker was asleep beside me. After checking the time, I told him, “Come on, time to bust a move. Or at least, go pee.”
As I took care of business, I thought of that expression, bust a move. The Neurons immediately activated the song “Busta Move” in my morning mental music stream (Trademark imploding). “Busta Move” was released by Young MC in 1989 and was quickly a hit and a dance floor favorite.
But I was thinking about the origins of the expression, “bust a move”. It seemed like we were using it before the song came out. It just meant, come on, move fast, to me. “Get going.” Then the song came out, and it was about getting up and dancing. Either way, it was about quickly doing something which generally involved a risk. When I thought about it more, it seemed like the Marines I was working with in the mid 1980s were using the expression to mean, come on, let’s go.
Maybe I’m remembering all that wrong but it is declared today’s song. I was telling myself to bust a move in conjunction with plans under contemplation.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote blue. I’ve had coffee, thanks. Haven’t finished a cup yet, but it’s my third attempt. Enjoy the music. Let’s busta move. Cheers
Sa’day’s Theme Music
July 22, 2023. It’s a warm, quiet Saturday morning in Ashlandia, where the trees are old and so are most of the people. 71 F with smoke — a light haze, really — nature is pressing on the pedal and taking us up to 95 F. That’s where she likes cruising in our life zone these days.
The thing about our weather is that it’s a slow build. Sweetly pleasant in the morning, it gets warm but not uncomfortable. People go outside and exclaim how nice it is. Stays like that, gently skipping through the low 80s. Then, around 3 PM, BAM. You hear a noise and look at one another. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sounded like it was outside.”
“We’d better go look.”
So we leave our cool enclosure and walk out and then, say to each other as we fan our faces, “Oh my god, it’s so hot out.”
The cats then shift into deeper shadow. Papi and Tucker, who normally stay away from one another, make a treaty and settle in shade on the porch, riding out the heat until the evening, when hostilities re-commence. The heat stays in the air until after nine on these nights, then scales down into the high seventies by ten. Windows and doors are opened to receive the cool night air. Sleep, rise, repeat.
We’re heading to Lake of the Woods Resort. Less than an hour from us up in the low mountains, the small lake is comforted by tall, old trees. Doesn’t get nearly as hot, and the lake breezes are muy refreshing. A band will be playing and BBQ will be underway. They’ll be dancing and socializing like it’s 1988, as the band, Saucy, covers songs from that area. Should be a good time. I’m excited about going.
Perhaps because of the heat, I have a Lover Boy song from 1983, “Hot Girls in Love” in the morning mental music stream (trademark dismissed). I can only guess the hot weather is why The Neurons slipped into the MMMS. Other guesses are welcomed.
Remain positive, stay calm, and keep on keeping on. The coffee has been injected, I mean, sipped. I feel my energy rising. Keep it real. Hey, ho, let’s go. Here’s the tune.
Cheers
A Pair of Dreams
I begin in off-white thermal underwear. I dance through town, this place in which I RL live. Early spring is in effect. I leap and pirouette, twirl and bow.
An artist brush is in my hand. I flicked colors at things, dipping my brush in the colors already available, making everything bolder, brighter, sharper. Although it goes on for a while, that’s all to the dream.
It’s a younger version of me, a hybrid between my teenage self and my middle-aged individual. I smile thoughout the dream.
I land in another dream. I’m with another man. We’re in blue hospital scrubs. I know, I’m a med tech. We’re in a small city. Situated on several hills, a bay embraces the land. It’s a busy place, full of hurrying traffic, vehicular and on-foot.
A hue rises from a hospital on the hill. One of my peers shouts, “It’s a success.”
I am jealous. I wanted to be part of that. I feel cheated.
But I congratulate him and the rest and spread the news of the success. It was an arduous and dangerous operation but the patient was doing well. We were pleased. We’d helped develop catheters which saved the patient. This was their first use.
A surgeon came, gloved and masked. “They worked well,” he said. “They want some at the other facility.”
“I’ll take them,” I declare, picking up a brown box of them.
The surgeon says, “They need to be cut, shorter, and narrower.”
“I’ll do that,” I reply.
I begin walking. Balancing the box, I employ a scalpel and start precisely cutting the pale white catheters. My peer follows, saying, “Let me do something. You can’t carry the box and cut the catheters.”
But I am, continuing as we weave our way through crowds.
“The catheters are bleeding,” the other tech says.
I nod. “That’s normal. These are partly organic. That’s why they work.”
End dreams.
Keep Dancing
An acquaintance died. Over eighty, he lived a solid life. He’d been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer not too long ago. He and his wife were getting ready to go for a walk. She said something to him, behind her, as she put her shoes on.
He didn’t answer.
She looked around and found him dead.
She’d prepared herself. Still, a shock that it was so sudden, without preamble. She has kept on with all her usual activities. I learned of his death through my wife. She went to exercise class and heard the news. When she saw the widow, she hugged her.
The woman asked, “What else can I do?”
My wife replied, “Keep dancing.”
“Exactly.”
Smiles, hugs, and tears went on.
Good Time Dreams
My nocturnal dream stream continued at a frantic pace. Two stood out for various causes.
The first found me vacationing with friends. We were middle-aged and having a ball, even though a tsunami was apparently threatening us. We were down on the beach but we just went up into the mountains and set up a separate camp. Music was being played, food and drink was consumed, and we laughed, having a good time. I returned to our beach camp with several others. Camp sites were set up shoulder to ass. Young women in a nearby site were complaining about the lack of room and nothing to do. Seeing us having fun and enjoying ourselves, they came over and asked, “What’s our secret?”
We said that there wasn’t one, it was just an attitude, that we’d moved on to another space and had just come down to get some things. Many of our friends came into the adjacent camp while this was going on. One of them was hamming up and started entertaining people with a delightful Elvis Presley impression, where he had EP doing a strip tease while singing. My friend was uninhibited about what he showed and did. I thought, man, I wish I could be like him.
A later dream found me in a friend’s house. Calling it a house might be an understatement, but I was only ever in one room. What a room, though, spacious and light, with high ceilings, and walls that were windows that she raised, making them disappear. The whole thing was impressive but I found myself worrying about damaging things, which put the brakes on my entertainment.
Some sort of song and dance thing was going on nearby. A group of us, eight women and two men, decided to check it out. We walked down there and were watching from a distance. The show was still being organized and set up. One act called for audience participation. I was interested but then learned, you had to strip off all your clothes and join them nude.
That put a damper on it for me. The other male friend said that he was going to do it. I watched him as he went up while my friends talked about it. One of them encouraged me to go, but I said, “No thanks.” She pointed out that the other guy in our group had gone. I then saw him sneaking away, fully clothed, and said, “No, he chickened out.”
I then thought about it and said, “Screw it. Here I go.”
I stripped off my clothes, growing aware, of course, of others giving me space and watching. Naked, I walked up to the center ground — there wasn’t a stage — and presented myself. I was the only guy. The organizer was a male. He looked up and said, “Yes.” I answered, “I took off my clothes. I’m here to participate.”
He seemed a little taken back. as I looked around, I saw that others weren’t naked. The organizer said, “Here, put this on.” It was a long tee, which was what others wore. I put it on. It came down to my ass, leaving my pecker to swing in the wind.
The entertainment began. I didn’t grasp what we were doing and what my specific role was, but I winged it. I had fun, and a sense of freedom and exhilaration overtook me. I saw people watching me, especially women, and they seemed to be commenting on this middle-aged semi-naked men, but I thought, what the hell do I care? That’s their problem.
Dream end.
Sunday’s Theme Music
5:36 AM, 8:51 PM, sunrise, sunset, yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Heat is today’s word. Heat. Hot. Burning. The valley reached 102 degrees F yesterday. 110 is forecast for today. We’re not expected to drop below 100 for our highs until Friday, when we’ll only reach 99. During the night, the lows will be in the low to mid-seventies. Last night, it was 83 at 10 PM.
We went dancing last night, place Lake of the Woods. Meeting up with friends, we ate sandwiches and barbeque, drank beer, wine, and water, and danced to a band on the lake shore under the pines. Up in the mountains, comfortable temperatures in the high 80s cradled us.
While a friend and I checked out the water, we discovered a bottle in the water. Retrieved it to dispose of right. Sting and the rest of The Police serenaded me with “Message in A Bottle” from 1979 for a bit thereafter. I share it with you.
Test negative, stay positive, wear masks as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 