Tag: E.T.

Octmonedai’s Theme Music

Mood: hopeful

Welcome again to Octmonedai in Ashland, where the bears are large and the pets are wary.

Octmondai comes four to five times each year. These are the Mondays (Monedais, or Moon Days) in October. We’ll have five this year. Many people observe these days by getting out of bed, dressing, and rushing off to work, meetings, or schools. I celebate by drinking black coffee. Salute.

It’s October 2, 2023. Over 75% of the year is done. Ninety days remain. The clock’s digital numbers are running on anything you want done in 2023.

It’s fifty degrees now, that’s Fahrenheit, under a spotted white and blue sky. Sunshine has arrived but doesn’t seem too interested in getting warm. Today’s high will be 64 F, and rain will come this evening. I still keep my fingers crossed that a pleasant Indian summer will be enjoyed this month.

I’m in a hopeful mood today. That’s brought on by some news last week. Judge Engoron’s ruling regarding Donald J. Trump’s real estate valuations said — paraphrasing a little — they would be more at home in Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy existences rather than the real world. Score one for justice. Trump’s civilian fraud trial begins in New York this week — today! — and is expected to go on to December. Knock wood and fingers crossed, justice will prevail.

In other news regarding Donald Trump’s indictments, one of his co-defendants, Scott Hall, plead guilty and has been sentenced in the Georgia election racketeering case. One down, eighteen to go.

A temporary funding extension was achieved for the US government. The process behind it demonstrated the lack of a Republican will other than to generally support Trump (and ignore anything bad said about him), a great deal of party infighting, and their inability to govern. That, combined with the poor showing that was the GOP debate to find their presidential nominee, reveals a narcissistic and confused political organization.

We went to the AIFF outdoor showing of E.T. the Extraterrestrial last night. The event’s organization was a bit sloppy. Starts at 6, they said. Well, no, playing the movie didn’t start until 7. Multiple food trucks were due to be there but only one was now available. They offered Carribbean food, and weren’t ready to serve food until almost 6:30. There was beer, wind, and popcorn for a small donation, but they seemed sadly unprepared for children. Only popcorn for them and water for them.

E.T. was as I remembered it, solid pacing, with an interesting basic story and plot. The dialogue in the movie’s first quarter seemed lamer than what I remember; my wife reminded me that it was a different time back in 1982, and that might account for that dialogue. Drew Barrymore was definitely the best actor on screen. The temperature grew colder as the film rolled on, with a sharp northern wind visiting us as we sat chairs, but we were zipped up and under blankets, with gloves on, and endured.

I have “Walk On” by U2 ringing out in the morning mental music stream (Trademark reckoning). I don’t know what prompted The Neurons to call it up and put it on repeat today. Although the song has noble intentions (Aung San Suu Kyi’s fight for democracy and her house arrest for her activities), the 2001 song left little mark on me. I prefer the live version much more than the studio rendition. Live version is more energized and uplifting.

Stay pos and strong. Chase the day and lock it away. Coffee drinking is finished until the next roun in about an hour. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: mellow

Greetings to the first day of October. Sunday finds us awash in blue sky in Ashlandia, where the apples are plentiful and the deer are eating well. We saw twenty-three of them around town yesterday while running errands, usually in small herds of four to six.

It’s a chilly day despite sunshine that stings the eyes with its brilliance. 48 F now, we’re doing 66 F today.

October has special meaning for me. I joined the military in October, 1974. Twenty-one years later, I retired in October. And my wife and I bought this house in October of 2006.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s rain postponed our E.T. showing to this evening. This is the second rescheduling; two weeks ago, the outdoor movie screening was postponed to yesterday because of hazardous air quality due to wildfire smoke.

Keeping this short today, so I’ll just go with the music. The Neurons have sowed the seeds of “Wheel in the Sky”, a 1977 song by Journey. I’ve romantically identified with the song’s idea that everything changes quickly and in surprising ways. As Journey portrays in the song, most of us can be anywhere tomorrow. I was in the military in ’77 and wholly agreed with the idea that I could be anywhere the next day. My Air Force units were usually tagged for mobility. That meant that we could be deployed to elsewhere as needed. Although stability has become my norm in this stage of my civilian life, weather disasters or personal upheaval such as health issues can force a shift with little warning. I’ve seen it happen with friends and family.

Beyond that, I moved numerous times as a child, because my father was in the military. Much of that was overseas for Dad, but Mom and we kids remained stateside. Dad was enlisted and that pay wasn’t much. So Mom drove us to live with relatives in Chicago, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. Then Dad would return and we’d head to Texas, California, Virginia, Ohio. Then I joined the military. For the next twenty-one years, I was assigned across the US and around the world on temporary, special, and permanent assignments. Eventually, I retired in California and moved to Oregon.

Remain positive, be strong, and keep chill. Let me finish this coffee and then I’ll kick off the day. Have a better one. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: positive

Let’s close our eyes and bow our heads; September, 2023, is passing. Today is Saturday, September 30, 2023. A fresh month — October — begins tomorrow.

“Alexa, weather,” I say.

“It’s 49 degrees in Ashland. Today’s high will be 62 degrees. Today’s forecast includes showers.”

I’m boiling her response down. Alexa is one of three sources for my daily weather info. The other two are my home system and wunderground.com online. I also often scan MSN’s weather forecast for us.

I do this because we’re located on the fringe of a small town, about three and a half miles long, with a population of about 20,000. I live on the southern end. The town is in a valley alongside Interstate 5. The southern end is where the valley pinches together and becomes a pass. For all these reasons, getting precise weather forecasts is troublesome. We’re usually a few degrees warmer than the forecast in the summer and a few degrees colder in fall and winter.

I don’t doubt Alexa’s forecast for today. It rained off and on through the night. Rainclouds are as thick as a Black Friday shopping crowd. Those clouds don’t look like they’re going to wander off without dropping more rain on us.

The cats are happier and more mellow with this weather. Both come in for shelter, washing before napping. Papi’s preference is the master bed where I keep a folded blanket at the foot for the cats. Tucker will used that at night, but it’s Papi’s during the daytime. Tucker prefers being with us in the daytime. He’ll haunt the desk in the snug, sleeping to the right of me, shoving around papers and rearranging equipment. I enjoy having him there, with his cute little black and white face and long, whirly whiskers at repose as he sleeps.

My wife and I have plans for the evening. Scienceworks is doing an outdoor showing of the movie E.T. Show starts at 6:30 PM. There will be food and beverage trucks, along with an ice cream truck.

Forecasts for that period tell us it’ll be colder by then, and it’ll be raining. Should be fun.

My wife particularly wants to go because she only saw E.T. once. This was when we were stationed on Okinawa, Japan. We saw a VHS bootleg copy of the movie, and the production values were terrible. Bootleg copies of films and TV shows was how we saw a lot of things in those pre-net, pre satellite TV days. Phoning home was still a major production that required us to go to the USO and use one of their expensive long-distance lines.

Well, with talk of “phone home” and memories of the way it was in 1982, Les Neurons have cranked up ELO’s 1977 song, “Telephone Line” for the morning mental music stream (Trademark fantasy). Makes sense, and I will allow it.

Stay pos and be cool, and strong. I’m refreshing my coffee — do you want a topoff? Here’s the music. Let the real day commence. Cheers

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