It’s a foggy Yachats morning. Inspired by cool ocean air, the temperature is hovering at a cozy 59 F. The land is expected to slip out of the fog at about 11 AM and jump to 65 F. Meanwhile, I’m happily wandering around in a fog.
Lively post dinner conversation last night revolved around Trump’s arrogance, lies, and continual power grab. How will it all ultimately unfold? There’s hope that the people will rise up. There’s worry that Trump will shrug that off, and, braced with the Roberts Court’s stance and GOP governors providing national guard troops to subdue We the People and our rights.
We were also introduced to a game called Mexican Train which involves dominoes. I was pretty damn leery of playing but it was fun and addictive. I look forward to playing more. We also walked for miles, with me accumulating ten miles.
Today’s music arrived via last night’s sunset. Of course. Waiting for it to arrive, my group started singing snippets of songs about sunset. The Neurons jumped into the routine and, lo, here I am this morning, with Gordon Lightfoot singing “Sundown” in the morning mental music stream.
Coffee has arrived in my body and The Neurons are doing the coffee dance. May grace and peace find and keep you. Cheers
Hey, it’s flip day. Monday, August 27, 2023. Call it flip day. Happens to be a Monday, but it’s a day when you flip your energies from weekend mode – or time-off setting – to business mode or work setting. It’s a state of mind. For me, this day is about businesses being open so I can call and make appointments to get matters attended.
Nature is having its way with us on the west coast. Count among the issues, fires, thunderstorms with lightning strikes, tropical storm with heavy rain, and earthquakes. Asteroid strike and Godzilla are missing but they could show up at any minute.
Ashlandia, where the deer roam everywhere and bears and cougars are frequent visitors, is cool and humid now. After smoke in the morning and in and out of the day, a rainstorm squatted over us and dumped a solid wet load. Struck the temperature down from the eighties into the low seventies like the current GOP taking down the last fifty years of progress.
So, 66 here. Supposed to clip mid-eighties today. Hints of smoke playing with the sky’s color, blending with the clouds, and striking our olfactory nerves. Several hundred lightning strikes recorded in our region this weekend. A few started fires. Those are being attended. Can’t get an update. Net keeps dropping on us. Been out a dozen times in the last twenty-four. Probably the storms, right?
My assumption is that the storms are wonkifying the net connections. Funny how the ancient diagnostics built into this Windows-based system assumes otherwise. They’re about checking your connections. Plugging in an ethernet connection. Checking your adapter. Making sure you’re not in sleep mode or your wireless is turned off. Like, when was the last time that these were problems? In my purview, the problems are generally outside of my walls; it’s the net down, and typically due to weather or power outages somewhere.
To deal with the outages, I’m writing posts in Word with the hope that a connection will come and I can post them. If you’re reading this, that worked. Update to that: went to the coffee shop. They have a connection. So what’s up at my house? Something to pursue once I go home.
Would it surprise anyone to hear that Les Neurons are feeding the morning mental music stream (Trademark stormy) with music about weather? There’s “Stormy” by Classics IV, and that blues staple, “Stormy Monday”, along with songs that feature rain, like “Here Comes the Rain Again” by the Eurythmics, and that one by Guns ‘n Roses, “Sweet Child of Mine”, and its lines about a woman’s hair:
“Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place, where as a child I’d hide. And pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by.”
Then we had B.J. Thomas (“Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”). CCR offered a few songs about rain. The Beatles had one. “Fire and Rain”, James Taylor, very appropriate. Elvis. GNR again with “November Rain.” Can we overlook Prince and “Purple Rain” or that ancient classic, “Singing in the Rain”? My Neurons didn’t. How ‘bout “Laughter in the Rain”, “It’s Raining Men”, and “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”? That’s just a drop in the rain bucket. I’m sure your neurons are peppering your thoughts with more.
But in a quiet moment, as the clouds were contemplated and the humid cool air threw itself against my face, came Gordon Lightfoot with “Rainy Day People” (1975). Cuz there’s a line, there, “Rainy day people all know it hangs on a piece of mind.”
Okay, coffee has landed. Stay pos, be strong, and have a good flipday. Fingers crossed and positive thoughts for all the peoples of the world dealing with weather disasters. Here’s the music. Cheers
Using my keen powers of deduction, I observed that yesterday was Tuesday. Therefore, today must be Wednesday.
I reported my results to the chief. She downed whisky-infused black coffee that was probably brewed before the first Gemini rocket launch and gave me a gimlet eye. “Not bad, rookie.”
Today is Wednesday, 5/3/2023. The temperature God is blessing us with a 47 F temperature. The rain God is misting us off and off, while the sun God winks in and out behind the cloud God’s offerings. “We expect it to reach 65 today,” a weather dude tells me on the QT. A little after six bells was rung, the sun rolled over Ashlandia’s horizon albeit beyond a cloud wall. We’ll hear eight bells in the evening before the sun lives us in her wake.
The felines have been fed, and approve of their morning meal. It’s a wet meal enlivened with a few tablespoons of warm water. They love the combo. Tucker’s repast includes his meds. In fact, that’s how the warm morning meal was established, by medicating previous cats who needed meds but battled taking them.
Gordon Lightfoot passed this week. The Canadian musician/singer/songwriter’s end of life probably isn’t news to you, but the knowledge was swirling around in my thoughts, along with weather observations, so The Neurons spooned “Early Morning Rain” by GL into my morning mental music stream. A vote was taken with the cats and it was chosen as today’s theme music.
Coffee is almost done as I’m behind schedule this morning, a victim of helping a friend. Stay pos, and be the master of your domain. Here’s the music.
Shortly after posting yesterday’s theme music, light snow showers began. A few degrees were sliced off and we ping-ponged between sleet and snow for several hours. As the temperature shimmied down to 33 F, fat flakes faithfully fell, lining the world with white. Then the temperature shimmied back up, the snow stopped, and the sidewalks and streets cleared but remained on everything else. Then heavier snow began and continued through the night. We only achieved one to three inches locally, which, great. It’s up in the Sierras and Cascades where we need it. Reports are that it fell heavy there.
A little sigh of relief.
Today is Tuesday, 2/22/2022. Our temperature is now 31. Thin snow flurries fall in the front of the house; sunshine peeks through waning clouds on the house’s backside. The high temperature is expected to be 43 with lows dipping to 12 to 23 degrees, depending on where you are. My house will likely experience twenty-five. Sunrise was at 6:57 this morning and sunset will be at 5:52 this evening.
The snow affected the royal clowder. Sick cat chilled on his space and Tucker assumed his position beside me per usual. Papi, the ginger wonder, usually likes being the squeeze box, going in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out. Not so last night. Three times in and out, then done. I had a great night of rest.
I have a 1976 Gordon Lightfoot song in the morning mental music stream, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. Wrecks and accidents fascinate me, mostly because I’m intrigued by the backstories, not the mayhem. While researching the Soviet space program yesterday (I’m reading “The Apollo Murders”), I became sidetracked on an accident website. Out of that, my neurons began humming the Lightfoot song. So, here we are.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. BTW, the clouds have broken and scattered. It’s now blue skies and sunshine out the front window, and the temperature is up to — wait a sec, please.
“What’s that, coffee? You want me to come and drink you? Okay, I’ll be right there.”
Michael Seidel, writer 