Tag: health

Thirstdaz Theme Music

Another sunny summer day has been born in Ashlandia. We shall name this day Thirstda, July 24, 2025. Temps right now are moderate at 83 F but if you stand in that sunshine and let it beam down on you, the sweat comes fast. Today’s high will peak at about 92, 93 F, I think. Clouds, dust, or smoke hazes some of the sky’s blue, but I don’t smell smoke. The ol’ schnoz seems unafflicted by particulates today. Yea for me, I guess.

Hulk Hogan has passed away. I greet that with a shrug. Ozzy Osbourne passed a couple days ago. I mourn him more, but it’s remote mourning. I’ve been expecting him to pass. Thanks for the music and entertainment, Oz.

A net friend, Annette, posted a reflective post about family, wealth, and change. It melded well with my mood and thoughts after long exchanges with my sister about my mother, Mom’s health, and her living situation. Life, mortality, and death seem to be draping themselves all over me as I observe others’ situations and reflect upon my own. Make hay while the sun shines, right? Because storms can crash in and change everything in an eyeblink.

Over on the political spectrum of my existence, I grimace to more news about the enshittification of things. Yes, it makes me unhappy. Reading opposing opinions about things like cuts to NPR and public broadcasting, the celebration of their potential demise depresses me. Others are scornful and dismissive of any positive impact they may have on people, communities, and civilization. Some things seem to be strictly defined through a narrow scope of costs, profits, and losses, as if this is what life is about. The debt, the debt, some scream, we must do something about the debt! More tariffs! More tax cuts for the wealthy! More tax write-offs for the ultra wealthy. Less help for the states! Less help for the poor! And so it will go until they need help from other states, need help from the poor, say, in a war, for example, or to work. Yes, I’m disgusting by the right-wing tilt going on. I think it counterproductive to common goals and needs. The tilt benefits a few at the expense of the nation.

Today’s theme music is both homage to Ozzy’s memory, my own life, and how I view the current world situation. Yes, it’s “Crazy Train” from 1980. I told others while commenting on Ozzy last night that I’ve been on the crazy train. I’ve seen my family on the crazy train, and friends. A friend replied, “I think we’ve all spent some time on the crazy train.” Now I think the world is climbing on the crazy train.

Crazy, but that’s how it goes
Millions of people living as foes
Maybe it’s not too late
To learn how to love and forget how to hate

Mental wounds not healing
Life’s a bitter shame

I’m going off the rails on a crazy train
I’m going off the rails on a crazy train
(Let’s go)

I’ve listened to preachers, I’ve listened to fools
I’ve watched all the dropouts, who make their own rules
One person conditioned to rule and control
The media sells it and you live the role

Mental wounds still screaming
Driving me insane

I’m going off the rails on a crazy train
I’m going off the rails on a crazy train

I know that things are going wrong for me
You gotta listen to my words, yeah, yeah

Heirs of a cold war, that’s what we’ve become
Inheriting troubles, I’m mentally numb
Crazy, I just cannot bear
I’m living with something that just isn’t fair

H/t to AZLyrics.com

Coffee has infiltrated me again. Time to rock another day, even if it’s only a gentle rock, just a little more than a nudge. Hope your day fulfills you in ways you need. Cheers

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Figs!

My spouse is a fignatic, a figinista, a fan of high magnitude of figs. She loves figs. Through her, I’ve come to enjoy them. Knowing this, a friend has been supplying us with figs. I snapped this photo Wenzda; we have three bowls of figs like this. Or had, as we’ve eaten a few.

This is the second go round from this fig supplier. These are huge beauties. So delicious, so nutritious, and a good source for calcium, potassium, vitamins C, A, K, and B6. We just eat them rare, although I’m cautious, as they’re high in oxalates, and can cause kidney stones. I already have that issue.

Figs been hard to come by at the stores and have become expensive. The last pint we purchased was $11 and had five small figs. None were in good shape, so my friend’s largesse is happily accepted.

Good to have friends like this.

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Twosda’s Theme Music

Twosda, July 8, 2025, has squatted down on us. It’s a cool morning after a quiet night. 75 F now, 95 F later, part of a ‘cooling trend’. We saw 99 at our Ashlandia house yesterday. My wife and I were at to get a few items at its hottest, about 4 PM. Checking the eastern sky, I said, “I think we’re going to get thunderstorms.”

My wife scanned the sky. “No, that doesn’t look like thunderstorms to me.”

A few hours later, the sky darkened. Thunder washed across the sky like an old man clearing his throat and coughing. A few raindrops applauded on the ground. At 7:46 PM, the power went out. An alert telling us about that came at 7:57 PM. They said the power would be back in one and a half hours. They were wrong.

Meanwhile, another emergency text arrived: fire off Pompadour Road. Bottom line of all this, fire crews worked through the night to line and contain the Pompadour Fire, and the electricity came back on a little after 2 AM. I know because things beeped and chirped back to life.

The good part of this is that we updated our power outage equipment last winter and it all proved to work. One purchase was a pair of inexpensive rechargeable light bulbs. Installed over the breakfast bar between the kitchen and dining room, they work great as regular bulbs, giving soft daylight illumination. When the power went out, they were charged and ready to go, giving us needed light at the throw of a switch. Now, with power returned, they’re recharging for the next time they’re needed.

Augmenting those were two simple round little lights. Working off three AA batteries, they’re extremely lightweight but powerful, and were perfect for using to read books. As we both had library books at hand, we picked up our books and lights and read till bed.

BTW, my book was “Hollow Kingdom” by Kira Jane Buxton. Released in 2019, I found this science fiction book about an unfolding human apocalypse, as told by a crow and other birds and animals to be engaging, warm, clever, and moving. I wholly recommend it.

Meantime, we’re talking about the Trump Regime’s heavy-handed military presence at MacAuthur Park in LA.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is condemning federal agents and National Guard troops for descending on a city park on Monday, July 7.

Armored vehicles, mounted officers and armed troops briefly swarmed the city’s MacArthur Park Monday morning before leaving. Bass said 20 children were playing at the park before the troops surged through and shared footage of federal officers running through the park.

According to an X post from the Department of Defense, troops were present at the park to “ensure the safety of federal agents.”

Read more here…

Sorry, I know, writing ‘heavy-handed’ while addressing Trump Regime actions is redundant; everything done by that loathsome, hate-fueled regime is heavy handed. This is especially true when it’s Dog-killer Noem calling the shots. ICE and the military showed up at park, disrupting a children’s day care outing. Now what did that accomplish other than a show of force to intimidate others and blow another wad of Federal funding? Bet some part of the MAGA crowd let out a full-throated cheer but the rest of us simply lowered our expectations of TACO and his chips yet again, just, as they say, you didn’t think they could go lower.

During the power outage, The Neurons plugged a 1983 song by Dio, “Holy Diver”, into the morning mental music stream. “What’s that about?” I inquired of the little gray dude. Shrugging in unison, they chorus-muttered, “I don’t know.” Now tell me, how am I supposed to know why things happen in my mind when The Neurons in charge keep presenting themselves as clueless? And people wonder why I act strange. Well, it’s The Neurons, isn’t it? Anyway, that’s the theme music for Twosda, just to get it out of my friggin’ head.

Right now, I’m fasting. No coffee, water, food, etc., until after my 12:15 ultrasound on my gall bladder. Have the best day you can, okay? I’ll do the same. Cheers

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Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

If you have a brain, and some thinking skills, the full Trumpasy is all revealed. Just check out the Trump Regime’s actions. Look at the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’. Read again Project 2025.

  1. Redistribute wealth to the wealthy. They need it to ‘build the economy’. This is called trickle down economics. It has been decisively proven not to work.
  2. Start shredding the welfare net. Cut Medicaid. Force people to work more.
  3. Cut all assistance contributed by the Federal government to the states and local communities. Downtrodden existences lead to downtrodden morale. A sick people is a desperate people, and are more easily manipulated.
  4. De-construct the education system. An uneducatd population is more guillible. Indoctrinate young people into right wing values via vouchers and private schools.
  5. Manufacture and reinforce negative stereotypes of other citizens, people who ‘are different’, i.e., people who are not heterosexual and white. This is useful for blame games and distraction, and helps neuter political will.
  6. Weaponize ICE into a paramilitary force. While laws limit what the US military is authorized to do to citizens, it’s a more wide-open field with ICE. Under the guise of rounding up ‘illegal immigrants’, the Trump Regime are also undermining due process and the concepts of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. People are being disappeared as the right-wing social media machine provides cover by declaring that the Constitution isn’t meant to be applied to ‘non-citizens’.
  7. Establish concentration camps. The first one has been built in Florida, of course. Don’t be surprised if Texas eagerly builds one in the race to be patriotic by refusing others equality, rights, and freedom. Disappearing people and creating concentration camps stoke fears and can be used to threaten political opposition.
  8. Build a right-wing Supreme Court bias that’s willing to overlook history and precedence, one which will used flawed interpretations of the U.S. Constitution to empower the Executive Branch and wipe out the checks and balance system provided by three equal branches.
  9. Weaponize trade. Try to force manufacturing back to the United States, even though the raw materials are obtained elsewhere, and even though the capital investments needed for new factories are astronomical. This provides a false hope of new jobs; there will be new jobs but they won’t pay wages needed to live in this ever expensive land, forcing people to work more, no matter their health or situation. This will also increase people’s desperation to work and make money to pay for basic goods and services such as food and housing, as prices see tariff-based inflation bound upward.
  10. But — also cut limitations on child labor laws. Encourage poor poeple to have more children to provide a larger and cheaper work force.
  11. Cut or waive environmental laws and regulations to reduce the cost of building new manufacturing facilities.
  12. Nurture confusion among facts and distrust of the news media. Confusion helps the Regime maintain control by undermining grass root organizations’ ability to effectively organize and protest. It also allows the Regime to turn citizen against citizen in a cold war that favors the Trump Regime’s heavy hand.
  13. Distract, distract, distract. In this endeavor, natural disasters are your friend; they pull focus from the political arena. Reduce the Federal government’s effectiveness in predicting disasters and helping states and communities. Again, chaos, confusion, and low morale are useful for controlling and manipulating the population. As a bonus, when a natural disaster levels a region, it opens up land and opportunity to rebuild. People with next to nothing can be more easily induced to take less pay for bad jobs.
  14. Attack other nations; encourage aggression among other nations. Make the world a scarier place.

Yes, this is cynical. It’s not my thinking, but my interpretation of what the Trump Regime and the Republican-filled Greedy Ol’ Trump Party, also known as the GOTP, is doing. Show me I’m wrong. Point to Trump’s actions and demonstrate otherwise. Parse that OBBB for clues that this is not what the Trump Regime pursues.

Time will tell. It’s already told us a great deal in the first six months of 2025.

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Munda’s Theme Music

Munda, July 7, 2025, has broken clear and relatively cool, hosting blue sky and 76 F temperature. Expectations for th afternoon heat have been lowered; some say we’ll kiss 100 F, others claim we’ll peak in the mid 90s.

Keeping a weather eye on the global fire situations. With so many large fires going at it on multiple continents, smoke and air pollution becomes a problem for us. Of course, the Texas flash floods disaster remains the headline story. Among the headlines are reminders of shortsighted decisions, like, Officials Feared Flood Risk to Youth Camps but Rejected Warning System. Costs were cited as the reason why an improved system wasn’t installed; they lost out on a million dollar grant a few years ago. Meanwhile, Texas spent $2,300,000,000 on their ‘border wall’ and several more billion on border security. Speaks well for a ‘pro-life’ state where fear and racism won again over practical matters. Those are Texans’ choices, a reflection of their political worries and priorities. It’s a sad state and it’s questionable, with the cuts to the National Weather Service under Trump, whether appropriate alarm would have been given.

In unrelated news, U.S. measles cases reach 33-year record high as outbreaks spread.

The United States has reached its highest annual measles case tally in 33 years, hitting at least 1,277 confirmed cases across 38 states and the District of Columbia.

The milestone marks a public health reversal in defeating a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease as the anti-vaccine movement gains strength.

Way to go, Trump, way to go.

I’ve been calling our local healthcare providing, Asante, to establish arrangements for the needed gallbladder ultrasound. The net: 5 calls, 25 minutes on hold, and never spoke with a human. That doesn’t do much to reassure me that the system is working.

Today’s music is a 1985 hit for Eric Clapton, “Forever Man”. The Neurons didn’t establish a concrete reason for its use in the morning mental music stream.

Breakfast has been consumed. Off to get involved with the day. Have a better one. Cheers

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Sunda’s Theme Music

Sorry that I’m late with posting. Hope all were still able to carry on.

Today is Sunda, July 6, 2025. Temp right now, at 6:30 PM, is 94 F. Sunshine floods the valley and clouds have are absent, giving us an endless blue vision.

Slept the day away after requesting wife drive me to ER at 2:20 AM. Spent three hours there. Paralyzing and mounting abdominal plague began haunting me at 10:30 PM. Despite a pain killer, some antacids, and a couple glasses of water, it kept ratcheting up, and nausea began a background chorus. So, with deep and persistent mutterings about intercourse and life, we went to our local ER. The pain began in my back against my spine but soon became a traveller, going all over my upper abdominal area. I joked that an alien was in there trying to break out. BP was way up, temperature was normal. A couple rounds of morphine were IV’d into me. Blood was drawn. EKG was completed: looked great. Everything came back normal. With kidneys working, a CT scan was done: all normal among my organs. They finally said: looks like gas.

WHAT? WHAAAT? WHAAATTT?

Oh, wait. There might be something going on with your gall bladder. A follow-up course was established to investigate it.

The doctor said, avoid fatty foods and fried foods, and hydrate. Still moaning and groaning with pain and ab tenderness, my wife transported me home. I went in and violently puked for a couple minutes. With the tv on for company and a hot compress on my abs, I played with sleep. Pain subsided enough for a few hours and sleep was brokered. At 9:30, I consumed painkillers and anti-nausea meds they’d sent home with me. I returned to the idea of sleeping and fitfully did a Z dance for the next few hours before finally getting pain free at noonish. A bowl of buckwheat mash with blueberries and a couple chucks of papaya were cautiously consumed. Deep sleep came in for a four hour shift. And, BTW, my wife did a great job of taking care of me, as she always does

After being morphine’d while I was at ER, The Neurons ordered a dose of “King of Pain” by The Police for the early morning mental music stream. I laughed at the little skunks and their humor but the 1983 hit song is today’s theme music.

It’s been a no-coffee day. Dinner was a sweet potatoe with steamed veggies. Triple digits are playing for the area tomorrow. Time will tell with what comes next. Cheers

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Satyrda’s Wandering Thoughts

Not too long ago, I learned more about sudoriferous or sudoriparous glands. These are basically our sweat glands, if you’re human. My reading instructed me about the apocrine sweat glands, and eccrine sweat glands. I never gave sweat glands much thought before, but this was related to something I was writing, in a really thin tangenital way. I don’t want to get all pedantic about it because most of your probably already learned these things that I’m just coming upon, but all sweat is not the same. I kind of guessed that from the smell and feel of sweat in my armpits and groin area versus everywhere else there where sweat glands reside. Also, check out how tiny these sweat glands are on this photo of a fingerprint. Pretty amazing, right?

Human sweat gland pores on the ridges of a finger pad

In an aside, it’s good to have the net available to provide this info. I ding the net for not being perfect but it really can be helpful.

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

It’s Wenzda, aka humpday, but also July 2, 2025. Cooled down to a comfortable level last night some and the morning ingredients are calling birds, blue sky, sunshine, and 72F. High will be 83 F, a drop from what I saw yesterday at my casa, 95 F.

I realized this morning that I’m in a metaphorical holding-my-breath state. So many balls in the air. I scan horizons for ‘the next’ in six different directions. Out there is the One Big Beautiful Bill, known in some places as the Big Ripoff, the Great Screwed Up Give to the Rich bill in others. Trump was again idiotically blithering on TV like someone who shouldn’t be allowed out on their own again. Russia and Ukraine’s war continues. Iran and Israel are still out there glaring at one another. Israel bombed some more people in Gaza. Don’t worry: they’re ‘investigating’ how it came to be that they bombed a cafe and killed reporters and workers and such. Yep. Tariffs hang all over everything like toilet paper from trees after Devil’s Night. Supreme Court rulings have been issued and the storms building behind those will come out. It’s Hurricane Season. Europe is suffering record heat and it’s not that cool in ‘Merica, either. Wildfires burn and FEMA is ready to shrug because Trump says states should be doing it for themselves. DOGE has had access to personal data; can that be good? The U.S. measles outbreak has ‘plateaued’ according to the gov’t but has it really? And what will happen with all that new guidance from the science and medicine skewed HHS led by worm brain Kennedy? Killer Noem’s ICE Troops seem more reckless, sanctuary and blue states are being threatened by Trump, he has a new eua-du-shit out, and Musk and Trump have taken their insults to new levels. Then there’s the personal and family stuff.

Hold my breath. Wait to see. What. Is. Next.

Quickening to my mood and thoughts, The Neurons unleashed “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons into the morning mental music stream. The song came out in 2012. Led by Marcus Mumford, the band has a different sound but it works for me and enough others that they’ve established a solid career. Hope you find it okay for your Wenzda’s beats.

My follow up dental appointment went well yesterday. All is healing, no problems, no complaints. Biopsy showed nothing of concern from the cyst removed from my gum. Have another appointment, different dentist, for a cleaning.

Coffee-fueled energy is ascending. I’m off to early morning yardwork. Have the best day you can. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Theme Music

My phone was ringing and dinging with a plethora of text messages. I clicked on the app to see WTF was going on. My phone tried calling people. Sighing, I rolled out of bed. 6:48.

Sunshine was again championing the blue summer sky. 58 F now, it’d be 84 F later. A thin line of nascent white clouds trouble the sky blue from being as rich and pure as possible. I tried again to check messages but they wouldn’t come up on an app. My sister, though, corresponds with me on a separate app. Her summaries detailed an overnight firefight in The Mom Saga between Mom, her boyfriend, his family, and my family.

I exercised to engage my muscles and get blood moving in the right direction and consulted my Fitbit for the results. Fitbit hadn’t registered anything. Some scrolling revealed that my Fitbit was fritzing. WTF.

Thirstda, June 26, 2025, was not off to an inspiring launch. Maybe coffee and perusing the news would help. Meanwhile, I would reboot my Fitbit and phone. I mean by that, turn them on and off. That’s often modern technology’s rudimentary fixes: turn it off and back on. It failed this time, leaving me with some WTF mumbling to my caffeinating self. Almost in parallel, I went to the net via computer to search for help. Blank pages came up. Really, WTAF?

Finagling of computer settings were engaged. Results showed. Turning off the Fitbit and turning it on again a few times, I drank coffee and considered the failed results. With coffee in, brain neurons engaged in what was going on.

Hey, they said, did you notice that the time is going backwards on the Fitbit?

Whaaat? I answered. Yes. Each time I turned the FB off and on, the time it showed went further back.

The Neurons said, This has happened before.

I’d tried snyncing the Fitbit with the app. That failed. The app kept telling me that an update was available. But It also told me that the update was already installed.

Well, hold on, partner, The Neurons said. The app is probably hung.

Of course.

Bringing the app up, I worked a hard shutdown on the phone. Yep, that fixed all Fitbit problems.

Thank god for coffee.

Tethered to my computer and technological issues, The Neurons are huddling with songs about freedom. The morning’s hours have sprinted away. Solomon Burke ends up singing “None of Us Are Free” in the morning mental music stream. A line resonates with me: “If you don’t say its wrong, then you say it’s right.” Yep. That’s how I view those Trump voters who say, “I didn’t vote this. I don’t support it.” You spoke with your actions. “The truth is shining bright right before our eyes.”

On into the day I go. Hope you have a better one. Cheers

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