Tag: heart

Grayda’s Theme Music

Wenzda, Mai 14, 2025, is Grayda in Ashland. Gray hangs over us with gravity’s weight. Sunshine comes in and leaves quick. No rain is expected, but neither was Grayda. This is Ashlandia. We’re supposed to be basking in warmth. It has risen to 56 F. 61 F is on the menu. All these gray clouds do something to my mood. Their impact is much different if its over a crashing sea, but that scene is a coupla hundred miles away.

Today’s tune was brought to me by nature. Nature; when you want the very best.

I was out looking for pollinators. My wife and I are down. “I’ve seen one fat bumble bee,” she said, “and one dragonfly, and a looper, but that’s not really a butterfly. So I haven’t seen any butterflies.”

I recounted my count: two bees, no dragonflies, butterflies, wasps, hornets, or hummingbirds. Even the birds are frequenting our area less. We’re used to being a buzzbox of activity. This non-activity disconcerts and worries us.

Papi was with me during my pollinator watch. “Where are the butterflies?” I asked him. He rolled around on his back on the patio cement, his eyes scrunched closed and his paws working the air.

A dog barked. Papi flipped over and studied the area, his ears finetuning themselves to the dog’s position. Not in the backyard, which is fenced. And it wasn’t either of his mortal enemies, the dog to the east, or the wicked dog to the north, Cowdog.

And then, “Dog & Butterfly” by Heart started in the morning mental music stream. The Neurons’ thinking was clear in this instance. That’s often rare so I appreciated the linear clarity.

“I’m going back in, Papi,” I said. Papi yawned and stretched. A jay came to the yard and conversed. I closed the door on the scene.

Ann Wilson said about “Dog & Butterfly”, “This, like a log of songs, came from something iteral and changed to something more poetic. I was upstairs in my music room waiting for my muse. It doesn’t always happen on cue but, in hindsight, it did this time. I looked out of my window and saw the dog chasing a butterfly. He wouldn’t give up; he just kept chasing that butterfly. I thought it was impossible, yet he kept on going. The chase took on another meaning for me. Like so much in life, the spirit is undaunted, you keep going after it.

“Many people have said that it is that thought in this song that has helped them through rough times. When they’re up against the wall I life, thy could refer back to it and keep going.

“Nancy (Wilson) and I, as Heart, were new at the time in 1978 or so, and this became our personal theme song as well. Now if we don’t play it in our set, people are disappointed.” h/t to Wikipedia.org.

I think it’s a good day to help push through graydas. Sometimes these days in Trumpland feel gray and heavy despite the sunshine. I turn to music to help get through. Do what’s needed, without doing yourself harm.

Coffee has been consumed. Here we go again. Three…two…one…

Hey, the sun’s out. Things are looking up again.

Cheers

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Satura’s Theme Music

April 12 of 2025 begins with a sense of rain. Clouds loaded with grays and blues swell over the western pines and ridges. It’s 42 F. Rain serenaded us through the night. We’re dry for the moment but the wind carries a wintry stick, and humidity puts a clingy wrap on us. The high for today will be 58 F. This is Saturda.

As I loll in bed and think about dreams, I consider nesting a little longer. It is Saturda. I was busy yesterday.

Fresh reminders bolt in from the awakening neurons. It’s Saturda. Green Bag Day!

Checking the time, I relax. There’s plenty o’ time before the scheduled pickup of the bi-monthly emergency food bank donation. But I’m awake and energetic thanks to the momentary panic whipped up when I remembered that the green bag must go on. I get it done, just because.

Papi is again at a loss. The ginger cat was adjusting to warm and sunny naps among the bushes. Now, this stuff again, this wind, this rain. The cat comes to the door and gives me a look to come back in. “I know,” I tell him. “You don’t want to come in. You want to follow your nature and remain outside. But you don’t like the wind.” A wintry glance passes from the cat to me as he drifts past. Once inside, he breaks into a quick trot into the dining room. A grooming sit commences. This is what I had in mind all along, he projects in that way that cats do.

The cat is right, though. We were being groomed for nicer weather. Whatever plans involving involve the outside that arise today, I’ll need gear to block that wind. With that thought crossing the finish line, The Neurons begin chanting, “Block that wind, block that wind.” The Neurons can be an irritating group.

Clive’s Tuesday Tunes 246 was about music about dreams and dreaming. He offered a solid Dream Five. After listening to them and remembering, I woke up this morning with Heart singing “These Dreams” in the morning mental music stream. According to the wiki thingy, Martin Page and Bernie Taupin wrote this song. Stevie Nicks passed on it, but Heart went with it. Released in 1986, the song is about living another life while sleeping at night.

Today’s video offering features a different take on the song. Alison Kraus is on lead vocals with Heart’s Wilson sisters offering backing vocals.

Coffee is wending its way past my lips and down my throat, past the epiglottis and down the esophagus to finish its journey into my stomach. Papi has gone back out to see if the weather is any better yet. With coffee’s encouragement, I’ll hit the news. Hope your day is full of things which make you sing, dance, and be happy. If not those, may nothing kill, injure, or sicken you. I know; it feels like I’m hoping for a lot in these times. But we gotta keep hoping.

Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood:

Rain claims the sky again. May not stay. Bursts break out of clouds, and then the sun breaks show with a flash of light. Brisk winds burst through the valley, shaking the trees and sending shivers through my knees, before rain kisses us again.

This is spring. This is Friday, March 29, 2024. It’s 50 F and several y’s are present — sunny-cloudy-rainy-windy-chilly. Think we’re within 2, 3 degrees of the thermometer’s upper level for this March day. Snow comes and leaves on the northern and eastern peaks over the last three days. How’s the weather in your life zone?

First, a floof update. Tucker continues a trouble-free recovery. I knocked off the opiates. Just thought he was being over medicated. He’s eating, sleeping, and moving well. I make him a cup of grain-free kibble softened with hot water, and he dives into a bowl like an osprey coming down from the sky on a hunt. After eating today, he gently washed his face and paws before tucking back into nap position. Fingers crossed that this all continues.

The Neurons loaded “Alone” by Heart into the morning mental music stream (Trademark plummeting). The song was invited into the MMMS by the line, “No answer on the telephone.”

I’d called a friend. No answer. No voice mail or answering machine. Seems ominous.

I talked to the cats about it (they were the only ones around). They agreed with me, no answer on a telephone call is surreal in this era. Some mechanized or e-response is typical if a live voice isn’t heard. But to hear the ringing continue…strange. I called again to ensure I had the number correct. I let it ring until twenty rings had filled the air. Twenty rings, an absurd amount, before giving up.

The song commenced in the MMMS a few seconds after I relayed my experience to the floofies. We — me and The Neurons — went from there. Personally, I always enjoyed the hard rock ballad. Then again, I seem drawn to hard rock ballads. Could be that they appeal to my romantic side, or the solitude inculcated by my work and travel draws me to that sort of music.

Persist to be positive and strong, lean forward toward progress and a better future, and Vote Blue. Coffee has caffeinated my brain cells, so I’m good to go. Here’s the music. Oh, wait, it’s sunny again, and the wind has become a friendly zephyr. For now.

Now it’s cloudy. Wind is beating the coffee shop umbrella. Rain veils are crossing the mountains.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: sour

Saturday is being served in Ashlandia, where it’s warm and getting hot. Not 110 F hot, no, none of that crazy stuff here today, just 96 today, 100 tomorrow, 103 Monday, and so on for the week.

It’s August 12, 2023, and this is when the region usually heats up in the year, so we’re not surprised. We metaphorically hold our breath and cross our fingers that some wildfires don’t arise from the heat and dry conditions. We’re not special with this high hot so far as the US. Over in Texas, they’re in the hundreds all over the state. Northern California will lounge in low triple digit heat, as will parts of Nevada, southern California, and New Mexico. Of course, in Hawaii, they’re literally on fire in several areas. Then my sister sent me notice that a house in one of the neighborhoods not far from her in the Plum area outside Pittsburgh PA exploded and a house is on fire. You feel for the people of that neighborhood.

And then I went on and caught up on Ukraine news.

Reading the news and weather reports brought my spirits down. More killin’, of course, and lots of general craziness being reported out there. The Neurons delivered “Crazy On You” by Heart to the morning mental music stream (Trademark crazy). The song is a classic rock offering from waaay baaack in 1976. Wow, that’s a thought that momentarily makes me feel ancient.

Then I think, hey, 1976 wasn’t even fifty years ago, so it’s not really that long ago, right? Yes, the optimistic Neurons reply, bobbing their heads. Then I think, and isn’t it cool that this music style was discovered? Isn’t it terrific that we have so many talented people in the world? And, hey, we have the technology to bring these stuff to us across time, although this recording is of a performance Heart did just a few years ago.

But then I think, gosh, with the brains for such technology to be advanced, shouldn’t we be able to solve other problems?

How do you solve a problem like a human? Tech doesn’t seem to be the answer there.

Okay, let’s get on with the day. It’s not going to live itself. Stay pos and be strong. Coffee is available in the kitchen. I got enough in there for at least one other cup. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

It’s going to be 45 F today but for now, it’s 34 F. This is Tuesday, November 8, 2022, the second Tuesday in November, and election day in the U.S. As ads were countered with attack ads, which were then surmounted by counter-attack ads, an anxious mood has been building in the U.S. Concerns about fair elections, democracy, abortion rights, the economy, and disinformation — otherwise known as lies — has contorted what the election is about. It’s a mid-term election, so the Democrats’ concern is that if the Republican take control, they will block every piece of legislation that rises, stymying the Biden administration so it looks bad. It was their playbook as announced by Sen. McConnell and reiterated by several GOP legislators. If the Democrats win, the GOP fears are that it’s not being taken seriously as a party and that one-party role will progress. That’s the view from the moon. It gets much more involved and complex by state, city, and county. Speaking as a voter — I dropped off my ballot last week — it’s been an exhausting campaign cycle.

The rain stopped falling but drips from every leaf, gutter, fence, and line. Sunlight made thin by heavy gray clouds is creepng across the valley. Trees remain rich with golds, scarlets, shimmering reds, and pumpkin. When sunlight strikes one of these, the leaves light up the area. The mountain snow has gained thickness from this vantage, a sight that causes pauses, but I don’t know how it looks elsewhere.

The Neurons have dropped a Heart song from 1980, “Even It Up”, into the morning mental music stream. I asked them why they chose it. They stay mute as a rock in answer. I had another wild night of dreams but nothing that I recall would make me consciously select this song. It’s a subconscious mystery, like, where did I put that thing, and what is that thing that I’m looking for?

Stay positive, test negative, take necessary precautions, like vaccinations and masks, washing hands, and being cognizant of the potentials when you’re socializing. Coffee has landed in the kitchen, so I’m off, yes, in more ways than one, many claim. But what does the wife, family, neighbors, and friends really know, hmmm?

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday muscled into the morning, declaring, “Ready or not, I am here.”

It’s October 17, 2022. Half of October has fled under the bridge and over the horizon of the past. But they tell us the past doesn’t really exist once it’s done; really, all the previous days have evaporated, except for what we hold in our minds.

After reaching 95 F yesterday, half a dozen degrees higher than prepared for, today will drop into the upper seventies, maybe striking 80 (26 C). It’s a clear enough sky for it. Nothing but blue from my vantage. Trees have at last begun shifting colors here. Local leaves are mostly going gold or yellow.

Monday’s sunrise tiptoed in at 7:26 this morning like it had a hangover. Sunset will come at 6:26 this evening, just eleven hours later. Next Sunday, we ‘fall back’ in most of the U.S., resetting our clocks to be an hour later, part of a hugely debated bi-annual ritual adopted as law last century.

The Neurons were spying on me this morning. No surprise, right? The tiny peckerheads often do. Going about the usuals needed to void my body and begin to re-assume form and manners for being among humans, I found myself examining a memory about meeting a man. After carefully checking it to see where it came from, I realized it was from a dream – ‘we’d met each other in a dream.’ Case closed, I decided, but the dream was suddenly so vivid.

Well, The Neurons heard ‘we’d me each other in a dream’ and called up Heart and “Magic Man” (1976) for the morning mental music stream. It’s been going over and over in an endless loop, kind of like how phone calls and meetings take place on Monday. Chuckle, chuckle.

So that’s the theme music for this October Monday. Stay positively oriented and negatively tested when it comes to COVID and its variants and the flu. It is definitely coffee time for me. I’m positive about it. Here’s Ann and Nancy and the band with their song. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Doors ajar, windows open, cool morning air flows through the house. It’s 64 F out but will strike the upper nineties today. We’re bracing for the weekend when triple digit are expected for the first time this year for us.

Meanwhile, we’ll enjoy this day, because it’s here, and we are, too. It’s Thursday, June 23, 2022. Sunrise came as expected, just after dark thirty this AM. Sunshine will rule until sunset, just before 9 PM this evening.

I have “Barracuda” by Heart from 1977 in the morning mental music stream. I remember that one friend at the time of the song’s release hated this song, just hated it, always complaining because everyone thought Heart was Nancy and Ann, and that enraged him. I realized that he didn’t hate the song, but the group. Around then, I noticed him veering sharply toward racism and sexism and curtailed associating with him.

The neurons brought “Barracuda” forward because of a quote I’d one read from one of the Wilson sisters about “Barracuda” being based on another group’s song. She said, paraphrasing, you steal or borrow what you love and make it your own. I’ve observed it countless times in rock music and novels. I’m doing it my novel, because that’s how it works. I don’t call it stealing or borrowing: I call it inspiration.

Stay positive and test negative. Papi just came in and reminded me that it’s time for coffee. He’s right. Such a smart cat. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Hey, all you sons and daughter, mothers and fathers out in cyberland, how is your world?

Today is Thursday, October 14, 2021. It’s the third Thursday of the month, out of five. Likewise, we have five Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in October. Must make Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday feel lame, to have less than the others.

Sunrise is at 7:22 AM. It’s a good one, exuding a strong sun presence – you know, light and heat. Really brings out the reds, gods, greens, yellows, and oranges in our valley, a large change from yesterday morning, which looked like a set for Wuthering Heights. Our temperature ranges from 39 to 56F today with a stop at 44, where we now sit. Sunset will come at 6:30 PM.

I have a PC computer, and use Microsoft Windows. Which means it was time for another security update yesterday. Which makes things different. It’s humorous and odd. On WordPress, for example, I have a different default font this morning. I made no changes; the computer powers did this for me. The spacing and size are different, too. I’ll just go with the flow on this because it’s workable. Nonetheless, it’s a shade annoying when these things are changed for me.

Which brings me to the music. “Heartless” by Heart — ironic? — is playing in the morning mental music stream. The clue for why is in the lyrics. “Never never out of control.” Because I’m not in control. Not of my ‘puter. You see? The mind just played with those ideas and up bubbled the 1978 song by Heart. Well, it’s a good throwback sound, a little hard rock with some pop nuance.

Stay positive, test negative, wear thy mask as need be, get thee the vax when and if you can. I know it’s not all simple on the vax front. Underlying conditions and meds can be game changers in the vax world. My sympathies if you can’t get it for those reasons. The world must be a terrifying place, to have COVID-19 out there raging, a vax available, and you not able to get it because of your health.

Here’s the music. Listen while I go for coffee. I think there is also one last pumpkin spice muffin in there. I call dibs!

Cheers

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