Saturday’s Theme Music
Mood: Sumflective
Good morning, internetters. Welcome to June’s Second Saturday, June 8, 2024. If you’re like us, we celebrate Second Saturday in June. Holiday or not, we start with feeding the cats because the little dears will pester us into surrender. Yes, they have ‘just in case’ kibble in bowls and nevermind that they didn’t eat all of the previous tinned food in bowls. The tinned food bowls are cleaned and fresh stuff is spooned in for their dining pleasure.
Once we’ve taken care of the floofs, the real festivities begin. We start with coffee. While that’s soaking my system, I make my breakfast because my wife doesn’t eat breakfast for several more hours. Next, I dress. Sometimes a load of washing clothes is started for Second Saturday. The floor was vacuumed for First Friday, so no need for that today. We just go around picking up leaves and sticks floofs carried in for us, along with food they somehow transported around the house from their eating areas, along with fur and hair they’ve dropped along the way. Next, our family traditionally gets on the computer to get a Second Saturday news update, you know, see who died, who has gone to war, who has been convicted, and what new natural disasters have struck. Then we’re free to celebrate Second Saturday by washing the car and running errands. It’s a joyous day.
This Second Saturday is also the Green Bag pickup, so our bag full of supplies for the local food bank is on the porch, awaiting pickup by volunteers who transport it to the sorting and distribution center.
Our sprummery weather continues. It’s 67 F now, up from our 56 F starting point but eighteen degrees below our expected high in Ashlandia, where the creeks and rivers are flowing and full — for the moment. Sunlight is missing kissing some clouds rear end, but a friendly cool breeze is circulating, placating the likes of me. I enjoy a cool sunny morning so long as it’s not too cool. This day is just right.
I have two net friends who had floofs pass away yesterday. Thinking about their losses after expressing something toward to them, a song from 1993 filled the morning mental music stream (Trademark upended). Sarah McLachlan wrote “Possession” in response love letters from her fans. I think The Neurons pulled it out of memory more for the song’s reflective sound about yearning, love, and hope.
Stay positive, remain strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Summer is coming. Well, in the northern hemes. South of zero, winter is coming.
Here’s the music. Coffee is being sucked up. Enjoy your Second Saturday. Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music
Mood: Coffpassionate
May continues is march. Today is the month’s 17th day.
It’s Friday. Clouds have won the morning, but they’re a modest whipped cream overlay. 63 F out there, 70 F is today’s top. 70 F isn’t bad for me, although it always comes to me as ‘not quite hot, and not quite cold’. I feel like Goldilocks writing that.
I miss my cats, Tucker and Papi. Note: I also miss my wife but I get to chat on the phone with her every day. She presents updates: “It’s nice outside, so they’re out there sleeping somewhere.” Not much color there, but then, but they’re low-key floofies. My wife does tell me that Tucker sleeps with her every night. Papi, of course, wants out. I’ll be happy to be back with them.
The Neurons have plugged a Sly Fox song into the morning mental music stream (Trademark reflected). The group came out with “Let’s Go All the Way” in 1985. As an 1980s product, it offers an eclectic and intriguing mix of techno sounds with mellow, laid-back vocals.
What’s interesting about this song is that many perceived it as a tune about sex. The truth is, it’s about politics. Here’s the initial verse:
Sitting with the thinker
Trying to work it out
It’s a traffic jam of the brain
Makes you wanna scream and shout
Presidential party
No one wants to dance
Looking for a new star
To put you in a trance
And the chorus is about a better way:
Let’s go all the way
We need heaven on Earth today
Aah-aah-aah
We can make a better way
Let’s go all the way
Go all the way
Let’s go all the way
Yeah
h/t to Genius.com
I think The Neurons’ choice is pitch-perfect. We have that guy, Trump, a Bible Belt darling with some. He practices as they preach: hate and name-calling is his daily delivery, for, as the Bible orders, “Hate thy political opponent with all the anger on Earth.” Their Bible seems to also state, “Treat women like they have no rights. Grab by the pussy and move like a bitch. Cheat on thy wives and lust after thy daughter.”
Also in their Bible is the guidance about morals and ethics: “Lie and cheat to get ahead, for more money is key to your place in Heaven.”
So, my fellow Democrats, let’s go all the way. Vote out those MAGA Republicans and make it a better day.
Coffee has made its way to me. Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Then let’s work on restoring voting rights and women’s rights, and rights for everyone everywhere, and act like a compassionate nation that immigrants helped build, instead of treating them like garbage, as the MAGA Bible apparently directs.
Here’s the video. And there’s the rain. Cheers
Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts
I’d earlier reported that a friend was diagnosed with dementia.
That’s changed.
He doesn’t have dementia. Instead, he has blood cancer which affects his blood flow and the oxygen in his blood. His brain doesn’t get enough, causing cognitive issues.
It’s early days. While the news has changed, we’ll continue doing what we can to help and support him and his family and hope for the best. It’s all we can do, and it is so frustrating.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Mood: blllleeeack
I’m sitting in the house, staring at that air. Don’t need the air qual folks to know that’s hazardous stuff. Step out and you’re on a beach by a bonfire and a dull breeze is blowing the smoke into your face. We have fires to the south, north, west, and now east. Picked up one a few days ago. Whereas an easterly wind was delivering fresh breaths to us, now the wind from any direction carries smoke.
Fires to the south, in NorCal, are the most problematic, because that’s rough country. Power was cut to Crescent City, CA, out of worry, so they’re without over there on the coast. Up Highway 101 in Oregon, hotels and motels are full and price gouging is in full swing. Supply and demand.
And there go the trash people, picking up our refuse in this stuff. It’s early for them, so I think they’re hustling through it to get out of it.
Haven’t seen the sun yet. It’s light, so we know it’s out there. 59 F, it’s a chilly morning, post-night rain. No petrichor last night; just wet bonfire.
It’s Tuesday in Ashlandia, where the problems are real and the solutions are few. But that can be said for many places, yeah?
August 22, 2023. We as a people are gearing up for many things but that’s life, isn’t it? Gearing up. Getting ready. Preparing for the next big thing.
Smoke songs had Les Neurons by the throat this AM when I looked out and saw the situation. The morning mental music stream (Trademark iffy) boiled with smoke songs. Give it a second; hear any in your head? No “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”? Or “Smoke on the Water”? “Smoke From a Distant Fire”? “Smoke Two Joints”?
I told Der Neurons, “Don’t give me that stuff. I’m turning away from it.” Which started them on turning songs, like Pink Floyd, “On the Turning Away”. “No; that’s not what I meant,” I interjected. “I want clean air. Sunshine.” “Annie’s Song” began. “Closer. Think beach. Ocean. Water.” The Neurons came up with Jack Johnson, “Upside Down” (2006). I owe this to the line, “I wanna turn the whole thing upside down.” Noble sentiment, isn’t it? A world upside down for us would be a world where we’re working together as a species, caring for our planet, one another, and the animals, indivisible by borders, politics, wealth, religion, race, and gender. I always thought that’s what the US was aiming for, “One nation, indivisible.” Yeah, I left out the ‘under God’ aspect. I don’t put God into government.
Be strong and stay pos. Judging from my own balance today, it’s a challenge. Maybe coffee will help. One, two, three, what are fighting for? Oh, wait, wrong moment.
Here’s the music. Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music
No snow! Again. It’s like days in a row. The weather at last feels like an Ashlandia spring. We’ll pop up to 80 F today. Low in the bottom 40s. Sunrise quarter past six. Sunset after eight in the evening. This is what Daddy likes.
It’s April 26, 2023. Sad news that ispace lost contact with Hakuto-R. Latest theory they’ve put out is it unexpectedly accelerated and crashed on the moon while attempting its approach. Back to the drawing boards.
I’ve always been a proponent of exploring space and trying to reach other planets. Curiosity of what’s out there drives me. I know, many argue that we’re already screwing up Earth and have demonstrated ourselves to be poor caretakers of our home planet, so why should we ‘be allowed’ to go somewhere else. Also, space exploration is a little pricy. Cost more than my annual coffee budget. And we have so many problems in our society, unintended consequences of systems, practices, laws and technology. So much we have here we need to fix.
But I’m an optimist. I hope that going to space more will lift our spirits and encourage us to change. I know, I know but space travel and exploration opens possibilities, and fires hope and optimism. Of course my background is white male. American, sure of food and shelter. I know in an intellectual way that it’s way different for others in ways that I struggle to fully imagine and comprehend. I try. I try to empathize and sympathize and help. And I want for others to have at least the levels of comfort, security, access to equity, and opportunities that I’ve experienced.
Had a plethora of dreams again. Some involved Dad and painting. I’ll explore that more, I think.
Thoughts of space impelled Les Neurons to fire up “Rocket Man” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin 1972. Found a lovely video of John in concert with the song in 1972. Just fifty plus years ago, hey?
Stay pos and don’t let your fuse burn out. I’ve got some coffee if you need it. Maybe we can pass the cup.
Here’s the music. Enjoy. Cheers
The Writing Moment
His backside had landed on the writing seat. Critically, fresh coffee was at hand with its inspirational aroma. Writing yesterday began like he was trying to unlock a rust-infused iron lock. It became an enjoyable and productive session. In a better mood today, he hoped for like success. You could never tell how it would turn out. The important thing was to attack it and get it done, day by day, session by session.
The Writing Moment
The greatest aspect of writing fiction is that it’s full of potential of where it can go and what it can become.
Michael Seidel, writer 