Tuesday has slid in safe on October 8, 2024. Autmer continues holding the skies. Temp now feels like it’s 65 F but it’s only 56 F. What kind of madness is the weather doing to us, making the temperature feel so different from its actual temp? Makes me suspicious of the weather. Next thing you know, it’ll be raining but will feel like snow. Or it’ll be snowing or it’ll feel like sun.
The high will reach for the upper seventies and maybe get to the low eighties. Depends on its reach. Who knows what it’ll feel like? I think it’ll feel pretty good, no matter what the final temp. That range is ideal to me. Sky is again solidly blue. Yellow and red leaves are drifting from trees. The mood is shifting toward fall. People are decorating their houses for Halloween. So really get into it, but we’re more circumspect.
The price of candy is shocking us. My wife pointed it out at BiMart the other day: 5 pounds of candy for almost $40. Wow! Costco has 30 candy bars on sale for $32. Like, those are crazy prices to the boy who first began buying candy bars as a nickel treat. A nickel now won’t get you within smelling distance of the wrapper.
But this is change’s nature. Older friends talk in amazed tones about how the housing prices have changed. One was offered the chance to buy 6 acres for $50 grand decades ago. The deal outraged him. “Are you crazy?” he asked his friend. “I thought you were giving me a deal.”
“That is a deal,” the friend replied.
My buddy eventually bought a decade later for much, much more. Divided into quarter acre lots, those lots were now going $20 to $50 grand each. Things change, and prices are part of it.
Since I’m on my box and ranting, used to be that I got a haircut for one dollar. One dollar! Now I exit $25 to $30 lighter.
Housing, of course, is center stage in the price debate. Out here, ‘affordable housing’ is jumping over $200 to $300 K. Solution: built more housing. Problem: land. Water. Infrastructure. Rising costs of building more getting pushed further up by the rising need to build more.
Like many, I’m watching Hurricane Milton ploughing toward Florida. Was a cat 5 but has weakened to a 4 and may be a 3 before it hits, thank goodness. Fingers crossed.
Forgot to mention the SOU Pride Parade which took place the other day. I was kept from attending by other plans but I hear it went well. Here’s a link to the Ashland.news coverage with some pix. We also didn’t attend the OSF Gala but we heard from friends who didn’t attend that it was fun and raised $750 K for the festival’s 100 year celebration coming up.
We’re down to 28 days until election day. 28 days. We could make a movie about it. Call it “28 Days” or “28 Days Later”.
Thinking of that gap from here to there and the waiting, news, campaigning and hyperbole which must be endured encouraged The Neurons to fire up Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “The Waiting” from 1981 is rolling through the morning mental music stream (Trademark delayed). Wikipedia’s entry quotes Petty as being inspired by something Janis Jopin said.
Frontman Tom Petty explained that the song’s title was inspired by a quote from fellow musician Janis Joplin, who once said of touring, “I love being onstage and everything else is just waiting.”[4] He recalled:
That’s where I think I got it from … [Roger] McGuinn swears that he said it to me. Maybe he did. I don’t think so. I think I got it from the Janis Joplin quote. That’s where it stuck in my mind. I don’t think she said, ‘The waiting is the hardest part,’ but it was something to that effect: ‘Everything else is just waiting.’ And so that’s where that came from.
Got me to thinking…imagine Tom Petty and Janis Joplin performing live together. Would that have been cool or what?
Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee has cast its magic in me. Here’s the music. Cheers
The September Job Report came out. You may have heard about it. Way over expectations. Orgasmically great, to judge from multiple reactions from economists and economic advisors.
Critically, how it hits with ‘undecided voters’ is what has me on my chair’s edge. This is continued good news for the Biden economy. But those UVs are often puzzled about what is going on with the Biden economy and focus on how they will do in the Trump economy. After all, Trump promises great tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, which will trickle down and give these UVs an extra drop of discretionary income and a little wiggle room against the monthly vise grip of needs and expenses. Meanwhile, a veritable blizzard of explanations about Harris and her positions leave many UVs doubtful about Harris and her economic policies. Inflation, they cry as inflation continues trucking under three percent, close enough to the Fed’s 2.5 target that the Fed deemed it time to do something about interest rates.
I know, I’m riding UVs hard. Being merciless about their reasoning. UVs be like, “Well, it’d be more of the same with Democrats if I vote for Harris, who I don’t know much about because she’s only been the California AG, a Senator, and the Vice POTUS for almost four years after being a POTUS candidate in 2020, and we know those Democrats are in corporate pockets and will continue their warlike stance and maintain democracy and strive for civil rights for all. Or it’s Trump and his sweet merchandise deals like his golden shoes his cryptocurrency and that terrific line of watches, and the P2025 and book-banning pushers who back him and his efforts to torpedo democracy such as Jan 6., skirt accountability for what he says and does, and flops over on every issue, including abortion bans, but is consistently very sweet on dictators like Putin.”
Yep, we’ll just need to wait and see what those UVs say.
Wednesday slides into place with a click. Snuggles up to August 14, 2024.
Cool summer morning. Hints of spring in that mountain air feel. It’s 62 F under smoke-free blues skies. Another less-than-hot day is expected, with a high of just 85 F. Comes with an asterisk: rain is forecasted for the evening, with thunderstorms. The thunderstorms aspect causes a thoughtful hitch to mental processes. Thunderstorms mean lightning. Lightning means fires. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, we won’t get hit. We’ve been fortunate so far this year.
I kept the windows open all day yesterday, along with the back blinds. It reached 83 F at our house outside, but inside was a comfy 78.
Weird, though, it smells like rain right now. I see that clouds have cantered in. Maybe they’re just getting an early start on setting up.
The housefloofs are digging on this chill weather. Sauntering into sunny places after breakfast, they assumed the grooming position. A jay karens over to tell them they’re grooming wrong. Those jays are such know-it-alls.
Just finished reading of Ernesto. It’s a Cat 1 hurricane now. Already been troubling Puerto Rico, which really doesn’t need it. Puerto Rico and a hurricane of course triggers images of then President Trump tosses out paper towels.
Paper towels are not really effective hurricane assistance. What are you going to do, Bounty up the flooding with ten zillion paper towels? Think of how many trash cans that would fill.
BTW, in a bizarre mental twist, calling the storm a ‘Cat 1’ has me imagining a huge cat swatting things around as the hurricane’s energy source. I think I need more coffee.
Shout it from the deep state’s secret location rooftops: inflation is below 3%. All those deeply concerned handwringers on the right whining about inflation should shut it now — if they’re aware. That’s the bigger problem: they’re not sharp about history, a little fuzzy on words and their meanings, and often stumble over what’s in and not in the Constitution. Of course, their news diet contributes. The right wing news feed will make you sick.
We got the dance theme continuing for today. The Neurons brought up a friend’s favorite. We were working together back when the musical Mamma Mia! hit the scene in 1999. She was sooo excited about it. I was sort of, meh, so I asked, why does it have her so up? Well, high school, the prom, “Dancing Queen” was the rage then.
Right then, our age differences were momentarily magnified. But hang on, I said; that came out in the seventies. Right, she agreed, but there had been some kind of revival of it when she was in high school. I’d not heard about that, but then, I’d been out the country in the military. Anyway, to belabor the point, The Neurons have “Dancing Queen” by Abba circulating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark bebopping).
Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee is at hand, so here is the music. Cheers
“As inflation shot to its peak around mid-2022, Chipotle’s prices also rose, pushing up what customers paid for burritos and bowls by as much as several dollars. Since then, the fast casual restaurant’s costs have broadlyfallen. Prices have not.
“Chipotle’s decision to maintain high prices helped boost profits 110% in recent years, while its executives boasted to investors that they raised prices higher than inflationary costs.”
There’s a list of companies and their profits in the article. Like Cheesecake Factory, with a fat 471% increase. Won’t be going there, thanks.
TBH, I only visit three of these places and it’s not that frequently. My exception is Starbucks. They’re one of my regular Ashlandia coffee haunts because the local places that I loved are gone. That just sucks.
Meanwhile, as you prepare to vote and you hear people complain of inflation and high prices, mention this article. Also mention that energy companies have seen record profits as well.
Face it, boys and girls, as voters scream about inflation and corporations complain about wages, regulations, and taxes, corporate executives are becoming stupidly rich.
Today’s lifestyle is delivered to you by Monday. “Monday: always the best way to start a week.”sp
It’s 68 F and June 10, 2024. Continuing the sprummerish lead up to summer, we expect a high of 87 F. The sky presents no signs that 87 F won’t happen. Clouds are boycotting the area morning. The bluest skies are clear above the southern forested pinnacles.
I was reading the Frank Luntz piece about undecided voters and how Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts affected their voting decision. I was struck by the fact that several blamed it on President Biden. Makes no kind of fucking sense in a sane world. But to further the insanity, they suggested, what if Trump appeals his decision and wins that appeal?
Yes, quite a ‘what if’ idea, isn’t it? But it needled me to think, well, Jesus, if President Biden is so powerful that he can influence a state’s legal system and find twelve citizens that he somehow forces to call a guilty verdict, why in the world would this powerful individual not also have the appeals system sewn up? Because anyone with a tenth of an active working brain knew that Trump would appeal if found guilty. So that avenue would need to be covered, too.
Of course, several of these geniuses also speculated that it’s not much of a crime and that ‘they had been out for Trump’ since 2016.
Idiots.
Glad to get that rant out of my blood.
Also, to those who thought that they were ‘out to get Trump’, have you not followed Trump’s legal issues for the past forty years or more? Really, can you wake up and think a little?
Of course, one individual also kept saying, “It’s about the economy for me,” and was worried about inflation. He should really read some history about how we arrived at our current price levels.
Relating to nothing, BTW, did you see the news that Target, Aldi, Walgreens, and other retaillers were announcing price cuts because heir high prices were driving away customers? Really makes me fucking wonder how and why they’re suddenly able to announce that, hmmm?
Today’s music comes by way of a dream. I was awake at 5:27 this morning. Don’t know what awoke me. After hearing what sounded like four small-caliber gunshots, I checked on my floofs. Tucker was in but Papi was out on the back patio. He seemed to be watching something invisible to me but rushed in as soon as the door was ajar. As far as the shots go, morning silence resumed as if it’d never happened.
So back to bed I went, and to a dream. As I remembered it, I recalled that there was a comment made by my sister-in-law. We were at her wedding. She was marrying a guy I’d never met. Weirdly she was really tall, towering over me by about thirty inches. Anxious to get out of there, she said, “I want this done. I’m worried about the weather. Remind me to tell Becky (her daughter), I need to get through everything before the weekend.”
Okay. I brooded on that a bit, but The Neurons launched 10,000 Maniacs with “Like the Weather” from 1988 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark under the weather). I found this lovely live version. Such a mellow and reflective song.
Got my coffee soothing The Neurons. Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024 for a saner, cleaner world. Here’s the music. Cheers
Today is Tuesday, Dec 19, 2023. Just two days till December 21, when winter solstice in the north and summer solstice down below the equator, arrives. Up here we’re counting down to the ‘shortest day of the year’ as so many glibly phrase it. It means we’ll have the shortest period of sun exposure. But solstice is a few days later in Ashlandia; December 21 is an average. Our shortest day lands seven about a week later.
It’s been a really mild winter so far. Today it’s 55 F and rainy. Although indicators say this will continue, weather can change faster than a floof runs to get a treat. But no snow is bad news for the summer, as we depend on our melting mountain snow packs to keep filling our cisterns and reservoirs. So, fingers crossed, snow will come.
Been thinking about inflation. I’m a Paul Krugman fan. Been reading him for decades. But he’s insisting that inflation has gone down but mentions that people like me think it hasn’t because we’re paying more for things than we used to. Paul says the economy is actually good, and President Biden is getting a bad rap over it.
I won’t go into the variations of inflation that exist or how they track it. For me, it comes down to paying much more for car and house insurance than before, higher rates for my water, service fees, home gas and electricity, cat food, and much more for gas for my car. We buy organic and jeez have those prices jumped. Eating out gives me sticker shock almost every time, and beer, wine, and coffee also all cost more, definitely discretionary purchases but, hey, it’s all part of my life style.
Then, housing. Wow. I’ve been considering a move to another part of the nation. Housing is part of the equation to learn where we’ll drop. They’ve always talked about how expensive California housing is, and some parts of Oregon, but looking through New England prices has me reaching for sedatives to calm my nerves. Pennsylvania and Ohio prices are lower than Ashlandia, and more house can be acquired there, but not in New England. There’s also a huge rise in the number of condos and town homes being built. I don’t want to live in either of those because I’ve done it before and I dislike dealing with management over what I can or can’t do with my domicile. There are enough layers or law that I don’t need another layer, especially one that I pay for through things like HOAs. No thanks.
Had to get that off my chest.
Shifting gears to music, I had “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” pinging around the morning mental music stream (Trademark unverified) for a while this morning. That’s ‘cuz we saw The Wizard of Oz on Sunday and my wife decided to walk around the house singing about the witch’s death this morning. With less than an eyeblink, The Neurons had it playing over and over and over in my head. I think that kind of thing can drive one insane.
But then I began reading the news and something, something, once again, said or done in the name of god and Jesus to justify being cruel or empty headed was read. I don’t know if it was about the hypocritical Zieglers in Florida, or Trump and the Evanges, or Ohio’s Attorney General, or the Pope, or the AG of Texas or some crap out of the Moms of Liberty. They all stay in the news with their twisted logic about God, religion, and our nation and laws.
Out of that morass of misinformation and misogyny, The Neurons came up with Joan Osborne’s hit song of 1992, “One of Us”. This is a song about god being a slob like one of us, living a life like average humans, riding the bus, going home.
An enticing, intriguing idea. What if the crazy dude talking to himself in the corner is god? Or that women behind the counter with all the piercings is god? What if all these people that go around, trying and struggling, or at home, baking for a holiday, or drinking alone in a house at night while watching some rerun are god? No magic or power, no all-knowing, no one any more or less special than a person walking by you? Strong medicine for the mind to contemplate.
Stay pos, be strong, lean forward, and press on. Coffee is being consumed by the cup here. Here’s the music. Cheers
While visiting in Pittsburgh for a wedding, we spoke with some rabid MAGAts. Common ground was found around three things:
We don’t like the country’s current direction (but disagree on why, except inflation)
Term limits are needed for US representatives and senators.
A age limit is also needed for all Federally elected offices.
Unfortunately, we agreed, the ones most responsible for the mess are also the ones who can effect change easiest but passing laws for numbers two and three from our list.
We know that the final problem is, these elected representatives of, by, and for the people, will never pass laws which make them more responsible to the people.
So, really, we had five things we agreed upon in our search for common ground. None of us were real thrilled with most aspects of the media, too.
Into Saturday’s bloom of light we go! Despite the bloom, the 38 degrees F has the cats saying, give me a little warmth, sugar.
Today is November 12, 2022. We were out shopping yesterday. High inflation didn’t seem to keep anyone home on this holiday. Stores and restaurants were as filled as unopened cans of beer. Masks were worn by relatively few. We felt special having them on. We’re due for our next boosters next Friday. Looking forward to the happening.
Meanwhile, though we’re speeding toward Thanksgiving in the U.S., stores looked like Christmas exploded all over them. Other pieces of the holiday season such as Kwanza and Hanukkah were missing. As the wife noted, “Looks like they’re betting big on Christmas spending this year.”
Despite forecasts to the contrary, the sun got comfortable behind a fortress of clouds and let rain soak us. Good to have rain but snow on the mountains are what we need. Today again looks mostly sunny. 47 is the expected high, in Fahrenheit. The sun conducted its dawn blooming at 6:57 AM. The sun will close up shop and take away its light and heat bonanza at 4:52 PM, when the Earth spins our area away, crying as it does, “Away! Away with thee.”
Although sleep delivered a plethora of dreams, several of which involved bars, computers, and beer, I have a song called “I Wish You Love” inhabiting the morning mental music stream. Its presence flabbergasts me and The Neurons, technically referred to as satanistic boogerheads, are being surly and silent about it. I don’t know which version is in my head. I mean, yeah, it’s the English language version, but which performer? I know it’s female and a rendition as old as me. This is one of those songs that often turned up on Mom’s turntable during the winter season. Yes, we’re not in the winter season yet, and no snowflakes are falling. So, why dear Neurons, why?
Someday, perhaps technology will emerge with the means to tell us what our neurons are thinking.
Stay positive and test negative. I’m going for a coffee topoff, as there are mini cranberry cherry scones in the kitchen whispering invitations to eat them up. Here’s the music. Hope you know the song. If you don’t, let me introduce you. I ended up with the Judy Garland version, as I think it’s closest to the one in my head.
Corporations will be corporations. They’re formed to make money, no matter what the fuck is going on around them. We need some kind of governor for their greed.
Of course, this is CNN reporting what they ‘claimed’ the companies reported, so it’s probably fake news, right?
I received a haircut today, the first in two months. It was a few weeks overdue. My hair is losing its presence on top and my forehead keeps pushing my hair line back. Hair grows thick and heavy on my sides and back, and still falls in waves of curls. The whole thing can become an unmanageable beast, fighting me about what I want it to do. It won a few times this week. I finally acquiesced to a growing need to deal with it.
Part of my reluctance is the pandemic protocols. We’re in a small town. Not many barber shops, salons, and stylists are among the businesses. Our town is oriented toward college students and tourists, translating business needs into drinking and eating establishments – pizza, restaurants, and beer, wine, coffee, and pastries. Scattered among them are gas stations, grocery stores, clothing boutiques, and bookstores.
Places catering to hair are less frequent. Almost all closed on Sunday and Monday. Most close early on Saturdays. The windows to get a haircut get perilously small. Pandemic closures meant less people working in these places. Appointments are the norm, and they’re precious. I was turned away because nothing was available at three locations in the course of five attempts spent over three days.
An appointment for a haircut. That blows away my youthful memories of walking into quiet establishments, taking a number, and waiting ten to fifteen minutes. In my military days, aka my youth, I had more hair to cut and more frequent needs to cut it to meet regulations. But the prices were better. In the beginning, we’re talking $1.10 for a haircut. Slowly it went to two dollars…five…ten…
Today, I spent $30 with a tip to trim my silvery locks and tame my curls. But I put the $30 haircut into context with coffee. I used to spend fifty cents to a dollar for a cup of coffee. I spent $4 on a cuppa today. Filling my car with gas cost six dollars for a time back then, compared to the fifty I just put out. Yeah, bread was two dollars a loaf, and it now runs $7. It was white bread back then, and now it’s multigrain, and I buy it cheaper at Costco, which wasn’t around back in those days. Cat food was a quarter a tin. Now it hits a dollar each. Hell, I remember spending $7,000 to buy a new Firebird, an expense that took a deep breath to decide after hours of calculations and days of mental wrestling. Good luck finding a new car, loaded, for seven grand these days.
I’ll just put in a mention about real estate. We bought our first place for half a million dollars. Family, still used to lower prices, were stunned. It wasn’t a large place, a sixteen hundred square foot condo, three bedrooms, three baths, two car garage, three stories. My family was more astonished when we sold that place after a few years for three hundred grand more than we paid. I was astonished, too. That was almost twenty years ago.
Context. It all costs more now — houses, cars, air fare, food, clothing, and yeah, haircuts. I look good, though. Young Megan, probably in her twenties, did a good job.
Michael Seidel, writer 