Thursday’s Theme Music — Little Things
Ashland, southern Oregon. Thursday, August 20, 2026.
Buckle up: supposed to be hot today, 100F. High small puffy clouds dot the blue sky. The sun feels like someone turned it up to eleven. Although it’s only 71, the ‘feels like’ is 85 F.
Spent time this morning on Watch Duty reviewing the state of wildfires in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and California. A depressing exercise.
Still waiting for Mom’s house to close. Gina, my sister who now oversee Mom’s finances, was complaining about how much Mom spent on Amazon on lipstick, diapers, clothes, shoe polish, and other things. Gina wanted me to tell Mom about how much money Gina thought Mom is wasting.
I said no. Not doing it. Bought Mom an Amazon gift card instead, to help her with these expenses. Mom doesn’t have much of a life these days, and now you’re pressing to nickel and dime her?
We’re into some deep WTF territory with Trump this week as he went on about flagpoles.
To be fair, his flagpole riff seemed a lot like his grass riff. He does love to declare himself an expert, knowing more than anyone, about many things.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Trump did pay $100K for these flagpoles last year. But then the servant of We the People could afford it, as he raked in $3B for his first year in office. 100K/3,000,000K = .003%
Trump is so generous, right? Especially since We the People paid about $100M for Trump’s golfing in 2025.
Trump’s gift of ‘most magnificent’ flagpoles and flags celebrated at the White House
I label the flagpoles another cheap installment of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! Trump bloviates about flagpoles as gas prices climb again. Diesel prices have jumped 15 cents to $5.47 per gallon, which adds to the cost of transporting just about everything.
But do please tell us more about the shape of your flagpole, Donald Trump.
People should know Trump is saying these things and quit treating him like he’s stable or a genius. He’s a criminal, head of a criminal enterprise. They need to wake up to that but probably won’t until Trump steals them blind.
All these things — big and little — Trump does stack up into one large mess.
I ended up with “Little Things” by Bush in my morning mental music stream. Released in 1995, it was all about how little things add up to dwarf your sense of self and what is possible.
Sample Lyrics
The river is loaded, I’ve been there today
Took it some questions, she does me again
I’d die in your arms if you were dead too
Here comes a lie, we will always be true
Going up when coming down
Scratch away-way-way-way-way
It’s the little things that kill
Tearin’ at my brain again
Oh, the little things that kill
The little things that kill
Bigger you give, bigger you get
We’re boss at denial but best at forget
The cupboard is empty, we really need food
Summer is winter and you always knew
Going up when coming down
Scratch away-way-way-way-way
It’s the little things that kill
Tearin’ at my brains again
Oh, the little things that kill
Tearin’ at my brains again
Yeah, it’s the little things that kill. Trump — and more importantly, the masterminds behind him, Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 — knows this.
May you surmount the little things with peace and grace today and every day.
Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music — Frank Beard
Ashland, southern Oregon. Wednesday, August 19, 2026.
August is moving on slow as molasses for me. I’m okay with that.
The claim is that it’ll be 96 F today. Forecasts yesterday said we’d hit 95 but we were four short of that. It’s 68 outside with high clouds clotting across the blue sky.
Our fingers are crossed that Mom’s house will finally close today. The buyers are using a grant to buy. The involved realtors say that the grant review and approval process has significantly slowed this year. It’s a federal program. A large part of me wonders if the Trump administration with its personnel cutbacks is responsible.
I’m not going to go into news and politics much on this post today. Writing a separate post on them.
I’m dedicating this instead to ZZ Top and Frank Beard. ZZ Top is an American rock band which had a heavy blues influence in its early years. They were a trio: Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard. I started listening to them in high school. Saw them in concert a few times. Now only Billy Gibbons, lead vocalist, guitar, and song writer remains as Frank Beard, 77, joined Dusty Hill in that big gig in the otherworld.
I basically divide ZZ Top’s sound into two eras. In their early years was that blues sound. Multiple favorite songs hang with me from that period. For today, I’ll go with “La Grange” and “Jesus Left Chicago”.
The second period moved ZZ Top more into commercial mainstream pop. They became phenomenally successful. My preferred sound from that era was “Sharp Dressed Man”, which my wife and I liked to sing as ‘short, fat man’.
So here we go, into the morning mental music stream. May your day be blessed with happy memories of good music and good times, and optimism for our future.
Cheers
Almost Bookends
My sister, Gina, sent some photos out to the family this morning. They’re almost bookends of Mom’s adult life.
This is Mom with her first born, my older sister, Debby.
This is actually a photo of a photo that hung on the wall. Mom is 19.
Here is Mom with me and my wife at Mom’s house about twenty years ago, in much happier times for Mom.
What’s wild in thinking about this photo is that I was fifty and Mom was my current age, 70.
That’s why taking these photos, which may not mean much at the time, can become timeless and special.
Fired At Work Dream
I was working for a small startup. Don’t know what the business was supposed to be but the dream featured many real-life co-workers. Among these was a person I worked for, LD; LD fired in my dream.
The firing shocked me. But I had made a stand against not doing something which LD advocated that I found shady. (That, BTW, is completely contrary to LD’s real-world ethics.) Telling me that I was fired, LD added that I was being given $28,000 in severance, along with $6K to $8K in other expenses. Not a bad package but I still brooded over being fired. Given till the day’s end to clear out my desk, coworkers, the CEO, and several of the directors from other departments, came by, expressing support for me.
I then had to feed the cat. That was my real-life cat, Jade, who passed away twenty years ago. Not feeding her right was apparently part of the complaint against me, which I found laughable as she gobbled up the food I gave her.
Then I left. I ended up hitching a ride with four co-workers in a red VW Beetle. Two of them were female. A friend of mine from current real-life, Bob, was present. Bob was very drunk and angry about me being fired. He was playing something called ‘the dictionary game’. I couldn’t figure it out. Bob, having won, got out of the car to go home. He beat on the car’s window then, telling me that they were wrong to fire me. Then he walked off.
Dream end
Sunday’s Theme Music – Trapped
Bandon, southern Oregon coast. Sunday, August 16, 2026
It’s clear and sunny, 61 F, here in Bandon. Supposed to rise to 66 F here.
Last night was clear and beautiful, to be sure. We stopped on the way to dinner to see what was left of the circles.
As you see, they were totally gone by then. Still, breathtaking to gaze across the beach and ocean while soaking in sunshine.
Didn’t read much news yesterday. I did read this Jamelle Bouie opinion in NYT about Trump’s fantasyland. Which, yes, I believe this, based on all that I’ve seen and heard from Trump, and the results.
“Trump, according to Haberman and Swan, has not simply junked this process in its entirety — he has set up his White House to affirm his frequently arbitrary instincts above all other considerations. He has insulated himself from opposing views and made internal dissent verboten. At no point does Trump receive neutral information; just about everything is tailored to his whims, impulses and mercurial disposition. The result is that he is isolated from reality to the extent that he is practically living in a fairy tale.
“Haberman and Swan describe a Trump who cannot see beyond the first few steps of any given action and is constantly taken aback by political obstacles and backlash. Recent controversies, from the depletion of our military’s stock of sophisticated munitions to worsening conditions on some of our naval vessels, are easier to fathom when you consider the strong odds that Trump is told precious little about the actual conditions of his war. More likely, he is told what he wants to hear: that America is winning and Iran is on the verge of surrender.
“So far, much of the destruction of the second Trump administration is self-inflicted. It is Trump and his allies who have wrecked the administrative state, undercut science and mired the country in a new Middle East quagmire. There has not yet been an external crisis — the kind of catastrophic event that demands an active and effective leadership. Through their reporting, Haberman and Swan make clear that if and when this country faces such a crisis, both the president and his administration will be caught flat-footed.”
The worse for me remains that the GOP condones this policy by fantasy by not talking about it or taking action, while MAGAts pretty gleefully support it until FAFO smacks them in the face.
Till Trump is back out of office, we’re trapped in a box. The Neurons responded to that thought with “Trapped in A Box” by No Doubt in my morning mental music stream. Song came out 1992. The song came out of a poem the drummer wrote. Although it didn’t chart in the US, I sometimes heard the song on the alt adult stations I often listened to as I drove around the SF-SJ Bay Area. I always thought the song has a Squirrel Nuts Zipper vibe to it.
Sample Lyrics
Trapped in a box of tremendous size
It distorts my vision, it closes my eyes
Attracts filthy flies and pollutes in the skies
Sucks up our lives and proliferates lies
Trapped in a box
Trapped in a box, four walls as sky
Got a screen for a window about two feet wide
My mind rides and slides as my circuits are fried
No room for thought, use the box as my guide
Trapped in a box
Ooh, trapped in a box
Watch the world as it flocks
To life’s paradox
We’re all trapped in a box
Hope you’re not trapped in a box, but enjoying a day of peace, grace, and good health.
It’s off to a walk on the beach for me. Cheers
