Tuesday’s Theme Music — Jail
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, July 14, 2026.
Gonna be hot today, probably 96. Reached 96 yesterday, too. Today’s sky offers blue, blue, blue, and blue wherever you look. It’s a comfortable 74 degrees F right now with a mild breeze gracing us.
It’s the birthday for one of my younger cousins today, but she passed away from cancer several years ago. I remember her with fondness for who she was, sadness for her reduced life and the disease she endured.
Trump announced another blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in conjunction with his war on Iran. Then Trump said that he was going to charge ships a 20% fee to go through, something well-established as illegal.
Then Trump TACOed and rescinded that announcement.
I suspect it was just another Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! move. Keep us distracted from his many failures and setbacks, such as that other distraction, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool fiasco, and that mess called the Epstein Ballroom, sartorially named after Trump’s good friend.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Judge Kathleen Williams blocked Trump’s sweeping IRS settlement. If you remember, Trump sued the IRS, demanding $10,000,000,000 in damages. The DOJ announced a settlement between the IRS and Treasury in which a victim fund of $1.47B was established to be paid out. It also said the IRS agreed never to audit Trump and his family and their businesses or tax returns.
Judge Williams found some problems with the settlement.
I read her 56-page ruling yesterday, skipping many of the footnotes and some of the legal precedents. Fun read, though.
The Federal judge said this is a case of Trump against Trump, with Trump controlling both sides. She cited Trump’s early Executive Orders when he took office for his second term, noting that he made it clear that he was in charge of the executive branch and all of its offices, personnel, and decisions. As the case pitted the Treasury against the IRS and both of them are part of the Executive Branch, and Trump controls both, it’s like arguing with yourself.
Judge Williams also went on to note the lack of evidence, documentation, and statements made by the defendants. All this pointed to a lack of adversity, so the two sides were not arguing about anything. There were also a few comments made about the lawyers, and things the lawyers said in testimony to Congress and public statements.
Along with all that, she found the fund they established as a ‘settlement’ made no sense, because it awarded money to be given to parties unrelated to the lawsuit, and it established no means for controlling it.
I like the way that Judge Williams put it after laying out her reasoning:
“The Parties used the existence of federal litigation as a means of conferring
legitimacy upon a course of action that they were unwilling to subject to judicial review.
The context of the “settlement,” the relationships of the people involved in negotiating and
approving it, the ethical implications of their conduct, and the Parties’ swift efforts to
dismiss this case after the Court raised fundamental jurisdictional questions all support
this conclusion.”
Other news found the Trump Administration unfreezing money meant for blue states. Trump had the $10B HHS funds for the five states frozen, claiming that they were perpetuating fraud. Standard for Trump, he offered little evidence for his claim and made sweeping allegations.
The affected states sued. A federal judge blocked the freeze and mandated that Trump administration needed to explain why they’d frozen the money and justify their action. Rather than share their thinking, the money was unfrozen.
Trump also finally paid the $5M plus interest Trump owed E. Jean Carroll. A court ruled three years ago that Trump owed her the money for sexually assaulting her in 1996 and defaming her.
After all that, I was thinking about Trump and jail. The Neurons noticed and slotted a Thin Lizzy song into the morning mental music stream, “Jailbreak”. *smile*
I hope this day gives you many reasons to smile and be happy.
Cheers
The Rabbit Dream
I was at an outdoor gathering with others. None were ‘real-life’ friends. I knew them casually in the dream, as we’d just completed some kind of training or gathering.
Setup was very casual, and I was much young then my RL age. Just wrapping up, I received notifications and tickets about my travel plans. I glanced at them but didn’t read them deeply, just making myself aware of what they were.
Walking across a large swath of grass towards where the others were with food, grill, picnic tables, I came across a large brown rabbit. It was watching me as I walked by, and I realized, oh, it’s hungry.
So I said, “Are you hungry?”
Wagging it tail, it hopped toward me.
I chuckled to myself. “Why, you’re just like a cat or a dog, aren’t you?” Then, walking on, I added, “Wait here. I’ll get you something to eat.”
The others were sitting around the tables, bullshitting. We’d eaten earlier. I was trying to figure out, what does a rabbit eat? But I knew what a rabbit ate; I didn’t see anything like that on the table or grill. I only saw buns and cookies. Then I did notice a little salad left.
I casually picked up a few things, including a cookie, not wanting to share with the others that I was feeding the rabbit. The rabbit jumped up on the table and began eating.
Pretending to be upset, I chided the rabbit, “Get down off the table, you’re not supposed to be eating that.”
But I thought, that’s what I’ll give the rabbit to eat.
The rabbit jumped down. One of the guys there said, “You were going to feed that rabbit, weren’t you?”
I denied it, but he went on, “You were going to give him that cookie.”
Shrugging, I replied, “So what if I was?”
Giving the rabbit food, I walked away. Remembering my tickets, I pulled them out to check the details. Everything was washed out by water spots.
For a moment, I thought, how did that happen?
Then I was angry about it. One of the others walked past and asked, “How’s it going?”
I explained what had happened, showing my tickets. They said, “Same thing happened to me. What are you going to do?”
I replied, “I’ll just go to the airport. There will be someone there who can help me.” Shrugging, I thought, there could also be an administrator here who could help.
As I began looking around, trying to figure out where to go to find the administrator, the dream ended.
Tiny Newcomer
I took a break from writing to walk around outside. As I went, I thought, gosh, I don’t see any deer. In the spring and winter, there’s often five to nine hanging around the cemetery. In the spring, I typically encounter three or four eating in a yard somewhere or crossing a street. Just the other day, when it was cooler, I found three young bucks in a yard, chilling in a plum tree’s shade. Today, nothing.
Then — across the street from the coffee shop is a house. And there, by the front steps, I saw my first deer of the day.
I offered a silent prayer to the world to help this little one have a good, healthy life while wondering where mama was, hoping she was near — which is what I suspect — and would soon return.
It’s a gentle reminder among the streets, politics, and technology, about how basic and beautiful life can be.
A Dad Leak Dream
There was a leak in the bathroom.
A thick tube of clear water spurted out of the wall. White tiles had been removed above the tub about five feet up. Oh, dear, what a mess, with some black fuzzy thing happening in the opening.
A trio of engineers, casually dressed, of different styles, heights, ages, one woman, two men, came in on behalf of the townhouse association. Because this wasn’t unique to this townhouse. It’d happened throughout the complex. This trio was going unit to unit to assess and strategize. I was just watching them from back by the door, listening as they ignored me. The spoke of how to fix it, what must be done.
Leaving, I headed across a common through sunshine to my own townhouse because, hey, that had been my father’s place, which slightly changed everything. He wasn’t there to look after it, so I was acting on his behalf.
I entered my own townhouse where the same problem existed but seemed to be on a much smaller scale. Some wall had been removed from the bathroom to the right which didn’t seem to have anything to do with the leak. I didn’t understand what that was about but I knew where to go for explanation.
I sought that women and this little rotund blonde explained something that kind of made sense and eased my anxieties. Going off again, I found I had a broken arm. No, not broken, just not working right. I’d been advised to keep it in a sling. I didn’t have a sling, so I fashioned one, and then modified it again and again, decided this was a good place to keep things, like my wallet, keys, and glasses.
So I tucked them in but then needed more material, so I added other things, and reshaped it, and reshaped it. People were going past as I did this and I turned away, trying to keep things private.
I decided to call my stepmother to tell her about Dad’s townhouse. Then I realized that Dad was dead and this was a dream. That I had actually a dream in a dream, and that the townhouse with the plumbing problem wasn’t real.
But I called my stepmother. I said, “I was thinking about Dad because it’s his birthday.” Then I realized, that’s not right. I said, “No, because it was my birthday.”
She was talking but it came to me, this call isn’t happening; it’s also a dream.
I awoke.
Medical Update
Received my biopsy results the other day and saw my urologist today.
The TURBT procedure seemed to get all of the cancer. Didn’t get into the muscle tissue, blood, or connective tissue.
That’s all good news.
My bladder seems to be healing well, based on observations. No pain, clearer urine.
The next steps begin in August, maybe September. After my bladder has healed from its surgery, we’ll begin a series of BCG washes. This is an instillation of tuberculosis bacilli into the bladder. This trains the immune system to attack the disease. It then also attacks any cancer cells which dare to show. I’ll go through that once a week for four to six weeks. There’s a less than 1% chance that I’ll develop TB from it.
CT scans with contrast will follow after the BCG wash protocol to see what shows in my bladder. Cystoscopy if or as necessary to see what’s in there. Three-year follow up program of checking and washes.
First steps have been taken. While it’s all positive to date, it won’t be done for a while. Meanwhile, I’m energetic. In good spirits. Overweight — got to eat less and exercise more, but I can’t exercise properly for two more weeks — but optimistic.
Thanks for all the support. I’ll try to reciprocate to the best I can.
Cheers
A Gun & Zombie Dream
My wife and I and others were being chased by zombies. Fighting them off, we’d taken refuge in a large building. Seemed like some manner of old mansion, maybe. Don’t know.
During the fight, I’d managed to arm myself with two weapons. One was a large but old revolver. Basically, a six-shooter. The other was a modern 9mm handgun, black and cold.
I kept one in each hand as I met the new people, survivors like us. It was chaotic. I was edgy, tense, a little angry. People seemed to be doing stupid things, leaving doors and windows open. I kept going around, closing these things, looking for food, telling others to be careful.
They didn’t seem to be responding well to my comments. They weren’t angry or anything but seemingly oblivious. As I processed that, I concluded that I needed to establish a safe little place for me and my wife in that larger area, and went up some wooden stairs in such of such a place.
I kept my weapons with me. At one point, though, talking with another, I noticed that the revolver had some pink material. Opening the cylinder, I found that each round had the striking end covered in a bright pink wad of cloth, a safety thing I concluded, with some alarm. If I’d tried using that weapon, it probably wouldn’t have fired.
Meanwhile, I wondered, was the 9mm okay, or did it have something like that? But I’d seen the magazine and I thought I’d fired it once without problem, so I thought it was okay.
The dream ended with me trying to remove the pink wadding from the revolving.
The Naha Dream
Another dream from last night found my wife and I arriving on an island – not deserted but civilized, part of a nation.
We were younger, in our thirties. Don’t know why we were there, but we were returning.
After disembarking from a red and white ferry, we found our car, got in, and began driving home. Leaving the port parking area, we were behind a small, old, Army-green bus. I knew that the driver – a man about my age – had been on the same boat as me, along with a group of quiet, sullen children.
Both of us drove over and parked at a little office to get cleared to go. I arrived there, went in, got my paper and got clearance.
Back in my car with my wife, we prepared to go on. Watching that slow-moving old green bus, I said, “Oh, no, don’t get in front of us.”
He did, pulling slowly onto the narrow, paved road. The road had a few potholes and high berms where the shoulders had crumbled and the dirt washed away. The green bus belched dark smoke.
I figured I was in for a long, slow trip behind that bus. My wife and I talked about the bus. But the bus pulled over to the right. Getting out of the bus, the driver waved us down.
He asked, “Do you know how to get to Naha?”
“Naha?” My wife and I were surprised, taken aback.
He continued on his own, explaining, “I’m going to go fishing there.”
I thought, fishing at Naha? “Yes,” my wife and I answered, talking at the same time. I took the lead. “Keep going on this road. There’s a intersection where you go right. There’s a brown sign that says ‘Naha’ on.”
“Is it a big sign?” he asked.
I laughed. “No, it’s one of those little military signs.” He looked military so I guessed he would understand that. “It’s brown but it’s by itself. You won’t miss it.”
He walked away and my wife and I drove on. “Fishing at Naha?” we said back and forth, wondering, is he taking the children to go fishing at Naha? We could think of better places to go but that was his business.
Dream end
