Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Mom’s house went on the market last week in Penn Hills. Four offers were made in the three days it was on the market. Two of those offers were upped after their agents were told of the other offers.
An offer was accepted today. Now we wait as inspections are done, etc. It was above asking price. If all goes well, it’ll close in July.
Thanks for all the good wishes, prayers, and energy.
Cheers
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, June 6, 2026.
It’s cloudy today in the valley. Same morning cool air, 50 F. We’ll sprint up to 64 F before the evening cooling begins again.
Quiet back east, in Pittsburgh. Nothing from Mom and my sisters for over sixteen hours. More showings are scheduled for Mom’s house, and more donations of clothing and furniture are being made.
I’m watching Trump’s Great American State Fair slowly imploding, along with his UFC fight. He makes it about him, and he makes it hateful and divisiveness. We the People, along with many artists and celebrities, respond, sorry, I’m not into those values, and I’m not that into you.
Trump takes that all personally. He spins fast to his favorite style of denigrating them. His America250 committee selected performers and artists presumably because they had some cachet, were known and successful acts, things like that.
Once they turn down the gig, Trump calls them all third-rate. If he’s right, then, only ‘third-rate’ acts agreed to his celebration and then even they turned him down. Which means, if I follow the thread right, means that Trump and his ‘celebration’ must be fourth-rate, or worse.
Trump’s war with Iran continues toward 100 days. Despite the cease-fire, there was more back and forth military strikes yesterday.
I don’t think Iran is interested in ending the war through negotiations. I wouldn’t, were I in their shoes. Trump’s war is disrupting political and military alliances and supply chains, causing increased prices. These then cause Trump’s popularity and effectiveness to decline.
With the US already polarized, there’s increased fragmentation as some of the GOP turns on Trump. The US is a mess, paralyzed by these politics and an ineffective Congress.
So why would Iran rush to end the war? Every day it goes on marginalizes Trump and the US. Trump has no cards. All he can do is threaten more violence. That violence comes with escalating costs to his image, ego, and human life. No, Trump doesn’t care about human life, but enough voters do that he’s feeling it.
Trump also pardoned another person.
Your Trump Lie — er, Quote — of the Day:
Trump butchered the truth and history. Someone commenting on it told the real story behind Trump’s claims:
“Troy Lake, the owner of Elite Diesel Service Inc. in Colorado, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act by disabling emissions monitoring systems on hundreds of heavy-duty commercial trucks. He also faced over $50,000 in combined fines. Lake served about seven months in federal prison before being released to house arrest to finish his sentence. Subsequently, President Donald Trump granted him a full, unconditional pardon, completely erasing his conviction and penalties.” NOT 7 YRS, NOT HIS OWN VEHICLE AND BREAKING THE LAW FOR HIS OWN PROFIT, much like Trump!“
Proving once again, Trump can’t be believed. Distrust and verify.
MAGA ate it up, though. That means a lot to Trump’s ego.
Gas prices are down, but the national average is $4.24. The high fuel prices are affecting Americans’ travel and leisure plans.
Today’s music is “Misguided Angel” by Cowboy Junkies. A novel I was reading referenced the song. Hadn’t heard it in a while so I pulled it up last night on Youtube and listened to it. Such a sweet, powerful song, about a woman in love with a guy who is not good for her because of his temperament. The singer is fearful of him yet stays with him because of love. It becomes about the courage needed for her to do that.
That’s the kind of truth art often shows us. That things are not black and white but are mired in complications. Love and emotion are often our greatest complications.
The Neurons liked it and it was still in my morning mental music stream today. So here it is.
May your Saturday proceed with peace and grace.
Cheers
Ashland, southern Oregon — Friday, June 5, 2026.
Blue sky, cool air, and sunshine marks the valley. We’re at 59 F and expect a high of the upper seventies.
In Mom’s world, it’s been quiet on her health. No feedback from her visit to the hospital ER and the tests they ran. On the housing side of it, there’s a good offer on Mom’s house. I voted to take it, but they have opted to wait and see if more come in. The offer expires tomorrow night.
Read some good news for Australia. Their Cockroach King has been arrested. The US Cockroach King remains in the White House.
In depressing US news, the Roberts Court ruled Alabama can use its new Congressional map. A lower court found it racial. But the Roberts Court, hiding behind the shadow docket, said, “It’s good,” without bothering to sign their opinion. This is the John Roberts’ legacy.
Trump’s legacy is war, lies, and fake news. News reports are bubbling over the job reports. Based on economic factors and indicators, economists were expected another bad one. Gosh, somehow the Trump appointee managed to find ‘good’ numbers.
No, the numbers aren’t sterling. I expect them to be revised downward in a few months or exposed as fake. That’s in keeping with Trump’s preaching. He’s always shouting fake news, fake news while lying about what’s happening or planned.
He lied and promised no new wars, claimed the war was over, and we won, and yet, the war goes on. So, no, I don’t believe anything come out of the Trump administration.
I don’t have a Trump Quote of the Day available. Instead, I offer this image of Trump celebrating Pride Month.
The Epstein ballroom remains under construction. Trump’s war on Iran is closing on 100 days. The national debt is still growing, as is the national deficit.
I got a song stuck in my morning mental music stream: “Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now”. The song, from 1987, was performed by Starship. It’s the theme song to the move, “Mannequin”. I have never seen it.
I don’t know why The Neurons planted it in my morning stream. I was doing my dream recall routine and the song started. It doesn’t seem to be specifically related to any part of any dream, though. Hope you enjoy it.
Enjoy your first June Friday! Hope peace, happiness, and joy fill it.
Cheers
I was at the front door, staring at the corner to my right. My wife joined me.
We stared together. “The big spider is gone,” I said.
She and I looked around to see if the big spider was just outside of its usual location. “I don’t see her,” I announced. “You?”
“Maybe he went somewhere else,” my wife replied.
The big spider is a ‘daddy longlegs’. I always thought it was a female because it was large spider. Spiders need to carry eggs so the larger ones tend to be female.
My wife disagreed. “I read that some large daddy longlegs are males.”
Windows flank our front door. The big spider had been in the right window for months, a sentry against insect invaders. I’d watch her web become larger and larger. Some days, I came in and she was actively adding threads. I couldn’t figure out the design, though. Made no sense to me at all.
We didn’t mind the spider’s presence or its web. Never bothered us, so we didn’t bother her. Papi never gave her a glance. Although he’s gone to chase down the laser’s red dot, he’s rarely interested in bugs, insects, or spiders.
This is a huge contrast to Quinn. Quinn used to go after anything that moved on the floor or wall, swatting and swatting with his little black paw. The thing is, Quinn was a coward. If the critter turned and headed his way, Quinn freaked out, backpedaling and scrambling to get away, trying to bat the thing as he did. I never saw Quinn ever ‘get’ anything, but any blueberries that found the floor were whacked across the room repeatedly until it disappeared under some appliance.
We checked the web for a few more days but the web remained empty. I asked our other resident spiders if they knew what had happened to her. None ever spoke up.
I guess it was just meant to end.
And we never named her. She was always just the big spider.
Mom’s house is up for sale in Penn Hills, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1238 square feet, .4 acres, $159k, if you’re interested.
Mom bought her house in 1990 and made many changes. I was five years away from retirement from the Air Force by then, so I was an adult. The rooms are small, but a lot of good memories were made in them. The kitchen was especially popular. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, not just cooking and eating, but laughing, talking, and playing games.
I checked it out on Zillow, where I got the photos. The realtor’s virtual staging does a great job of showing the place’s potential. Here’s the staging of the downstairs where I nested when I visited. I always jokingly called it ‘the dungeon’, which made Mom laugh.
There’s been 610 views and 86 saves in the four hours it’s been up. The realtor reports that five showings have been requested, four for tomorrow.
We’re pretty chuffed by that initial response and hopeful for a quick sale somewhere near asking price – or better.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, June 2, 2026.
It’s clear skies and sunshine for us today. 66 degrees now, the high will be found in the 80s F. Some say 81, another contingent claims 88. We’ll see.
Oh, the Mom front. She ran out of her pain patches. They’re by prescription so she must see her doc for them. She didn’t have an appointment, and they don’t have an opening until early August. It’s concerning that with all the doctors she’d recently seen, no one ever thought to say, how are your pain patches?
Then she fell over backward in her wheelchair the other day. Hit her head. She’s been complaining of headaches since. Yet, that morning when it happened, she refused to get taken to the hospital. Today, it became a must. Now sis is at the ER with her and we’re in wait and see mode.
Poor sister, too. She’s already busy, working, meeting with the realtor to sell Mom’s house, selling and giving away Mom’s furnishings and possessions, taking care of her grandchildren, and here she is, summoned back to pick up Mom, take her to the hospital, wait with her, await next steps…
Locally, I’m perplexed and pleased with a credit union project. Bring a bag of papers to be shredded and three cans of food, and they’ll shred it for you. Sounds great! I went through our papers, filled a bag, and bought three cans of food to donate.
I’m irritated because the credit union has two locations in our town. One is a half mile away; the other is almost two. Yet, to participate in this offer, I need to drive almost twenty miles to Medford to participate.
Makes little sense. Why not do it in an Ashland location as well as a Medford location? Why make so many people waste energy and pollute the air to drive that distance?
Then there’s the Trump front. Paul Krugman had commentary about Trump’s apparent mental and physical decline, and the enablers in DC and in business who support, cover, and front for him. For all, it seems to be, “What’s in it for me?” I don’t know if that’s true or reductivism. I think the truth is on a spectrum somewhere in between. Whatever their reasoning, I remain disappointed that so many seem eager to limit voting and embrace norms that seem to favor creating a Christian white nation.
Trump’s Iran war remains on, although a ‘ceasefire’ is in effect. I watched Jordan Klepper conduct interviews with MAGAs who smugly tried to tell us that Iran is a conflict, not a war.
They’re taking clues from right-wing media, the GOP, and Trump himself. Trump reminded the nation we’re at war but also said that we’re not at war and that saying we are would get him in trouble. He’s winking at the system of checks and balances, but we as a nation have been doing this for a long time as well.
At the bottom of my disgust at this mess remains the huge challenge: how do we fix our flaws? Can we fix them? Can we at least mitigate them enough to feel comfortable with calling ourselves a land of freedom and equality and a democratic republic. Because right now, those claims are very, very thin to me.
It didn’t begin when the Roberts Court decided that Trump as POTUS could be above the law. It began long before that, with small drips. We let the drips go. Now the foundation is showing rot and we’re wringing our hands about what to do.
To make myself feel a little better without drugs and alcohol, I turned to Nate Silver’s latest findings on Trump’s popularity.
“Today, Donald Trump’s net approval rating is sitting at -19.1 in the Silver Bulletin average. That’s less popular than Joe Biden was at this point in his term (-13.6) and less popular than Trump himself was during his first term (-10.6).
“About 48 percent of Americans strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance. Just 21.7 percent strongly approve of the job he’s doing, while another 17.2 percent only somewhat approve.
As we wrote about over the weekend, Trump’s approval rating is even underwater in Texas.”
Just wanted to highlight that for Trump.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
It’s worth posting this quote again because it completely captures Trump’s attitude AND his base. He called it right, and we see it playing out over and over.
I have “One More Time” by Daft Punk in the morning mental music stream. A dance song, it’s actually a celebration of things, but it hit my stream because I muttered ‘one more time’ to myself as I checked texts from home and read the news.
I hope your mood is up and your day goes well. I hope the best for us all. I guess the challenge for that is agreeing what that is.
Cheers
