Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
The birth center
Closes
But
It’s alright
Price of beef is
Out of sight
Gas is higher than
We ever thought
Normal
But we’ll be alright
Cause
We got streams
And games
And color
TV
Things like virtual
Reality
Artificial
Dreams
It’s a blast
It’s a scene
Get the highest score
Be
Number
One
Game might be over
But your day
Just
Begun
Dreamed I was traveling but also that I’d arrived somewhere. It was both familiar but different. I was then again in the military. Several sisters and Mom traveled with me, yet I arrived before them so that I was there to greet them when they arrived.
I put them up in a room and then told them, “I have to go work. I’ll be back and then we’ll go out.” I also suggested to them that maybe they could come see where I work.
In parallel, I’d been out walking around. I took off my jacket: this was a brown leather ‘flight’ jacket. I’d left my money and my wallet with my ID in it.
I suddenly remembered, oh, no – I forgot about that.
I rushed back to get the jacket.
Gone!
I was frantic with worry. What am I going to do?
Casual friends who used to be co-workers arrived. One, a big guy, younger than me, said, “Hey we found this. Thought you might need it.” He gave me my brown leather jacket.
I was relieved but worried, and reached into the pockets.
Empty.
He then held up my wallet.
Relief rushed me.
Then he held up my folded cash in his other hand. “This was in your pocket, too.”
I thanked him, then hugged him, saying, “You are a true friend.”
Dream end.
Mother’s Day is upon us in the US again.
It’s tougher for me this year. A year ago, Mom and Frank, her live-in partner, were residing together at Mom’s house. All of that has changed.
I bought Mom flowers on line a few days ago and scheduled their delivery. Bought her a card, wrote a note, and mailed it. Provided her with a gift card to help with her expenses.
I was thinking, though, how very difficult the time is for my younger sisters. They live not far from Mom. Mothers themselves, it used to be their practice to take Mom to a local restaurant for a Mother’s Day buffet brunch.
Mom loved those times out, raving to me about the food and how nice it was to be with her daughters and their families, to be out at a restaurant with everyone, to see other people.
Change is change. We all do what we can to mitigate its impact. Some things remain out of reach.
Sorry, don’t mean to be a downer. I know that I follow in the steps of many others who have walked this path. In the end, my family has many good memories of this holiday. There are others who never managed to find that level of joy and happiness.
Bottom line for myself: accept the blessings. Reflect on the past.
But let go.
I hope you can balance your memories and changes with the day. If you’re fortunate enough that you and your mom are together and can celebrate the day, I hope you build something wonderful to remember.
Cheers
Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, May 3, 2026.
It’s a springy 63 F in Ashland this morning. Clouds feather the sunshine effect. We’re expecting a high of 77 F and thunderstorms.
All is quiet on the Mom front. I’m privately mourning the changes and losses to her life. Don’t know what my sisters are thinking but their relationship with Mom was rockier than mine. Part of that is that I moved out early and was away for years at a time, inuring me to her chaos.
Unfortunately, we’re not inured to Trump’s chaos. Let’s call it Traos. No matter what I drink or how much, he’s still there, and the reality of what he’s doing to us gets worse with every viewing.
Now several months into Trump’s second year of his second term, certain trends have become cemented as part of his legacy.
Some will say that I’m being harsh. I am. But I’m using standard benchmarks for my judgements.
And as final proof of how delusional he is, he keeps ordering things renamed for himself, and planning monuments for himself, because he thinks everything is going great. The rest of the world knows, if he was worthy of monuments, we’d be proposing and building them on our own. Instead, brown nosers who like to kiss his ass are trying to find new ways of doing it.
Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! still goes. No doubt trying to regain some of his mojo, Trump announced some major gun safety changes. Makes the NRA happy. That’s what’s important. *snark*
We have months to go before it’s all over.
BTW, have you seen Iran’s humorous take on Trump?
The confluence of news, dreams, and mood inspired The Neurons to pull the trigger on “Sugar, We’re Goin Down”.
The Fall Out Boy chorus fills the morning mental music stream:
“We’re going down, down in an earlier round, and sugar we’re going down swinging. I’ll be your number one with a bullet.”
My hope for you today is that you weather it all and come out stronger, healthier, and happier.
Got my coffee. Time to rock on. Cheers
A NYTimes headline scored my attention today:
Regular visitors to my blog know that my family have been dealing with my aging mother for years. She’d been living a good life; a fall on some stairs changed that trajectory.
Mom fortunately had a good partner, Frank, as she moved toward her 80s. His drawbacks including increasing deafness, blindness, and being five years older than Mom.
We could see what was coming: Mom would need more and more care. The care would become more and more expensive. Frank would be less and less able to help Mom.
I spoke with Mom about it over the years, advocating to get someone in to help her clean and help her take care of herself. I also kept suggesting that they move into smaller place, such as an assisted living facility or a ‘senior’ community.
Mom resisted most of the suggestions. She didn’t want to leave her house. That home represented her life. She bought it on her own, then got her GED and went to nursing school. Mom opened her home to her grandchildren, taking care of them while my sisters went to school or worked.
I eventually convinced Mom to accept someone coming in and cleaning a few times a week. I paid for it, which helped Mom accept the help. She was also willing let that person in because it was a neighbor and someone she knew.
The arrangement ended when the cleaner suffered cancer and could no longer work. Worse, Mom was falling more often. Her recovery arcs were longer. Each hospital episode left her with more challenges. Yet her will to live was undiminished.
Things took a drastic turn last year. Frank, her partner, fell down the stairs. Hospitalized, he went into a coma and died, 95 years old.
This was devastating for us on multiple fronts and forced Mom’s health from concern to crisis.
Mom tried living alone when Frank was in the hospital and everyone hoped he would recover. Falling, though, Mom couldn’t get up several times and slept on the floor. Cooking was a struggle, so she took shortcuts such as eating sardines with crackers for dinner. She grew thinner and weaker.
My sister took her in. Sis set up a nice space for Mom. Perhaps the biggest drawback was that it was located in my sister’s finished basement. It started out fine but soon devolved into a cold war between Mom and everyone living there. Mom has been vulnerable to UTIs, and we think that was part of the problem.
Mom ended up making suicidal comments. She ended up hospitalized and then in an assisted living place where she does not want to be.
All this is just foreshadowing to me. I’ll be 70 in a few months. My wife is a year younger. One sister is two years older, and another is two years younger. The other two sisters are 8 and 10 years younger than me.
The thing is, even as Mom needs help, all of us are also reaching that point. While I’ve been hospitalized and treated for several issues in the last five years, I’ve rebounded. The same can’t be said for my wife, my sisters, and their husbands.
We’re all facing the same issues that others face in this article: how do we help our parents when we’re crossing the threshold into needing help ourselves?
This is the Silver Tsunami, a term many do not like.
I’ve considered moving to be closer to my sisters and Mom. There are many legitimate excuses for why that hasn’t happened. While our southern Oregon home is ideal for us, the location is not any longer. Just under 1900 square feet, the house is single storied with two bathrooms, and three bedrooms. One bedroom is the home office. This is where we spend our most time, reading, exercising, watching television, on the computer.
The area, though, has been enduring droughts. With the droughts have come water shortages, wildfires, and smoke. As those hit, the local economy has suffered. As a result, Ashland is facing a financial crisis. Adding to that crisis is that two major employers, Southern Oregon University (SOU) and the town’s hospital, Assante Ashland Community Hospital, faced their own crises. Those crises forced them to drawdown in significant ways, with more on the way.
At this point, the future is not ideal. As the article points out, we’re not alone in our problems, both with our own health and aging, but also with helping our parents.
What’s troubling me as much as anything is how the GOP has responded. Trump has cut social services to the aging population. He instead wants to spend more money on the military. Equally troubling is that the GOP goes along with this.
There’s already a growing rural hospital crisis in the United States. With Trump in office, madly spending, the national debt has crossed the point where it is now larger than our Gross National Product.
Yet, Trump’s spending priorities are geared toward bailing out countries, starting wars or using the military as a stick to threaten other nations. These do nothing to help our nation’s aging citizens. Trump’s policies have instead resulted in higher prices across the spectrum, which makes everything worse for anyone living a marginalized life. Including people like Mom.
Projections show that it’ll probably get worse, with more citizens requiring healthcare and living assistance. Natural supply and demand for personnel, food, assistance, and medical care will further drive up costs.
It’s a terrible spiral. As wealth becomes more concentrated in the hands of billionaires who care mostly for themselves and their businesses, the rest of us will keep sliding further into debt and crisis.
Sadly, that is Trump’s America. As it now stands, it’s the future for far too many.
Some may say that I’m being fatalistic. I reply, I’m just reading the news and watching the trends.
I dreamed I was at a sister’s house with other family members, getting ready to go somewhere. I never actually saw anyone but knew this and frequently spoke with them, but just in passing comments.
I knew my sister had decided to start a new business. I saw these large, clear plastic trays, made for transferring fluids, were dirty, so I stopped and cleaned them all, to help her out.
They were all in my sister’s car, waiting for me, a maroon vehicle. I then downloaded two computer things to her car: business planning software for her, and directions to my uncle’s house for me.
When I got in the car, my sister said, “There are two downloaded items.” I explained what they were.
She was driving. I got on the phone with my uncle for directions. I knew how to get there; I just needed the final address. (This uncle is deceased in real life.)
He gruffly asked me if I had pen and pencil. I didn’t but felt that wasn’t needed, and would just depend on my memory.
My sister dropped me off at a facility where I was to graduate. Others who were to graduate were also arriving, in groups. Most were younger. I got in line alone. Watching the operation, I realized that they graduated us in small groups in a building and not on stage.
As I reached the door and stopped, waiting to enter, I noticed the man behind me was trying to push me forward. I turned around and told him not to do that. He, a bearded white guy with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, backed off.
I went into the room when called forward. I again had to wait. I noticed that they were providing mysteries to the people ahead of me. They were expected to solve them using math. I began trying to shift my focus to do better.
We went left, and then right, lining up. When I was second in line, a man helping with giving out the diplomas came to me to identify me. After he did, he explained that I was graduating at a higher level than the others, and things were a little different for me. He moved me to one side to wait.
After a little bit, he brought over a white sheet of paper and told me to hold onto it. I examined it and gathered that it was a summary of my achievements and records, but it was written in a small font and was often different foreign languages so it didn’t make much sense to me. There were also symbols, like the ‘eye on the pyramid’ used on US money.
Dream end
Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, April 28, 2026.
Spring endures in Ashland. 48, blue skies, clouds, sunshine, high in the mid-sixties expected.
Mom endures in her assisted living facility. My sister couldn’t do the things she enumerated yesterday. Mom remains in the assisted living facility and seems agreeable to selling her house. However, she’s trying to manipulate us in other ways, according to my sister. She said Mom wrote a long text that she wanted sis to share with all of us. My sister refused. Life.
My plumbing endures. Mixed results with the plumber yesterday. Both shutoff valves replaced at the toilets, but the plumber felt only one had a leaking wax seal. When he pulled it, lo, the wood under it was soaked. So, wax ring replaced, toilet put back, but now we need to send someone under the house to examine that area. I’ve been under the house; not fun. We have a low, low crawlspace. But I don’t have the expertise needed for this kind of assessment. Thought about using different cameras to see what it looks like. Still noodling that.
Trump endures, too. It is remarkable but many speculate that Trump staged the attempt on him. While Trump blames ‘the left’, he continues to incite hatred and violence toward others while asking that we be nicer to him.
Part of this is that Trump is a documented liar and cheat. He wants to be feared, liked, respected, admired. As part of his ‘weave’, he’ll say anything but that’s shredded his credibility. We know now he makes grandiose promises and bizarre accusations and declarations; it’s all just air.
Doesn’t help, neither, that within hours of the attempt, Trump was calling to build his White House ballroom because, “Security!” But the WHCD was not in the White House. Even if the ballroom had been done, it wouldn’t have affected what happened at the WHCD.
I will also say that even if Cole Tomas Allen left behind a ‘manifesto’ and seems to have a life, Hollywood has convinced me that creating a legend like that is very possible. While I don’t particularly believe the Trump administration is sanguine enough to get it done, there are some high-tech security firms in his corner who could do it. If I believe Hollywood, so could the CIA.
Why not? It’s the age of deep fakes and AI.
With Trump not being held accountable for his lies and behavior, it’ll probably because worse as others attempt to emulate and duplicate his success as a con artist. More troubling is how his actions undermine our trust and belief in authority.
Meanwhile, the squeeze is on U.S. farmers. They’re in a bad situation: diesel is up, fertilizer is up, interest rates are up, available migrant labor is down, and droughts are in the forecast.
Perhaps they will reconsider who they vote for in November.
Your Trump quote of the day:
“Data from the USDA show that soybean exports to China, as of March 19, are about half the amount they were last year.”
Reminder: we’re into the eighth week of the Trump Iran War. He has no exit plan.
Reminder: the Epstein files have not been completely released.
Reminder: Trump’s popularity is declining and prices are rising.
Expect some new Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! breaking news soon.
“Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” ended up in my morning mental music stream. So many bricks being put into place between what we were, what we could become. Trump builds walls to divide and separate, keep the poor in misery and empower the wealthy, along with walls against equality, freedom, science, and education.
Hope you end up in the best possible place when this day is finished. Onward.
Cheers
This is my sixth recorded white house dream as far as I can tell. Again I’m not talking about the president’s abode.
Middle-aged, I was at my ‘dream home’, a large luxury apartment in very large building. The walls, floors, furniture were all white. It was a very serene, relaxed place. Many windows and sliding doors, several levels, great views of a busy metropolis.
Friends were waiting for me to go out. I was rushing around to get ready. But I was also concerned about calling the plumber; I had to find my phone and call the plumber.
Hurrying around my place, I also seemed to be familiarizing myself with it, even though, in a contrary way, I already knew it. I had my own suite, separate from my wife’s suite, and they were on different levels. My suite featured a large bathroom and sliders to a balcony. Steps from it led to down the building’s common plaza with tables and benches.
While I was dashing, around, one of my friends, H.E., kept texting and calling me, telling me, “Come on.” I kept telling him to just hang on.
Going through one door, I discovered a small room that I hadn’t known about before. It had a sprawling white sofa and several chairs. A few relaxing space, I was astounded to find it. I thought, I never knew this was here, and then thought, I came here to rest.
I then found two other things: a door to a room that was a nursery, and steps going down, which had been blocked off.
I knew I was the ‘original’ owner and figured they’d made those changes and wondered about them.
Back in the main living area, still looking for the phone to call the plumber, I encountered H.E.
H.E. was a large, sort of goofy young guy. I knew him in my dream but he wasn’t anyone from my real life.
I asked him, “How’d you get in here?”
Sheepishly, he replied, “I picked the lock.” Then he urged me to, “Come on.”
I told him, “You shouldn’t have done that. Go on out and wait.”
But he was looking out the window. We had a huge, deep blue community blue. An infinity pool, it took up an entire view of one wall of windows.
The pool really impressed him. I explained what it was, and he kept saying, “That’s so huge and beautiful.”
I agreed. It was very striking against the building’s white surfaces.
H.E. then stepped out to see more of the pool, going to our private patio. Other families were going down to the community plaza space and sitting down to enjoy the sunshine.
I told H.E., “Okay, I’m ready to go.”
Dream end.
