Tag: life

Frida’s Theme Music

The morning was spent texting with Mom. She prefers texting these days over phone calls. She had a day of doctor appointments yesterday and provided summaries. They’re going to work on her balance with physical therapy. That’s good news to me.

Her fiance’s son and my sister both approached Mom and her fiance about moving into assisted living. They did these separately. I don’t know if they coordinated their attempt.

It would be less dangerous to poke a hornet’s nest with a stick a few times. Mom and her beau are adamant against moving to a home of any kind other than the one where they live. He’s 95 and has difficulties seeing and hearing. She’s 89 and has mobility, heart, and balance issues. She copes with those problems via a massive regimen of medications, vitamins, minerals, lotions, and equipment. The house was built during WW II and has steep, narrow steps. But Mom loves her house, and her companion is happy living there.

Observing the health issues and the home debate always prompts conversations with my wife. “What will we do?” she asks. “I don’t know,” I say. I’m not looking forward to dealing with it.

It’s Frida, April 18, 2025. Good Friday, I suppose. 63 F, sunny but windy. A high of 74 F is in the works. I don’t think we’ll see that. 68 F was projected yesterday but the thermometer quit advancing at 64 F.

The cat has expressed his irritation with the wind. He applied to my wife and I to change it. My wife patiently explains, “I’m sorry, we can’t do that. Here, have a treat instead.”

He was spoiled via several treats. Then he came to me for his standard four-course breakfast. Two of the courses are treats that hide his meds in them. The thorough feeding does take his mind off the wind. The next time I see him, he’s going through his post-eating pre-napping grooming on the bed.

I have read several news articles. Some dealing with politics and rulings against Trump please me. On the whole, though, it’s another heavy serving of disappointing developments. After hearing my GRRRRRRRRR rising in my throat, I order myself to go do other things.

Today’s theme music is a beer group relic. I met with my beer group last Wednesday. The friends beside me began a conversation about popular music and what they listened to when they were young. One commented that some lines were going through his head, but he couldn’t recall the rest. I recalled the rest for him. The song is “I Think We’re Alone Now” by Tommy James and the Shondells. Conversation then swirled in other hits by the group, such as “Crystal Blue Persuasion”. Now The Neurons have those two tunes sharing the morning mental music stream. Thus, I’m forced to share them to break the pattern and release them from my stream.

That latter song is a woke DEI offering about peace and good, brotherhood, love, etc. Sure the Trumpites dislike it, or say that they like it and are all for love, peace, and brotherhood, but only for select people.

Coffee is working its positive way through me. Hope you have a positive day and a solid weekend. Cheers

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Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

It’s Wenza. Middle and high school are in session. You know what that means.

2:03 PM, the murmuration of children begins. Noises double in decibels and echo like we’re in a gym. Screeches, shouts, laughter, blow out my ear drums in three second sound bites.

Cliques form. Tables and chairs are hunted. Backpacks are dumped. A line snakes out from the counter. Drinks are ordered, picked up, shared, consumed.

Happens every Wenzda when school is in session in Ashlandia.

Oddly, today, besides the sounds and visuals, the school children bring in smells of a lunchtime cafeteria. It could be roast turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just memory of another time making itself known.

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

“Meeyouow,” the cat says.

I shake my head. “I don’t understand what that means.” I guess, treats, water, outside, attention, scratching, Lassie’s in the well? Papi keeps talking. He’s a chatty cat this morning.

I’m less so but have been talking to my computer. My computer doesn’t say much but it’s a good listener. Never interrupts. Most of my words are sentences of disbelieving comments about some of the things I’m reading. There is some spirited cursing thrown in. Like, the thirty thousand eggs the White House is using in this time of high egg prices has me saying some things to my monitor. Poor optics, as if the man gives a shit ’bout optics. He wants the eggs.

“They were saying that for Easter ‘please don’t use eggs. Could you use plastic eggs?’ I say we don’t want to do that,” Trump said earlier this month during remarks announcing a new tariff policy.

Yes, so, there you go.

It is Wenzda, April 16, 2025, 64 F, and sunny. Yesterday clipped 79 F. That’s a good temperature to enjoy when it’s a hot sun and cool breeze. Nice combo. I’ll probably order that regularly once we’re living in virtual reality and ordering our weather. Snow still whitens some higher peaks and ridges, such as Mt. Ashland. The green trees and white mountains dazzle in the sunlit blue sky. I went out and pulled weeds. The front area is a weeded, cut and trimmed. The back yard is a tall grass, weedy, bee and pollinator paradise. We’re seeing few bees so far this year.

Today’s theme music is “It’s Good to Be King”. This is a 1995 Tom Petty song. My Neurons slotted it into the morning mental music stream after reading many of the things Trump said and do. Yes, he acts like the American King which our founders warned us about.

Coffee has landed in my gullet again. Time to rock on through another day, though it might be a slow-paced rock. Hope the best for you. Cheers

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Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

I’m just a Venn diagram. I’m at a point where massive disappointment in my nation fills me. I didn’t expect the GOP to fight Trump. It saddens me that I’m right. They just rolled over and became the Grand Ol’ Trump Party.

Pisses me off that the Trump Regime thumbs its nose at the law, treating elements like due process as something beneath them. Unfortunately, I predicted this when Trump was campaigning in 2024. So did many others. They laughed at us. But Trump said he would be a dictator on day one. We knew that wasn’t a joke.

Politically, I’m angry, disgusted, disappointed, and a whole dark rainbow of other negative energies about what’s going on from bullshit tariffs to the damaged economy to the ridiculous and unlawful gutting of the Federal government to — well, fill in the blank.

But it’s a sunny and warm spring day. Promise is in the air. I’m getting ready for beer with friends on Wednesday. They’re intelligent, good friends. I’m looking forward to seeing them. Preparing for a secular Easter brunch with friends on Sunday. That’ll have bittersweet toppings drizzled over it. Some of the regulars are gone. Others are in hospice.

Writing is fun and full of promise. That puts me in a very positive frame. A novel draft is finished, and so many other novels are lined up, eager to be written. But will that finished draft hold up in the next round of editing and revision? Then there’s the publishing game. That closes the damper on my enthusiasm.

Mom texts me and reminds me that she wants to be cremated. Do what we will with the ashes. Play Glenn Miller at her service. Hold it in the garden. She’s lived almost nine decades but she endures hourly pain and discomfort. Her quality of life can be categorized as miserable.

Down to one cat, my cativities are truncated from what they once were. An air of depression clouds that aspect of life.

Financially, my wife and I are okay. Viewing my health, I can be better or worse. Got all my limbs. They function well. I endure little regular pain on a daily basis. I’m not as strong nor limber as I used to be, and my hair is trekking away from my forehead. Memory still works for most of the time on most of the days.

My wife’s health is not as good. She searches for words more often and doesn’t find them. She’s developed a new habit of forgetting to turn things on or off. She’s bitter and angry with the world, especially with Trump, and the Roberts Court. She’s furious and anxious about women’s rights. Shoulder and back pain are building up their frequent flier miles with her.

So, I am here. In the middle of it all, happy and sad. Worried and hopeful. Bitter and angry. Joyful and loving. Loved and frustrated. I read of far worse situations for people. Like those in Gaza. Ukraine. Immigrants hunting a better existence for themselves and those they love. War and disaster refugees trying to find a home. People working hard and struggling harder. Sleeping in cars and hanging on for meals and help. Women and people of color hiding, living in fear, beaten and killed for who they are. People with a gender that doesn’t fall cleanly into male or female dismissed as less than equal, unaccepted by narrow-minded bigots. People starving to death as billionaires pile up more money and more property, self-pleasuring themselves with mindless greed.

We seem so far away from Star Trek‘s ideals and so much closer to Mad Max, Solyent Green, and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Life is one hell of a spectrum.

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A Loaded Dream

It was a long and involved dream. Here are some dreamlights.

I was a young middle-aged man and head of a small business unit. We were located in a semi-tropical, warm, high humidity area. It was not the United States. Outside of my co-workers, the people I knew had all lived in the same huge brick apartment building. All Americans lived there for at least the first four months after their arrival in counrty.

A black 1968 Camaro Z/28 with silver stripes seen three times. A young man was driving it. In real life, I owned a Camaro but not a Z. Mine was not black and silver. Black and silver were Bruce McLaren’s original colors before he changed the team to Kiwi orange or Gulf orange. McLaren was a New Zealand driver and car constructor I idolized as a boy. I had an HO scale racing car of his black and silver McLaren Elva in my car line up.

Musical groups were offered, including the Suzy Qs. That CCR song, “Suzie Q”, was played. Sam Smith was offered, too. His hit, “I’m Not the Only One” was played. In conversation, I was told that not all offerings were available. A weird and arbitrary fashion was invoked to decreed who could be seen, and who could see them. After listening to that, I rejected that method. Said that I wasn’t going to follow or enforce it because it was stupid, and then left. That ended that.

The weekly entertainment was offered on a waxy red poster on a brick wall outside among some foliage. 80 pounds was listed as the admission price for one of them. Hearing that, I opted not to go. A friend was sunbathing nearby. I lied and told her I wasn’t going because there was a baby shower for a woman living in the building the same night as the concert.

Saw two therapists, both women. The therapists were seen three times total. I walked with one of them, talking to her about some of my career frustrations and disappointments. When I saw the other therapist a second time, she couldn’t find my records. I then told her that I’d spoken to the other therapist about that therapist, and then told that therapits what I’d told the other therapist.

Overall, a very good dream.

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Sunda’s Wandering Thoughts

Planning for Easter Brunch is underway. I am fortunately a passive participant. My wife keeps me apprised of developments. She was searching for some Easter-themed drinks. I found some for her. She rejected them. I did find Chocolate Bunny Coffee. She laughed at that.

“Prude wants to have a Prosecco bar,” my wife says. Prude and her hubby, Carl, are hosting the Easter brunch for the third consecutive year.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I’ll chat with her. The brunch is getting big. Twenty-seven people are going to be there.”

“Twenty-seven.”

My wife nods in confirmation.

I do the math. “That’s almost twice as usual.”

“I know.”

My wife gives details of new invitees. Many are people I don’t know. I’ve heard about some of them via my wife’s recounting of ‘Tales from the Y.’ The main characters are all members of the Y, like my wife, and they bring a guest, like me. Most participate in Mary’s exercise class. Mary is celebrating her 50th anniversary of her class next year. The Y wants my wife to organize something for them. Mary’s exercise group has given birth to multiple friendships and activities, including a book club, New Year’s Eve gatherings, and nights out to go dancing.

“Deborah is in charge of the coffee,” my wife says. She’s talking about the brunch. “I mentioned the Chocolate Bunny Coffee. She laughed but said she is not buying that.”

I’m not surprised. Deborah takes her coffee as seriously as I do.

“Mary told me that she has champagne left from a party at her house last year that she’ll donate,” my wife says. “I told her it’s supposed to be Prosecco. Mary said that Prude told her that you and I are going to be there at 10:30 to help set up.”

“We are?” I helped with that last year. Everybody prepares and brings food. A buffet is set up in the kitchen and dining room. The drinks and coffee and dining tables are outside.

“I don’t know,” my wife says. “I’ll talk to Prude.”

I have to decide what to make. Last year I made a potato casserole. It seemed pretty popular. I don’t know what I’ll make this year. I was thinking about a French toast casserole.

Maybe I’ll just buy a fruit tray.

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Sunda’s Theme Music

Blue skies and sunshine immediately informed me that it was a cold day. “Must be cold out,” I said to the cat. “Ooop,” he replied, rushing for the door.

Papi’s first response to almost all stimuli is to rush for the door. Loud noises like fireworks dictate a course to his hiding spot in the primary bathroom.

Today, though, he was hitting the door, exiting the back, into sunshine. I went with him. The measuring device told me it was 42 F. I felt that even with sunshine bathing me. Back inside, I asked the various digital prophets what the weather be like in Ashlandia on Sunda, April 13, 2025. All agreed it was going to be ‘more of the same’ — sunshine and clear blue sky — with a high of 74 F. As they used to say in another era, I can dig it.

I was thinking about words as I motored from coffee maker to kettle to sink to bowl to cat feeding station, doing the necessaries. The thinking about words came from thinking about news stories. For a while, I had Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine performing their 1986 hit in the morning mental music stream, “Words Get In the Way”.

Then The Neurons abruptly pivoted. I can’t source the pivot’s origins. I only know that I began humming a different beat. A melody began rising, then new lyrics flowed into the morning mental music machine: Jesus Jones” with their 1990 techno-pop offering, “Real Real Real”. My mind seemed to be stuck in that period, 1986 – 1990. As it often happens with The Neurons and their mysterious ways (oh, now we have U2 in the music stream), there’s little explained.

Well, now I’ve slipped back to 1991. I remember when “Mysterious Ways” song was first heard for me. My wife and I were enjoying a Sunday morning on our apartment deck in Sunnyvale, California. We’d only lived there for seven months. The cats, Jade, Crystal, and Rocky, were sunning themselves and washing. We’d just finished a breakfast of fresh croissants, bought at Milk Pail Dairy and baked at home, and fruit, and were talking about what to do that day. It’s strange that this scene is so vivid for me. I have no idea what else we did that day. Memory is a funny thing.

Coffee has lived up to its commitment. Ready to rock another day. Sunlight is guiding my way. There’s a promise of a decent day. Hope you have the same. Cheers

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Saturda’s Wandering Thoughts

“Easter is a week away,” my wife said. “You need to get a haircut.”

I just got one last month. Her observation annoys me. I spent twenty years in the military. Keeping your hair cut and neat was, like, an actual regulation. After being freed from military constraints, I’m not interested in being so neat and tidy when it comes to hair. I will lose this discussion, though, and cave. Being neat is extremely high on my wife’s list. She is also adept at being severe and disapproving.

“Want to hear my sister’s text?” I ask.

“Go ahead.”

I read my sister’s updates from Pittsburgh. She’s buying her daughter a new phone. Several features on her present phone are failing. Replace it before Trump’s tariffs add hundreds, she reckons. She used the same logic to replace her eight-year-old ride. She also cashed in her small 401K and put it into certificates in December because she believed Trump was going to trash the economy. She tells me about my other sister’s financial worries.

Four sisters share Mom. Two of them are extremely responsible. The other two are not exactly flighty but they seem to have many crises and make choices that cause more problems. I probably would make more choices that aren’t wise ones, but I’m married to a diligent person.

My sister also comments about how expensive everything is, and how hard it is for young people like her twenty-something daughter these days.

My conversation with my wife swirls into a new zone. “Mom should be using red-light therapy to help with her healing, injuries, and inflammation.” My wife and I both champion red-light therapy. It has helped us in numerous ways. Besides that, NASA, soccer leagues, and the NFL are all red-light therapy true believers.

My wife tells me that Jan approached her for help with another person. The other person suffers Renaud’s disease in her feet. She’s been warned that she might lose her feet if she doesn’t get treatment. The woman doesn’t like going to the doctor. Almost has a pathological fear about it.

Renaud’s has plagued my wife for years. She once showed me her finger. White as a candle, bent and misshaped, horrifying to look at. She aggressively applied red-light therapy and resolved the problem.

“I told Jan to tell her friend about red-light therapy,” my wife says. “She can at least buy a belt and try it.” Pros and cons are discussed for a few more minutes. My wife complains about friends who were told about it but haven’t tried it. She doesn’t understand their reluctance.

I text my sister to ask her if Mom has tried red-light therapy. Then I get online to make a haircut appointment.

There are some things which must be accepted and done.

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Humpda’s Theme Music

The cat agrees with me. It’s a nice day to rest. Allergies have me nose snorking. My throat feels a little sore and inflamed. I wonder over whether it’s allergies or some other new diseases encouraged my Trump’s feckless management.

Trump is quite the feckless person these days, pivoting from idea to idea. Feels like we’re being guided by a two-year-old who is just discovering words.

Outside, the weather is better than my mood. Sunshine skips between clouds. It’s 50 F but feels warmer. Springier. A mild wind sometimes lashes nature into movement. It might touch 70 F today. I had plans but my whining side is undermining them.

I smirk as I read news of Trump supporters like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, et al, barking and whining about Trump’s tariffs. Will he listen to the shitheels? Questionable. They encouraged him to be who he is. Supported him all the way. Told others to do the same. That’s probably confusing and irritating to puppy Trump and the pack. “Why’d you vote me in when I told you I would do this, only to turn around and tell me not to do that after I’ve been voted in?”

Painful as this is, we wouldn’t be enduring this pain if those people — those ‘influencers’ — thought more about what was going on and what was going to happen. But oh, no, eggs! So ‘pensive! Border! Fear! Kamala is a woman! Female POTUS — so scawy!

Now look at their worry and fear. Who let the dog out?

Reading these things, pondering them as coffee warms my throat, The Neurons bring “Mad World” by Tears for Fears into the morning mental music stream. That makes total sense.

Yes, coffee is warming me but it’s giving little comfort. Trump’s supporters are turning on him but that’s also offering little comfort. GOP reps are supposedly resisting Trump’s budget and tariffs. That gives me little comfort. They’ve proven themselves to be feckless and spineless. Like that Mitch McConnell, basically declaring with a pout, “Oh, no, he’s going too far.”

You created that monster, fool.

My wife passed “Death of the Author” to me after she finished reading it. She said, “You’ll thank me later.” I think I’ll go read a book.

Cheers

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Munda’s Wandering Thought

I visited Ashlandia’s Rite Aid. I haven’t been there in months. My Neurons go on an Easter egg hunt to remember when I was last there. “Before Christmas,” they suggest. They’re not sure.

The Rite Aid feels like a perfect metaphor for Ashlandia. It was doing well. Then they decided to modernize it. They enlarged the space. Stock was added. Alcohol and frozen food sections tripled in size. The store is adjacent to an Albertson’s, and across the street from two other stores which provide these offerings at low prices. Apparently, Rite Aid, with its consistently higher prices, thought they could grab some impulse buys from their pharmacy business. It’s only one of two pharmacies in town.

I think Rite Aid guessed wrong. A graveyard silence greets me when I enter. I seriously wonder if there’s anyone else in the store. Ideas of finding a pile of dead bodies come up. I finally see another person. They don’t look like a killer. Neither did Ted Bundy, I hear.

Many Rite Aid shelves are empty, same as my last visit. A solid offering of wines is available. Decent prices, too. I don’t have any wine needs. I move on.

I’m not here to shop. Our household has a continuing need to get rid of used things. Batteries, light bulbs, paints, and outdated prescriptions are part of that list. We have meds that haven’t been used since Obama’s first administration. Containers holding them line several shelves in a hall cupboard. Getting rid of these things is another first world blues matter for us.

My wife initiated this visit. “They have new drug disposal drop off locations. Blue boxes. There’s supposed to be one in Rite Aid. We should take a look.”

I volunteer to do it while I’m out. Missions like these are milk runs.

Using store layout knowledge, I find the blue box without problem. Instructions are provided. Open door. Drop in meds. Close door. Easy peasy.

The door won’t open. I look for releases and additional instructions. Try again. And again. Three tries are a charm, I hear.

A pharmacist comes over. “The box is locked,” he says. “You need to see a store employee to drop something off.”

Very convenient. Not. “That’s not what the instructions say,” I say. I point to the sign.

“Each store is given discretion to handle it as they want.”

“Shouldn’t some instructions be put up that you need to have an employee unlock and open it?”

“Probably. We had to do it. People were putting trash in.”

No probably about it to me. That would be good customer service. I look around the empty store and thank the pharmacist. He returns to his fortress.

I think I’m starting to see why Rite Aid has so many empty shelves.

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