I don’t usually keep my phone near me when I’m in bed. Had a lifetime in the military, along with my time in marketing. People always wanted me immediately available.
Well, no longer! It’s one of the declarations of independence I made when I retired from all that work stuff. The phone stays in the other room.
Except, yesterday, it didn’t. I wasn’t feeling well. My car was in the shop for routine maintenance. I was waiting for them to call or text to tell me it was ready. So I had the phone on my nightstand.
They called about four-ish, asking if they could keep it overnight. No, nothing major found; they were just short-handed and overscheduled.
Shrugging it off, I agreed, sure. “Call me in the morning when it’s ready.”
I went back to sleep, off and on, and forgot about the phone.
Until six AM this morning.
The phone pinged with a message. In irritation, I thought, sisters. That was more a matter of my mood than anything. My sisters have habits of getting up early and sending texts early. They’re on the east coast of the US, so they’re three hours ahead of me. Texts that they’re sending at 8 AM are pinging on my phone at 5 AM.
But it wasn’t my sisters.
Nor was it the car repair shop.
No, it was Google Health, formerly known as Fitbit.
Google Health pinged me awake at 6 AM to tell me that I didn’t have a good night of sleep.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, June 16, 2026.
95 will be today’s high. Blue sky, sunshine, 71 F right now.
We’re in a mini-limbo with Mom’s house sale. One set of inspections is done, and it’s not bad. Repairs and issues are underway. Some are due to the house’s age. For instance, back in the day, a window in the bathroom sufficed; fans weren’t needed. Now, with the house changing hands, code stipulates bathroom fans. And the dryer duct came undone. Stuff like that.
I used to tease Mom about her old washer and dryer. Both were ‘low value’ purchases. Didn’t match: Whirlpool and GE. She bought the dryer shortly after moving in back in ’95. The house had a washer but then needed to be replaced around ’99. But those two pieces have chugged along. Same with the old gas range. We siblings pitched together to buy her a portable dishwasher from Sears one Mother’s Day in the late nineties. My brother-in-laws installed it as a permanent piece in the early 00s. Still works as well.
Mom’s house is full of things that were old but worked well. She always took care of it all.
My dental appointments didn’t go well yesterday. These are about surgical dental implants. I had the surgery a year ago. The site that remains had a cyst removed and needed more time to recover. Well, yesterday’s ‘click tests’ with that tiny torque wrench show that it needs more time. So the next steps — installing the implant — were pushed back six weeks.
Ironically, I’d changed the implant date, June 25, to July, because it clashed with my scheduled bladder surgery. Oh, well.
It feels like D.C. and Trump has entered a sort of stasis. That’s my opinion from ‘out here’. One, Trump’s war with Iran is ‘over’. We’re all digesting its consequences. Two, Trump is definitely physically and mentally run down. I don’t give a damn about official reports. We can see it in whenever he appears in public, and can read it when he sends out midnight texts.
Those texts remind me of my mother’s bout with sundowner syndrome, BTW. She was also sending them in the middle of the night and they also made little sense.
The economy and systems are all also giving the signals about what Trump’s unchecked actions have wrought. Additionally, the judicial system is pushing back. Many Trump initiatives have become a tug of war in courts, things like his ICE deportation policies, ICE killing of US citizens, renaming the Kennedy Center, building the Epstein ballroom, the tariffs…it’s a long list.
The trends are clear. Trump acts fast, asserting permission with arrogance. Shock travels the affected. Reactions set in. Legal actions are raised against Trump. Courts rule. Trump often loses but appeals decisions, frequently changing legal tactics.
All of that is Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! to cover his enormous stealing, his insider stock trading, his underhanded grifting.
It’s all slowly catching up, leading to the mid-term confrontations. I’m sure Trump rushed to a deal now because he’s trying to save face and gain back support before the mid-terms. I’m sure he believes he can gain some support with Freedom 250 and the Great American State Fair, and the pageantry planned for that.
The problem with his plan remains: he is Trump. He’ll make it about himself.
He is Trump. He refuses to understand that his policies have failed, and that’s why voters are turning against him.
So, he is Trump. He will lash out.
Our question remains, how?
Today’s song ends up being “The Man” by The Killers.
Sample Lyrics:
Don’t need no advice I got a plan I know the direction The lay of the land I know the score like the back of my hand Them other boys I don’t give a damn
I’m the man, come round No-no-nothing can break, no-nothing can break me down I’m the man, come round and No-no-nothing can break, you can’t break me down
The 2017 song was written about the POV that you feel invincible when you’re young. That makes sense.
The song came to the morning mental music stream when I was thinking about Trump and the morning news. And I realized that the song is apt for the day because a large part of Trump is his immaturity. He remains a person who thinks himself invincible.
I hope you have an excellent day, full of peace and grace, no matter the weather or season wherever you are.
Dry but cold and sunny, Wednesday, February 4, 2026, has begun its 24-hour Ashland residency. 50 – 46 – 37 F are Ashland’s temperatures, given by Alexa, online, and home. Sunny, with blue skies and no clouds that Papi and I can see. A high of sixty-something is projected.
I’m thinking about beats today. Give me a beat, we got the beat, we were beat, they beat him down.
Every day — every hour — has its beats. Sometimes they come out sharp and clear. Today, they’re muted background noise for me.
Reading a novel for a bit doesn’t reveal the day’s beats. Nor does reading the news. Yet the beat goes on.
Papi has his beat, moving with private style, a cool and graceful study in orange fur. Bit jealous, watching his steady gaze as he sits, looks, washes.
It’s only February and already the news beat has been manic with news that has me gritting my teeth, bracing for worse. The Neurons have offered up a Foo Fighters tune to blanket the noise. “The Pretender” plays in the morning mental music stream, driving me forward a new, harder beat. The song reminds me, same ol’ story, waiting to see what happens, waiting to hear their defense, waiting for a change back to the nation I knew.
Sample Lyrics
What if I say I’m not like the others? What if I say I’m not just another one of your plays? You’re the pretender What if I say I will never surrender?
The song fits my mood because I often ask of Trump, who are you to issue decrees like a pompous king? And I ask of the MAGAs, who are you that you believe where Trump leads, not just accepting, but supporting and encouraging it?
The morning circle is done. Hope peace and grace find you, me, all of us, and take us tightly through this day and into a better tomorrow.
Ashland, Oregon, landed on Saturday, January 17, 2026, with a quiet sigh. Freezing fog still plagues us but it’s invisible and doesn’t make us freeze. Temperatures now sit at 55 (my house), 51 (online) and 55 (Alexa) degrees F. Despite air stagnation, freezing fog, and an inversion layer, we’ll hit the mid to upper sixties today.
The snow drought bothers me. I’ve only lived here for 20 years. Dog knows memory is imperfect but this snow season is a monumental shift from my lived-in memories. We don’t usually get much accumulation in Ashland, but we typically get flurries a few times. An inch to three falls, giving us a lovely morning treat before sunshine burns it off into a memory.
There’s been no days like that which I’ve seen this year. I remind myself, this is still January and a couple winter months remain, and spring snow isn’t unusual. Just waiting, I suppose, for a reminder that it is winter.
Waiting for snow, I feel like I’m in stasis. Not the usual stasis where I don’t age and the outside world and I don’t meet. This is more of the stasis of waiting, like, ‘drop the other shoe already’ stasis.
That applies not just to weather. With Frank and Dad gone — two of the triumvirate parental units in my life — I await word on Mom. Regular accounts report her as increasingly less lucid and physically weaker. I think sis does a superb job of helping Mom, and continually thank her in my head and in conversations with her.
Part of my thanks float up whenever I do Food & Friends deliveries. I think, without sis, Mom would probably be in a situation like this, awaiting a knock on the door for a meal delivery, struggling to get to the door and get it open. Many recipients on our route live in nice homes but several lodge in apartments or motel rooms. There must be a better solution that doesn’t cost a gazillion dollars.
Part of my stasis also centers around ICE, especially with Minneapolis. Paul Krugman referred to that city as the ICE crucible, which fits; it’s an ICE experiment for how far Trump can intimidate through force and violence before someone reins him in.
Outside my home, the world spins on its own axis. Trump’s overtures about acquiring Greenland sound more frequently like Putin in Russia talking about Crimea and Ukraine. It strikes me less about geopolitical strategy and more about imperialistic land grab to acquire mineral rights.
So, I wait and wonder, will we go to war over Trump’s Greenland obsession, and how much greater will ICE’s violence against American citizens become?
The Neurons responded to my state with Queen of the Stone Age — “No One Knows”, in the morning mental music stream. The song opens,
‘We get some rules to follow. That and this, these and those, no one knows.’
Those opening lyrics work for my morning mind set. We’re given rules of living but the rules for dying are less defined. Likewise, Trump is a chaos multiplier, breaking rules and establishing his own rules, increasing tension and anxiety.
Hope your day is stress free and strong with hope and grace. Meanwhile, I will break my stasis with coffee and step into the day. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 