Tag: Madness

Satyrdaz Theme Music

Greetings on Satyrda, December 27, 2025. They said it’d be cold and we’d have snow. No snow but it was 38 degrees F, sort of cold. Sunshine is leaking in around clouds stretching a flimsy chain across blue sky. A high somewhere in the 40s is anticipated.

My stepmother texted last night. Dad has taken a bad turn. He was found on the floor, communicative and awake but confused. That was Wednesday. His wife is talking to professionals about whether Dad should go into hospice. She is due to receive an update and then will text me to call her so I can learn the latest.

I sent Mom and Dad holiday cards and letters. My sister read Mom her card and letter from me; my stepmother read Dad his card and letter from me. Neither Mom nor Dad could open their cards on their own. Dad lives in Texas and Mom lives in Pennsylvania. The parallel path of their decline fascinates and depresses me.

Dad has been married to my stepmother for over thirty years. It’s his third marriage. As Dad’s health has declined, my stepmother’s children visit him and care for him, just as my sisters visited Mom’s boyfriend, Frank, and cared for him before he died. Life’s complexities and layers are rich and interesting.

Sis wrote that she hosted Christmas celebrations on Thursday and Friday. Half the family came on one day and the other half came the next door. She said that worked out much better than having the whole tribe there at the same time.

With dreams of homes and families and news of family percolating, it’s not surprising that The Neurons chose a song about houses for the morning mental music stream. Today, it’s “Our House” by Madness.

As I wrote this post, my wife told me of some factoids she just read. Back in 1950, the average starter home in the U.S. was less than 1,000 square feet with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. Now the average starter home is considered 2500 square feet with walk in everything and vaulted ceilings and fireplaces, kitchen, dining room, and breakfast nook. And fewer people seem able to afford starter homes in 2025.

Then I went off to dress to go out to write. My wife and I talked about it, how, while waiting to call my stepmother for an update, I was planning to go write. I shrugged. “The beat goes on.” And that’s why we have a twofer theme music offering for today. The Neurons immediately supplanted “Our House” with Sonny and Cher singing “The Beat Goes On”.

Hope peace and grace come by to present you some comfort. I’m off to the writing races once again. Cheers

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Wenzdaz Wandering Thoughts

I am apparently a beaucoup sneezer. My sneezes aren’t small blemishes on the aural experience. They explode out of me with Krakatoa force. I’m also sneezing several times a day, basically at home, mostly in the home office (snug), causing me spouse and I to both speculate that something in that region is causing the sneeze.

Well, I let go of three eruptions the other day.

My wife said, “Did you read about the murder in Ashland?”

I was horrified. “No. When did that happen?”

“It didn’t happen yet but I hear that a wife was driven to madness and killed her husband after he kept sneezing.”

Yes, I laughed. She wouldn’t do something like that.

I don’t think.

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Soonday Morning

Mood: Soontobe

It’s Soonday, December 9, 2024. We’re enjoying a clear sky loaded with sunshine and an outdoor tempy of 28 F. Frost has shadowy places airbushed with white influences. A dense fog warning is percolating while 49 F is being dangled in front of us as a high. Should say that it’s my local system calling out 28; in other parts of Ashlandia, sunshine has cleared the forests and mountains and 42 is already being experienced. A friend’s weather setup, available via Wunderground, has his temperature at 31 F. Dress appropriately.

Moving slow this morning. That’s why I’m calling this soon day. Soon, I’ll get up and do things. Soon I’ll leave and get my hair cut. Soon. Night fraught with dreams and restlessness are keeping the go pedal from getting engaged, even though coffee and I have said our hellos. One dream featured me as a young man with young friends and relatives, traveling to another place. Along the way, I stopped to visit with others. There, I rested in sunshine and told people of other people’s businesses failing, along with places such as airports not being built. It ended with me trying to pull a nuisance weed, which then bloomed, leaped out of the ground and ran away, freaking us out. Then we laughed.

This cold weather and clear sky put me into a whirlpool of childhood memories. Once, while going outside to play football with friends when I was almost a teenager, I was accosted by mom. “Put a heavier coat on, for God’s sake,” she said. “It’s winter outside.”

Wise me replied, “It’s not winter yet, Mom, until the solstice, December 22.”

She answered, “It’s winter when it’s cold and the snow starts falling to me.”

We were living in Penn Hills, a Pittsburgh, PA, suburb. Snow had been falling since before Thanksgiving. Therefore, it was winter.

I used to talk to her about her winters in Iowa. She loved those days, she said, because they would stay in the house, where it was cozy and warm, and play games, listen to the radio, talk, cook, and clean. Winter remains her favorite season for those reasons.

Those memories crystallized into two songs for me last night. Both are called “Our House”. They’re very different. The first was dropped into the morning mental music stream (Trademark frozen) when a television show featured it ysterday evening. This is the “Our House” by Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young. My wife sang along with it; that stirred The Neurons up, and triggered that memory whirlpool. But a rebel group of Neurons countered with “Our House” by Madness. Two very different songs. The CSNY offering says, “Our house is a very very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy cause of you.” Madness sings, “Father wears his Sunday best, Mother’s tired, she needs a rest, the kids are playing up downstairs. Sister’s sighing in her sleep. Brother’s got a date to keep, he can’t hang around.” The CSNY version is about a young couple’s domestic tranquility. Madness offers a portrait of hustle, growth, and noise.

Let’s get positive (sung to Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical) and move forward. 2025 is almost here. Here’s the music to help you along. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

You get a twofer today.

This photo on Facebook reminded a friend and I of a conversation we once had about the songs, “Our House”. One version is by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Madness did the other. We just chatted about how different these songs were as we went about something else.

I haven’t seen him since around 2003 but I remember him fondly. FB connects us, so sometimes FB works as designed.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I’ve always enjoyed the domestic image this song, “Our House,” produces. Whoever wrote it was looking back on a working class household. The song was released in 1982. Hearing the lyrics, I wonder how much of it would be written differently. Would Dad still put on his Sunday best? Does Mother still iron his shirt before he goes to work?

Something to think about.

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