Tag: memories

Twosda’s Theme Music

The cat wanted out. 3:20 AM, according to my sleep-blurred vision. Following his victory prance to the door, I gave him the usual admonitions about being safe, smart, staying close, and not letting anything get him. He meowed back with a little defiance, as if to say, “Gosh, I know! You tell me this a million times a day.”

A while later, sun was breaking in through the window. I cowered from it like a vampire. But it wasn’t the sun calling me: the cat wanted back in. 6:32. He came in, rushing to his kibble bowl like a starving maniac. I stumble-walk back to bed.

“Meow,” he said shortly, batting blinds. I want out.

“No,” I answered. “Not gonna happen.”

Of course it happened.

This is Twosda, March 25, 2025. The sun is glowing hard, heating an endless blue sky. Sensing a change in the air, the cat is eager to take advantage of it. “Sure,” I sleep-spoke to him. “You slept all day yesterday. I saw you, curled up in the malabar chair.”

“Meow,” the cat answered. “Out.”

It’s already 54 F. I don’t know what it feels like. I feel like I’d like more sleep. Supposed to get to 78 F today. Huzzah. Yawn. Seriously, I mean, huzzah, but I gotta get some coffee in me before I can give it the enthusiasm it deserves.

I’m suspicious of the weather. This is Oregon. Snow still covers some mountain tops, eyeing us in the valley. I suspect winter is gonna try to slip another storm over us. It’s just like weather to lure us with warm temperatures and friendly skins and then spring out at us like a demented drunk uncle and shout, “Got you.” And then laugh like they’re crazy.

Today’s morning mental music stream Neurons are offering The Friends of Distinction with “Going In Circles”. The gentle soulful 1969 song is in there because The Neurons think it’s funny about how the cat has me getting up to let him in and out over and over again. When it’s warmer, the pet door will be put back into place so he can leave and enter as he wants. But that temperature threshold hasn’t been achieved yet.

In recent news items, Donald Trump was caught lying. Trump said he didn’t sign controversial proclamation. The Federal Register shows one with his signature. Isn’t this rich from the administration which tried to say that President Biden’s pardons weren’t real because, signature. Autosigning thingy. “Did he know what he was signing?” they asked. Think they confused which person doesn’t know what they’re saying. Really, we know that Trump knew what he was signing; he just lied about it because it was giving him negative heat. Trump melts and lies under that kind of heat, sure as the sun’s motion.

Also, measles outbreaks are spreading. It’s mostly among the unvaccinated. You know, intelligent people, learning from what’s happening, would develop and administer vaccines to stop that. But we’re dealing with a new level of denial and irrational thinking with the Trusk Regime and the MAGAts who installed them.

Also, DOGE’s actions don’t seem to be going well with the public. So Republicans are being encouraged to lie about it. Here’s the deets. GOP begs senators to sing DOGE’s praises as support flounders

Gotta go. Cat wants in. Coffee, give me strength. Cheers

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Munda’s Theme Music

A silky blue sky weaves hope and optimism in Ashlandia. A gorgeous spring day is being promised. 63 F now, ‘they’ tell us it feels like 71 F. I agree with them. Plentiful sunshine, as ‘they’ say. 73 F is the predicted high.

This is Munda, March 24, 2025. I dig this kind of sunshine. Especially after months of rain and clouds and the kind of chilly weather that makes me feel older than I am.

The cat is also quite pleased, I think. He zooms around furniture and through rooms. “Sun recharge your batteries?” I ask. He stops, sits, stares. Classic 3s floofhavior. After three seconds of this, he sticks a rear leg out and washes its underside. I begin for the kitchen. He pauses the washing to gift me with a scrutinizing stare. “You’ll get yours,” I say, because I know that whereismyfood look.

In the kitchen, I’m doing my morning things. Gotta move faster today. Leaving to do Food & Friends deliveries at 10 AM. Everything must be slightly accelerated. Nanoseconds must be shaved away from routines. I don’t feel like shaving time off today. I’m not a Formula 1 driver doing qualifying laps.

I give Papi his first feeding. That’s misleading. He’s already eaten from kibble bowls several times. This is a wet food offering. Eyes bright, he chirps at me as I lower the food bowl toward him. “Yes, you love me now,” I say. His purr vibrates the floor.

Time is flying. I eat. Make coffee. Drink same. Clean and dress. Examine my lower limbs for swelling and find none, knock on wood. My compression socks are easily drawn over my feet and up my legs. I’m becoming very proficient getting them on. It’s the other end, taking them off, that’s the challenge. I might have made a mistake by turning down the doffing stick. I reassure myself that not using the doffing stick gives my wrists, fingers, and hands a needed workout. My self is as suspicious about that as a cat might be.

We hit the Senior Center for the food pickup and schedule. Cars surround the center. Parking is limited. “That’s a bad sign,” my wife declares. “The food must not be ready.”

I’m resigned to wait. “Go check.”

She returns with the first load of food within a minute, surprising us. We’re off and running with a minimum wait.

“Only ten stops today,” she says.

“Ten stops. I remember when we had twice that.” Yes, people have disappeared from the list. We usually don’t know what happens to them. They’re Schrödinger’s elderly people. That’s a miserably depressing thought for such a sunny, bright day.

Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is the Pat Benatar offering, “Invincible”. Released in 1985, it was quite a hit at that time and stays on classic rock stations as an offering for the elderly still feasting on the past. The Neurons called it up today to support the April 5 Hands Off actions rising. Annie commented on a post, “I just read that the April 5 coalition includes at least 83 organizations, among them the Communications Workers of America and the Service Employees International Union. It’s gonna be big!!”

We need big energy to combat the Trusk Regime and GOTP. We need the energy of “Invincible”. Written by Simon Climie and Holly Knight, the song was made for the movie The Legend of Billie Jean.

[Chorus]
We can’t afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible

[Verse 2]
This shattered dream you cannot justify
We’re gonna scream until we’re satisfied

[Pre-Chorus]
What are we running for?
We’ve got the right to be angry
What are we running for?
When there’s nowhere we can run to anymore

h/t to Genius.com

It could be that I’m overwrought by the Trusk situation in the United States.

Hope your day satisfies you in some meaningful ways. I’m writing and then planning long-delayed chores. I’ve always blamed the weather. Now that the weather has improved, my excuses are gone.

Here’s the music video. Cheers

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Two Teachers

Daily writing prompt
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
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Funny to me that this is a prompt today, as I was remembering these two teachers this morning before I went online. The pair of teachers were my favorites and most influential. One was encountered in sixth grade while the other taught me two years later.

First, each encouraged me to think harder and try harder. Through their support, I gained self-confidence. Both introduced me to new areas of literature. My sixth-grade teacher, Mrs Forsythe (who was previously Mrs Fogle) read aloud to the class every afternoon. One book she read to us was Flowers for Algernon. Noticing how much I enjoyed it, she took the time to suggest other books and authors to me. From this came my infatuation with science fiction and fantasy, and a lifelong love affair with reading.

Mrs Rubenstein, in the eight grade, taught me to read the news and actually think about what was being said about events of the era. This was during Nixon’s first term. The United States was still fighting in Vietnam. The intense Cold War with the USSR was one facet of worry for us, but many other wars raged, and students were protesting the world’s direction across the United States.

Both of these teachers fired an intense interest in events beyond the end of my nose. I hope that everyone has at least one teacher like them in their lives. I was fortunate to have two. There were several others for me who opened my mind as well, but these two women were very special in my development.

I will never forget them and the debts I owe them.

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Short Stories

From nothing but a whim, my favorite short stories. Well, it began at the library. My wife and I went in to pick up two books she had on hold. The ‘Staff Picks’ display at the front desk including a book called Nine Stories, a collection of short stories by J.D. Salinger which I enjoyed when I was a teenager. I read the first one while my wife was doing her librarying thing. That triggered thoughts about short stories I remember and count among my favorites from my youth because they affected how I viewed the world after reading them.

A Jury of Her Peers – Susan Glaspell

Sandkings – George R.R. Martin

The Lottery – Shirley Jackson

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream – Harlan Ellison

The Open Window – Saki

Soft-boiled Sergeant – J.D. Salinger

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It’s Embarrassing…

Daily writing prompt
What was the best compliment you’ve received?
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I kind of cringe and debate about answering this. It feels like bragging. But I’m gonna take a deep breath and put it out there.

I received the same compliment from six different people, six different times. It really felt flattering, receiving it every time, and I glow as I remember it now. Each of these people were individuals I respected. So I thought it the best compliment when each called me years after they’d last worked for me and said, “You’re the best person I ever worked for.”

I mean, you know, I tried. I think many do try to be a good boss, someone who is honest to their people, trying to help them grow, and hopefully developing bonds. Half of those people who called were from my military career, and the other half were from my civilian positions. Regardless of whether I was in the military or a civilian, my stance as ‘boss’ was driven by several tenets. One, treat everyone with respect. Two, trust people. Three, be honest. Four, teamwork and communicating are critical to get things done. And five, the best evidence that you’re a good leader is how well your team does when you’re not around. So after all those years, to get those calls, man, it was satisfying and rewarding.

Probably a good thing that they waited and called me up to tell me that, though. Otherwise, it would have gone right to my head.

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Twosda’s Theme Music

We’ve touched down on Twosda, March 18, 2023. The rain has ceased. Winter still dominates the seasonal dance off. Those blackened tufted clouds don’t bespeak of spring. Temperature is sticking close to the upper thirties as if it’s been ordered but 46 F is a projected high, the weather ‘they’ say. Sunlight has been flitting in an out on butterfly wings.

News…we won’t get into that yet. Except, locally, a woman died in rural Central Point flooding brought on by our spate of heavy rains. Was apparently clearing branches from a culvert when her waders filled and she was taken into the culvert and drowned. Sad end to a life, fighting water, trying not to drown.

Jesse Colin Young, a member of the Youngbloods folk pop rock group, passed away, 83 years old. Part of the sound of the 1960s frquently heard through a transistor radio’s thin sound as I moved from being young innocent into inquisitive teenager, Mr. Young was also an activist for peace, justice, and the environment. Soon as I read of his passing, The Neurons slotted the Youngbloods’ 1967 cover of “Get Together” into the morning mental music stream.

Coffee and I got together in the kitchen, continuing our brewmance. Hope your day goes solidly your way. Here’s the music. And off we go, into the darkish grayish yonder…

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Three Out of Five Times

Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
View all responses

I’ve gone across the United States a few times. Furthest was from San Fransisco to New Hampshire via New York. I did that a few times in the military, always by train, and then SF to Connecticut via NY a few times for business, also by train.

I’ve always loved traveling by car. Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, my parents loaded us into cars and off we went! One trip, barely remembered, was in a large Chevy station wagon from California to Pennsylvania. I think I was three years old. What I best remember about that was that I shared space in the station wagon’s back end with my older sister and a large black trunk. The trunk was useful as a fort and a table. Traffic being what it sometimes was, peering out the windows and waving to others was a recurring pastime. There were many coloring books involved with that trip, too.

My wife and I took a few almost cross-country trips. After I returned from my military assignment in the Philippines, I traveled to West Virginia where my wife stayed with her parents via commercial aircraft and Greyhound bus. Some of the logistics are a little foggy in my head, but I ended up visiting family in Pittsburgh and bought a used Porsche 914 there. I drove it down to West Virginia, and then my wife and I drove it across the southern United States to my new duty location outside of San Antonio, Texas. The first five hundred miles was through a blizzard. We then drove the reverse trip eight months later, when I decided to exit the military.

Funny enough, years later, there we were, in Texas again. This time we’d returned to the United States from an assignment in (on?) Okinawa. We’d been there for almost four years. Two things to know about driving in Okinawa was that it was on the left side of the road, with a right side steering wheel and the fastest speed we’d gone was 100 KPH, about 61 MPH. Renting a car in San Antonio at the airport, we were suddenly driving on the other side of the ride, the steering wheel on the other side, in the rain, at night, at 70 MPH. It was an awakening.

We then bought a new car, a Mazda RX-7, and drove it from San Antonio, Texas, to…ready? West Virginia. A big blizzard struck Texas that year. Interstate 10 was closed. Fortunately, Texas has Interstate ‘access roads’. We drove out of San Antonio through the blizzard via the access roads until we could get onto I-10. Man, I’ll tell you, traffic was pretty light.

I’ve flown cross country multiple times since then. The last time that my wife and I drove across cross country was from West Virginia to California. This was 1991. We’d been assigned to a base in Germany. She returned a few months early and was living not far from her parents in West Virginia. She’d bought a little Honda Civic. We loaded her and our three cats, Rocky, Crystal, and Jade, into the Honda, along with her belongings, and drove to Sunnyvale, California, via the Rocky Mountains. Let me tell you, the Honda, with its 1.5 liter engine, wasn’t happy about the Rockies. We’d swooped down the mountains as fast as we dared to build up speed to get up the next one. Geez, what a trip.

Not our actual car. Our car looked just like this, except it was gray.

I’ve also gone from Texas to Pennsylvania via Greyhound bus after finishing military basic training in 1975. But the one thing I always wanted to do was take a train across the country. We traveled by train in Japan and Europe, and loved it. It’s hasn’t come to pass in the U.S.

Maybe, someday, though, maybe someday…I’ll get to take a train ride across the United States.

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Munda’s Theme Music

It’s FOFFing* outside in Ashlandia, where the voters are liberal. Munda has fallen on us and can’t get up. A later winter storm is driving through the valley and the temperature is sticking to 35F. Supposed to rocket up to 48 F but that rocket might not get liftoff, if we use those clouds for our reasoning. If we use history and experience, the weather could go in any direction from here.

This is Munda, March 17, 2025. Which is, yelp, St. Patrick’s Day. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you. Are you wearing green to draw some Irish luck your way?

*FOFFING: Fat Ol’ Flakes Falling

Watching those flakes reminded me of a cat experience. This is about Jade. She came to be with us in Okinawa. She belonged to the people up the hall in our apartment building. They had a toddler, and Jade didn’t take shit from anyone, telling them so with claws and teeth. So she came to us and was with us for 20 years more.

When she was four, we moved from Okinawa to the United States. This would be January, 1985. We were in San Antonio after landing to visit family. Jade was with us, as we’d just flown into the country. It began snowing. Jade had never seen snow, so she went out to experience it. She would take a step and shake a foot. Step, shake. Step, shake. Finally fed up of it after a minute, she returned to inside the motel room. I still grin, remembering her reaction.

Been catching up on the news. Hear there was some wicked weather across the United States and that the Trusk Regime thumbed their nose at a judge. It’s enough for me to groundhog back to bed for six more weeks. But I’ve served myself coffee so that’s not a current option.

Out of all that news catchup, The Neurons direction Twenty One Pilots to play their 2016 song, “Heathens”, in the morning mental music stream.

We don’t deal with outsiders very well
They say newcomers have a certain smell
You have trust issues, not to mention
They say they can smell your intentions
You’ll never know the freak show sitting next to you
You’ll have some weird people sitting next to you
You’ll think “How did I get here, sitting next to you?”
But after all I’ve said, please don’t forget

h/t to Genius.com

The coffee is doing its function. Take it slow and roll through Munda, St. Patty’s Day. Here we go. Cheers

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Floofevision

Floofevision (floofinition) – Television or movies either created to entertain animals, or containing stories in which animals are heavily featured. Origins: United States, Internet, 1998.

In Use: “As Youtube videos became popular, many floofvision offerings featuring birds coming to birdfeeders were made to entertain housefloofs.”

In Use: “Some very successful floofevision offerings include movies or televisions series such as Gentle Ben, Lassie, and My Friend Flicka.”

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Frieda’s Theme Music

Winter is perched in Ashlandia and its surroundings for another day. Yesterday, we sequenced through snow, sleet, rain, sunshine, repeat. Today seems like a duplicate effort. Snow is falling, the temperature is crowding 38 F with a questionable chance the air temp will light up 48 F. This is Frieda, March 14, 2025.

I read with serious dismay that the US Postal Service struck a deal to let DOGE ‘improve’ services.

That’s great news, innit? Yes, that’s snark.

I don’t find it great news at all. All that I’ve seen of DOGE so far is cutting headcount without having knowledge about what they’re doing. This has fed chaos in many areas of government. Facing outrage and backlash to the chaos, GOTP politicians have stopped holding townhalls and avoid meeting their constituents. Meanwhile, many agencies which had DOGE cuts had to hire people back, either because vital positions had been cut, or courts ruled that what DOGE did was illegal. Coupled with PINO Trusk’s tariffs, economic war, and imperial military interests, the stock market is rushing down, talk of a Trumpcession is heating up, and corporations are putting plans on hold and laying off/terminating employees due to ‘economic uncertainy and instabilitly’. Good times! So much winning!

Anyway, I’m not optimistic about what will happen to the mail system with DOGE’s ‘help’. The length of time needed for mail to be delivered has already increased. So have stamp prices. Post offices and satellite offices have been closed. We all drive further to wait longer to get postal business done. Our mail takes laborious, convoluted routes. Doesn’t go from A to B no even A to C. No, it now goes A to K and then back to H, up to P, back to D, and then, finally, B, it’s destination. Dog knows what DOGE will do to it.

Another series of uplifted dreams washed through my sleep. I awoke feeling rested, vigorous, and almost joyful. Weirdly, The Neurons inserted a 1986 song called “Mad About You” by Belinda Carlisle into the morning mental music stream. I have nothing against the song; I know it from the car radio. Driving in my car, doing errands, commuting to work, etc. It’s a bouncy tune with easily heard and appreciated lyrics, simple for a sing along, Maybe you know it and will sing along.

Coffee has established its presence in my system. I’m ready to get out into the snow and wind — didn’t mention the wind before, did I, but, yes, there is wind — and get down to bidness. Have the best day possible for yourself and yours. Here’s the music. Cheers

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