Tag: memories

Sunda’s Wandering Thoughts

Snow was falling, and I was walking through it. No wind was bothering us, and the temperature is hovering around 33 F, so it’s not too cold. I enjoy walking in general but walking in snow is special. Snow affects all the senses for me. As it collects, it muffles sounds. Falling, it alters light. Snow flakes feel different, too, because each is as unique as a person, animal, or leaf. Everything seems magnified, walking in snow.

At the intersection of all these sensations, I fall back into memories of being a child, walking through snow. Tasting snowflakes with my tongue. Watching air condense as I breathe out. Examining the world as a new cover falls over it. Snow often drove people into buildings, and my walks outside were rewarded with solitude. Sometimes, semi-profound observations visited, but I mostly just walked, holding hands with nature.

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Soup Time!

Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite thing to cook?
View all responses

I’m gonna tell you in full disclosure, I’m not a cook. I cooked more when I was teenager, and it was just Dad and I. Pulling out the cookbook, I made Yankee pot roast, did different things with chicken, concocted meat loaf, scalloped potatoes, and stuffed green peppers, along with the usual breakfast fares and pasta dishes. Now I’m all about the soup.

Soup is fun and easy to me. I have six go-to recipes that my wife found for me. My current favorite — because these things change, you know? — is the fall roasted root veggie soup. Quarter five pounds of small potatoes. I like to use a medley of golds, purples, reds. Cut up a couple stalks of broccoli and carrots. Drench an garlic clove in olive oil and wrap it in aluminum foil. Spread the veggies across a couple baking sheets with the garlic clove in the middle of one. Drizzle olive oil over the veggies. I don’t add salt because of sodium issues, but you can. I do pepper it. Roast.

After they’re roasted, the veggies are put into a big pot. Two quarts of mushroom broth is poured in. Add water if needed. Take apart the roasted garlic clove and add. Simmer for twenty. Now you’re in yumsville. Add hot bread with butter, of course. It’s a cold day dish that’ll warm and satisfy. Good for you, too. That makes it a win-win.

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Sunda’s Theme Music

Sunda, February 2, 2025, arrived in Ashlandia as inviting as a gray, wet mop. Sunshine feels like an alien life form. 35 F, the thermometer says the air temp is, and ‘they’ tell me that the temperature will punch up to 36 F. Light snow is falling.

Kind of light snow is falling. Sometimes, it’s rain, sometimes it’s sleet. A position can’t be staked and claimed for the local weather. Reactions on NextDoor about the weather are frequently amusing about this. “The forecast is for rain. Or snow! Maybe we’ll get zero inches, maybe we’ll get 88! Who knows?!!!” I can imagine someone looking a little wild-eyed and giggling to themselves typing this up. But she has aptly captured the general flow of thoughts.

Part of all this is elevation. Ashland is built on a series of southern mountain slopes. Weather changes are experienced as you slipslide up and down. Our house resides around 2100 feet. Looking up the street, where elevation increases a few hundred more, snow is visible lining roofs.

A winter storm warning is out for our area, so ‘they’ think it’s gonna be something. The rest of us are giving the forecast a jaundiced ‘we’ll see’ gaze. It is good soup weather. Soup, with hot buttered bread, as been conditioned into me. Mom had a practice of dishing out soup on days like this. Campbell’s had advertising campaigns predicated on the need. My wife is also out of that school. Her eyes and expression gain a little light as she states the idea, “This looks like a good soup day.” Best of all on a day like this, with trouble in the news — I haven’t looked but this is now the Trump era, and that’s all there is since he’s been installed as POTUS — would be a big bowl of Mom’s chili. She had an awesome recipe, and I could eat that stuff eight days a week.

Today’s theme music emerges from more conversations with my wife. A lifelong feminist who took on the ideology that everyone is born with equal rights regardless of anything else at an early age, the Trump’s administration to break the world and shove us back into the 1800s has her GRRRRRRR cranked up to eleven. The match point from the convos is that Trump respects nothing. We suspect that he doesn’t even have much self-respect; although he blusters about how great it is, his statements ring with a desperate need to be believed. That’s why he lieks his rallies, where the gullibles line up to worship him as he needs.

The other portion of these talks is that Elon Musk doesn’t respect the Trumpet at all. Being genuinely more intelligent, craven, and cruel, Musk is eagerly taking advantage of Trump to plunder the United States, with eyes on plundering the world. He has no respect for anyone but himself.

All these talking about respect invited The Neurons to pulled up a song from my teen years and dropped it into the moring mental music stream. “Respect Yourself” begins with the lyrics, “If you disrespect everbody that you run into, how in the world do you think anybody’s gonna respect you?” Trump thinks he can get respect by bullying everyone; he’s convinced himself that’s how it works, and his sycophants feed him a steady diet of ‘you got that right, sir’, so he never hears — or learns — otherwise. So this 1971 tune by The Staple Singers is dedicated to Trump and the Grand Ol’ Trump Party as they go about disrespected all others. No one is gonna give you respect in return.

Beyond the sentiments of the song, I love the funkiness dropped by the electric piano and bass. What a sweet sound. With its beat and vocals, it’s an excellent song to sing along with as you dance around the house. Feel free to turn it up loud.

Coffee has suggested that I have a cup. I didn’t want to be rude, so I agreed. And off we go, into the gray and white yonder. Look, it’s raining again. Or is that snow?

Cheers

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My First ‘Puter

Daily writing prompt
Write about your first computer.
View all responses

I purchased my first computer when I came back to the United States. I was in the military, and my wife and I were stationed on Okinawa in May of 1981, returning to the U.S. in January of 1985. After settling into our new assignment at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, we went out and dropped about 2 grand on a Kaypro II. That was a huge chunk of cash for us. Looking like a portable sewing machine when it was closed, the heavy blue computer had a small green screen, 64K of ram and two 5 1/4 floppy drives. Running at 4.77 megahertz, the machine’s operating system was CPM 87.

Not my machine.

My primary software was MicroPro Wordstar on a floppy.

In 1987, I replaced the Kaypro with a Zenith 100, which could use PC Dos, MS Dos, and IBM DOS. Still ran at 4.77, but the monitor was a big separate RGB monitor. I later added a 10 Meg hard drive, changed the processors, and added more RAM. 10 Meg, we thought, wow, would I ever use that much?

So much has changed in the decades since.

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Saturda’s Theme Music

January of 2024 has concluded and we’ve shifted into a new month. Yes, today is Saturday, Feb 1, 2025. It’s foggy, 40, rainy, and foggy in Ashlandia, foggy enough that it’s mentioned twice. Rain commenced early Friday morning and has stayed for Saturday coffee. Looks like it might be here for dinner, too. The respective highs and lows will be 47 and 37 F degrees.

My wife and I were discussing the news yesterday. Talking about what’s going on. That immediately kicked Marvin Gaye up from the mental memory cellar into the morning mental music stream. First up was the song, “What’s Going On”. Released in 1971, Marvin Gaye’s song captured and conveyed the sense of unrest and frustration permeating the nation in those years.

But the rest of the album was also awesome. “Save the Children”. “Mercy Mercy Me”. “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)”. I ended up with “Mercy Mercy Me” dominating the morning mental music stream. Gaye’s softly voiced observations, “Things aren’t what they used to be,” resonants with now. Things aren’t what they used to be, and much of it is not good.

The song’s entire title is, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”. At the time, our environment was a disaster and getting worse. The song’s lyrics reflect this.

Whoa, ah, mercy mercy me
Oh things ain't what they used to be, no no
Where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east

Whoa mercy, mercy me,
Oh things ain't what they used to be, no no
Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas, fish full of mercury

Ah, oh mercy, mercy me
Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no
Radiation under ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying

Oh mercy, mercy me
Oh things ain't what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land
How much more abuse from man can she stand?

h/t to Lyric.com

Concerted efforts were made to clear up the air, land, and sea in the years since. It’s clear that the challenge is never ending. But under this repressive and regressive administration led by Trump, they’re trying to roll that back, too. The motivation behind rolling it back is to make it easier to make more money. Make ‘America First’. Which makes no sense if there’s not air that we can breathe and water that we can drink.

That makes me circle back to, what’s going on? Well, we know what’s going on. The greed of some will kill the people and the planet, and they’re good with that.

As it happens, this is also the beginning of Black History Month. Anytime is a good time to enjoy Marvin Gaye’s powerful talents, but it’s more timely today.

Coffee and I have amended our agreement for me to enjoy its company again today. Hope you have the best day you can. Enjoy the music video. Cheers

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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

I checked out someone’s song offering on their blog this morning. The song was a Gordon Lightfoot tune, “If You Could Read My Mind”. Another person commented, “Another song I would never have bought, but I know all the lyrics off by heart nonetheless.“

I commented and then walked away thinking, Pete is right. I know so many songs that I never bought. Some of course, was through radio osmosis. Born in 1956 in the United States, I grew up as part of a car culture that had music playing on car radios. Small transistor radios invaded, and I had one of those to keep me linked into the emerging genres populating the 1960s airwaves.

Mom played her part. I’ve never bought anything by Dean Martin, Hank Williams, Bobby Darin, Patsy Cline, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Tony Bennett, Barbra Steisand, Glen Campbell, Fats Domino, Chubby Checkers, Frank Sinatra, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, the Platters, Ink Spots, Louis Armstrong, etc., but if you put me on a stage and made me sing one, I could do it.

Sisters’ albums plied the air with offerings from bands and performers like Grand Funk Railroad, Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Foundations, the Lettermen, Bread, Sonny & Cher, the Boxtops, the Fruitgum Company, Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Lulu, the Turtles, Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman and the Hermits, and so on.

Girlfriends played their part, seeding my mind with Nancy Sinatra, Gordon Lightfoot, the Monkees and the Archies, the Association, the Beatles, Roberta Flack, Carol King, Neil Diamond, Carly Simon, Frankie Valli, and more. Other friends and relatives shared Kenny Rogers (& the Fifth Edition), Three Dog Night, Stealers Wheel, the Byrds, Harry Nilsson, Ricky Nelson, and then later, Brooks & Dunn, Metallica, Whitesnake, Toto (although I did buy Toto 4), and a whole lotta disco.

Then my wife added more, introducing me to Cat Stevens, Seals and Croft, Al Jarreau, and Johnny Rodriguez.

For me, it was a diet of anything Eric Clapton, Marvin Gaye, or Steve Winwood was involved with, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, Pink Floyd, the Who, Led Zep, the Kinks, the Zombies, the Animals, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, Sam & Dave, the Guess Who, ZZ Top, Mountain, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Moody Blues, Robert Johnson, the Beach Boys, Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Fleetwood Mac, Albert King, King Crimson, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Sly & the Family Stone, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and Blue Oyster Cult. Later came Boston, van Halen, Reo Speedwagon, Rush, the Eurythmics, Chris Rea, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Stone Roses, Status Quo, Men at Work, Midnight Oil, STP, Pearl Jam, Bush, Dire Straits, the Police, Sting, and a whole bunch of others.

There’s a web of songs in my mind, and I only wove a few of the strands.

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Frieda’s Theme Music

Twenty-three days of 2025 are done.

Here we sit, on January 24, 2025. Looks much like yesterday in Ashlandia. Blue skies beckon you into cold — okay, coldish, 36 degrees F — air. We’re heading into 50 something degrees later, or so ‘they’ tell me.

Hear ’bout the new ‘constitutional amendment resolution’ proposed for Trump? Sure you have. Idea to sketch a work-around to let him and only him serve a third term. Because, in the GOP’s eyes, he’s been so brill. Man, they don’t let history or facts into their brains. And what arrogance and hubris, yeah? Days into his second term, and they’re declaring it a success.

You know, I read a David Brooks column in which he noted that Trump seems to long for the days between 1830 and 1899. Seems about right. Before vaccines were widespread and had mitigated so much death. Before the digital age, where lies are shown in techno sharpness, complete with date, time, and context. I’m sure Trump would much rather live in an era where his sloppy thinking and brazen bullshit doesn’t constantly reappear to bite him in the ass. As Brooks points out, sure, that’s a golden time back in that century, in those days, in certain ways, if you’re willing to whitewash history and gloss over some details like slavery, poverty, and women’s rights. Trump and the GOP are certainly willing to do that.

Today’s theme music was also the choice back in January, 2021. I‘m often surprised about how music seems to arrive in memory at the same time of the year. Anyway, today, Der Neurons have “Drive” by Incubus from 1999 circulating the morning mental music stream. The recurring chorus drives my beloved Neurons.

Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes, yeah
Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
I’ll be there, yeah, ohh

h/t to Genuis.com

My eyes are open, and my arms will be open for positive change, and not the crap being levied on us now by the billionaire administration.

Coffee has approached me with an offer I couldn’t refuse. Here’s the music. Twenty-three days done. On into number twenty-four. Cheers

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Wezda’s Theme Music

Cold and bright, Ashlandia has reared up out of the darkness anew. It’s January 22, 2025, and now 36 F, ten degrees above the morning’s start. Fog, precipitation, and that sort of thing has abandoned the area, leaving sunshine a clear path. ‘They’ tell me our high will be 56 F today. And again, continuing a trend — three days! — this looks attainable.

I had a song loaded in the morning mental music stream. Then I read that John Sykes, guitarist associated with Whitesnake, died at 65. So The Neurons brought in “Still of the Night” in memory of Sykes. Ah, such music. Classic metal hair band. Rarely listened to it but was familiar with it due to being in clubs and radio rotation. Coverdale is the vocalist and I was a fan from his earlier efforts with other groups and songs.

Coffee has presented a peace offering. Be strong, and keep rocking. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Twosda’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeetoxicated

It’s raining abundant sunshine down on us on this, Twosda, January 21, 2022. Temperature is up to 30 F after landing at 26 F overnight. ‘They’ inform me that today’s high will exceed 50 F. It’s all possible, from the general appearance, and we did do it yesterday.

All this is better than my sister’s world back in Pennsylvania. She texted me that it was either snowing heavily or the wind was blowing the existing snow around. Either way, there was a lot of white stuff obscuring vision. She was at work on her midday when she reported this to me. She reported that the temperature was 5 degrees F. That’s barking cold, brothers and sisters.

Today’s music came from a mental exercise. I was on a news blackout yesterday. So I was unleashed in my net surfing. I soon hooked a clickline about the 50 greatest one-hit wonders. I decided to brainstorm and see how many I came up with. About half was the reckoning. Guess I needed more coffee. One song that I missed was “Criminal” by Fiona Apple. Weird thinking of her as a one-hit wonder, because I know a few other songs she released which were hits, but here we are. Naturally, after seeing it on the list, The Neurons carried it into the morning mental music stream, where they’ve released it on a loop. So I share with you to free myself.

Coffee has offered to pour into my mouth and invade my system and kick my energy into a higher gear. I gladly accepted. Here’s the music. Let’s light the fuse on the day. Cheers

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Frida’s Theme Music

Mood: feelinalright

It’s crazy frog outside.

‘Crazy frog’ is a mondetext. A mondegreen is ‘a word or phrase that results from a mishearing especially of something recited or sung’. (h/t Merram-Webster). I figure that a mondetext would be a mishearing by an app when creating a text message, especially homophones. In this case, I was speaking into my phone, texting my sister when my wife behind me said, “It’s freezing fog outside.” The app turned that ino crazy frog. It’s our new household phrase for 2025.

Frida, January 17, 2025, has commenced in Ashlandia with crazy frog at 32 degrees F. A stagnant air advisory is in effect. When the fog burns off or moves away, it’ll be cloudy, sunny day that will make the thermometer sing at 46 F at its highest.

Alexa tells me that the Supreme Court ruled that TikTok is a goner. That’s business in ‘Merica.

Since mondegreens were introduced as a topic, The Neurons have awakened and put one of my favorites into the morning mental music stream. “Alive and Kicking” was released by Simple Minds in 1985. When it came out, my wife and I were out for a drive when it hit the radio. After a moment, she asks, “Are they singin, ‘I like the chicken’?” If you wanna check out other mondegreens, here’s a short list of some well-known mishearings.

Closing with hope that you have a strong day. Coffee and I have come together in a good way once again. Here’s the Simple Minds video. Sing along with it: “I like the chicken.” Cheers

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