Tag: memories

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeegalvanized

It’s a stillish fall morning outside the windows. Rain’s been falling from darkly loaded clouds. They’ve overtaken the blue and sun today.

It’s Thursday, October 17, 2024. Chilly with that rain, the high will be 61 and the low will be 37 F. Freeze warnings are in effect for tomorrow morning’s early hours. On the bright side of matters, our air quality is excellent, just single digits.

Got a call this morning from the county emergency system. Today is the great shake-out. They wanted us to pretend an earthquake was underway and practice surviving it. I’ve been through a few smaller quakes so I easily imagined the shaking.

The situation provoked some pre-coffee thinking. When I was a child in Wilkinsburg, PA, I remember us doing a duck and cover under my desk, in case the commies launched their nukes. Then, in the military, we were always practicing surviving war and natural disasters. There were fake NBC attacks. Fake unexploded ordinance to deal with. And of course, nukes and EMP. What would happen if we lost our telecommunications; how would we survive? We practiced decoding messages which would send us to war, and other exercises to receive notification hostilities were over. My career’s final years saw me fighting simulated space wars. Throughout, I was engaged in war planning, getting ready to deploy equipment to some theater’s front lines, etc., and reporting on our efforts to get ready and be ready, briefing the general who was our commander five days a week at one assignment, and getting ready to brief him.

Naturally, here in southern Oregon, we stay ready for wildfires. We have checklists and go-bags for evacuation. I’m fairly prepared in that regard, as I wrote local plans, checklists, and guidance for evacuating bases for wherver I was, and trained others in executing that stuff.

Seems like a lot of my life has been about getting ready. I was getting ready to be an adult as a teen. Beyond getting ready for war and natural disasters during, I was constantly getting ready for flu season, to move to another assignment, and I was getting ready for retirement.

Now I’m getting ready for my foot surgery. Getting ready for Mom and Dad to pass. That could be my life motto: “Get ready.”

Of course, as I reflect on my needs to get ready as a child and adult, I think it’s better than the active shooter drills so many children now go through to get ready for the real deal. Their need is driven by people with guns walking into schools and committing mass murder. My need to get ready was much more abstract and distant.

I have a pre-op appointment for my foot surgery next Wednesday. It’s to get me ready for the surgery. Actual surgery takes place the following Wednesday. The pre-op appointment came out of the blue. No phone call or coordination about what time works best for me; just a sudden message through Mychart telling me that the appointment was made. Poor communication, to me, and sort of arrogant, and annoying. Like, hey, what if I was out of town that day? Fortunately, I’m not, but still…

Today’s music comes via Tom MacInnes’s website. I enjoy Tom’s posts about music history, along with his experiences as a teacher and a father, particularly his stories about reading with his daughter and his students. Yesterday’s post was “The Great Canadian Road Trip…Song #76/250: Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne”. I ended up with “Sk83r Boi” in my morning mental music stream (Trademark bopping). It’s a lively, energetic song, and completely free and clear of political nuances, so I latched onto that. I need a political break from scanning news on either side of the schism, and tales of polls, rumors, innuendoes, and courts. Just give me some simple teenage offering.

I’m pretty pleased with it as a song choice. The Neurons had been offering “The Monkey’s Uncle” from the Disney movie with the same title. I don’t know why the hell The Neurons chose that song. Never saw the movie, but I knew of its elements, and obviously that song and some of the other songs the movie offered. That was from an era of beach movies. I never dug ’em.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee has been introduced to my systems once again and I believe I have a pulse. Here’s the music. Get ready for the election.

Cheers

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Today’s Wandering Thoughts

I found myself thinking about my parents as I dressed this morning. One is from Iowa and resides in Pennsylvania. The other is from Pennsylvania and lives in Texas. They divorced way back in the mid 1960s. Were friends or friendly off and on. Now Mom is bitter and angry about Dad; Dad is reflective about Mom.

I left their homes when I was 17. I’ve visited both as they moved around, remarried, and raised other families. As they’ve aged, Dad tells me he’d like to be closer to me. Mom tells me she’d like to hear from me more often because she worries about me.

But a large elephant marches through their desires. I’ve been married 49 years. Mom visited me once, when I bought her an airline ticket and forced it to happen. Dad visited me once in my first year of marriage, dropping by with my father-in-law for thirty minutes while they happened to be in the area. It just didn’t seem like they were deeply invested in being part of my life.

I don’t feel abandoned by them. Dad admits he wasn’t a good father and wasn’t there. Mom insists she was there as much as she could be. I do see their sides but I’m indifferent to Dad’s efforts for us to be closer or to Mom’s request for me to alleviate worries. I could employ simple sophistry and claim, they made me who I am, but really, I head little from them across my decades of living. Sure, they always sent birthday and holiday cards, but mostly there were months of silence. Yes, I know they each raised other children and went on through a few more marriages.

I get all of that. My feelings about them slice along a spectrum. I love them as they love me, from a distance. I know they made sacrifices on my behalf to ensure I had food and shelter security and a place to call home. But at an early age, as I watched their fights and listened to their arguments, I made a decision to be independent of them. Sure, there are days when I surf the spectrum of our relationships when I want to help them out of guilt or empathy. They become less as I move through my life, age, and deal with my own issues.

My parents both have been supportive in many ways. They tell me they’re proud of me. My wife points out that it all would’ve probably been different if she and I had children.

But we didn’t, and this is where my parents and I stand, like many other parents and their offspring, at a complex crossroads which we never leave.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Friedigestion

Clouds and sky share uneven, uneasy streaks. Blue and white. A muted sun brings light but not much fresh heat. Shadows barely break out of the ground at the sun’s touch, faded dreams of being on the grass and asphalt. A smoky nuance curses the air’s freshness. I don’t know where the fire is but I suspect someone has their fireplace going.

This is autumn. This is fall.

It’s Friday, October 12, 2024. While we’ll see a high of 77 F, right now it’s 52 and feels more like 48.

Those shadow thoughts, along with dream remnants brought up a song by Joy Division. Joy Division was a group of hugh promise and potential in my eyes. I heard them while stationed at Brooks AFB in San Antonio, Texas, after returning from my Philippines assignment. San Antonio had a terrific rock FM station where I’d hear music way different from the chart busting rotation of the more commercialized stations.

“Shadowplay” from 1976 is circulating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark faded). Don’t think I’ve ever heard it on any venue outside of a movie once or twice. I didn’t have any Joy Division albums that I recall but many years later, when stationed in Germany, a friend had the album which featured this song. We listened to it and reminisced.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. I’m working out some coffee now, testing how it fits in with my taste buds, see if it’s a keeper. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Scandalized

October 9, 2024, is under autumn’s spell. Clouds dab the blue sky, reflecting sunlight and lined in gold. Lemony appearing leaves dapple across the backyard’s grass, thickening into a carpet as more leaves join the exodus from the tree.

It’s Wednesday. 54 F, we’ll graze the low 70s today for our high today before the sun’s trip sends us back into darkness.

Checked on Hurricane Milton first thing on the net. Grew back into a cat 5 last night and has dipped back into a 4. Due to cross over Florida sometime this evening as present expectations go.

This dip into history. Remember when Donald Trump said this back in 2016 when first running for POTUS?

“Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the Presidency of the United States. …she’s been taking plenty of money out for herself. Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft.” 

I won’t rhetorically wonder what his supporters think of Trump’s grifting since he made that declaration about the “politics of personal profit and even theft” back in 2016; we know Trump supporters aren’t deep on thinking about him and his actions, except when it mocks, villifies, and denigrates others.

What about this quote, also from 2016: “A candidate under federal investigation ‘has no right to be running.’ Further, it would be ‘virtually impossible for (a president under indictment) to govern.'”

Yes, he said it, baby. But under Donald Trump’s Silly Putty moral standards, such declarations don’t apply to himself. Why, he’s a victim of the deep state, he squeals. Totally innocent! They’ve weaponized the DOJ against him.

Never his fault. Never, never, never. He can only take credit, not criticism, and certainly not failure, despite his long string of failures.

Thinking about Donald Trump and his endless lying litany, whining, and empty bragging and boasting brought The Neurons awake. They went along the lines of, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Next thing you know, they have The Cult with “Fire Woman” from 1989 rocking the morning mental music stream (Trademark burning). It’s a classic wall of sound thumping beat stadium rock offering.

While the song is about temptation, love, and sex, it’s also about being hypnotized by something to the point that you’ve lost control. While it goes on, “Fire woman, you’re to blame,” my mind paraphrased, “Fire man, you’re to blame.” I was thinking of the deep polarization we’re experiencing as a nation, and the schisms Trump has created and widened through constant lying and wheedling. But his folks can’t see — or won’t. He’s got the power over them. Got them satisfied and pleased about being openly and defiantly hateful, racist, bigoted, and sexist.

Moving on.

Stay positive. Be strong. Vote blue in 2024. Coffee has come by on its mercy mission. Here’s the music. Just as a note, I don’t think I’ve heard this song on the radio in years. Well, there’s so much music out there, isn’t there?

Have a good one. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Fuzzcollecting

Another splash of autumn covers the day, this day being Friday, October 4, 2024. Skies, trees, sun, etc. Coolish warming air grazing around 61 F. Expectations that we’ll kiss upper seventies today, a few nicks down from the mid 80s felt yesterday. Tomorrow, we’re back into the eighties, riding the seesaw of seasonal change.

The cats traverse the doors in and out, liking the outdoors in sun patches, bundling themselves into loaves, moving when the sun shies away from their chosen skim of earth. Chess with sunshine, they think themselves kings, bishops at least, but the sun treats them like pawns.

The Neurons are wandering my mind’s corridors, apparently. They dust off a 1968 song and start playing it in the morning mental music stream (Trademark ancient). As breakfast makes its trip to the stomach’s acids, I question The Neurons about why this and now? This is Cream doing “Anyone for Tennis.” Now is today, 2024, a zillion plus one years removed from when I was a boy and saw them on television. Cream were on the Smothers Brothers Show and did this show. I found the video to it on Youtube. Their clothing snatches back reminders of the purple and blue paisley shirts and denim bell bottoms worn by moi in those days. Later, in my high school years, the bell bottoms would remain but the shirts would become simpler designs and colors. The hair was always long, thick, wild and curly, exasperating my divorced parents, amusing my sisters and aunts and uncles, and sometimes entrancing a girl.

Done with the mornin’ memory portion of the day unless The Neurons pull more out. They may at any given. Stay positive, test negative, be strong, and vote blue. Coffee has had its way with me. Here’s the music. Onward. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Octobergestion

October 1, 2024. Tuesday. Officially time for pumpkins in the U.S. Or so it was when I was an effen grasshopper. Didn’t have all those fancy pumpkin drinks and confections bursting onto the scene. We had pumpkin patches and pumpkin pies. Simpler sales and marketing era.

I remember tasting my first pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks. Living in Califonia, retired from the military. Family visiting circa 2003. Oddly chilly Saturday afternoon. Drove ‘over the hill’ as it was called from Half Moon Bay to visit the San Jose Institute of Technology. Afterward, we were flagging. Coffee and some sitting was needed. Hey, a Starbucks. Hey, I heard about those pumpkin spiced latte. Let’s try those. Sugar, whipped cream, coffee, pumpkin? Why not.

It was okay. Didn’t convert me or anything but rejuvenated my spring for a few hours.

Autumn is hanging all over us this morning. Long morning shadows from the rising sun spill across the land, highlighting golden and yellow leaves blazing in sunlight. We lack trees with oranges, reds, and scarlets in our immediate. Kind of a bummer. Soon as you descend the short hill to the boulevard, they’re abundant. Just not up here. I’m tryin’ not to be personally insulted over it.

55 F now and sunny, expect a high of 86 F. Fire warning is in effect. Dry conditions and warm air deliver the chance that any fire starting can spread fast. Take heed. It’s due to end later this morning.

Tough watching and reading news coverage of Hurricane Helene’s destruction. Flash floods and sudden floods and storm surges, heavy winds and rains. Death and catastrophe mark the spots. Sickening and disheartening for the people of all those states and areas struck. Individual stories arise of bravery, hopelessness, and tragedy. Hope your friends and family are okay, wherever they are. The strength of a nation and a people is that we will respond to help them recover and rebuild however we can.

With weather on my mind, it’s little wonder that The Neurons responded by songs about hurricanes, lightning and storms. While they played in the morning mental music stream (Trademark underwater), I sought they out on my usual, Youtube. Lo’, the expired licensing deal between YouTube and SESAC makes some songs unavailable. Hope that resolves soon. Fortunately for my Neurons, there’s a plethora of storm songs in mind to look for. I ended up with AC/DC and “Thunderstruck” from 1990.

Keep on being strong, register, and vote blue. Coffee and I have begun our daily agreement. I talk nice about it and it helps me adult. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sundaylazing

Autumn covered us this morning with a familiar old comforter. Sunshine on changing leaves, cloudy, hazy blue sky, crisp weather ranging from the upper forties (Fahrenheit) at night to today’s high in the low to mid 70s.

Today is Sunday, September 29, 2024.

It’s National Coffee Day in the United States! Like many holidays, its provenance is a little iffy. Coffee is a staple in the United States. Lot of coffee drinkers like me swear by a daily brew or two. The only thing I drink more than coffee is water, and the only drink I enjoy more than coffee is beer. But coffee has less calories and is fat free! Woo hoo! While it has some potential benefits, it comes with potential risks. IMO, the coffee person relationship is more individualized. Either your body works well with coffee or it doesn’t. Think I’ll celebrate as I do every other day, with a cuppa coffee.

BTW, since there’s a coffee-inspired holiday, there are coffee-inspired deals available. USA Today provides a list.

Over on my brain’s political side, my spouse refocused me on a USA Today opinion piece. Written by the notorious Kevin Roberts, it’s titled “Opinion: Harris is wrong about Project 2025. Our plan is good for America.” His final paragraph cracks me up:

“What should be a scandal is the vice president’s attempt to avoid discussions of substantive policy issues. Americans want and deserve a real debate, not vibes.”

Yeah, baby, year, real debate, not vibes. Real debate as Trump and his surrogate, J.D. Vance, spread acknowledged lies about Haitians eating pets in Ohio. Let’s debate that, Roberts.

Will Trump debate the ‘stolen election’ claims he continues to make, even after admitting that he lost the election? The stolen election claims that were thrown out of court over and over again? The efforts to overturn the election that he’s been indicted for?

Let’s have a debate over Trump’s healthcare plan. The one he installed when he was POTUS. *Chortle – yeah, that didn’t happen.* Vaporware has more substance than Trump’s current ‘concept of a plan’.

Let’s debate Trump’s declaration that he’d protect women after the fucking disaster of the Trump-stacked Dobbs decision and its afterbirth on women, their rights, their bodies, and their health. You know, the women who he refers to as ‘bimbos’. The ones he’d grab by the pussy, and Jean Carroll.

Remember this exchange?

Donald Trump: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach.

Unknown: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.

Trump: I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and f*** her. She was married.

What respect he shows! Such a protector! (Yes, that last was late-morning, coffee-fueled snark.)

Yes, let’s have a debate between Trump and Vice President Harris, Roberts! Oh, we can’t because Trump refuses to debate Harris again because she trounced him the last time so badly that Trump’s feelings remain hurt.

Moving on.

Today’s music was inspired by another’s blog post. Tom MacInnes mentioned April Wine in his fabulous series about rock music. I’ve only featured April Wine here once, six years ago. But after today’s post, The Neurons were stirred to drop “Roller” from 1979 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark limited). I had a Canadian friend serving in the U.S. Air Force with me on Okinawa. April Wine was one of his basic “we’re going to play their music” groups. If you were at his house listening to music, you would hear April Wine sooner or later.

Funny, but thinking on that, several such connections exist through my years of friendships. With Jeff, it was Culture Club. Randy could be depended on to bring out Van Halen, although Boston also came out at his place. Rich in Germany was a Chris Rea advocate while Bobby was apt to crank up Cream. Gene, being more old school, frequently invoked the Grateful Dead. Robert was always bringing in Rush. Such a group of characters. Of course, I was likely to turn up a piece out of Pink Floyd’s catalog.

Stay positive, test negative, remain strong, and lean forward. While you’re at it, could you also vote blue in 2024.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Frigruff

Some artists got together and painted us the bluest sky. Brill sunshine was dabbed in o’er the goldenish green trees towering across the backyard. Cats and I were well-thrilled with this autumn display, frolicking in a mature way in the 50 something F air. We’ll plumb the mid 80s F today but autumn is bigfooting its presence on Ashlandia.

This is Friday, September 27, 2024.

I’ve circled at the usual AM stops and found some part of me meditating on What Constitutes A Healthy Breakfast? Trader Joe’s sheet cake was inviting me for a taste but that’s not healthy, is it? Well, it could be. Pumpkin and spices. Probably all artificial. But tasty.

Laboring through the morning news. Hurricane Helene did the wreckage as expected. Still rampaging. NY’s mayor indicted. The noble and dignified Trump hawking watches. They say they found the world’s oldest cheese, too. I thought that was in my fridge. I checked; still there. So that’s another example of fake news, innit?

Maggie Smith passed. 89, which is now considered a youngerish sort of age. Suppose because I’m closer to that yardstick. Beloved is an often overused word, up there with superstar. Beloved seems apt for Maggie Smith.

Alice in Chains is dominating the morning mental music stream (Trademark trademarked) with “Would” from 1992. I check and learn, yes, I used “Would” before as theme music, in September in another year. I have detected a trend of having the same songs come to me in the same months of different years. Serendipity? Random psychosis? Bullshit observation? I don’t know. It’d take more study and I haven’t had enough coffee to pursue it past my fingers bashing a keyboards.

I sneeze several times. My wife isn’t here so I need to tell myself, “Godzilla”.

Which inspires Blue Oyster Cult and their ode to the creature terrorizing Tokyo. It’s been pinned as theme music here too and doesn’t feel synchronized to my day, although nothing else does, either.

Then, clicking and muttering, I’m lead to Stevie Nicks’s new offering, “The Lighthouse”. Nicks said that she’d been on the road, listening to a newscaster talking about Roe v. Wade being overturned. Thinking of what it would mean, she had to write a song.

Nicks sings,

Because everything I fought for
Long ago in a dream, is gone
Someone said
The dream is not over
The dream has just begun
Or
Is it a nightmare
Is it a lasting scar
It is unless you save it
And that’s that
Unless you stand up
And take it back
And take it back

h/t to Genius.com

Yes, this feels like a song for today. Hope you give it an ear.

Be strong and so on as we wade through the days, 39 of them, until November 5, 2024. Coffee still tickles my throat in measured swallows. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: pithynated

It’s a splashing autumn day. Lofty clouds of the decorative sort keeps the sky a lighter shade of morning. Sunshine stumbles in around the clouds to take us up from the high 50s to the high 70s. Yellows and reds are mixing it up with the trees’ greenery. No oranges in residence among the foliage yet.

Welcome to Wednesday, September 25, 2024. Please stand while we sing Ashlandia’s anthem, which sounds a lot like a repurposed rendition of “O Canada.”

I’m in a news trench, reading about our world and the many ways it thrills and disappoints. Find your own examples, I’m not regurgitating them here.

Autumn and the floofs are getting along like oceans and pirates. It’s a mellow grooming, gazing, ear-twitching still life of them in the back as a cloud interrupts their sunbath. Mild annoyance ruffle their whiskers as wind curses the yard. Papi the ginger blade looks especially affronted by this incursion. A place must be found to rest without wind’s prying fingers. He begins stretches and a hunt but bird noises and leafy sounds must be given attention.

Thinking on how autumn seems to have come around, and The Neurons place a song in the morning mental music stream (Trademark imploding). Green Day came out with “When I Come Around” in 1995. I was still a military member then, unspecting that I was on the cusp of retirement. I was over twenty by then, so I’d done my time. I liked my life there but the Air Force noticed I’d been at Onizuka Air Base in Sunnyvale, California, for four years. Time to be moved. They offered me an Inspector General role in Space Command which I nixed. They then presented Whiteman AFB in Missouri for my next tour of duty. That didn’t appeal so I did the necessary ink and walked.

Well, you know the standard closing about strength, positivity, and leaning. Vote blue, of course, like you’re sane and not out to gouge other’s civil rights to better your own existence because you’re a narrow-minded GOP twat. Yes, my black brew is talking through me. I offer the music now out of Woodstock 94, a scant three decades past.

Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

I’m chatting with the barista. He tells me my order will be up soon. I ask him, “Did you ring me up?”

He’s completely confused.

I straighten it out, explaining that I wanted to know if he’d charged me, and walk away, laughing. It used to be — a classic beginning to an explanation about change — that cash registers made a ringing sound when transactions were totaled for payment. How long has it been since I’ve heard a cash register ring? As a result, ‘ring me up’ entered society as a popular expression for paying for purchases.

As an aside, my wife had one of those mechanical, ringing registers in her house. Her father, a grocery store manager, procured it when his store upgraded to an electronic system. The register’s ring reminded him of the little stores where they’d shop in his small town.

He said that he never wanted to forget them.

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