Mood: Sunflective (it’s sunny, and I’m reflecting on life, the universe, and everything)
It’s Marijuana Day, don’t you know. That is 4/20. Add a 2024 and make it a Saturday, and you have the full day/date situation.
420 is a reference to the time to meet and light up a doobie. That time originated with a group of U.S. high school students meeting up at 4:20 PM to search for a marijuana field. I originally heard it was police radio code for marijuana.
Another warmish spring day has touched down in Ashlandia, where the coffee is fresh and above average. It’s 70 F right now. Despite clouds breaking in over the horizons, today’s high has a few more degrees to go. You know the floofs are in full agreement with tasting some warm sunshine, don’t you.
Today’s music is about Dickey Betts. Lead guitarist (a job shared for a period with Duane Allman) and vocalist with the Allman Brothers Band, he passed this week, 80 years old. Man, when ABB came out with “At the Fillmore East” in 1971, I bought that thing and added it fast to the rotation. I’ve had a version of that double album from vinyl to digital ever since. Still play it once in a while when a nostlaxing mood strikes. Nostlaxing would be nostalgic and relaxing. You get it, don’t you?
Once while listening to “Whipping Post”, my wife, who’d come to embrace electrified blues, entered the room and asked, “Who is that playing guitar?”
“That’s Dickey Betts and Duane Allman,” I answered.
She listened a bit more. “Wow, they’re good.”
Yes, they were good.
But the song hooked in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sliding) is a better-known Allman Brothers tune. This is “Ramblin’ Man”, naturally. This live version from 1972 has Dickey on vocals and lead guitar. He wrote the song, as well. Dickey Betts, 1943 – 2024.
Be strong and lean forward. Vote Blue in 2024. Fresh coffee is flowing. Mine is black and sugar-free. Best way to imbibe it. Here’s the video. Cheers
Mood: Fribulent (It’s Friday so my spirits are up but news is bringing me down.)
‘Tis Friday, April 19, 2024. Spring continues an upswing. 66 and sunny after a cloudy, chilly start to the day, 73 F is expected to present as the high. Tomorrow is expected to be close to the same.
It’s lovely, energizing weather. I get out there and feel the sun and it’s like a double espresso has been downed. Lot of outdoor work is finally getting done.
Our hausfloofs, Tucker and Papi, agree. They managed to get much done in the sunshine, bathing themselves and guarding my wife as she lounged in the sun reading and sucking up vitamin D in an epic display of multi-tasking.
Despite these warmer temperatures down in the valley, some scattered snow remains in the mountains around us. The local ski resort, Mt. Ashland, is closed for the season.
Some local news has me down. Cougars are regularly spotted in town. People post their sightings on a website made for that purpose so we can keep an animals safe and avoid the area.
But a cougar was sighted 250 feet from a local elementary school about half a mile from my house yesterday. It killed a friend’s cat. Then the authorities killed the cougar.
Such majestic, fascinating animals, I hate seeing them disposed like that. I understand the aspects for and against. Doesn’t make me happy.
This wasn’t a spur of the moment matter. Brock, the killer, had received threatening phone calls from a man. He had time to call 911 and receive police assistance when the Uber arrived. The victim, Loletha Hall, couldn’t call for help because the killer demanded her phone before killing her.
Two kickers for me. One, the killer claimed that she was trying to rob him on his property. Her dashcam video shows the truth. Two, this only now seems to be becoming national news. It had happened in March. Maybe I was just negligent following the news.
No doubt they’ll show all the extenuating issues. I’m sure it’ll be argued that Ms Hall was a victim of circumstance, and that William Brock was a confused old man stressed by circumstances brought on by the scam phone calls. He, they will say, feared for his life, and that of his family.
Still doesn’t explain why he didn’t call the police before killing an innocent, unarmed, uninvolved person in broad daylight. Especially as he says he figured it was a scam. If he figured it was a scam, why did he shot and kill Ms Hall?
He has been charged with felonious assault, kidnapping, and murder.
“It just strikes me that more and more, nothing really works in America anymore,” Hawley told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “I mean, our roads are falling apart, our bridges are falling down right in front of our eyes. Pieces of airplanes are falling out of the sky.”
Viewers and netizens point out that President Biden has been working on infrastructure plans and that Sen. Hawley “was one of 30 Republican senators who voted against a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill in 2021, which contained money for upgrades to highways, bridges, airports and other major projects.”
The GOP are using the same gaslighting tactics that the use on immigration and the border issues. They bemoan a lack of progress even as they vote against any efforts to improve the situations.
They are miserable, miserable, miserable, lying, unprincipled individuals. Sadly, too many people tune into facts and will sit there, nodding their wooden heads as Hawley speaks, agreeing with what he’s saying.
Well, that felt good. Enough of soaking up news and becoming mired in anger and depression. Not letting that stuff rule my life. Sometimes, it feels like a wave rising up to overtake me. I just got to keep beating it back. Writing, friends, and coffee help.
The Neurons are filling my morning mental music stream (Trademark fumbled) with “Border Song”. Written by Bernie Taupin, performed by Elton John, “Border Song” came out in 1970 in the U.S., and was the first song to chart in the U.S. for Elton. When I first heard the song, I always thought its title was Holy Moses.
The question of why this song is playing today has been asked of The Neurons. They have not responded.
Stay positive and strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee is flowing, my friends. Help yourselves. Here’s young Elton John. Cheers
Mood: Memsical: when musical memories preoccupy you
Monday’s been foisted on us and annointed as April 15, 2024.
This is Tax Day in America for some. Forges recall of past Tax Days for me, watching people get in line to mail it at the post office. There’d be lines. Sometimes, it was a line of cars as the PO set up to take them in and stamp the date. On and on the cars came as clocks approached midnight. Other times found people in line, snaking out of the PO’s customer service section, spilling out of the building and onto the sidewalk. Surreal scenes.
That’s less likely these days. I s’pose those folks are instead online somewhere, trying to get their forms posted and accepted.
Spring with wintry samples haunt Ashlandia today. It’s a dry, cloudy day. Our temp floats around 50 F. 60 F might be possible. It’s the air that brings up winter to my senses. Just smelled like winter this morning. I half-expected flurries to drizzle down around my head. Getting out where I could see the mountains, I scanned for white patches and tops. None were there. Guess it was all in my noggin.
Speaking of noggin, The Neurons cranked up Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble in the morning mental music stream (Trademark taketh away). The song was an instrumental called “Scuttle Buttin”. It amused me to little end that my wife suddenly became an SRV fan and a blues fan about 35 years ago. She was mostly a pop/dance person before that, although she gravitated toward female vocalists. She enjoyed Etta, Bonnie Raitt, Aretha. Suddenly, about a year before SRV’s death in a helicopter accident, he enthralled her.
I didn’t mind, mind you. I was always a rock and blues guy, oriented toward lead guitars and bent notes. Stevie delivered these and more. Once more, I find gratitude that we have technology that helps us relive our past.
Stay strong, be positive, and Vote Blue. I’m coffee’d up, and ready to rock. Here’s Stevie, burning up that guitar. Cheers
Today is Sunday, 4/14/2024. I’m late to the show. A friend needed some help, so the day was given over to that. She’s advanced in age. Neither she nor her husband can drive any longer so we took her shopping up the road in Medford. And since it was a long day, we stopped and ate out. Just soup and sandwiches.
Soup and sandwiches were perfect for this April weekend. Rain was Sunday’s main course. Temperatures hung around in the low fifties as the rain practiced speeding up and slowing down. It’s only now, as we cruise toward sunset, that the sun made a cameo, slipping out of the clouds’ protection to say hello before it says good night.
Being with my wife and our friend, listening to them chatting about friends inspired The Neurons. They quickly planted “With A Little Help from My Friends” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark helped). Yes, it was morning. We left the house at 9:30 AM and returned about 4 PM.
Although the song is a Beatle tune, I’ve always favored Joe Cocker’s cover. Coming out in 1968, he brings such soul and energy to it. Countering Cocker’s raw vocal energy are female backup singers pitching soft, precisely enunciated verses. Hammering away on drums is B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum. Searing along with the vocals is Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin on lead guitar. Tommy Eyre offers that exquisite organ opening, gently mesmerizing but cajoling us on into a higher state. Sweet.
I was twelve when the song was released. Hearing it on my AM clock radio, the song cemented my sense of what I like in rock, and how rock carried me. Hope that makes sense.
Stay positive, be strong, Vote Blue. Hope you enjoy this music. I’ve had a day of coffee, thanks. Here’s the music.
They call it chilly Friday but Saturday’s just the same.
Yes, Ashlandia’s warm weather spurt has ben curtailed. Today’s high will crest at 64 F. More importantly, clouds have set up a formidable sunshine blockade. Rain is expected in a hour. Not heavy; just April showers. It’s 49 F right now. The cats have declared themselves to be indoor floofs.
Mom is still in the hospital, dealing with PT and mobility issues, in significant back pain. Sis says it poured rain there in Pittsburgh, PA, causing some minor local flooding. That caused Mom’s boyfriend, F, to bow out of showing up. He’s 94 and driving in those conditions are no longer in his catalogue. But sis says that’s all cleared up, so now he’s going to visit Mom this afternoon.
Reflecting what’s going on with Mom, I count back the number of other people who went through similiar issues with a parent and their end of life health issues. This seems to be growing into the common end of life way of life.
Three songs are warring in the morning mental music stream (Trademark fizzling). First came the Beatles with their 1968 song, “Lady Madonna”. I applied to The Neurons for the reasoning behind selecting that for the morning mental music stream. Their answer was, “We’ll get back to you.” My neurons are bureaucrats.
Next came Small Faces with “Itchycoo Park” from 1967. This was again done without any input on my end that I can see. The Neurons stonewalled me when I asked for more information about why this song was playing in my head.
Finally, or the latest, was Peter Gabriel with “Sledgehammer” from 1986. This, at least, has more personal history. We’re returned from Okinawa, Japan, after a four year tour that year.
Two cats, Crystal and Jade, accompanied us. They became our floofs after other military families receive orders for new assignments and couldn’t afford to take their cats with them. Both passed away in California, Crystal from cancer in 1994, and Jade, years later, when she was 21. Both were wonderful sweethearts.
Coming back that year felt like a major shock. Bell Telephone had gone through its breakup. Now mini-Bells abounded. We’d been driving on the left side of the road, so we needed to switch back over. The fastest speed limit we’d encountered was 100 KPH (61 MPH) and now we were hurtling around much faster. Yeah, a few days of adjustment was needed as we moved into a new one-bedroom apartment in South Carolina.
Hope you have a respectable Friday. Be strong, stay positive, and Vote Blue this November. Here comes Peter, previously of Genesis, with his solo tune, “Sledgehammer”. Coffee is flowing. Here we go.
Thursday arrives with a whisper so soft, most miss it. It’s April 11, 2024.
Spring outside pulls me in. 51 F degrees. Still wind and expansive sunshine. The air is expected to bring temperatures in the low 70s.
Sounds of the city travel through the yard. Cars on the roads. A train warning of its advance. Hammering and sawing. No voices except crows, robins, and sparrows passing on observations. The cats listen. They don’t reveal what they’re thinking.
OJ Simpson passed from cancer, Alexa tells me when I ask her about why she’s lit green. My wife says, I don’t know what to think about that.
Truly. Simpson was once an American hero on the gridiron. First in college, then in the NFL, if those things matter to you. Otherwise, he was just another citizen. Then came the murders, the trial, the riots, the questions. It all hangs over us like a pause in existence.
In personal news, Mom is still coping at the hospital. The place was packed. After spending most of the day in a bed in a hallway, she was moved into an ER space for the night.
She’s being transferred today. They’re going to put her into rehab and work on her balance and mobility. She’s grumbling about it. A creature of habits, she gets uncomfortable being wrenched from her ruts. I know because I’m much like her.
As far as the fever and pain over the last several days, the med staff is postulating that this is just the after effects of her abdominal surgery. The surgery was five days ago, so my little sister on the spot has flagged it as dubious. But, that’s how it’ll be treated, going forward.
Thinking about our small town’s sounds later in the morning has The Neurons summoning songs about cities. Stevie Wonder’s music about living in the city whispers through the morning mental music stream (Trademark under construction). Then comes Billy Joel. 1982 “Allentown”.
Yes, more it’s more fitting. Billy Joel’s song was about hopes and changes. Substitute America for Allentown. Change some other words and you have a new anthem for the U.S.
“Well, we’re living here in the USA.
“And the way it’s changing is hard to say.
“Standing in lines, watching our phones.”
But the song’s real heart for me comes later when he addresses the promises made or implied by teachers that we would succeed and advance, “if we worked hard, if we behaved.” The promise was hijacked. I put it on corporate greed, but that’s fueled by individual greed, selfishness, and now, by a GOP that is trying hard to go back in time as a way forward.
Sorry, boys, but there’s not a DeLorean big enough to fit all of us to take us back in time and change now. The vast majority of us know that. We’re moved on. We’re moving forward, and we’re going to keep moving forward.
I don’t think of everything in terms of politics, BTW. May seem like it’s so but it’s more that this seems like a politically charged period for me and many others. I also look back through the lens of history to see what changed, how it changed, and what did not.
Stay positive, despite what has happened so far. The promises were made or implied that we’re part of a grand experiment in the US, creating a government by the people, for the people. It’s a work in progress. Other nations are doing it as well, and many have become better at it than we are now.
I’ve already boarded the coffee train. Here’s the music. Cheers
The shorts went on. Officially, they’re ‘short pants’.
This is Wednesday, April 10, 2024. 66 F now, the warm end of our day will rise to 71 F. Everything is in bloom under blue, sunny skies. It’s bold with yellows, pinks, and white blossoms and blooms, people, against a fully backdrop of green grasses and trees — along with
Things are going well for me, thanks. A woman at the coffee shop told me, “You have nice legs. If I had legs like that, I’d be in shorts, too.”
She appeared a few years younger than me and had a perfect stage voice. I’m not one who enjoys attention. Baby, I was cringing inside. But I smiled and thanked her. She responded, “Wow, you have a great smile, too.” I felt like everyone was looking by now. I thanked her again, and she waved and went on.
Back ‘home’, Mom was discharged from Forbes Hospital after treatment for appendicitis. A day and night of diarrhea was endured. Now, after being up all night in pain, she’s back at the hospital for a CT scan to see why she has pain and a fever.
My sister, G, is on the scene, waiting for news. It’s a business day at the hospital. Parking is full. The parking situation and emergency responsiveness are hampered by a sinkhole in the parking lot.
A social worker came out and spoke with sis. No beds are available for Mom and they’re proposing to scan her at another location. Now they’re suggesting, take her home and bring her back tomorrow.
WTF questions arise. Sis is dealing with it. She’s intelligent, competent, and hard-edged at times like this, unafraid to question authority, and willing to stand her ground. In other words, she’s a good person to have on site.
I was thinking about my aunt J. She’s the one I previously wrote about with colon cancer.
I always admired her and enjoy her company. She always spoke to me like I was an adult when I was a child. I think she was instrumental in teaching me to think about matters from different perspectives. That’s a quality that I’ve often depended on, and which is responsible for whatever successes and achievements I’ve had. Good to have people like her in one’s life.
I didn’t learn about all her issues. She married and was divorced when young. One child. Then, another child from an affair. That child, my cousin, was put into an orphanage until my aunt could get her life in order. She finally met and married the love of her life, as she described him, and had three more children. She and I were together until brain cancer took him about a decade ago.
Update from sis about Mom. Fever is gone. Mom is in a bed in a hallway. Awaiting further developments.
Tucker goes back to the vet this afternoon. It’s a checkup on his thyroid, high blood pressure, and his gums after having his teeth removed. Fingers crossed that my old friend is found to be healing well and his issues under control. He’s gained weight, energy, and enthusiasm over the last few days.
Two thirds of the way through reading Kings of the Wyld. High fantasy variation, and worth reading if fantasy speaks to you. An interesting spin is that adventurers are ‘bands’, much like rock bands, and treated like rock stars. We readers are in on the idea but it’s not heavy handed. Our protagonist band broke up years before and have aged into normal lives. Now, yes, they got the band back together to save one of their daughters. I highly recommend this Nicholas Eames novel, even though I’ve not finished it. Still have about one hundred fifty pages left. My wife read it first, and then urged me to read it.
Today’s music comes straight out of 1966. After reading a Heather Richardson post, I thought, tell it like it is. One of our nation’s political problems IMO is that politicians on the right lie to their supporters, and the media goes along with it for the most part. Some journalists are beginning to seriously hipcheck some of the liars but too many get a free ride. I can provide substantial examples, if you need it.
Anyway, overhearing my thinking about Ms. Richardson’s post, The Neurons began playing Aaron Neville and “Tell It Like It Is” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark burning). A beautiful torch song, it’s a good song when you’re at a fork in the road, looking back on what’s happened while gazing ahead, trying to divine a path forward.
Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue this November. I’ll be doing the same. Now, riding on wings of coffee, I’m off to continue writing and editing.
Our intrepid band of three hundred million plus call Earthlings or Terrans come at last to the day noted as Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Once a date studied by prophets and feared by rulers, the reasons for that have been lost. Only one man knows the truth, but he’s been frozen and forgotten. And so we, the survivors, skip through this day not knowing its significance.
It’s sunny in Ashlandia. The sky’s blueness is marred by some lazy stray clouds hanging above the valley’s high edges, as though spying for an enemy ruler. Current temperature is in the upper 50s F. We’re shimmying toward the upper 60s. This is a fine example of how spring should appear in the middle of the season in Aslandia.
My wife and I have been involved in a jigsaw puzzle. She picked it up at the library of things last Friday. We began working on it that day.
It’s a Ravensburger, which is my favorite. Ravensburger puzzles have solid pieces which fit together well, and vibrant colors. This one is a tableau of a beach house living room looking out over the sea. A small dog rests on his bed in the foreground, looking back at you. His orange toy is on the bed beside him.
A coffee table dominates the center. It sits on a striped rug on a hardwood floor. Sharing its surface top is a tray of food and wine, a long scarf colorful with sea creatures and flowing aquas, purples, oranges, and blues, a gold-rimmed bowl of shells and starfish, and a plate of food. Sea foam green easy chairs and sofa are arranged on either side of the table. Past the table are open sliding doors leading to a deck.
Beyond the deck is the sand and churning waves. Further out are sailing vessels and a coastguard ship. Osprey and gulls wheel through light clouds and blue skies.
I’d love to live in that place. Wish I was there now, listening to the ocean and reading a book. Small stacks of books are on the sofa and the coffee table’s lower shelf.
The puzzle is coming together fast. We are now about 85% finished. Sky and sea remain, along with the birds.
It wasn’t that way yesterday morning. Back then, we had one edge piece missing. The coffee table was almost complete, and the dog and several other areas were completed. I’d say it was thirty percent done.
I was focused on that missing edge piece. My obsessiveness had kicked in. I hadn’t plan to work on that puzzle at the point in the day. It was mid-morning and I had things to do. But I sure wanted to find that missing piece.
Going through the pieces, I began asking deities and fates for help. None came but The Neurons, taking up my issue, began an ABBA song: SOS from 1975 began playing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sinking).
I found an American Bandstand episode with Dick Clark and ABBA on the net. Seeing Bandstand shook up memories like they were in a snow globe. Many teenagers and pre-teens hustled into a television’s presence to see the show in the 1960s. I never became deeply into it, but my older sister surely was. ABBA wasn’t a group I followed. I didn’t aspire to their style. But I respected their talents and their drive to succeed. There they were, doing what they’d set out to do. Congrats to them. I knew about them because AM radio broadcast their music. Then there were the friends who were so into them, too…
By the way, I didn’t find the missing piece and left for the coffee shop. My wife returned from her exercise class and answered the call, finding the missing piece. She’s my hero.
Stay positive, persevere, and Vote Blue this November. Coffee is being actively consumed in parallel to my typing. Hope you have the kind of day you wanted when you awoke this morning. Here’s the music.
Another spring day of entangled weather. Descending clouds obscure the western ridges’ face with rain threats. Sunlight powers through in the east and attempts to buck the temperatures up. Wind sometimes gambols like a newborn foal.
Temperatures rose to 50 F from 38 F but have now slipped back to 48 F. 55 F is as how as we expect thermometers to climb around most of Ashlandia.
Today is April 7, 2024.
Papi, my lean, lanky ginger floof, played nine solid innings of Let me in/let me out. Do you know this game? This is when a house floof makes noises to rouse their servants to let them in and out of the house. It’s scored by how many times they can make it happen and how fast it happens.
I think Papi scored a perfect score. There was some swearing involved, as he didn’t even take a seventh inning stretch. Bored, hungry, restless, frustrated, lonely, disappointed in the weather…I think it was all of these things. Started at 5:30 AM and went on past 9:30.
Mom continues recovering from her appendicitis. Late update was that the appendix had ruptured ‘some time ago’. Gangrene had set in. She was lucky, the medical folks declared.
I was surprised. Several years ago, they mentioned she’d perforated her appendix and had gangrene but then backed off and claimed something else. I was always dubious of that shift. As for surviving, ‘survivor’ is one of many words I’d immediately apply to her. ‘Tough’ is another.
Staying with family medical situations, my aunt just had her colon removed. Well, all but an inch, is the claim passed to me. My father’s sister, she and Mom are the same age and have been friends since they were nineteen. They’ve been through a lot together and remain friends even through Mom and Dad divorced back in the early 1960s.
My aunt has been intermittently battling colon cancer for a while. She was declared clean on a January follow-up. But she went back in March because “something didn’t feel right”. At that visit, they declared she had a mass as large as a cat. That description had me visualizing a cat curled up, sleeping in her colon. Like Mom, my aunt is tough, survived the surgery despite a bad heart, and will be discharged, wearing a bag, in a few days.
Texting with sisters, thinking about Mom and my aunt, I wasn’t overly surprised when The Neurons introduced “Those Were the Days” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark setting). I’m remembering the Mary Hopkins version from 1968. I seemed to have heard it a great deal in my youth but I don’t think I’ve heard it in years. It’s amusing that The Neurons pulled it up out of memory.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue. I’m on my second cup of coffee, and the day is moving on, with or without my involvement.
We’re getting started on another Saturday here in Ashlandia on the third rock from the sun.
It’s April 6, 2024. The weather isn’t anything to write about, but I will note it’s rainy and cloudy and sunny again today. Present temp is 46 F. Add six degrees to it, and you have the day’s expected high. There is enough sunshine to energize me and filet depression, anxiety, and frustration off my mood.
In personal news, Mom headed to the hospital for stomach pain yesterday afternoon. Appendicitis was the diagnosis. I called a sis for details. She was accompanying Mom and I was able to briefly speak with her. Sis and Mom were both in good spirits at the hospital. Even though, at that point, Mom was in the hall, cold, awaiting a room, awaiting surgery, over twenty hours removed from eating anything, at almost eight PM.
They operated on her that night. The 88-year-old woman survived without issue. It was related back to me that the medical staff claimed it was “the worse looking appendix they’d ever removed.” Mom seemed proud about that.
Today finds The Neurons plugging “Goodbye to You” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark eclipsed). This song by Scandal and Patty Smyth was released in 1982. It’s a fun, driving rocker. Dance floors filled up when it came on in clubs.
I know exactly why The Neurons summoned it today. My wife was reading the news and addressing her frustration with certain politicians. During her brief diatribe, she mentioned she’d be very happy to see several Republicans gone. She said, she would love to be able to say, “Goodbye and good riddance.”
Click. “Hit it,” The Neurons commanded, and the song began. I think it’s a good song for the day and purpose.
Stay positive, and be romantic, and — whoa, don’t know where that one came from. A slip of the head, I supposed. Be pos and strong, I meant to write, lean forward, and Vote Blue. Got any extra coffee on you? I think I need some.
