Friday’s Theme Music

Time to start the day and get underway. We’re at the port of Friday, January 20, 2023. Next destination: Friday evening. We’ll get there after the sun sets on Ashlandia, 5:10 PM.

“Ashlandia, where time is never the same.”

Sunrise at 7:36 AM found Ashlandia frost bound beneath full blue skies. Snow and ice still cap higher mountains and ridges, a winter photo delight against that blue. 25 degrees F says the local weather station while prognosticators tell us that a 48 degree F high is expected. That’s a little cold for Ashlandia’s winters. We usually see the thermo squeaking down to 30 before braking to a full stop, but we’ll live. We’ll complain, but we’ll live. Well, some, such as me, complain, but others just march along with it. The shelters are open for whoever needs them, and hot meals are being provided gratis in several locations. Crews have remained busy removing fallen trees from the month’s earlier windstorms. A drive around yesterday showed all were gone. No houses or buildings experienced major damage, so we’re thankful for that.

My wife remains in bed, affected by her RA and Raynaud’s. One of her fingers looks ghastly, white and waxen. She says it’s painful and stiff but doesn’t complain. She was planning to make me a cherry pie yesterday but I nixed that. We just had sugar pie instead. She skipped her exercise class this morning, which is never a good omen.

Mom’s list of issues continuous a daunting trend of increasing. Little seems to improve for her and pain shadows every decision and conversation. She soldiers on, a tough old broad, as she likes to self-reference, but she seems so tired from the constant fight to live.

With all the dreams I had last night, The Neurons packed the morning mental music stream with songs on dreaming. I ignored them. We lost David Crosby this week, another talented musician who brightened my life. The Byrds were on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1965, which was my childhood, playing “Mr Tambourine Man”. I was nine then. Though a little too mellow for my budding rock and roll tendencies, I admired their style and harmony and their songs stayed comfortably lodged in my mind. Formation of CSN and then CSN&Y was a positive addition to the folk-rock scene, where their harmonies and smart lyrics adjusted my budding teenage attitudes.

Got my coffee. French roast, which is my usual. Unsweetened and untouched by milk or cream, it offers a sharply bitter living on my tastebuds, with a friendly chocolatey overlay.

Stay positive. Sail on to new horizons. Here’s the music, in living color. Cheers

January 20, 2023 6

Thursday’s Wandering Thought

He admired his blue pullover. It was a cheap thing, a rag sweater bought for about $15 over twenty years ago. He still liked it although no elastic properties remained in it. Other than that failure, the sweater had no holes, no picks from an animal’s claws — which was truly amazing — and had not frayed anywhere. He’d bought it a store which no longer existed.

The store name, Mervyn’s, came to him after a moment. He remembered their television commercials. It seemed like they’d gone out of business so suddenly and was gone, like a brief rain shower on a hot summer day.

January 19, 2023 0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Wednesday glided on, light as a feather. January 18, 2023. 39 degrees F. Snow on the mountains but dry in the valley for now. Mild winds. Rain in the forecast and a high of 45 F as we navigate the weather and hours between 7:36 AM, when the sun kicked in the sunlight, to 5:08 PM, when the sun is kicked back out.

I have a Jimmy Buffett song from 1978 drumming through my morning mental music stream. I’ve been thinking about having a cheeseburger. We eat plant-based burgers at home. They’re delish. But we don’t keep cheese on hand because we like, use it, and eat it. I’ve been thinking about having one from somewhere, like a restaurant, I supposed for at least five days. Why haven’t I done it? I don’t know.

Yesterday, I read another person’s blog post “Caught In A Trap…Again”. They quoted lyrics from Jimmy Buffett’s song, “Fruitcakes”, in it. That triggered a memory storm for The Neurons. A husband and wife in the mid 1990s who were my neighbors were big Jimmy Buffett fans. They played his music, went to his restaurants and concerts, and wore his tee shirts. When the Fruitcakes album was released in 1994, Rick invited friends over to hear the album and have drinks and burgers. It was a bit of the tropics in that little California cul-de-sac that evening, but with cheeseburgers and cold draft beer. Margaritas were also offered, of course. It was a memorably good time.

Back to “Fruitcakes”, I’ve always enjoyed the line “Everyone has a little fruitcake in them” from it. Anyway, a Jimmy Buffett medley filled the stream for a bit but with the cheeseburger desire raging in me, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” is the last song playing.

Stay positive and do your best, I guess. Or not. It’s easy to say do your best and keep trying but, man, don’t we know that some many factors mitigate what you can do and the results? Sure.

It’s time for coffee and music. Here’s the tune. I’ll go get the coffee. Cheers

January 18, 2023 3

Monday’s Theme Music

The moon’s visit moved beyond normal to sublime. Sometimes a clear night hosts a moon that lights the night and finds something more primal and hopeful in the mind. Last night’s moon was one of these, romantic and inspirational, a moon with light that whispers, “the impossible is possible.” No wonder a moon like that is spoken of in sentences about magic, fairies, and spaceships.

It’s January 16, 2023. It’s Monday. It’s 30 degrees F and sunny. It’s calm. It’s a new week’s start. Happy New Week! Have you made any New Week resolutions? I have. Of course I have. I don’t do NY ones, but I do daily, weekly, and monthly resolutions. You only fail if you give up trying, am I right? Some people place the week’s start on Sunday. I consider Saturday and Sunday neutral ground. The week begins on Monday and ends on Friday.

The sun pressed its presence into our valley at 7:37 this morning, coming around like it’s nobody’s business. Daylight will light us up until about 5:05 this evening. Then the sun will set and bring on dusk, followed by night. The cold front will keep our high from getting much above 42 F. Some say that rain is due but the clouds for that job haven’t checked in. Snow is visible in far fields on high mountains, appearing like cake frosting on the ridges’ pines and firs. It’s a tranquil blue-sky sight.

News continues emerging about President Biden and the classified documents found at his home and office. This turn pisses me off more than Trump’s classified doc scandal. I thought Joe Biden was responsible and this oversight, this sloppiness, is infuriating. I was in the Air Force for twenty years. With high secret clearances and active in special access programs, dealing with classified material, including stuff that was Top Secret with special qualifiers, including nuclear war plans, launch codes, attack plans, and intelligence materials, I was frequently the Top-Secret Control Officer, the unit security manager, and also often the OPSEC/COMSEC and COMPUSEC manager. I took it seriously. My peers, commanders, and those we supervised all took it very damn seriously. I was appointed as an investigator several times when processes failed or people violated the governing regs and laws. Trump’s conniving to keep some classified documents ‘as his own’ insulted our efforts to keep the nation safe by properly protecting such material. Joe Biden’s sloppiness — or worse, as the investigations are only under way — undermines our systems as well. President Biden has at least acknowledged that what has happened is bad, unlike Trump, who dances and shouts, trying to deflect blame and responsibility, squeaking out ridiculous justifications for what he did.

Okay, off the soap box. Today’s music is “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. I went with the Animals version of 1964. Besides being the version seared into my memory by radio play repetition, I’ve always liked Eric Burdon. I also enjoyed the band’s keyboard use and the gritty blues sound they brought to their performances. The Neurons decided on this song and put it in the morning mental music stream after conversations with the cats. They were asking for something and I didn’t understand what it was. The felines’ insistence was the final driver for Les Neurons. Listening to them, Eric Burdon’s voice just rose from the depths of memory to sing, “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” And there we were.

Try to stay positive. I know it can be tough. I feel less than positive on many days. Right now, I’m positive that I would murder a cup of coffee so I’m heading to the kitchen for that black brew. I’m excited just thinking about it! Here’s the music. Hope your week takes you to new heights. Cheers

January 16, 2023 0

Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s pretty out there, and pretty nice, employing simple terms. The wind has taken some time off, fog didn’t show up, and the rain has granted a respite. Now 42 F, we expect 50 by the day’s end. More minutes were for our daylight, with the sun and Earth negotiating an agreement to give us one more minute on either end of sunshine’s visit, 7:37 and 5:04, AM and PM.

Birds are lovin’ it. A blue flash at my bathroom window arrested my activities. A stellar jay was on the stacked Adirondack chairs on the covered patio out there. Lovely color, those birds are, with a black head accenting their blue bodies. A acorn was in his beak. After popping his head in several directions to regard me, standing still and naked on the glass’s other side, he conducted a stop and go inspection, with a few hops tossed in, looking for a dignified burial site for his prize. Two other stellars joined him, showing their moral support, I suppose. The acorn wasn’t meant for my yard, as the jays headed off with the acorn still in one’s beak.

Up front, robins briefly visited, followed by a few wrens. Oddest thing, I heard no noises out of any of the birds. It was like Silence of the Birds. Also, neither of my cats witnessed any of this. One was following me around the house while the other napped in a chair.

This is the middle of January, 23, the fifteenth, a Sunday. About four percent of the year has passed. Time is not letting up.

When I was bird-watching, The Neurons took some time to hatch a song out of the activity. (See what I did there? Sorry, it’s pre-coffee.) I found myself singing, “West End Birds”, based on the Pet Shop Boys’ 1984 song, “West End Girls”. The Neurons were doing this, even as I pointed out that I’m on Ashland’s southern end. The Neurons tried accommodating me, singing “South End Birds” but none of us were impressed with that result. Then The Neurons pointed out that direction is relative and that we’re on the west end of the pass. As we weren’t specifying a place, west end worked. Just think of it as being on the pass’s west end, okay? Without coffee, I easily surrendered to their logic.

Anyway, skipping those details and jumping ahead, today’s theme music is “West End Girls”. It’s an interesting synth-pop song and fit well back in that musical era, an era which is still going on and started before the Pet Shop Boys and synths arrived. With pop and rock, with all music, going back and back, and back, it’s about finding the desired song to tell the story, share the emotions, or drive the direction. That’s my take.

Let’s try to stay positive as the year progessing and move ourselves forward as individuals, families, nations, and a species. First, I suppose, we need to find common ground on how ‘forward’ is defined.

Coffee is calling. So is a cat, so I’m up and off on a twofer. Here’s the music. I enjoyed pausing to watch the video and listen to the song. For that little slice of existence, I was back in another time.

Cheers

January 15, 2023 0

Saturday’s Theme Music

Heavy winds powered us to Saturday, January 14, 2023. Winds began last night, a bit before midnight and have only given us small breaks. Still, they’re not hugely destructive in our area, except to our minds as we say, “Wind and rain again?” While rain is good in general, the cisterns are full so it’s just flowing away. Snow is needed. Snow, snow, snow up in the mountains. Fingers crossed that our snow needs are being met.

Sunrise was at 7:38 this morning, a dull light through a gray skein, glistening off a wet landscape. Temperature is 41 F. Sunset has moved back to 5:03 in the late afternoon, giving us a few more minutes of daylight, which is highly friggin’ welcomed. Gonna rain all day but the high temperature should kiss the low fifties. Meanwhile, across the country in Ashland, VA, sunrise was at 7:25 AM and sunset is 5:14 PM.

Thinking of all this, I acknowledge what a complainer I am. I like change and variation in my daily weather, but even if that happens too much, I’ll complain. Complaining is the nut of who I am, I think. Everyone must have a hobby. Complaining seems to be mine.

Papi, aka the Ginger Blade and the Little Prince, though he’s not that little any longer, matching Tucker in weight, height, and girth, is not a wind fan. Doesn’t stop that floof from demanding that he be let out. Not long before he begs to return back inside, and then, lo, insisting that no, outside is where he really wants to be. Once, he went out the back door on the patio, got a wind shove with all of its noise, trotted back in, and then turned around and went back out. Floofs. They can be sweet, endearing, and exasperating.

I was going to use “It’s Raining Again” by Supertramp, after The Neurons heard me say, “It’s raining again.” But I overruled them after reading of Robbie Bachman’s death. He was the drumming force behind Bachman-Turner Overdrive, or BTO. BTO’s music was part of the high school scene for me. “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” from 1974 was almost our theme music when my wife and I were dating. She loved it when I sang “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” to her when the song came on the radio. What can be said but we were in love? Another musician from my youth gone, another one to thank for their music and its impact on my life.

Time to get cracking. I’ve been sipping my coffee. The coffee fuel has reached The Neurons. They’re impatient to get to the writing part of the day. Stay positive and test negative, a hope that’s really beyond our control. Fingers crossed that when you do test positive, it’s as soft and fleeting as a spring zephyr. Here is BTO. Cheers

January 14, 2023 0

January 13, 2023 0

Monday’s Theme Music

Sunshine coats our southern and western views. Huzzah, my spirit shows. A cup of coffee is served in celebration.

This might be part of recent weather pattern. Calm, sunny mornings. Winds begin gamboling. Then they start raging. By early evening, rain begins. The rains and winds intensify and slam us throughout the night. They fade away with morning.

Not bad for us. We’re on the edge of the atmospheric river slamming California. Stories from the mountains’ south side are about floods and wind destructions, miracles of lives saved, the tragedy of another death. The other cities just a short distance north and west see little of this. While our monthly and seasonal rain levels surge and our cisterns and dams fill, those other places, such as Medford, fifteen miles away, remains behind on their precipitation levels.

This is 2023, Monday, January 9. Sunset has moved back to 4:57 PM. Sunrise keeps yesterday’s schedule, coming in at 7:39 again this morning. It’s 40 degrees F beyond my windows. Letting a cat in (or was it out?), my nose finds that wintry smell has departed from our place. Today’s high temperature will be balanced out at 54 F.

Today’s theme music sprang from DIY projects. Three projects are lined up. As I walked around and considered them, and the steps I’d take to research them and get them completed, I thought, I’ll find a way. That’s like my motto for 2023 so far. Last week, while editing and reconciliating the novel in progress, I ran into a problem. I will find a way, I told myself, but I knew it wouldn’t happen that day. Anyway, I ended up with that as some lyrics being sung in the morning mental music stream. Eventually a song by Tesla, “Love Song” from 1989, was identified. So here we are.

I remember this song from the regular work and shopping circuit my spouse and I followed in the 1990s. This song was part of the heavy rotation of the stations I rotated through, depending on our moods and what we were pursuing, and the time of day. NPR with “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and “Car Talk” were part of the weekend’s rotation.

Ah, the morning coffee is done. I’ll be on to other Monday things now, if you’ll excuse me. Stay pos, test neg. Here’s Tesla. BTW, this is the first time I’ve seen this video. Although I knew Tesla was part of the ‘Hair Metal’ movement, I’d never seen them and their appearance surprised me. They got the hair, they got the moves, they have the sound. Looking back like this is fun.

May your Monday be terrific. Cheers

January 9, 2023 0

Sunday’s Theme Music

We rose to a sky rich with sunshine. It’s Sunday, January 8, 2023. The sunshine is welcome. It’s in the forties here but the cats and wife agree, it feels colder than that. I was out at midnight last night, delivering used kitty litter to a trash can, and paused to check out the night. It smelled like winter to me, if you know what I mean. That sort of element has been missing for this winter except for a few days.

Sunrise finally moved off of 7:40 AM. At last we’ve begun moving toward an earlier sunrise, with the sun sneaking up on us a full minute earlier. Friggin’ rejoice. Sunset is all the way back to 4:56 this evening. By next week, it’ll be setting after 5 PM. I’m looking forward to a longer day. A cougar prowling the town after sunset reduces my willingness to go out there. I don’t think the big cat will attack me, but I really don’t need to test that theory.

Today’s song is by a group called Montrose. The name comes from Ronnie Montrose, the lead guitarist and band founder. Sammy Hagar was the lead singer. The song in the morning mental music stream is “I’ve Got the Fire”. Watching the video and listening, it’s interesting how much Sammy’s voice stayed the same through the decades. Anyway, the song came out in 1974. I didn’t know about it at the time. I entered the military in October of 1974 and the album was released a little later. When in basic, we had little outside contact. This was before the net, personal computers, and cell phones. For people to reach us, they had to contact the squadron office and leave a message. We weren’t permitted to hear radios or watch televisions. Riding in motorized vehicles were off limits until the final week. We had to earn the right to visit the base exchange after several weeks. Funny in retrospect, but we knew little going on outside of our unit. We were allowed to line up and use the pay phone to call home after three or four weeks, if you and your unit were making satisfactory progress.

Anyway, after finishing basic and listening to music again, I discovered the new Montrose album. Montrose was another band that my high school friends didn’t appreciate, except for Scott and Rick. The three of us were considered strange, but we had fun.

The song is in mind today because of ginger cat, Papi. It was pouring rain last night. The wind at one point growled like a large, angry giant, and then slammed the house’s side like it was really pissed off. Of course, Papi doesn’t care about that. Doesn’t care about cougars, either. Just, let me out!

I was going to use an audio only file, but I couldn’t resist this Midnight Special video. “Paper Money” leads off. “I Got the Fire” starts at 4:56 in if you want to cut to it.

I finally did after stern words and ignoring him was ignored. A while later, he banged on the door to get back in. Yeah, he was cold and soaked. I mentioned, “Come in to the heat. We got the fire.” Then I helped him dry off. Meanwhile, The Neurons started several fire songs. I foolishly let my mind wander into the pickets of music I’ve heard in my life, focusing on all the songs that mentioned fire. There are a lot. Somehow, The Neurons dug out this lesser known 1974 song. Voila, it’s our theme music for today.

Stay pos and test neg. I’m off for a cup of coffee, hear what I’m saying. Hope your Sunday trends in a positive way. Cheers

January 8, 2023 1

Saturday’s Theme Music

Ah, rain, faded sunshine, and mild winds. Feels like another Ashland winter day, 2023 edition.

We’ve slipped Saturday, January 7, 2023, on. It feels a little loose to me, but it’s possible it’ll shrink. Hope you have a better fit. A loose fit isn’t bad, though. It allows greater movement and flexibility.

Sunrise was — again — at 7:40 AM. I believe the sun is stuck on that time. Maybe we need to turn it on and off or reboot it or something. That works with my Roku. Anyone ever have to deal with a stuck sun before? I might need to do some online searches to see what others have done when their sun keeps showing up at the same time.

Sunset seems okay, shifting back to 4:55. Today’s temperatures will flutter between 44 and 51, a narrow operating zone, with the present temperature wheeling around 47 F.

Today’s theme music comes from looking out the office window. The cats and I were admiring the sunshine flooding the western side from the sun’s southeastern position. I was telling the cats that it looked like a nice day out there, relatively speaking. Of course, on the cats’ side, one was looking at me and saying, “More food.” The other was watching a bird outside of the window and saying, “More food.” They weren’t at all interested in the weather from my POV.

Then clouds slid across the sun’s position, bludgeoning the light out of the day. I told the cats, “Did you guys see how that light faded?” Rain began falling. One cat replied, “More food.” The other said, “Where the bird go?”

Seizing the moment and the part about fading, The Neurons started the song, “(I Know) I’m Losing You”. Yes, this is a repeat; The Neurons aren’t very original, especially if they haven’t had coffee.

If you know this song, you probably also know that three excellent renditions exist by notable performers. First came The Temptations, making it a hit in 1966. Rare Earth covered it in 1970, and that’s a damn fine version, too. The Rare Earth performance felt like it had a lot of play time on the AM radio where I heard my pop and rock music. Rod Stewart and Faces covered and released the song in 1971, and it was more to my preference, so that’s the one I’m going with today, even though it was the Rare Earth version which The Neurons first released into the morning mental music stream today.

Okay, coffee is in the cup and ready for launch into my mouth, and then on down its caffeinating journey. Stay pos and test neg. Here is Rod and the boys. Have a fine one. Cheers