Tag: Mom

Thursday’s Theme Music — State of things

Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, May 14, 2026.

It’s blue out there, full of sunshine. Clouds are absent. 50 F with a high in the mid 70s today.

Thunderstorms looked possible yesterday but it didn’t happen. Just as in the previous days of forecasted activity. After the winter snow drought, May is at 3% of its average rainfall.

Our snowpack is at about 7%. While the reservoirs are above 80%, without snowmelt to replenish them, it’ll be a hot, dry summer. Stack the El Nino predictions, many of us are bracing ourselves for a rough year ahead.

Mom’s state is not good. She wasn’t responding to my sister’s texts. Sis called the assisted living facility, Heritage Grove, to ask about Mom. They said Mom went to bed before dinner and had not felt well all day.

On the optimistic side of the board, two neighbors are reportedly interested in buying Mom’s house.

My wife and I had new tires installed. For the record, we replaced a set that we’d bought in 2019. Got 35,000 miles out of them. Not great, not bad.

We bought them at Costco and had them installed there, shopping while we waited. As we were in the Medford area, we decided to eat out and chose the Texas Roadhouse Restaurant. My wife likes the salmon they serve there.

We couldn’t eat there. The way was blocked by ambulances and firetrucks. Wondering what’s going on, we took to our phones to learn. Nothing at the fire department, alert system, social media, or local television stations could give us that info.

This duplicated a Tuesday incident, in my mind. Driving home from writing at the coffee shop, one lane of traffic was blocked off in front of an SOU building on Siskiyou Avenue. What happened? I searched for information after I got home and couldn’t find anything. 24 hours later, the answer came: a woman had driven across the median strip, up a walkway, and into a building, breaking a gas meter along the way.

Miserable headlines fill my feed. When will there be good news? I’m not sure what I mean by good news at this point. An end to wars would be nice, along with a return to normalcy. Normalcy to me is let’s take action against polluting our air and water. Action against climate change. But the cynic in me says that PINO Trump would take credit for whatever and enough brain-dead people would slurp that down and bray about how great Dozy Donnie is that I’d regurgitate everything taken in during the last three days.

But here’s the state of things in the United States nation in one sharp observation someone else made:

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Paraphrasing, Trump lies, says this isn’t so bad, Biden! Because that worked well previously under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!

Enough people with brains are responding, screw you.

You started a war, Donald J “No new wars” Trump.

The economy is a mess, gas prices are rising, all the prices are rising, Donald J “We’ll cut prices on day 1” Trump, and the country is going in the wrong direction.

And you, DONALD J TRUMP, YOU ARE THE REASON WE’RE IN SIX MILLION MESSES WITH NO WAY OUT EXCEPT TO FIRST GET RID OF YOU AND YOUR CRONIES.

Now stop building the damn ballroom and release the damn Epstein files so we can feast on your political corpse.

The Neurons inserted “Mind Games” by John Lennon into my morning mental music stream. This actually came about from Papi’s state of mind this morning. I played with him and his favorite nemesis, the red dot. The play began abruptly. As soon as he engaged, I stopped for about a minute. He kept peeking left and right, waiting for it to reappear. Just as he started walking off, I blinked it back on. Off Papi went, chasing it across the room, then stalking it.

I hope your Thursday brings you some good news and fair winds, assuming you need winds to get somewhere. Like you drive a sail car and need to have wind to blow you along the Interstate.

Have my coffee now. Cheers

2

Tuesday’s Theme Music – Turn to stone

Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, May 12, 2026.

It’s 66 F in Ashland. Clouds have painted a thin white veneer over the blue. Thunderstorms are forecast, along with an 87 degree high as spring moves toward summer.

Papi and I went out back. As I was stretching and yawning, I looked down and saw him doing the same. I laughed. “Nice stretching, oh great fur being.” He sat down and began grooming places that I groom in the shower.

News from home is that Mom is sick again. Details are shared. Her sciatic nerve has flared up and she’s back in her wheelchair. Also suffering from diarrhea. Sis says that’s been going on for a week.

My sister has been in content with estate sellers. Familiar with them? They buy the contents and then sell it to the public. They really want to know if there’s anything there besides furniture. Yes, there’s all the things you’d find in house where someone lives. I know that there’s a new movement on about ‘vintage’ stuff. Corning Ware is very popular now. Old clothes. Mom has all that stuff.

Strange and humbling to think simultaneously of all that stuff being bought, used, and sold to others. Decisions made about each purchase. I’d rather that someone else finds and uses the stuff rather than having it going to trash or recycled for its materials.

Today’s music has a two-prong inspiration. One, Jill Dennison recently played ELO’s song, “Turn to Stone”. A good song, it brought to mind another song called “Turn to Stone”. As soon as I read “Turn to Stone” on Jill’s blog, The Neurons introduced Joe Walsh’s “Turn to Stone” song.

I also remembered that I once read that Walsh said the song was about frustration. In true ‘net spirit, Wikipedia.org has a good quote about that from Walsh.

“‘Turn to Stone’ was written about the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War and the protesting that was going on and all of that. It’s a song about frustration. Also, I attended Kent State. I was at the shootings. That fueled it, too. In those days it felt like the government’s priority was not the population. They had an agenda that was about something other than doing what was necessarily good for the country.”

That last line echoes through Trump’s agenda. Driven by ‘right-wing values’, also known as racism, sexism, and greed, and orchestrate by the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, Trump’s agenda is about him and not at all anything necessarily good for the country.

As Joe sings, “Read the writing on the wall.”

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Inflation news grabbed headlines this morning. Driven by Trump’s non-war in Iran, inflation jumped 3.8% in April. Rising gas prices were a big factor.

Trump’s disapproval rating keeps climbing. The NYT’s page summarizing polls and their Trump ratings are a column of red, showing net disapproval in every poll.

One another piece of news was that Epstein survivors are testifying in Florida. Standing by for another salvo from Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL to distract us from these pieces of news.

On to the music. Hope your day is full of good intentions and good results.

Got my coffee. Time to fly. Cheers

1

Sunday’s Theme Music – Days like this

Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, May 10, 2026.

Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers in the United States. Oh, what the heck, make it to the mothers of the world, no matter your religion, nationality, or species.

It’s 65 F in Ashland with light clouds mildly blocking the sunshine. Our high will hit the upper 70s, giving us pleasant holiday weather.

I’d written a post earlier. Edge crashed, taking the post with it. WordPress hadn’t ‘autosaved’ it, so there was nothing to show that I’d been typing and thinking. Foolishly, I hadn’t saved it myself.

After that, I decided, I’m taking a hiatus from thinking about the news today and commenting on it. Do a MDB: Mother’s Day Blackout.

That’s when the 1995 Van Morrison song entered the morning mental music stream. I retired from the US Air Force in ’95. I heard this song on the radio in one of the first few days of life after wearing a military uniform for twenty years.

I wasn’t employed for the first time since 1974. Wasn’t really looking yet, either; I had my retirement pension. My wife was getting antsy, though. Still, I’d decided to take time off for myself. There would be other days for work.

That happened in early November. By December, I was employed and was fortunate to remain employed for another twenty years.

Today has a similar vibe to my memory of that 1995 day. Look at how over thirty years have passed, and here I sit, feeling like I’m at another threshold. Then again, every day is another threshold.

Remembered Lyrics

When you don’t need to worry there’ll be days like this
When no one’s in a hurry there’ll be days like this
When you don’t get betrayed by that old Judas kiss
Oh my mama told me there’ll be days like this

When you don’t need an answer there’ll be days like this
When you don’t meet a chancer there’ll be days like this

When all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit
Then I must remember there’ll be days like this

Hope your Mother’s Day is a good day for you and yours, no matter your sex, gender, whatever. Just celebrate the day, rejoice in what is, and make something to build in.

Coffee is here. Cheers

0

Saturday’s Theme Music — Here We Go Again

Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, May 9, 2026.

72 F. Sunny. Blue skies. Moving toward 86 this afternoon.

Had smoke in the area yesterday. Turned out to be from winds carrying smoke from three controlled burns into the valley, where it became trapped. The sight and smells triggered alarm until we verified the source/causes. Even knowing what it was, I was left toiling inside, as the smoke immediately irritated my nose and sinuses.

Progress on selling Mom’s home is slowly being made. We’re worried about how long it’ll take. Mom is slowly running out of cash and has meager income from social security and her VA nurse’s pension. We’re selling her home’s contents but I don’t believe that will bring her much. I told my family I’d cover the costs between when/if Mom’s money runs out and her contents/house is sold.

Here we go again. What’s going on with the war and the cease-fire? What’s going on with tariffs?

The Trade Court ruled against Trump’s tariffs. How long until it hits the Robert’s Court and how will they rule? Will it be in open court or will there be another shadow docket decision?

In parallel to those questions, I wonder if the Roberts Conservatives will do some more originalist cherry-picking to ignore historic precedence to claim, “This is what the founders intended!” They duplicitously employed such thinking before. Then Roberts whines that his court is being misunderstood. Right.

Shall we talk about what your court is doing to equal rights, voting rights, and democracy in the United States, Chief Justice Roberts?

On top of those things, hurricane season is bearing down on us. It’s expected to be below average to above average, depending upon who’s doing the forecast. But there’s also a potentially super strong El Nino coming, too.

Meanwhile, what will happen with Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!?

Despite a ‘ceasefire’, the US military attacked several Iranian targets during the last several days. Like everything else Trump does, he lies and misleads about what’s going on.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Trump said this in August of 2024, while running for office and laying out his ‘economic plan’.

It didn’t surprise me that My Neurons blended the news with things I was doing this morning to come up with “Here It Goes Again”. I don’t think I’ve heard the 2006 song by OK Go in years, but it popped into my morning mental music stream today.

So on we go, into another Saturday. Hope your day is of the kind that goes well in all the important ways.

Coffee is served. Here I go.

Cheers

0

Thursday’s Theme Music — Look! Roberts!

Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, May 7, 2026.

Blue, blue sky. 67 F that we now feel would’ve been the high a few days again. Now it’s a measurement as the thermometer sings toward 83 F. Higher is possible, I think.

Mom is settling into acceptance that the nursing facility will be home for a while. Although she looks and seems happy in photos and videos, she doesn’t like paying the money and doesn’t like having her independence curtailed.

I hear her. I can see myself feeling and doing the same. I wish something better was available for her.

Meanwhile, my sister is moving forward on selling Mom’s house and getting powers of attorney. Sis has been patient and persistent and gets a lot of points for that.

My sisters and I shared health texts yesterday. We older beings laughed as we compared our health issues. My younger siblings were agog with dismay. My older sister responded, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”

Big news front that I’m seeing is Justice Roberts is upset.

Chief Justice laments perception of ‘political’ Supreme Court

I read that to my wife. She laughed. “Gosh, I wonder why.”

No kidding. The shadow docket has surged under Roberts once Trump came into power. The Brennan Center summarized exactly why we think the Roberts Court is politicized and favoring Trump:

“The Court has sided with the administration 80 percent of the time when making “emergency” rulings, often without revealing its reasoning.“

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Despite Trump’s claim, made less than three months ago, Republicans are now asking for $1,000,000,000 for the ballroom. Trump also claims the Epstein ballroom is under budget, even though they’re now asking for five times the original amount to build it.

Trump can’t be trusted. Nor can the GOP. What’s your guess for how much the Epstein ballroom will end up costing?

Between the Epstein ballroom and Trump’s Iran War, Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is becoming one of most expensive fiascos in history.

Today’s theme music is “Under My Wheels” by Alice Cooper. The song came out in 1971. It entered my morning mental music stream today after reading Jill Dennison’s blog. It featured the ELO song, “Telephone Line”. That was enough to inspire The Neurons to lift “Under My Wheels” out of my dusty folds of memory. See, the song begins, “The telephone is ringing,” and the line is repeated throughout the song.

Hope you enjoy it. Still sounds good to me, fifty years plus later. However, I don’t often play Alice Cooper these days; he’s a right-wing individual who trashes trans ‘as a fad’.

I hope this day finds you doing well in all ways that matter. May peace and grace carry you on no matter what adversity life might deliver.

On to my coffee. Cheers

3

The Lost Jacket: A Dream

Dreamed I was traveling but also that I’d arrived somewhere. It was both familiar but different. I was then again in the military. Several sisters and Mom traveled with me, yet I arrived before them so that I was there to greet them when they arrived.

I put them up in a room and then told them, “I have to go work. I’ll be back and then we’ll go out.” I also suggested to them that maybe they could come see where I work.

In parallel, I’d been out walking around. I took off my jacket: this was a brown leather ‘flight’ jacket. I’d left my money and my wallet with my ID in it.

I suddenly remembered, oh, no – I forgot about that.

I rushed back to get the jacket.

Gone!

I was frantic with worry. What am I going to do?

Casual friends who used to be co-workers arrived. One, a big guy, younger than me, said, “Hey we found this. Thought you might need it.” He gave me my brown leather jacket.

I was relieved but worried, and reached into the pockets.

Empty.

He then held up my wallet.

Relief rushed me.

Then he held up my folded cash in his other hand. “This was in your pocket, too.”

I thanked him, then hugged him, saying, “You are a true friend.”

Dream end.

0

Sunday’s Theme Music – Going Down

Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, May 3, 2026.

It’s a springy 63 F in Ashland this morning. Clouds feather the sunshine effect. We’re expecting a high of 77 F and thunderstorms.

All is quiet on the Mom front. I’m privately mourning the changes and losses to her life. Don’t know what my sisters are thinking but their relationship with Mom was rockier than mine. Part of that is that I moved out early and was away for years at a time, inuring me to her chaos.

Unfortunately, we’re not inured to Trump’s chaos. Let’s call it Traos. No matter what I drink or how much, he’s still there, and the reality of what he’s doing to us gets worse with every viewing.

Now several months into Trump’s second year of his second term, certain trends have become cemented as part of his legacy.

  • Trump is a corrupt person, enriching himself at the expense of the country
  • Trump’s cabinet is inept and chaotic
  • Dizzy Donnie’s health is worsening and he’s hiding something
  • Whatever is in the Epstein files, Trump doesn’t want it found
  • Trump has no plan forward except to cut everything except Homeland Security and Defense, impose more tariffs, and isolate the nation
  • Between his lies, broken promises, failed policies, and delusions, Trump can’t be trusted

Some will say that I’m being harsh. I am. But I’m using standard benchmarks for my judgements.

  • Trump keeps playing ‘hide the Epstein file’
  • His personal wealth has grown while social services and education are being cut
  • The national debt is growing at a record rate and has overtaken the GNP
  • Prices are rising and he can only offer band aids like the $6000 tax credit for seniors that results in $720
  • Awakening to his grift, his approval ratings are falling, and his disapproval ratings are rising
  • He promised no new wars and started one
  • Declaring himself the unity president, he’s done more to polarize voters than any other in modern history

And as final proof of how delusional he is, he keeps ordering things renamed for himself, and planning monuments for himself, because he thinks everything is going great. The rest of the world knows, if he was worthy of monuments, we’d be proposing and building them on our own. Instead, brown nosers who like to kiss his ass are trying to find new ways of doing it.

Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! still goes. No doubt trying to regain some of his mojo, Trump announced some major gun safety changes. Makes the NRA happy. That’s what’s important. *snark*

We have months to go before it’s all over.

BTW, have you seen Iran’s humorous take on Trump?

The confluence of news, dreams, and mood inspired The Neurons to pull the trigger on “Sugar, We’re Goin Down”.

The Fall Out Boy chorus fills the morning mental music stream:

“We’re going down, down in an earlier round, and sugar we’re going down swinging. I’ll be your number one with a bullet.”

My hope for you today is that you weather it all and come out stronger, healthier, and happier.

Got my coffee. Time to rock on. Cheers

1

Aging Reflections: the Balance.

A NYTimes headline scored my attention today:

5 Money Lessons From Readers in the Trenches of Elder-Parent Care

Regular visitors to my blog know that my family have been dealing with my aging mother for years. She’d been living a good life; a fall on some stairs changed that trajectory.

Mom fortunately had a good partner, Frank, as she moved toward her 80s. His drawbacks including increasing deafness, blindness, and being five years older than Mom.

We could see what was coming: Mom would need more and more care. The care would become more and more expensive. Frank would be less and less able to help Mom.

I spoke with Mom about it over the years, advocating to get someone in to help her clean and help her take care of herself. I also kept suggesting that they move into smaller place, such as an assisted living facility or a ‘senior’ community.

Mom resisted most of the suggestions. She didn’t want to leave her house. That home represented her life. She bought it on her own, then got her GED and went to nursing school. Mom opened her home to her grandchildren, taking care of them while my sisters went to school or worked.

I eventually convinced Mom to accept someone coming in and cleaning a few times a week. I paid for it, which helped Mom accept the help. She was also willing let that person in because it was a neighbor and someone she knew.

The arrangement ended when the cleaner suffered cancer and could no longer work. Worse, Mom was falling more often. Her recovery arcs were longer. Each hospital episode left her with more challenges. Yet her will to live was undiminished.

Things took a drastic turn last year. Frank, her partner, fell down the stairs. Hospitalized, he went into a coma and died, 95 years old.

This was devastating for us on multiple fronts and forced Mom’s health from concern to crisis.

Mom tried living alone when Frank was in the hospital and everyone hoped he would recover. Falling, though, Mom couldn’t get up several times and slept on the floor. Cooking was a struggle, so she took shortcuts such as eating sardines with crackers for dinner. She grew thinner and weaker.

My sister took her in. Sis set up a nice space for Mom. Perhaps the biggest drawback was that it was located in my sister’s finished basement. It started out fine but soon devolved into a cold war between Mom and everyone living there. Mom has been vulnerable to UTIs, and we think that was part of the problem.

Mom ended up making suicidal comments. She ended up hospitalized and then in an assisted living place where she does not want to be.

All this is just foreshadowing to me. I’ll be 70 in a few months. My wife is a year younger. One sister is two years older, and another is two years younger. The other two sisters are 8 and 10 years younger than me.

The thing is, even as Mom needs help, all of us are also reaching that point. While I’ve been hospitalized and treated for several issues in the last five years, I’ve rebounded. The same can’t be said for my wife, my sisters, and their husbands.

We’re all facing the same issues that others face in this article: how do we help our parents when we’re crossing the threshold into needing help ourselves?

This is the Silver Tsunami, a term many do not like.

I’ve considered moving to be closer to my sisters and Mom. There are many legitimate excuses for why that hasn’t happened. While our southern Oregon home is ideal for us, the location is not any longer. Just under 1900 square feet, the house is single storied with two bathrooms, and three bedrooms. One bedroom is the home office. This is where we spend our most time, reading, exercising, watching television, on the computer.

The area, though, has been enduring droughts. With the droughts have come water shortages, wildfires, and smoke. As those hit, the local economy has suffered. As a result, Ashland is facing a financial crisis. Adding to that crisis is that two major employers, Southern Oregon University (SOU) and the town’s hospital, Assante Ashland Community Hospital, faced their own crises. Those crises forced them to drawdown in significant ways, with more on the way.

At this point, the future is not ideal. As the article points out, we’re not alone in our problems, both with our own health and aging, but also with helping our parents.

What’s troubling me as much as anything is how the GOP has responded. Trump has cut social services to the aging population. He instead wants to spend more money on the military. Equally troubling is that the GOP goes along with this.

There’s already a growing rural hospital crisis in the United States. With Trump in office, madly spending, the national debt has crossed the point where it is now larger than our Gross National Product.

Yet, Trump’s spending priorities are geared toward bailing out countries, starting wars or using the military as a stick to threaten other nations. These do nothing to help our nation’s aging citizens. Trump’s policies have instead resulted in higher prices across the spectrum, which makes everything worse for anyone living a marginalized life. Including people like Mom.

Projections show that it’ll probably get worse, with more citizens requiring healthcare and living assistance. Natural supply and demand for personnel, food, assistance, and medical care will further drive up costs.

It’s a terrible spiral. As wealth becomes more concentrated in the hands of billionaires who care mostly for themselves and their businesses, the rest of us will keep sliding further into debt and crisis.

Sadly, that is Trump’s America. As it now stands, it’s the future for far too many.

Some may say that I’m being fatalistic. I reply, I’m just reading the news and watching the trends.

10

Thursday’s Theme Music – Fronts

Ashland, southern Oregon — April 30, 2026.

A new weather front has moved in. It’s 54 F under layers of clouds and sprinklings of sunshine, a typical Ashlandic spring day. Highs in the upper 70s are forecast for us. Right now, with all those clouds, it feels weirdly chilly.

Good news from the home front. Mom is electing to stay in assisted living and cooperating. She’s also agreed to sell her house and furniture. While it’s welcomed, it’s also so sad for her and our family. She wanted to be there; we wanted her to be there. Yet, practically, it could not work. Personally, I will miss go home, to her house, to hugging her in her living room, chatting with her in her kitchen, helping her with her laundry. And I will miss the many wonderful dishes she used to make. Her potato salad, spaghetti with meatballs, and chili all remain the best I ever had.

I will say, though, my sisters are a little annoying with their texting. They get up early, before six, and text. My first text from them came at 2:12 AM. I have my phone set up to notify me of texts from the family, in case there’s an emergency, but these were casual, informational texts. Okay, rant over.

No, I haven’t spoken to them about it. They’re doing so much to take care of Mom and help, etc. It would be really petty of me to complain to them about the time they send their texts. I’ll just whine here instead. *smile*

I’ve not seen much surface changes on the Trump front. The voting front is rapidly changing as the Roberts Court dish out their rulings and states respond. A situation as messy as first graders fingerpainting is going to get muddy and sloppy. That mud and slop favors the GOP and Trump. That’s why they’re pressing it. Not about democracy; it’s about staying in power.

Meanwhile, it’s been quiet on the Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! front and the Epstein front.

With the war in Iran at a stalemate, more conversations about the US military’s capabilities are emerging, such as this one. And they’re right; as often happens, the military fights the last war. We’re built for vast nuclear battles in the US with technologically sophisticated but expensive systems. Iran is countering us with different tactics and inexpensive weapons.

In a sense, what we’re seeing in this war echoes wars for the US back to the American revolution. The British were fighting an old war. The colonist changed tactics and won.

Changing policies and weapons in the US will be a challenge. As President Eisenhower warned, the military-industrial complex has a firm hand on procurement. Defense companies manage Congress through projects, manufacturing, and employment. We build systems as much for our economy as much as we do for our security. Meanwhile, the public nods agreeably because, ‘patriotism’.

Trump is responding by increasing the defense budget and calling for more expensive weapons systems. He’s pushing hard on a new class of Trump battleships. As with many things Trump, the battleships he envisions are outdated and bloated relics better fit for the past.

As the war stays stall, oil prices are slowly rising. A Gasbuddy AI analysis from March of 2026 is hilarious to read:

“GasBuddy’s latest projection paints a starkly different picture from the past. The company now forecasts the 2026 U.S. gasoline price average to fall to $2.97 per gallon, marking the fourth consecutive annual decline and the lowest average since 2020. This sets up a clear seasonal pattern, with prices expected to peak in May around $3.12 per gallon before declining steadily to a low in December of $2.83 per gallon.”

Mock Paper Scissors found a saner prediction from a Gasbuddy expert:

“GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan, a widely cited gas price expert, predicts the national average price at the pump will hit $4.50 a gallon within a week (currently $4.30).”

Never to shirk from taking advantage of a bad situation, British Petroleum is making some handsome profits from the war and the world energy situation.

Oil giant BP announces huge rise in profits in first results since Iran war

Your Trump quote of the day:

“Gas prices have risen 49% since the beginning of 2026, according to prices tracked by AAA. They dropped by an average of 7 cents a gallon after a two-week ceasefire was announced last week.”

And as any driver now knows, that drop is already gone.

The Neurons observed my thoughts on fronts and responded. They put Elton John and “All Quiet on the Western Front” from 1979 in my morning mental music stream. Lifted from a movie of the same name, it’s not a song that comes on the radio much. The song’s tempo’s and musical style reminds me of “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” from 1975.

I hope your front is calm and peaceful and that you progress to better and better places for you in all ways possible.

Cheers

2

Tuesday’s Theme Music — Enduring

Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, April 28, 2026.

Spring endures in Ashland. 48, blue skies, clouds, sunshine, high in the mid-sixties expected.

Mom endures in her assisted living facility. My sister couldn’t do the things she enumerated yesterday. Mom remains in the assisted living facility and seems agreeable to selling her house. However, she’s trying to manipulate us in other ways, according to my sister. She said Mom wrote a long text that she wanted sis to share with all of us. My sister refused. Life.

My plumbing endures. Mixed results with the plumber yesterday. Both shutoff valves replaced at the toilets, but the plumber felt only one had a leaking wax seal. When he pulled it, lo, the wood under it was soaked. So, wax ring replaced, toilet put back, but now we need to send someone under the house to examine that area. I’ve been under the house; not fun. We have a low, low crawlspace. But I don’t have the expertise needed for this kind of assessment. Thought about using different cameras to see what it looks like. Still noodling that.

Trump endures, too. It is remarkable but many speculate that Trump staged the attempt on him. While Trump blames ‘the left’, he continues to incite hatred and violence toward others while asking that we be nicer to him.

Part of this is that Trump is a documented liar and cheat. He wants to be feared, liked, respected, admired. As part of his ‘weave’, he’ll say anything but that’s shredded his credibility. We know now he makes grandiose promises and bizarre accusations and declarations; it’s all just air.

Doesn’t help, neither, that within hours of the attempt, Trump was calling to build his White House ballroom because, “Security!” But the WHCD was not in the White House. Even if the ballroom had been done, it wouldn’t have affected what happened at the WHCD.

I will also say that even if Cole Tomas Allen left behind a ‘manifesto’ and seems to have a life, Hollywood has convinced me that creating a legend like that is very possible. While I don’t particularly believe the Trump administration is sanguine enough to get it done, there are some high-tech security firms in his corner who could do it. If I believe Hollywood, so could the CIA.

Why not? It’s the age of deep fakes and AI.

With Trump not being held accountable for his lies and behavior, it’ll probably because worse as others attempt to emulate and duplicate his success as a con artist. More troubling is how his actions undermine our trust and belief in authority.

Meanwhile, the squeeze is on U.S. farmers. They’re in a bad situation: diesel is up, fertilizer is up, interest rates are up, available migrant labor is down, and droughts are in the forecast.

Perhaps they will reconsider who they vote for in November.

Your Trump quote of the day:

“Data from the USDA show that soybean exports to China, as of March 19, are about half the amount they were last year.” 

Reminder: we’re into the eighth week of the Trump Iran War. He has no exit plan.

Reminder: the Epstein files have not been completely released.

Reminder: Trump’s popularity is declining and prices are rising.

Expect some new Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! breaking news soon.

“Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” ended up in my morning mental music stream. So many bricks being put into place between what we were, what we could become. Trump builds walls to divide and separate, keep the poor in misery and empower the wealthy, along with walls against equality, freedom, science, and education.

Hope you end up in the best possible place when this day is finished. Onward.

Cheers

1

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