Tag: noise

Twozdaz Wandering Thoughts

The coffee shop is pretty damn full.

I’m in RoCo. It’s my new favorite coffee place, an old house converted to a business on the corner of 8th Avenue and East Main Street.

Every table is in use. Many regulars are in attendance. Like me, at a table, computer open. My eyes and ears are open even as I read, think, and type. Wonderful community and social energies swirl through the room like a strong, happy breeze. I love the noise and action, enjoy looking up at the faces, glancing at the fashion.

Most clients are, ahem, ‘my age’. They look like, ahem, boomers, like me. I’ll be seventy next year. I think I’m in the middle of the age spectrum here. Sure, there are so younger outliers. Teenagers who look like they’re wearing colorful fleece pajamas come in as pairs, order, take their stuff and leave. A few twenty-somethings, thirtyish, and fortyish folks are partaking of drink and food, chatting with others, reading, so forth. Hoka shoes are spotted on many, the shoes of my people. Columbia sportwear and Patagonia dominates. They’re the clothes of my tribe, but this is Oregon, where some of that stuff is produced, and where Columbia is headquartered, up north, west of Portland. Two children, about ten, are also present with an older woman. The children are on ice cream on this chilly, foggy, autumn day. The weather doesn’t daunt them from enjoying a cold but sweet treat.

The baristas take orders, prepare, and serve, all laughing and chatting as they do. Regulars come in and get greeted by name, including Sugar the dog, who waves their tail in happiness and await their standard treat.

Sunshine has burst through outside. Cold air storms me as the doors open and close. This is the United States, Oregon, Ashlandia, in 2025.

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Twozdaz Theme Music

We’re back home. Vacation is over. Taps was played at midnight to signify the last vacay day was done.

My wife reports she had a great bath and great night’s sleep. She prefers her own fixtures and bed. I slept well at both places. This place is far noisier. By 8 AM, garbage trucks, lawn equipment, and woodchippers were eagerly stressing the silence with their grinding, whirling, and groaning. I heard people walking by on the street speaking. One told her friend about their other friend’s birthday. Another woman was on her cell telling the neighborhood that her car was in the shop and needed a new starter, with additional complaints about this car, a Honda Civic. Airplanes, probably looking for lightning fires, droned overhead. Dogs and crows kept up commentary. Maybe my wife missed all the noise.

Hearing my wife speak about me, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I slept well. From her tales, my superpower is the ability to sleep anywhere, through anything.

It’s now Twozda. We’ll be lowering the flag on another month of 2025 soon, as this is August 26, 2025. It’ll be in the upper 90s here in Ashlandia.

I wish we were lowering the flag on Trump and his administration. The Offal Office dunce keeps displaying his tyrannical streak and wide-ranging ignorance. He can speak ignorantly about everything and anything, doing so eagerly and willingly at every fart of the wind. States have no rights unless they fall in line with his corkscrew thinking. In his latest attacks on our checks and balances, he and his administration sued judges because they keep ruling against him. This, according to them, is bad, because he is the POTUS. Man, that sickens and shames me to write that. Had to swallow some breakfast back down. The way he acts and from his representatives’ speech, they lack interest or comprehension in the three branches of the Federal government. Trump as POTUS is the only Federal office, and Trump as POTUS is the only person with any skills or leadership, to hear them tell it. To the rest of us, he has no skills, and his leadership is like a turd swirling down the toilet’s throat when the commode is flushed.

Papi the magnificent ginger boi who graces me with his presence cheered me up this AM. Chirps and purrs were exchanged with treats and petting. What a sweetheart. I credit him with setting me right and reminding me to live in the moment. The reminder stirred The Neurons to dig into their chambers and pull up a 2018 song by Portugal. The Man called “Live in the Moment”. As it played in the morning mental music stream, I pet my boi and sang along to him. He quickly bored of this and crossed the room to settle down and watch me from a more comfortable distance.

Coffee has restored me to the moment. Hope grace and peace feed your moments today and every day. Here we go again. Cheers

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Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

It’s Wenza. Middle and high school are in session. You know what that means.

2:03 PM, the murmuration of children begins. Noises double in decibels and echo like we’re in a gym. Screeches, shouts, laughter, blow out my ear drums in three second sound bites.

Cliques form. Tables and chairs are hunted. Backpacks are dumped. A line snakes out from the counter. Drinks are ordered, picked up, shared, consumed.

Happens every Wenzda when school is in session in Ashlandia.

Oddly, today, besides the sounds and visuals, the school children bring in smells of a lunchtime cafeteria. It could be roast turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just memory of another time making itself known.

0

The Power Dream

I wasn’t sure how to label this dream.

I was in bed. Tucker was beside me. He’d awakened me with a couple claw taps to my hand. This is what he does when he wants me to pet and scratch him at night. I obliged him.

It was 4:50 AM. Dim light was skirting in and around the blinds but the light had an unusual, lemon-green hue. It seemed pixelated with black static. That black static seemed to be closing in on me like a malevolent hand reaching out to seize me.

I wanted to cower under the covers but I felt like I had to get up and check a noise heard elsewhere in the house. Clenching my jaw, I forced myself out of bed.

The black immediately gained mass, pouncing on me like a swarm of angry black insects. I could feel its anger like a growing breeze. Waving it off, I said in my head, “I’m not afraid, you can’t stop me.” I then amended that, “Okay, I am afraid but I’m still not going to let you stop me.”

The black drew down on me and slammed my head like a hurricane wind. I held fast, resisting being pushed back or knocked over. After some seconds of this, I pushed forward toward the door. The black burst apart and vanished.

I woke up. I was partly out of my bed. Surprise held me; “That was a dream?” It seemed so real and intense that I stood there, half out of bed, remembering and thinking before wondering, had there really been a noise? I went to check.

Just in case.

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

A deer came by this morning. I saw her strolling across the yard, nibbling at choice yard offerings. Then she settled down on a grassy patch by some bushes just off the front porch.

I wondered, is she the same one who came by three times last week to chill in the yard at night? We never exchanged names and the other one was in the dark, so I’m not sure.

Seeing her settled, I did my best to keep the noise level down as I closed windows and left the house to go write.

I didn’t want to disturb the resting deer.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

I don’t care what others claim, if you’re eating raw crunchy veggies, the volume on the televisions MUST be turned up. And it’s not because ‘I’m getting old,’ damn it.

Signed, cranky middle-aged person.

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Thunderfloof

Thunderfloof (floofinition) – Animal who makes a lot of noise when it runs.

Note: Not to be confused with floofthunder (the rumble of many animals running).

In use: “Pound for pound, the little tuxedo cat was a thunderfloof, making more noise running through the halls than any of the dogs did.”

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