Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
On the one hand, the sky’s smoky haze incubated worrying questions about the fire’s location size, growth, and containment. But the smoke blocked the sun and kept the temperature in the low 90s F, granting relief from the previous broiler level days.
Fire, smoke, heat, he just hoped the animals, lands, and people all stayed safe. He crossed his fingers to amplify his hopes.
It was a lazy fun dream about working. I was a young man and seeking new employment. A middle-aged man was offering a prospective job. I hung around, hoping. He was one of several sub-contractors on sight. Talking with him, I felt I had a chance. I didn’t know what he was going, but I was sure that I could do it, too. At least, I could help, right? I was eager to prove those things and show that I was worth it.
Turned out, he was planting starts, as were the other sub-contractors. My guy was the smallest operation. He was planting about sixty plants. The others were doing hundreds to thousands. We were inside, on a top floor doing this. The floor was open and large, like an arena, with a domed metal ceiling. Large, bright lights kept it all lit like day.
I wondered, what plants are they putting into the ground with such care? Was it marijuana? No. The plants were striped decorative grasses. I was flummoxed about such grasses being given such attention, but as I watched the work, I caught on to the system and rhythm and helped out. As we worked and I became useful, I discovered that we were doing this for a startup. Those people worked for an Internet based company. They came in and started setting up workstations and computers among the plants.
We got to talking. I told them about some of my startup experiences with medical device manufacturing, and computer and net security, installing CRMs and databases, and building call centers. They were impressed.
At the end of the day, I left and went home to tell my wife I had expectations that I was going to be offered a job, that my efforts were going to earn a payout. I awoke hopeful, optimistic, and energetic.
Yes, definitely a fun dream.
This is it, May’s last day. It will not be extended.
Yes, welcome to Tuesday, May 31, 2022. Back to work if you were off for the Memorial Day in the U.S.
We’ve returned to cloudy and warm weather today. Woke up to 59 F after the sun kicked in its light at 5:38 AM. The flip end of the sun’s presence comes at 8:40 PM today. Before then, we expect to see temperatures of 77 F. Yardwork has kept us busy as the rains encouraged everything to “grow, grow, grow”, leaving us with an unkempt landscape. Great seeing the bees abuzzing around the backyard’s weeds. It’s a weed zone, where we let weeds proliferate. The bees love it.
Today’s song emerged from conversations with friends and relatives about the state of the world and the state of the nation, and where we’re going. Thinking about that and change and direction, the neurons pulled up Roxy Music from 1982 and a song called “More Than This”.
I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they’re blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this – there is nothing
More than this – tell me one thing
More than this – there is nothing
It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like a dream in the night
Who can say where we’re going
h/t to AZLyrics.com
Yes, who can say where we’re going? There’s always some indications but then shifts arrive. Something dramatic is pulled off. A galvanizing speech is made. A moderating influence is found, a new hope delivered. Who can say? History is full of downs and ups. Fingers crossed that we find something that pulls us from the brink and takes us into a new direction.
Stay positive, test negative, etc. I know, it’s a difficult challenge in the current news cycle. Still…try. And now, I will drink the magic elixir, coffee, and draw new hope and energy from it. Here’s the music. Cheers
Good morning, fellow pumpkin spice heads. C’est moi, coming at you undead from Ashland, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Today is Friday, October 15, 2021. Please set that to memory; you may be called upon to tell another later. Of course, being of retired military mind, the fifteenth was the middle-of-the-month payday during my working military life, when we, the enlisted, could rush out and buy groceries, gas up the car, and pay bills.
Sunrise was another glorious, steady rise of golden light, like a veil being pulled off night, that came at 7:23 AM. Temperature was a fur-chilling 40 F at that point. I know because the ginger boi, aka Meep, aka Papi, came in and told me, “Chilly out. Feel my fur.” Which I did, telling him, “Oh, your fur is cold.” He replied, “Meep, purr.” I assume that meant, I know. Sunset will come at, oh, 6:29 PM, according to the old farmer’s google. Temperatures will rise to the mid-fifties again, before falling into the high thirties after we’ve rotated away from the sun’s assistance. Such small windows of comfort, innit?
Today’s offering in my morning mental music stream comes from the Moody Blues and 1971. Yes, there is a line of lyrics involved. At some point yesterday, while in the snug discussing something, another something — a noise — from where? — who knows? — popped into our awareness. A what’s that, I don’t know, convo followed as we half-heartedly pursued the answer to this sound mystery. I mentioned at one point, “Listen. It sounds like it’s slowly turning.” After I’d walked away from that major, earth-shaking interruption to our routine, when I was in the kitchen, the song’s line, “Listen to the tide slowly turning,” whispered in my ears. The song then came on in full.
Of course, the progressive fusion of classical, folk, and rock that is “The Story in Your Eyes” aligns with my optimism. I often believe the tide is slowly turning. We’re slowly becoming less warlike. We’d probably make better progress in that were it not for the global defense industry and the need to make profits but killing others in the name of peace and security. Likewise, I’m always sure that the tide of justice, freedom, and equality is slowly turning, too. Someday, we’ll also unite to address climate change, right? Probably not until most of the lower ranks of people are standing up to their armpits in water, but I’m hopeful it’ll come before then.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax, sing a song, dance a little, laugh a lot, and have some fun. Here’s the music. Enjoy the photos of the band in their youth. My hot, black coffee is also here. Must drink it before it grows too cold. Cheers
Ready to shake up the days? Most are, when it comes to Friday. People rush from work and school with shouts of “Freedom” and “At last!” Not necessarily because they hate those things. No, they’re just looking for some change. A little wiggle from routines.
Today is Friday, September 24, 2021. Don’t know about you, but our area is enduring splendid weather. Cool nights — upper fifties, low sixties — days warming to the upper seventies, lower eighties, and air so clear you can see tomorrow. Sun came spilling in with lazy insouciance at 7:00 AM. Our world area turns away from it at 7:05 PM. Almost to that point of equilibrium. That momentary balance.
I’m inclined toward a Natalie Cole song from 1975 called “This Will Be” today. Started with me thinking, this will be. This will be a good day. Not a proclamation so much as a feeling, a realization. Ever get that? Just like a lick of lightning to your brain — this will be a good day. I’ve had the opposite, too. Either feeling gives me a chance to prepare to walk the tightrope, know what I mean?
The song entered the morning’s mental music stream through the outre, “from now on”. Rightly, the song is a brassy R&B love song that starts soft and becomes belted out with optimistic energy. Just remembering those last lines, hearing those final notes, has a galvanizing effect on my spirit. Hope it has the same on yours. Because every once in a while, you just need a song that feels like an affirmation.
Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed. Get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
“Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day. I got a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way.”
Yes, Gordon MacRae is singing to me this morning. Part of an exercise to, um, exercise a more positive attitude.
In many ways, it is a beautiful morning. Though the sun is a whitish wisp behind a uniform chalky pale gray, the air is calm, windows are open, smoke isn’t actually entering the house, and nothing locally is on fire. See, I can be an optimist. It’s a cool 76 degrees F for now. Sunrise came prowling around my back door on or about 6:15 AM and sunset will get our attention at 8:16 PM here in the Rogue Valley area. The heat dome is still with us, feeding off the air and land temp. We expect a high of 102 plus. We expected that yesterday but didn’t achieve it as the smoke kept us below 96 degrees. Thanks, smoke!
Inside the house is our sanctuary. Not a large space. Nor fancy. But ours. Where we can walk around nude if we want. Laugh and argue. Read and eat. Sleep and bath. All in relative protection. Within it is my space. My desk. Laptop. Printer. Chair. Cats on three sides of me. Guarding or protecting me. I don’t know what they’re doing for sure. But they’re there, sleeping on the job. Snoring, purring, there.
Shifting from Oklahoma!‘s music, I’m now playing U2’s song, “The Fly”, from 1991. Always a little bit of a strange song to me. Not my favorite. But I was going through this one part that goes, “It’s no secret that a conscious can sometimes be a pest, it’s no secret ambition bites the nails of success. Every artist is a cannibal, every poet a thief. All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.”
What I was thinking about that was drive. Effort. Persistence. Trying and striving. Don’t really see how it ties into those lyric, but that’s what my psyche came up with. Thinking about it more, I believe the song is associated with the album (Achtung Baby) which is part of a chain of time and events in my life in 1991.
All right. Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed, and don’t try to bullshit yourself about whether it’s needed. And get the vax. Here’s the music.
Cheers
The rotations continue, no matter what is done, sunrise, sunfall. 5:46 AM, 8:47 PM in slice of world in southern Oregon. The revolution continues, despite what is done, carrying us through summer, speeding us toward autumn.
Today is Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Wildfires continue catching and growing. Two are contained, five more start. Smoke doesn’t fill the sky but bleaches the blue into a yellow-tinged gray haze. Fine grey granules, almost white, sprinkle cars and the land. Think of how they coat skin. Get into airways. Spread into lungs, interfering with body functions like breathing.
The smoke is a cooling shade, keeping temperatures from rising over one hundred F but unable to keep us from experiencing high nineties heat. Green has been dried out of the grasses. They turn into a sandy shade of brown.
But, you know, good news. COVID-19 vaccinations appear to be helping, where people are allowing themselves to be vaccinated. As disease variants rise, the unvaccinated and vaccinated become positive, but it’s the unvaccinated who are typically hospitalized and dying.
The other good news is that people are shedding their masks, unless they need it to deal with smoke (at least out here in the American west). Stores are opening. Restaurants. Movie theaters. One can again attend movies. Isn’t that good news? And the All-star break is underway. Good news, right? Good news.
While drought spreads in the west, places are flooding in the south and east as hurricanes and tropical storms strike. Did you see the photos of the flooded New York subway and roads? Places are also experiencing power outages. Sometimes from storms, sometimes because power is cut off due to wildfires, sometimes because the wildfires burn power lines. Melbourne, Australia is locked down again but the NFL is looking forward to full stadiums. There’s a water shortage growing in America but a housing boom is underway. The stock market has never been better, and look how that economy seems to be recovering. Also, the Emmy list has been released. That’s good news, isn’t it?
An ad on an Internet page seems it all up for me. Showing a pristine red and white Chevy Corvette from the early sixties, the ad informs me, “Jag EType” (that’s how they put it) “in any condition, nationwide.” While showing a Vette. Makes sense to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m an optimist. Hopeful. Hell, I keep grinding away on my writing routine. Must believe some future exists for it. Which brings me to the music.
Here’s the Pretenders from 1986. They do an homage to an old television show, “The Avengers”. My wife and I quite enjoyed that series as children. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax. Cheers
Many songs that I remember have specific moments attached. They follow traditional, predictable patterns of love, success, pain, and failure.
Today’s song is hotly linked to success. It was 1999. Retired from the military, I was working in a medical device startup company. I began as the customer service manager. Then the company was bought out. And on this day, the new VP of marketing from the company who bought us had offered me a big promotion, to become a product manager, and I’d accepted.
The world looked great. This was in the summer in the Peninsula portion of the SF Bay Area known as Silicon Valley. I was in my car, a vehicle I enjoyed The sky was blue, the sun was bright and warm, and the future seemed amazing.
Traffic wasn’t bad either, as I left Highway 101 and I-280 behind me and headed west toward home on highway 92. For that day, I put in Bush, Sixteen Stone, and selected “Comedown” (1995).
Here are the lyrics that drew me that day:
‘Cause I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud
It’s taken me all this time to find out what I need
I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud
It’s taken me all this all this time
h/t AZlyrics.com
(BTW, I wanted to indent the lyrics to call them out, but can’t find the indent on this new, cumbersome, tedious, loaded WP editor. This is supposed to be a quick post; I don’t want to spend a lot of time searching through blocks and patterns, widgets and menus to find what used to be a simple matter. And where is the help? Oh, let me look for that.)
Don’t have a specific reason for this song in my head today. Just awoke to that beginning from the song. Maybe it was a dream thing, or a writing thing, or my generally foolish, optimistic nature.
But that’s today’s music.
Hey, come on in. Grab a drink. The party is just gettin’ started.
Yeah, I know the reality. This is make believe. We’re pretending all the restrictions have been lifted. A vaccine has been found. Testing is readily available. We rallied and rescued ourselves (with help from the world). And we helped others survive.
Now we’re entering recovery mode. A new prez is in the White House. Toilet paper is available. Gas is cheap, and restaurants and bars are open for business. We’re doing a little freedom party. We’re steppin’ out. So grab a drink (or pretend to drink one). It’s a virtual bar full of virtually everything, and it’s party PM.
In honor of all that, the song that came on for the start of this party is an old fan fave (yeah, I’m the fan). It always gets me movin’, putting a grin in my mood and jacking my spirits up.
Here’s “Gimme Some Lovin'” by The Spencer Davis Group from 1966. I’m so glad you made it.
Now, for the helluvait, another party fave: Prince, “1999” (1982). Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 