Thursday’s Theme Music

It’s your choice. Will you stay with what you have or will you trade it for what’s behind one of these three doors?

They’re going for door number three. Let’s see what’s behind door number one and two first.

Door number one is…Monday, May 1, 2028. So that would have been a small trip into the future for you. And door number two is…a slip to the past, Friday, August 16, 1996. Have you experienced that year yet?

Okay, let’s see what they won. Let’s open door number three. Good luck.

Today is Thursday, July 28, 2022. Today’s high temperature for Ashland in southern Oregon is 108 F or 42 C. 108 is pretty high and I’m dubious we’ll hit it. Only touched 103 F at my house yesterday. Right now it’s 74 F (23 C). Sunrise was at 6 AM exactly. Expect the daylight selection of our day to finish at fourteen hours and thirty-four minutes later.

The felines have been loving the heat. Go into a torpor in shade for the day. They don’t eat or move much during the high heat portion. Come night, they turn into homicidal psycho jungle cats (a phrase borrowed from Bill Watterson), prowling and pouncing, muttering and munching.

In news —

No, let’s skip the news portion. Speaking of 1996, The Neurons plucked a song out of that portion of the memory puzzle, I mean palace, and slotted it into the morning mental music stream. See, I was writing in my head as I went about feeding beasts and prepping my breakfast, following up on what was written yesterday, dipping into where I want to go today, addressing a character and what they’d believed and what they now believed, which meant they needed to do this — well, you know the chains. Out of that, The Neurons plucked “Stupid Girl” by Garbage. Took a long several minutes to get more than, “all you had you wasted,” but I could clearly hear the voice and supporting music for that slender segment. More would not come. Just as I drifted away with the attendant thought, it’ll come later, pop, The Neurons released more and the song and band were fully recalled. Yea, go neurons, go!

Stay positive and test negative, and so on. Three friends have announced they’re COVID free while another announced he just tested positive. So it goes. I’m going for coffee before it gets too warm. Here’s the tune. As a bonus, you get it performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman”. Cheers

Wednesday’s Theme Music

The rumor of a breeze circulated at ten o’clock last night. The temperature had plummeted to 91 F by then, still a little warm for opening the doors and windows to cool the house. Although we have central A/C, I dislike its effects on my sinuses, environment, and energy bill, and avoid using it as much as possible. I really wanted to open the doors and such, and it was hard to hear the insects and bugs’ tiny rapping and requests to come in and escape the heat. I eventually yielded at eleven, when it was 81 outside and 86 in the house. The air, still warm, barely stirred.

A few clouds and haze mar the sky’s true color today. This Wednesday, the final of July, 2022, the 27, for those seeking more, will reach 104 they say. We officially reached only 100 in Ashland yesterday, although my house said it was 103.5 as the high experienced. Sunset will be at 8:36 PM. Sunrise today was at 5:59 AM. It might be the last time for a sunrise before six in the morning, unless it happens again when we ‘fall back’ with the clock later this year.

“Janie’s Got A Gun” by Aerosmith (1989) inhabits the morning mental music stream. The song is about parents and others raping, abusing, and molesting children and Janie getting a gun to stop it. Rape was removed from the radio version. And yeah, it came up as a song as I read more sickening news of the world. Not going into it any further. Many people frequently promote an idea for using a gun to shoot and kill people with state permission as soon as their crime is discovered. I’m not for that for many reasons, among them being an orderly and intelligent system of justice. I know it fails often but throwing it out isn’t a solution; its shortcomings need to be addressed and fixed. That’s difficult in today’s political environment but I stand by the belief.

Stay positive and test negative. Wear masks and get vaxes as needed. Good luck and stay safe. Coffee? Why, thank you, I think I will.

Cheers

Tuesday’s Theme Music

The dice have been tossed. Rolling to a stop, they come up Tuesday, July 26, 2022.

106 F is today’s magic number for our valley. We hit 103.5 F yesterday. Only cooled to 22 C overnight. Already 24 C this morning.

The sun peeled back the night at 5:58 AM. Night will reclaim the valley upon the sun’s setting at 8:37 PM. Them’s the rules.

All this warm weather has the cats in an interesting zone. During the day, they staked out cool shade and slept. One took up the front door and the other guarded the back. This morning’s cool air turned the house into a grand prix circuit as the cats exercised some zoomies, accelerating down hallways, blasting around corners, obliterating toy mice and throw rugs encountered along the way. The FIA should check out it as a new race venue: the Clay Street Grand Prix. Seating will be limited so they’ll need to turn to television to keep their lofty revenues up.

Today’s music came from eavesdropping on two young women. I’d bet on them being twenty-somethings. One was encouraging the other in some enterprise and told her, “Your day will come.”

Well, The Neurons leaped right on that, popping “Our Day Will Come” into the mental music stream where it remained this morning. The original hit that I knew, from a year I couldn’t remember, was by Ruby and the Romantics. A 45’s label is burned into memory as it was loaded on a pink and gray little portable record machine. Where, who, when are blanks. Covers and other variations of the song were encountered throughout my life but I always enjoyed the one with the organ solo in the middle.

BTW, I just love that expression, “eavesdropping”. Hearing it conjures a person hanging upside down from eaves outside people’s windows.

Well, here we go. Stay safe, test negative, exercise some critical thinking, and remain positive. Coffee time now, before the heat becomes oppressive.

Here’s the music. Cheers

Monday’s Theme Music

105 F is today’s magic number. Ashland’s forecast high temperature, keep it in mind as you plan and pursue activities. Cooling shelters have been set up around town at churches, community centers, and the library.

The house system says it’s 66 F outside. Alexa claims it’s 21 C in Ashland, where I reside. The net says it’s 74. It all makes sense because they’re all correct. Depends on where you live, the mountains’ shadows, and the sun’s reach, yeah? Hope the weather is kind to you wherever you are. If it’s not, then I hope you’re in a safe place.

Another week has begun. This is Monday, July 25, 2022. July has entered the final stretch. 2022 is halfway through summer in the northern hemisphere.

Old Tucker was active last night. The big guy was feeling it. I opened the back door just after midnight to let in some cooling air and check upon them. When I flicked on the light, I saw Tucker dash out into the yard. He seemed to be after something. Well, the light was bad so I dropped back for a flashlight. When I illuminated the scene, I saw a young raccoon facing off with my cat. The raccoon was a little larger than my boy but Tucker goes aggro with animals. I called for him to come back. The raccoon tried to make an escape. Tucker gave chase, but the raccoon made it into a bush. Tucker sat there to ensure the critter didn’t leave. I went out an coaxed Tucker back, allowing the other to make their escape.

Meanwhile, the orange menace known as Papi, aka Meep, had watched all this from the patio’s safety. Once Tucker returned and the raccoon was gone, Papi went over there and laid down in front of the bush where rocky raccoon had taken refuge. He just grinned at my efforts to get him back in.

“Everyday Is a Winding Road” by Sheryl Crow (1996) has settled into the morning mental music stream. The Neurons riffed on my thought upon reading some news and thinking, “Well, anything goes these days.” The Neurons promptly launched the song, homing in on the lyrics, “Everybody gets high, everybody gets low, these are the days when anything goes.” Like almost every song residing in my mental juke box, the song has a story attached, although it’s just a regular tale of hearing the melody during my Silicon Valley commutes, passing the time as we motor slowly through the webs of interchanges clotted with cars.

Stay pos, etc. It’s still cool so I’ll refresh with a little hot java, yeah? Yeah. Have a better one.

Later, gator.

Saturday’s Theme Music

July 23 of 2022 turned out to be a Saturday. Sunrise took place while I still prowled dreamland at 5:55 AM. More likely to witness sunset at 8:39 PM. July is preparing to conduct a peaceful transfer of power to August.

Sunshine rules again, giving us some hot air. 90 F will be our high while it’s a pleasant and comfortable 19 C at the moment. Lovely to stand out in the sun with hot coffee, watching the feline masters grooming as cool hair bathes me.

World news scans gave a bleak assessment of life in 2022. Disasters, death, and killing fill the stories. Guess those are a significant part of life. I wanted something lighter in my mind. The damn Neurons didn’t comply. I just reading a novel called Fools and Mortals about William and Richard Shakespeare and the plays Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The primary story focused on Richard Shakespeare, a player in Shakespeare’s company, his love life and poverty, his relationship with his brother, stolen manuscripts, and politics. Perhaps the novel’s story still circulated around the neural pathways as The Neurons filled the morning mental music stream with “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” from 1976 by Blue Oyster Cult. The song has lyrics which go, “Romeo and Juliet are together for eternity.” The way my neurons go about business, of course the song would need to be brought up after reading a book mentioning them, of course! It’s as natural an order as sunrise and sunset, a thought which cues The Neurons to begin “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof.

Let’s get out of here. Stay positive and test negative, masking as needed, etc. I’ve already procured and consumed some coffee, so here’s the music. Enjoy.

More cowbell. Peace out.

Friday’s Theme Music

We’ve cooled some more here in southern Oregon. Hope the rest of the world can cool off. Today’s temperature finds us at 17 C now with a high of 88 F being bandied around. No clouds on my horizons now. Faint clouds were in the midnight skies. But what a night sky it otherwise was, rich with diamonds – galaxies, planets, stars, and satellites, prodding my mind to beg for details about how this all works together.

It’s Friday, July 22, 2022. Sunset and sunrise are 8:40 PM and 5:54 AM.

The Neurons are playing “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” by Judas Priest. Are you familiar with this 1982 song? It’s a heavy metal rocker. I’m more of a progressive rock fan with my intro to heavy metal coming via a co-worker, Bob. He made me a mixed tape of heavy songs that he thought I needed to know, and here we are. This would’ve been in 1986 at a little place called Shaw AFB in South Carolina, my stop in the U.S. between Japan and Germany. In reflection, I left the U.S. in 1981, came back in 1985, left in 1986, and returned in 1991.

Stay positive and test negative, etc. Coffee has touched down in the kitchen. One small sip for mankind. Cheers

Thursday’s Theme Music

Yesterday nicked 99 to a 100 F locally. The high temp experienced is a spectrum dictated by microvariables. Today is cooling, touching 95 to 97. An hour ago, it was 19 C. Now it’s up to 22 C.

Sunrise on this day, Thursday, 7/21/22, was 5:53 AM. Sunset has drawn down to 8:41. Was it a month ago where I noted that sunset was 8:51 day after day?

Our heat isn’t as bad as other regions. Wildfire stories are growing, of course, as Texas, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Alaska, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and other places fight the flames. Extreme heat shut down data centers in several countries. Roads and runways were reported melted. Droughts are spreading, threatening food supplies. Yes, and numerous people around the world have succumbed to the high heat.

Deep breath. Hang on, I need coffee to continue.

The Neurons are singing a 1972 Rod Stewart song called, “You Wear It Well”. Why? You ask them. They won’t give the reasons to me. Not a bad choice by any means. I like the mellow and folksy rock sound delivered with down-to-earth lyrics about time, love, and the past.

Here’s the music. Need to see a man about a garage door. He’s just arrived to put in a strut to solve the bowing issue. Fingers crossed, etc. I would’ve done it but couldn’t find an appropriate sixteen feet strut and didn’t have a vehicle to transport said strut. Bummer; I like the DIY challenge.

Peace out.

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Happy National Moon Day. Yes, it’s the day in America so many children relish, the one where you are allowed and even encouraged to moon people. By that, I mean that you arrange your clothes to expose your rear and – hold on, someone is trying to tell me something.

Oh. I’m told that I’m wrong about Moon Day. It’s about something else entirely.

In honor of this day, The Neurons are singing the Beach Boys 1965 cover of “Barbara Ann”. I refuse to ask them why. They’re sitting there, smirking at me, sniggering and giggling like children, and I won’t give them the pleasure of asking what on Earth prompted this song on Moon Day. I do enjoy the song. Singing it entertains me. Good way to have fun by myself, although I have other ways, too.

It is July 20, 2022, the anniversary of the first man on the moon. I do remember watching it unfold on my color TV alone in the game room and thought it pretty cool. I’d already built models of the LEM and the rest, so you know I was into it.

Today is also Wednesday. It’s currently 22 C after an overnight low of 62 F. Today’s high will reach almost 38 C today after achieving 97 F yesterday. No clouds are out there. I was outside about twenty minutes before sunrise this morning, looking for Papi as I’d not seen nor heard him all night. He didn’t show up until after 5:52, when the sun was breaching the sky in a place that I couldn’t see. Sunset will be at 8:42 PM.

You know about COVID-19 and precautions, testing, etc? I hope so by now. So, you know, do them. Okay, coffee awaits. We have liftoff.

Peace out.

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Tucker vocalized a litany of breakfast requests a little before seven thirty. After addressing the house king’s requirements, I went into the back yard. The sun was just clearing the trees, forcing reflections that I don’t see the sunrise in this house. The back yard faces the east and the rising sun, per this reality’s dictation, but trees and mountains obscure the orb for the first ninety minutes of its summer rise.

Hi. It’s Tuesday, 7/19/22. It’s currently 75 F out. We’re expecting a high of 37 C today. The sun made its effort to illuminate the valley at 5:51 AM, mountains and trees be damned. Sunset will make the end of Tuesday’s daylight segment at 8:43 this evening.

Life in America – life in the world – has me and The Neurons singing “Mad World” by Tears for Fears. I think Jill Dennison is responsible for that. She’d shared a TfF song on her blog. I countered with “Shout”. The Neurons then took me through a Tears for Fears anthology. While I have a life of privilege, without food or shelter insecurity, a white guy with all the inherent benefits that conveys in the modern United States, news of food shortages, senseless shootings and death elsewhere, weather disasters, and the sickening state in which some exist, brought up “Mad World”. So much of our world seems to go in circles. In one sense, it’s natural and fundamental; in another, it’s deeply crazy.

So, here is the song. As part of the “Mad World”, wear masks and test negative and stay positive. More friends are down with COVID. I’ve not been struck – was I but just going about asymptomatic? One never knows. Coffee is at hand. Here’s the tune.

Peace out.

Monday’s Theme Music

Welcome to Monday, July 18, 2022. Current temp is 16 C. Projected high temp is 92 F. Sunshine cracked the vault above at 5:50 AM, with the sun projected to remain in this vicinity until 8:43 PM. The daylight hours are winding down toward the shortest day of the year for the valley in December.

Being home means the vacation has ended. That means we return to healthy eating. Not that we abandoned it during the vacation. But now we must make our meals. Well, not must. It’s how we’re conditioned as responsible adults. Suggesting doing otherwise is irresponsible. So says my wife. It’s also expensive. And boring; we’re not thrilled by our local eatery options of late. Listen to me whine. Talk about being entitled and privileged, yeah?

Billy Idol’s 1984 song, “Eyes Without A Face”, occupies the morning mental music stream. That came from The Neurons, who jumped all over the phrase, it’s hard to get relief. They converted that into Idol’s lyric, “But hard to get release.” Stupid neurons. Of course, I have strong memories of this song coming out when I was stationed on Okinawa in the USAF.

Stay chill, hope for the best, do your thing but take the tests. The tests are limited help with the current COVID variants circulating. Friend after friend mentions being negative, isolating, and testing again, and coming up positive. Fingers crossed for you all, yeah?

Okay, getting coffee. Also, need to have a garage door repaired. A panel has bowed. I want to reinforce it with a strut, but my vehicle isn’t large enough for the strut length required. So I’m going to a pro for this repair.

Have a better one. Cheers

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