Sunday’s Theme Music

Slipped out at midnight to see what it was like. It had cooled, a surprise. The smoke had retreated from around my house so I stayed out there for a few minutes until the smoke began sneaking up on me again.

The smoke is still out there today. Red sky dawn as the particles bloodied the sun on its 6:18 AM arrival. Temperatures are expected to be lower today, mid to low nineties. Air quality still hovers between unhealthy and extremely unhealthy. No blue sky out there again; just a yellow white slate. Visibility is still low. Drove in to town on a library run yesterday. Visibility was about half a mile on the road. Where we could usually see the yellow Ashland Springs Hotel about two miles away — our tallest building — on the straight run into two, yesterday we saw little of anything. As you an imagine, there wasn’t much traffic. No one out running, walking, or biking. Plenty of parking available. Businesses were closed, events canceled. A bleak day. Daylight will end at 8:12. It’ll cool but not clear after that. It’s rumored Monday could bring a change. Maybe movement by the heat dome. Or wind. Maybe rain.

Out of dream land comes today’s theme music. Not certain how it all links up but when I awoke and contemplated dreams while still abed, a stinky cat by my side (he has butt issues, among other things, like fur and hygiene issues and arthritis), Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (1977) to mind. I’m not country nor western oriented but I grew up in an area where such music was popular. Plus, this was a huge hit for her. No wonder; she has a lovely voice and it’s put into good effect in this song. I never considered it to sound particularly C&W. It always struck me as something from the smooth jazz milieu. Anyway, that’s my music choice and I’m sticking with it.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

Sunrise, sunset, smoke, weak sun, high temperatures, COVID-19 spiking. Yes, this is Saturday, 8/14/21. Hope your Friday the 13th went well.

So the sunrise, sunset, air quality, and temperature numbers go 6:12 AM, 8:11 PM, 162 (very unhealthy) and 100 F, again. COVID-19 case numbers are in the hundreds in our county. Highest ever. Delta variant. Unvaccinated account fo over 98 percent, according one doc. Hospitals overcrowded. ICUs full. Emergency assistance sought from the state. Plans to put up field hospitals. COVID-19 deaths are also the highest ever in our southern Oregon county.

Our town, though, remains a small oasis. More were vaccinated. Wore masks. Took precautions. Most cases in the county originate in two towns that went heavy for Trump. Who eschewed masking with extreme contempt. Sneered at vaccines. Fighting to keep their children from being vaccinated or wearing masks. Yep, even while they have the highest COVID-19 case numbers in the state. I think there’s some moral there. If I could just put my finger on it.

Busy, busy, dream night. Cats contributed. Keeping two of the three in due to heavy smoke. Third, the youngest, is too adamant to be kept in. Paws at windows. Beats blinds. Screams for freedom. Raises a ruckus with the other two. Because I’m keeping the two older bois in, the pet door is closed. Hence my multiple sleep interruptions.

Anyway, while brewing desperately desired coffee this AM, I was pondering dreams. So real. Was that a dream or is that a memory? Wasn’t sure with some of them. Worried me about my state of mind. Anyway, from that arose a song by Mister John Lennon. “#9 Dream” (1974). When I heard it on the radio, I also heard the DJ saying that the song came to Lennon in a dream. But the word, “Was it in a dream, was it just a dream? I know, yes, I know, seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me.” Had never seen this video until today. Eye opening and thought provoking, IMO.

Study hard and stay in school. No, wait. Started on the wrong phrases, didn’t I? Guess it was a slip back to 1974. Test negative and stay positive. Wear a mask as needed and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers

Fall Out Floof

Fall Out Floof (floofinition) – Floofmerican hard flock (floof rock) punk band formed in 2001 in Floofcago, Illinois. Named after a character on the television show The Simpsons, the band achieved major success in 2005. Although they went on a four-year break at one point, the band remains active.

In use: “The Fall Out Floof’s major success first came in 2005 with two mainstream hits, “Floof Floof” and “Sugar, We’re Going Floof”.

Friday’s Theme Music

Yes, it’s Friday the Thirteenth of August, 2021. The sun’s limp gaze — too much smoke for it to be noticed, really — came on at 6:15 AM. Sunset, which has been a succession of fiery red orbs sinking into a hazy red horizon this week, will come at 8:15 PM. Yes, we have less than twelve hours of daylight going forward. ‘The days are getting shorter’.

Might cool off some today. Might rain. Thunderstorms are in the forecast. Not good news. We’ll listen and watch with collective bated breath to see if new wildfires explode. Already have so many going. New ones would not be welcomed.

Today’s high will be about 100, again. The thing with the heat dome is that the heat stays longer into the night. Midnight found us at 86 F last night. But with that smoke — the AQI has been red or purple — unhealthy or very unhealthy all week — opening windows will funk you up. We’re sitting at purple, 205, very unhealthy right now. Visibility is struck down. Like we’re in a fog. Except it’s smoke. Can see about three hundred feet. No upper horizon. No sign of the mountains and forests. Better than being in the fire, though, knock on wood.

Embracing the day’s superstition, I’m channeling “Superstition”. A Stevie Wonder composition, he hit with it back in 1972. Several have covered it since then, including Stevie Ray Vaughn. I went with a video of Stevie Wonder with Jeff Beck at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Show.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers

Thursday’s Theme Music

“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

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Smoke blankets us. A heat dome squat over us. 102 to 114 F today. COVID-19 in our county are at their highest levels ever. Kind of puts me in the mood for “Eve of Destruction”. Too heavy handed, don’t you think? Would be like taking a howitzer to a mosquito.

Sorry, haven’t had my coffee yet. Feeling tetchy. Today is Wednesday, August 11, 2021. Sunrise came on at 6:14 AM. Sunset will be at 8:17 PM. The sunsets, watched from being windows and a smoky haze, are beautiful in their own red, hellish way. The sun glows a nuclear red. As it sets behind the hills, the red glow spreads across the sky, painting the parched, brown land in bright red tones. We could have called yesterday Redday instead of Tuesday. Yeah, not subtle. Our air quality sits at 256, the purple zone, which is very unhealthy. Advisories have been issued: it’s super hot, so don’t go outside. And it’s smoky and the air is unhealthy, so also don’t go outside. Keep your doors and windows closed. And if you do go in somewhere, wear a mask. Also, wear one outside.

Yes, the masks are making a comeback in Oregon. Not surprising. With ICUs filled and people being turned away, sixty employees of one local hospital are also COVID-19 positive. Not a fun month, August, 2021. Started out with a lot of promise and hope. Most of that’s been swallowed by heat, smoke, and COVID-19. Meanwhile, after the IPCC’s devastating report on climate change, WaPo has an opinion piece on why we shouldn’t give in to climate despair. Which of the other despairs should we give into?

All this leaves me feeling a little grungy this morning. Alice in Chains brings “Down In A Hole” (1992) to the mental concert.

Down in a hole and I don’t know if I can be saved
See my heart I decorate it like a grave
Oh, you don’t understand who they thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now I’m a man who won’t let himself be

Down in a hole, feeling so small
Down in a hole, losing my soul
I’d like to fly
But my wings have been so denied

h/t AZLyrics.com

That’s good car music, hey? Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Get the vax. Here is the music. That is all. Cheers

Tuesday’s Theme Music

20:16 – 06:13. Sunset, sunrise. I complete the math in my head. Daylight minutes are falling back. Sunrise is later. Sunset is earlier. An annual thing. Recurring. Yet, I let it dominate morning thoughts like the end is nigh. Probably a product of circumstance. Outside activity is limited. Another high dome is settling on us. Back up to 101-105. No humidity. The drought deepens. Its pervasive effects suck out life. Air quality is unhealthy as wildfire smoke curls up in the valley. Better the smoke than the fire, I remind myself with some weariness. Trying to be positive. COVID-19 cases are also setting new area records. ICUs are overrun. Hospital staff have contracted COVID-19. Then there are personal matters I don’t put in posts.

Good morning, and a happy Tuesday to you, too! Today is Tuesday, August 10, 2021. 2021 is hurrying by as a year but it’s gonna leave a mark.

For music, I’ve been sucked into a song by The Calling, “Wherever You Will Go” (2001). This was a cat issue. Tucker insisted upon being my bodyfloof, right there at my heels as I walked down the hall, jumping up on the desk when I sat to type, etc. I processed the usual requests – “Are you hungry? Do you want a treat?” Petted and brushed him. Gave him some nip. But he hung with me. Guess that’s what he wanted. Which prompted the song.

Stay positive. Yes, it’s hard, innit? Is for me. Life can be a wearying business. Especially if you’re like me, staring at the smoke, contemplating COVID-19, struggling to write, pondering the imponderables. But stay positive. Rant a bit. Let it go, if you can. Test negative. Wear the mask when it’s needed. Get the vaccination, please.

Here’s the music. Cheers

Monday’s Theme Music

We’ve done it! We’ve made it to another Monday. Give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it. Most of us do. Doesn’t always seem like Monday wants us with it.

Today is August 9, 2021. Sol’s first pearly gold rays struck Ashland at 6:12 AM, immediately pushing the temperature up from the sixties degrees where it sat. With smoke sting nipping our nostrils, scratching our eyes and throats, and hazing the sky’s blue into an ancient gray, temperatures in the low nineties are forecast. Cynics believe it will be closer to the mid-nineties, pointing to a recent trend of under-forecasting the highs. The sun will grow into a red rubber ball and wink out behind the hills at 8:20 PM. At least we had a nocturnal break from the smoke. Windows were cracked. Fresh, cool air washed in. Ah, relief.

Multiple songs shared play time in my head yesterday, last night, this morning. Like, the Jefferson’s theme music. “Backfield in Motion”. “Wedding Bell Blues”. But also, “Surrender”. The Cheap Trick 1978 song is the loudest, strongest, most pervasive.

Whatever happened to all this season’s
Losers of the year?

Every time I got to thinking
Where’d they disappear?
But when I woke up, Mom and Dad
Are rolling on the couch
Rolling numbers, rock and rollin’
Got my KISS records out

[Chorus]
Mommy’s alright
Daddy’s alright
They just seem a little weird

Surrender
Surrender
But don’t give yourself away

Hey, hey

h/t to Genius.com

My Mum and Dad never got my Kiss records out and rolled around and such. Perish the thought! Here’s the music. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers

Sunday’s Theme Music

“Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.” That echoing baritone used to herald local events during television and radio commercials. Monster truck shows. Wrestling at the armory. That sort of thing.

Today is Sunday, August 8, 2021. Smoke continues plaguing us. It’s better than fire. So many fires continue burning out here in the western U.S. that only the most positive of people can stay upbeat. White clouds are skulking through the sky. Temperatures will be on the cool side, with a high around 82 F, they say. But Alexa told me yesterday that it would only get to 86. Then 90. Then 91. That’s where it peaked. Hope it stays cool

Sunrise’s gray, gold, and pink marbleized lights and shadows came into the valley at 6:09 AM. We’ll have another red ball sunset at 8:27 PM.

COVID-19, the Delta variant, vaccines, and masks continue to dominate my news cycle. Despite the Olympics and the new U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan. All ‘water is wet’ news anymore. The U.S. has been bombing someone throughout my lifetime. Probably will be after I’m gone.

Yesterday had me getting rid of some old exercise equipment. I disassembled things to make it easier to load, transport, and unload at the dump. (Yes, nobody wanted any of it, further depressing me.) The bike required an allen wrench. I have several sets. When I realized I needed one and headed to the workbench, Billy Joel began singing “Allentown” (1982).

Well, we’re living here in Allentown
And they’re closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem, they’re killing time

Filling out forms, standing in line

h/t to Genius.com

Well, the song won’t leave my head. It played even when I was lying in bed. Even while feeding the cat getting a drink by the kitchen sink. So, I must spread it out to others to remove it from my mind. Sorry, friends. That’s how these things work. It’s been so since the first recorded song.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed — and they do seem needed again in the U.S. as the nation records record numbers of new cases — and get the vax, if you can. The vax may not fully and completely protect you from the virus but it will mitigate its symptoms and the probable results. In other words, you’re more likely to survive with the vaccine than without it.

Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

A pause, you know, a pause from thinking, writing, and looking at bad news, you know? So tempting to enumerate it all in a mini-rant but that could easily turn into something longer and uglier and I just am not going in that direction today.

Today is Saturday, and Saturday night’s alright for fighting, get a little action in. It’s also August 7, 2021, my 46th wedding anniversary to my high school girlfriend, daughter of my father’s best friend. Sunrise came at 6:10 AM. Sunset will be at 8:23 PM. Sunny overall, with highs around 88 degrees F. (Oh, but the smoke — no, stop, damn it. Reel that thing in.)

I’m going with Pink today, “Raise Your Glass”, from 20…(hang on, looking it up)…10. Here’s the music. Here’s hoping you have a good day. Cheers

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