I’m feeling a little fatigued from the constant shit storm called the Trump Presidency v. 2.0. The April 5 2025 Hands Off protests and demonstrations were a tonic for my soul. Thanks for the compilation of photos, Jill.
Frieda’s Theme Music
Sunshine broke on through, just as the doors urged. Frieda, April 4, 2025 is a windy, sunny, warm spring day. High and thin clouds scrub some blue sheen of the sky. It’s 52 F and heading to the high sixties.
Papi the ginger blade was so happy. At first. Prancing into a sunshine pool, he washed and lounged. Then, wind ruffled his fur and pushed his ears around. The little Butter Butt pressed to come in, pronto.
A shopping day is planned. Our household subjects have veered between Trump’s impact on our personal finances and situation to buying a bidet attachment or something. “Should we get an attachment or a seat?” my wife asks. She’s rethinking herself.
“I’ll research and report back,” I reply.
“I’m not even going to look at my 401K,” she says. She means that. I will discreetly check it for her. Keep the results to myself. Mine has lost about twelve percent of its value. My other stock holdings have dropped ten percent. It’s early, though. I consider divesting all.
Today’s strong jobs report surprised me. But, then again, no. I’ve read of substantial business closings. Layoffs and terminations. Food traffic down in stores. Sales down. I’ve not read of any companies gushing, “Look, we’re hiring! Woo hoo!” Trump’s administration puts out those jobs numbers. He’s a known liar. So are the lackeys populating his regime. I’m sure they looked at the first set of numbers and told one another, “Oh, no, we can’t publish those. He’ll fire us all.” So they doctored the jobs number to look good.
PINO Trump tweeted about it this morning. Sorry, he X’d about it. “GREAT JOB NUMBERS, FAR BETTER THAN EXPECTED. IT’S ALREADY WORKING.”
What does he think is already working? Farmers are being hit, Federal workers have been shelved, tourism has dropped and is expected to drop more. The stock market keeps dropping…well, if you’re not in the Trumphosphere, you know. Projections are not rosy. First quarter reports are going to be interesting.
A friend added comments yesterday to one of my posts. They linked to a Jimi Hendrix song, “Still Raining, Still Dreaming”. Hearing that provoked The Neurons to begin different Jimi Hendrix Experience songs in my head. I ended up with “Stone Free” in the morning mental music stream. The song coincides with my urge to take a trip, see the coast. I’ve been working on my wife for such a trip. Her stars aren’t yet aligned enough. That doesn’t stop me from joining Hendrix to sing, “I got to, got to, got to get away right now.” But I’ll hold on for my other to be ready.
Difficult to find a good video of “Stone Free”. I went with this one, despite its sound glitches. I enjoy the members playing and seeing Hendrix’s fast, meticulous playing.
Coffee has made its morning visit to my body. I’m rockin’ and arollin’. Hope you have an awesome experience today, wherever you are. Cheers
Munda’s Theme Music
A silky blue sky weaves hope and optimism in Ashlandia. A gorgeous spring day is being promised. 63 F now, ‘they’ tell us it feels like 71 F. I agree with them. Plentiful sunshine, as ‘they’ say. 73 F is the predicted high.
This is Munda, March 24, 2025. I dig this kind of sunshine. Especially after months of rain and clouds and the kind of chilly weather that makes me feel older than I am.
The cat is also quite pleased, I think. He zooms around furniture and through rooms. “Sun recharge your batteries?” I ask. He stops, sits, stares. Classic 3s floofhavior. After three seconds of this, he sticks a rear leg out and washes its underside. I begin for the kitchen. He pauses the washing to gift me with a scrutinizing stare. “You’ll get yours,” I say, because I know that whereismyfood look.
In the kitchen, I’m doing my morning things. Gotta move faster today. Leaving to do Food & Friends deliveries at 10 AM. Everything must be slightly accelerated. Nanoseconds must be shaved away from routines. I don’t feel like shaving time off today. I’m not a Formula 1 driver doing qualifying laps.
I give Papi his first feeding. That’s misleading. He’s already eaten from kibble bowls several times. This is a wet food offering. Eyes bright, he chirps at me as I lower the food bowl toward him. “Yes, you love me now,” I say. His purr vibrates the floor.
Time is flying. I eat. Make coffee. Drink same. Clean and dress. Examine my lower limbs for swelling and find none, knock on wood. My compression socks are easily drawn over my feet and up my legs. I’m becoming very proficient getting them on. It’s the other end, taking them off, that’s the challenge. I might have made a mistake by turning down the doffing stick. I reassure myself that not using the doffing stick gives my wrists, fingers, and hands a needed workout. My self is as suspicious about that as a cat might be.
We hit the Senior Center for the food pickup and schedule. Cars surround the center. Parking is limited. “That’s a bad sign,” my wife declares. “The food must not be ready.”
I’m resigned to wait. “Go check.”
She returns with the first load of food within a minute, surprising us. We’re off and running with a minimum wait.
“Only ten stops today,” she says.
“Ten stops. I remember when we had twice that.” Yes, people have disappeared from the list. We usually don’t know what happens to them. They’re Schrödinger’s elderly people. That’s a miserably depressing thought for such a sunny, bright day.
Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is the Pat Benatar offering, “Invincible”. Released in 1985, it was quite a hit at that time and stays on classic rock stations as an offering for the elderly still feasting on the past. The Neurons called it up today to support the April 5 Hands Off actions rising. Annie commented on a post, “I just read that the April 5 coalition includes at least 83 organizations, among them the Communications Workers of America and the Service Employees International Union. It’s gonna be big!!”
We need big energy to combat the Trusk Regime and GOTP. We need the energy of “Invincible”. Written by Simon Climie and Holly Knight, the song was made for the movie The Legend of Billie Jean.
[Chorus]
We can’t afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible
[Verse 2]
This shattered dream you cannot justify
We’re gonna scream until we’re satisfied
[Pre-Chorus]
What are we running for?
We’ve got the right to be angry
What are we running for?
When there’s nowhere we can run to anymore
h/t to Genius.com
It could be that I’m overwrought by the Trusk situation in the United States.
Hope your day satisfies you in some meaningful ways. I’m writing and then planning long-delayed chores. I’ve always blamed the weather. Now that the weather has improved, my excuses are gone.
Here’s the music video. Cheers
Wenzda’s Theme Music
Weather is dipping our beaks into the winter pot. Rain has shown itself, following a path fashioned by a lumpy charcoal and gray sky carpet. Sunshine has shown no plans to be much involved today, telling us in its slow way, you’re on your own for warmth.
This is March 12, 2025, in Ashlandia. 45 F and light rain, it’s down from an earlier temp of 48 F. 51 F is supposedly the day’s high.
With all the negative news stories raining through our days, another blogger brought out one of the world’s classic protest songs. “Ohio” was written by Neil Young and recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young in response to American National Guard shooting protesting students at Kent State University in May of 1970. What a dark time. Before then, most adult Americans distrusted and blamed the protestors. This event marked the beginning of a change. Shame that such a watershed moment had to be bloody but that’s often the outcome when change is sought, and that’s not just in the United States.
With “Ohio” in my ears, The Neurons began thinking of other famous protest songs. They were soon queuing in my head. One eventually took over the morning mental music stream. “Get Up, Stand Up” was written by Peter Tosh. Bob Marley and the Wailers came out with it in 1973. The lines hooking The Neurons this morning were part of a stanza saying, “You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. So now we see the light, what you gonna do? We going to stand up for our rights.”
That’s the protest needed now. As the Trusk Regime rages like a fire through people’s rights and needs, burning the protections set up by checks and balances, people need to stand up.
Coffee has stood up for me again. Hope you have a solid day in all needed regards. Time to press on once again. Cheers
Thursday’s Theme Music
Mood: Nostalgic
Today is Thursday, December 19, 2024. A temptation to change Thursday to Throughsday almost conquered my fingers. ‘Throughsday’ because the week is almost finished. I didn’t change it, as I’m disinclined toward misinformation and confusing people.
In other morning news, a crowd of zombies went through our town. Ha, ha, just kidding. It wasn’t a crowd. Just a couple.
Our weather today looks as if someone delivered elements of fog, clouds, sunshine, and rain. All were tossed together in a big blue bowl. Now they’re up there, waiting to be mixed and blended.
Just after observing and writing all of that, Papi the ginger blade floof, returned with a scouting report. He didn’t need to say anything. Fog had shut down the sunshine, clouds, and blue skies. 46 F out there, it ‘feels like 38’, with a high of 57 dangling over us.
I met with my beer buddies last night. Two new members joined us. She is a retired teacher and physician’s assistant. He is a retired electrical engineer. They have a daughter who works for NASA, and he was a big science fiction fan when he was a kid. Others told him that I sometimes write science fiction. He shifted over to sit by me later in the night and discuss the genre. Lot of fun remembering the novels we had in common which influenced us.
Today’s theme music arrives on the shoulders of a conversation I had with several women last night. They expressed deep disappointment and frustration that more women didn’t turn out to vote in the 2024 election. I didn’t have any insights into that and they couldn’t cite any stats. Young me from several different groups were the dissappointing difference to me. I read interviews with and stories about young black men, for example, who thought Trump would be better for the economy. That still makes me shake my head.
Anyway, after returning home with that conversation in mind, “American Woman” by the Guess Who from 1970 rose into the morning mental music stream (Trademark peeling) today. I always thought the song was about the United States, represented by a woman, seducing countries to be like the United States. The singer was resisting because the United States was a war machine filled with ghettos. The ‘colored lights’ referred to in the song was Hollywood glamor. Remember, the Vietnam War was underway and protests were taking place in the U.S. In light of that backdrop, my interpretation made sense to me. But different interviews with the Guess Who band members painted a different story. The songwriter and vocalist, Burton Cummings, said it was just a comparison of women from the U.S. and Canada.
“What was on my mind was that girls in the States seemed to get older quicker than our girls and that made them, well, dangerous. When I said ‘American woman, stay away from me,’ I really meant ‘Canadian woman, I prefer you.’ It was all a happy accident.”
h/t to Wikipedia.
I became fourteen around the time of the song’s release. It’s uptempo beat, rich bass, unique riffs, lead guitar, lyrics, and vocals all worked for me. Cummings sang it with an angry, contemptuous sneer in my opinion. That spoke to my own burgeoning contempt for how our world and society works. Ah, to be young and idealistic.
Coffee and I have negotiated arrangements and I’m taking advantage of that to warm my throat. Time to light the candle on another day. Here’s the music. Cheers
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Mood: digitized
Get up and look out windows, judging the air’s color. Doesn’t look too bad. Some tinges of smok. A window is cracked opened. The sniff test is employed. Doesn’t smell too bad. The air feels cold.
I go on out into the living area and office, interrogate Alexa and checking my weather station, and then go online and check weather and air quality. It’s 64, and the AQI is in the sixties, not too bad. Doors and windows are opened and complaining floofs are released.
It’s Tuesday, July 23, 2024. Today’s high will be 96 F, so we’re not too bad. It’s the triple digit stuff that really gets to you.
My wife departs to meet some friends at the Growers Market. Yeah, they don’t use an apostrophe. Sirens erupt. Systems are checked to see, where are they going? What’s going on? I printed out the evacuation checklist yesterday. You know, just in guess. It’s sitting here beside me. We always have basic bags ready but maybe we should prepare the whole shebang. Just in case. It’s hot and dry here. Lightning can strike and ignite something without warning. Something to consider.
Out in the news world, it’s no surprise that the Secret Service Director resigned. They were being hounded and the GOP was openly, sharply hostile. That’s their style.
A headline says, “World registers hottest day ever recorded on July 21”. Wasn’t that hot here in Ashlandia. We seem to be contrarians. The article goes on, “Last year saw four days in a row break the record, from July 3 through July 6, as climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, drove extreme heat across the Northern Hemisphere.
Every month since June 2023 – 13 months in a row – has now ranked as the planet’s hottest since records began, compared with the corresponding month in previous years, Copernicus said.
Some scientists have suggested 2024 could outrank 2023 as the hottest year since records began, as climate change and the El Nino natural weather phenomenon — which ended in April — have pushed temperatures ever higher this year.
I imagine Republicans pooh-poohing the news and laughing. In this visual, it’s my staunch BIL MAGAt representing them. “It’s the weather,” he says loudly, shrugging, gesturing with his hands. “It’s always changing. It gets hot, it gets cold, big deal. You liberals.”
Yeah, we liberals are worrying about nothing except the increase in record temperatures — high and lows — and the acceleration of extreme weather. We’re worried about increased flooding and wildfires turning the air dark with smoke. We’re worried about increasing extended droughts and melting glaciers.
Tsk. So silly of us.
The music occupying my morning mental music stream (Trademark iffy) owes its presence to my wife. She was online, surfing. “Oh, I like that,” she says.
I do my spousal duty. “What is it?”
“This tee shirt. It says, I am woman, watch me vote.”
“Yes, that’s good.”
The Neurons pounced. I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore, begins. “I Am Woman”. Helen Reddy. 1971. As I often do with celebrities I haven’t heard or seen in a while, I verify her life status. Died in 2020, 78 years old. No cause of death given.
This is life in the digital age.
The song took on its own life as a anthem of female empowerment back in that last century, when the U.S. was becoming a more progressive nation. I was present at a rally in Caifornia when the female protestors spontaneously sang it A capella. Powerful moment down on Market Street in SF.
The house is cool. Thermostat says it’s 76 F inside. Feels good. I go around closing windows, sealing in the cool air for the day.
Be strong, stay positive, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee has endorsed my systems. I’m ready to rock. Here’s the music. Cheers
Sunday’s Bumper Sticker
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Musically, I’m living in the past. Not surprising, is it? The music from the past is more connected to me. I used it to celebrate, grieve, love, and learn.
I was also inundated by it in the past. I commuted everyday and took long road trips by car. Although listening to talk radio, sports, and books on tape competed for my attention, many hours were devoted to pop music, including rock.
I don’t commute much any more. COVID-19 has truncated my traveling opportunities. So, I’m less exposed to new music via radio. I could turn it on in the house, but I generally maintain silence through the day. I’m writing and reading, and not interested in distractions. Which is what all those things were on long drives and morning commutes: distractions from the tedium.
Anyway, this morning found me channeling the 1976 Doobie Brothers song, “Taking It to the Streets”. This is a response to the presidential debates last night. “Oh, you. Telling me the things you’re going to do for me. I’m not blind and don’t like what I think I see.”
I always like videos of live shows, when I can, so I’m sharing a 1982 video of their farewell tour. The band’s energy can often be vicariously experienced, and it makes me smile to see them all young and vibrant once again, you know?
Cheers
Tuesday’s Theme Music
As the coronavirus, economy, and politics dominate the days in negative ways, I thought of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush performing Peter Gabriel’s quiet and hopeful “Don’t Give Up” (1986).
The song is about struggle, trying, getting beaten, and trying again.
Though I saw it all around
Never thought that I could be affected
Thought that we’d be last to go
It is so strange the way things turn
Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground
Don’t give up, you still have us
Don’t give up, we don’t need much of anything
Don’t give up, ’cause somewhere there’s a place where we belong
Rest your head, you worry too much
It’s going to be alright
When times get rough, you can fall back on us
Don’t give up, please don’t give up
Got to walk out of here, I can’t take any more
Gonna stand on that bridge, keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come and whatever may go
That river’s flowing, that river’s flowing
h/t to Genius.com
Thought it fit today’s mood well.
Michael Seidel, writer 