If my grip on reality is sure and we’re sharing the same reality, today is Satyrda, June 28, 2025. A strong sun lords over us with a hot hand. Mid 80s to upper 80s is the sun’s upper reach for us. Funny, but Mid 80s to upper 80s was what I remember as a new house price range in South Carolina in the early 80s when we lived there during a military assignment.
Upon scouring the news for lowlights yesterday and cringing through the Roberts Court rulings, The Neurons told me, “That’s it. We’re out of here.” To where, I asked the squirrelly gray beasts. “Kathmandu,” they replied. To reinforce their notion, they sprang the Bob Seger song on the morning mentl music stream. So here we go with the fifty year old song, “Katmandu”.
Seger related that the song was born out of frustration and exasperation, so it’s wholly fitting for this era for many of us. At least, in theory. The Neurons were speaking out of my disappointment with my country, the United States. I love it and don’t plan to move away, but the current political atmo leaves me panting for some friggin’ other place, at least until TACO madness has subsided and we get back to being a democratic republic.
Time to rock and roll another summer day in the U.S.A. Hope you’re dealing, wherever we’re you’re at. Cheers
Frida, Mai 16, 2025, has evolved as warmer and cloudier in Ashlandia. Noon has slipped past. The temperature has incremented to 67 F degrees and follows a trajectory to lick 71 F. Pervasive sunshine has everyone reaching for sunglasses. Papi, the ginger blade, went to the back early and settled into a sunny spot for a needed nap. A swirly day, sometimes I find myself sweating in full, still sunshine. Moments later, wind muscles in and goose bumps rise from its chill.
As we watch Trumpivision, it’s clear he hit the Mideast trial to cover the gaps his tariffs and behavior generated. After treaties and agreements were trampled underfoot by Trump, China and European allies cancelled aircraft deals and turned off shipping as part of a slowdown generated by broken trust, high prices, and tit-for-tat. Trump’s team said, “Hit the mideast. They’ll buy the stuff the rest of the world is turning their backs on.” This is an extension of the Trump Regime’s willingness to sell access to Trump. It’s cash register diplomacy at its worse.
While there, Trump gave speeches which fortified impressions that he’s aging and his mind is going. Coupled with his shallow thinking, greed, and standard rants about how badly he’s treated, it was an ugly spectacle.
Today’s music comes from encouragement from self to self to get up and start doing things. I often tell myself at those moments, time to rock and roll. The Neurons instantly hoisted Led Zeppelin’s classic offering, “Rock and Roll”, into the morning mental music stream. I found a video I enjoyed of the song being performed live. This was during a Foo Fighters concert. Dave Grohl, the band’s leader, founder, and usual vocalist, took to the drums, a position he held with Nirvana. The drummer, the late Taylor Hawkins, took up the mic. Guest performers from Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, joined them. Pretty fun concert presentation, if you ask me.
I’m already in the coffee shop, indulging my daily writing and coffee fixes. I spoke with a barista about the strike held the other day. She told me the article about it was shared on the business’s Facebook page. “You wouldn’t believe the hateful comments that have been made,” she said. “I had to remind myself that I’m an employee and not respond to them.” I expressed my support for what they were doing, adding, “Those haters can go to hell.”
The Ashlandia spring churn has us in her grip. Chilly to cold nights. Depends on your body’s personal heating and cooling system. Was 39 F in the night. Now it’s up to 54 F. Heading to 68 F. Wind loaded with mountain iciness regularly clocks in. It’s sharper in the shadows.
I’ve been cutting stuff, pruning plants, weeding, trimming back grasses. Papi has taken to nesting in one of those spaces. Early sunshine washes it for a few early morning hours. Used to be Tucker’s spot. Before that, it was Quinn’s, and before them, it was the Scheckter spot. I think I still sometimes spot their ghosts curled up, sunning there in the early hours. I’ve always called it the cat’s sun nest.
Man, it was a clear and gorgeous night here last night. I traipsed out midnightish each to taste the chill and discovered a star filled black sky. Serenely quiet and fresh, a briskly solitary moment. After I was there about three minutes, Papi called out to me and trotted along to rub against my legs. “What do you think of the stars?” I asked. He purred.
Music today comes from the Beatles. The Neurons have “Helter Skelter” playing in the morning mental stream. Kicked off by a dream. I had the same dream before, but the dream went into an extended edition. Awakening, realizing it was a repeat — dream repeats already, so early in the year — The Neurons cranked up the song’s lines that go, “When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide, where I stop, and I turn, and I go for a ride, till I get to the bottom and I see you again.”
The song always called up ideas about going through the same thing again, again, once more, one more time, etc. A repeating dream was a natural dive board for The Neurons to use to jump into the song.
The song got stronger as a I read news accounts for Trump lies and declarations. “I never said that. I’d never do that.” Etc. Here we go again.
This video is Paul McCartney playing it in concert sans the other Beatles. I saw him perform it in Germany once. It’s lively energetic song.
That’s my opinion. Loads of friends and family were not “Helter Skelter” fans. When I played it on the stereo and cranked it to close to stadium levels, my little sisters’ expression looked like they’d just eaten candy covered with dog fur. “What is this?” the older asked. I laughed.
Coffee is lifting me higher again. Hope something is lifting you. Here we go, rocking and rolling on into the future. Then we’ll do it again. Cheers
At 4:07 AM, the cat announced, “Let’s go!” Yes, he batted and chatted me awake enough to sleep walk to the door and release him back into the wild. He didn’t stay in the wild long. Cold, wind, and hunger drove him back in. “Not that wild, are you?” I asked him. He meowed back.
Thus began Twosda, April 22, 2025, much as many other days begin. Twosda and Thirstdas are the worse for me in this regard. My wife gets up early on Mun-Wen-Fri to attend exercise class. She deals with the cat between 6:30 and 8 AM on those days. But today has Papi testing the limits, in and out. I suspect he has two twins and they’re taking turns at this.
It was 39 F at 4:30 AM. If you trust Alexa. I asked it the temperature after Papi came back in. I was curious because it felt cold to my half-naked body. Like Sun & Mun, today features a clear blue-sky sauce and a glaze of sunshine with a tincture of wind and mild temperatures that lose their punch in the mid to upper sixties.
Trump continues to pile instability on instability, crazy on crazy, losses on losses. Like all great leaders, he sets ridiculous goals using ideologically-driven data, fails to take many details and factors into account, and then pretends it’s going great as everyone else prepares to get out the toilet plunger because this shit is overwhelming the crapper. He is consistently terrible and proud of it. Living in a Teflon-coated bubble, he’ll probably never recognize his insanity and the disastrous, negative impact he delivered to millions of people.
Unless, of course, his secret goal is to completely undermine and destroy the United States. That’s also possible. He could well be in collusion with Russian and oil oligarchs and are busy setting the table up to establish a powerful global cabal. Makes as much sense as any other shit he spreads.
They say that the Roberts Court is finally getting a backbone. “They’ll reign Trump in.” Ha. I think Trump is already smirking at the Roberts Court as he says, “Hold my Big Mac.” Harvard and other universities are suing the Trusk Regime. He doesn’t care. He’s already destabilized and disrupted our education systems and research programs. A third of the national NOAA weather offices have lost their leases. We’ll see what that does to the ability to warn about weather disasters. Then, Trump and Noem have been dismantling FEMA, so when these disaster squat on communities and drop a load, the state and community will struggle to recover and rebuild. Meanwhile, DOGE is raiding personal data and will probably weaponize that on behalf of Russia. He’s truncated international alliances and friendships that effectively worked for over half a century, isolating our nation. Besides all that, he’s been running due process over with a golf court.
And Trump and his supporters think this is just great. Anyway…onward.
When I first heard this Led Zeppelin song when I was thirteen, I thought, holy fucking shit. That was a startling development because I’d never sworn before that. That’s when I took up coffee, too. It all seemed to go together.
The song — “How Many More Times” — is in my morning mental music stream for reasons which The Neurons have sealed. They have better security than Kristi Noem and keep secrets more effectively than Pet (Pete) Hegseth. Not saying much, given how terrible and sloppy the Trump Regime has demonstrated itself to be, outside of the Musk-driven DOGE dogs.
Here is the music. When I listened to it today, my inner thirteen-year-old sat up and said, “Holy fucking shit.” This is a recording of a live show. Anyone familiar with Zep knows it’s gonna be a jam and will vary a bit from what was on the album.
Coffee has again insinuated itself into my body’s systems. I’m prepared to rock another day, at least until nap time later today. Hope your day is as purpose-filled as you need it. Carpe diem. Cheers
Spring has sprung for loads of pastels in Ashlandia. Enjoy it while you can. Summer is rocketing toward us. For today is Saturday, April 19, 2025. It’s 62 F and feels colder due to cloud cover. Those clouds menace with rain, but the weather seers say that isn’t the case for us in Ashlandia today. Instead, it’ll stay mostly cloudy with some sun and spring up to 71 F.
The weather displeases the cat. Giving up on consistent sunshine and warmth, he’s accepted shelter in the living room where he resides on the Malabar chair. This is his favorite site. He does move around and can surprise us with his location.
Fer instance, I awoke at 4 AM. Did I hear something? Was it the cat?
The bladder said, “Hey, I can use a break.”
Grumbling about giving my bladder a break in the middle of the night, I used the required facilities. My mind was awake enough to wonder if the cat was in or out. If he was out, did he want in?
I looked around the bedroom, dining room, hallway, and living room. No cat in sight. He wasn’t at the front door. I changed direction for the backdoor. As I walked, I became aware of a padding noise at my side.
“Where do you come from?” I asked the cat.
He rushed to the door. “Let me out.”
Today’s song offering comes out of my mind’s old song vault. The Neurons pulled it up after I read news stories and wondered if I was in the right reality. Sometimes I think that someone pulled the old switcheroo on me and changed reality without telling me. Maybe they’re doing this as a prank. It’s not funny to me, but I can see how others could be secretly watching and laughing. Maybe aliens did it. They were tired of abducting and probing us, so now they’re switching realities on us. It could explain a lot.
Aware of these thoughts, The Neurons dragged out “Unreal Reality” and dropped it into my morning mental music stream. This is a song by The Kinks that came out in the 1960s. I’m surprised The Neurons could find it.
Here are the words. Feel free to sing along. It’s an unusual piece for rock ‘n roll. h/t to Lyrics.com
All that I see, seems so unreal to me,
Is it the truth or is it only fantasy,
Is it a dream or is it unreal reality?
All around me is such unreality,
Optical illusions as far as my eyes can see,
Is the whole thing a fake, or the ultimate reality?
That house is so big that it reaches right up to the clouds
It's got hundreds of windows, so the people inside can look out,
And they look down below and wonder what it's all about.
Look at that lady she got silver all over her face,
Is she a human being or a creature from outer space,
Is she authentic or phoney, I guess it's just a matter of taste.
Oh because they can feel it, it's gotta be the real thing,
Because they can touch it, it's gotta be reality.
If they say it's real, it's gotta be the real thing.
See that fella, looking all spick and span,
Is he a tailor's dummy or is he a real man,
Is he genuine, or straight off the assembly line.
All round me is such unreality,
Optical illusions as far as my eyes can see,
Is the whole thing a fake or the ultimate reality?
Is it a dream, or is it the real reality?
Reality or not, the coffee is in me, summoning energy from the depths of my being, which, admittedly, are pretty shallow. Hope your reality works out well for you. Here we go, one more time. Cheers
Thirstda, April 3, 2025, is here. The day arrived in a morose mood, dangling thick gray cloud strands over the mountains, covering the sun’s influence, and acting like it planned to dump us in moisture. Then some mystical order was given. Cosmic stagehands raced out. Clouds were shoved to the scene’s edges. Blue sky lit up. Sunshine burns down with a new hope. It was 36 F. Now we’re touching 45 F. But, hey: it feels warmer.
I stepped into the bathroom. Doing bathroomy stuff, my foot landed on something hard and mildly sharp. This was an attachment to an electric razor. One I had to trim my beard and mustache. I always have a mustache. My first mustache was noticed on me when I was fourteen. Mom told me that my face was dirty and to go wash it. “There’s something above your lip.”
My older sister laughed. “That’s his mustache.”
The beard comes and goes. A goatee is almost permanent. I’ve had it since I left the military in 1995. But the electric razor that piece attached to has been gone for over a decade. Turning it over, I pushed to understand how it came to be on the bathroom floor today. Unable to come up with anything except The Borrowers and aliens, I tossed the piece into the trash. It’s another page in my Book of Life Mysteries. I think we all keep one of those record books, don’t we?
Three songs were competing in the morning mental music stream. I introduced the first one. This was “Valley Girl” by Frank and Moon Zappa. This song capture the California valley girl subculture, and their unique verbiage. ‘Valleyspeak’ swept the nation. Too many people walked around, smirking, telling me, “Gag me with a spoon.” Variations of that phrase quickly emerged.
I was singing my variant of the song to Papi. Papi is my housefloof, feline by looks and attitude. The boy loves treats such as Churri squeeze tube pastes. My wife rechristened it chumley. Chumley is how we refer to any of those treats.
Today I sang to Papi, “Chumley cat, he’s a chumley cat. Oh my my, fer sure fer sure, he’s a chumley cat and there is no cure.”
Second up was Elvis Presley with “Blue Suede Shoes.” Carl Perkins did it first, after writing in in 1955 and releasing it in 1956, the year of my birth. The Neurons delivered this one to the mental music stream. They didn’t explain why. I was in the bathroom doing bathroom stuff when it arrived. I used to perform this song for my family when I was four or five. Hip swiveling and singing the chorus. No, video and photographic evidence doesn’t exist. I remember doing it and Mom verified it.
Third up is “Don’t Bring Me Down” by the Animals. I’m feeling absurdly young kitten energetic and happy. I don’t know why. You’d think that with Trumpzilla burning down the world economy with his outlandish tariffs, I’d be more depressed. My stocks are down. 401 K and IRA worth down. Prices are up and will go higher. But here I am, happy as the mythical lark. Sensing that mood, The Neurons introduced the 1966 song into the morning mental music stream. This is today’s theme music.
Hope you’re experiencing some of what I’m getting and your day doesn’t bring you down. Do the best you can, right? Cheers
My new shoes have steeply curved soles. They honestly remind me of a bentwood rocker’s curved bands. Grinning, I asked my wife, “Know what I call my new shoes?”
Hello to all the genders and orientations on the blue marble and welcome to March 8, 2023, March’s second Friday. Although cold air still has a grip in Ashlandia, it’s climbing. We’re already up to 47 F. Give a big hand to the sun-filled blue sky for that. We hit 61 at my place yesterday. 60 is forecasted for today so fingers crossed, we’ll peak above that threshold.
Crying, “Sunshine,” the cats rushed out to warm themselves. Sharp, gusting winds chased them right back in. The floofs comforted themselves with thorough grooming before setting into therapeutic naps in sunny indoor locations.
Musically, I heard Cat Stevens with “Peace Train” on Jill Dennison’s post this morning, a powerful and memorable song. My Neurons pivoted and put “Free Ride” by the Edgar Winter group into the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). It’s a catchy tune, upbeat, rock and roll emblematic of 1972.
The mountain is high the valley is low And you're confused on which way to go So I've come here to give you a hand And lead you into the promised land So, come on and take a free ride (Free ride) Come on and sit by my side Come on and take a free ride
All over the country I've seen it the same Nobody's winning at this kind of game We've gotta do better, it's time to begin You know all the answers must come from within So come on and take a free ride
Confusion, help, an implied call for unity…kind of sounds like someone running for office, doesn’t it?
Speaking of politics, did you see or hear President Biden’s State of the Union? I did, and it wasn’t what I expected. He said many things I felt he needed to say and found it reassuring that he directly confronted GOP obstructionism while never giving ‘his predecessor’ a name. As someone mentioned the other day, don’t give the opposition oxygen by saying their name. I’m paraphrasing.
The GOP response was predictably weak and pathetic. President Biden’s predecessor used Truth Social as the media to respond during the speech. Like many Trump endeavors, it failed to deliver what it promised, failing to load, dropping, etc. And they addressed President Biden’s physical state, ignoring anything of substance, highlighting that the GOP’s only policies are oppression, obstruction, and regression. Sad. Not much to say about the official GOP SOTU counter speech as far as I’m concerned.
I laughed at Rep. Blake Moore’s comments after President Biden’s delivery. The Utah Republican said, “I was expecting President Biden to use tonight’s State of the Union address to find common ground and inspire a shared vision for America. Instead, the president delivered a divisive campaign speech.” (h/t The Hill). This from a party who obstructed President Biden efforts to move forward as much as they can, a party embracing a serial liar as their leader, a leader who declared he’d be a dictator on day one if he’d elected, a party which doesn’t offer a political platform, a party which repeatedly turns on itself. They expected a vision for unity? Please.
Democratic Senator Jeffries handled their criticism well, pointing out that a Republican house member wore a campaign hat during President Biden’s speech and that the expelled Republica from NY, George Santos, who faces over a dozen criminal indictments, was in attendance. And of course, this party wishing for a message of unity never stood and never applauded.
Stay positive and upbeat. Remain strong and lean forward. Register and vote blue. Coffee and lemon bread has been consumed. Here’s the music, and here we go. Cheersluc
Looks like autumn is making progress in the area. More trees are choosing to change their leaves, as is their right. Their trunk, their leaves, their colors.
A mellow Tuesday morning has settled in the valley. The week is shaping up to be cooler. Rain is in the weekend forecast with high temperatures in the upper fifties. The air’s shimmer itself seems to have shifted at last, shaking off its summery flavors for autumnal accoutrements. Today, though, will be 80 F and it’s already 56. With that rich blue sky crowning trees becoming wealthy with golds, yellows, orange, and scarlets, it’ll be a fine day to take in the outside world.
Sunrise kicked off the daylight portion of October 18, 2022, aka as ‘today’, at 7:27 AM and will close out at 6:24 this evening.
My morning mental music stream is empty. Yeah, The Neutrons have let me down. Well, “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf was in there. I’d decided to make coffee before sitting down to the ‘puter and started singing, “Got your coffee brewing, and then make your breakfast,” all to the tune of BTBW. So you need to know the song for it to make sense. But I’ve featured the rebellion anthem a few times already and didn’t want to repeat it. So what to do instead, Neurons?
Crickets.
“The Crickets,” The Neurons instantly shouted. “We know The Crickets.”
“Yes, I know,” I answered. “That wasn’t an invitation, guys.”
But they were off. Before I’d even begun my reply, they’d kicked “Peggy Sue” into the morning mental music stream.
While I know the song, I needed to look up the year it was released. Yep, 1957, when I was one. It was an AM pop familiar for a looonnng time. Don’t hear it much any longer unless you’re on a ‘golden oldie’ station, it seems.
Well, I have my coffee and ate my breakfast, so all that’s left is to enjoy the song. Be like a proton and stay positive. Test negative like an electron. Sorry, that’s all I got. I would blame a lack of coffee but I’ve had some. Must just be Bad Neurons.
Here’s The Crickets. Oh, yeah, and Buddy Holly. He got all the credit for the song, but if, as Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story…
Michael Seidel, writer 