Blue sky and sunshine prevail today, Tuesday, December 10, 2024. Weather system reading says that it’s 41 F outside. What? Really? I check other places and learn that Ashland’s temp is but 38 F. We’re higher than them, a December rarity. Let’s celebrate with coffee. A high of 51 F is promised to us but there’s also another dense fog advisory floating out there. At least the stagnant air issues have abated.
I’ve been recovering from my ruptued tendon surgery at home, donning shoes to go out more frequently, testing my ankle’s feel. Today, I’ll go to the coffee shop and write. Some pensiveness about it is dripping through me; I’m not certain why.
This morning’s song was given to me by The Neurons, of course. Right? They’re aways bringing me songs. They’re like cats bringing gifts in that way. While sometimes the songs emerge from dreams or memories, some are just word association. Such is today’s situation. I was thinking about how I was doing some things so automatically. Poof; The Neurons put “Automatic” into my morning mental music stream (Trademark freeze dried). This 1984 Pointer Sisters song is a classic offering from that bubbly techno era. I found this video. It gave me grins to see their outfits’ colors and the big shoulders and big hair. That was the time for these things.
Let’s get positive, find the right direction, and move our asses forward. Coffee has made its way through important recesses of my body. I’m now ready to rumble. Here’s the music, and away we go. Cheers
It’s Soonday, December 9, 2024. We’re enjoying a clear sky loaded with sunshine and an outdoor tempy of 28 F. Frost has shadowy places airbushed with white influences. A dense fog warning is percolating while 49 F is being dangled in front of us as a high. Should say that it’s my local system calling out 28; in other parts of Ashlandia, sunshine has cleared the forests and mountains and 42 is already being experienced. A friend’s weather setup, available via Wunderground, has his temperature at 31 F. Dress appropriately.
Moving slow this morning. That’s why I’m calling this soon day. Soon, I’ll get up and do things. Soon I’ll leave and get my hair cut. Soon. Night fraught with dreams and restlessness are keeping the go pedal from getting engaged, even though coffee and I have said our hellos. One dream featured me as a young man with young friends and relatives, traveling to another place. Along the way, I stopped to visit with others. There, I rested in sunshine and told people of other people’s businesses failing, along with places such as airports not being built. It ended with me trying to pull a nuisance weed, which then bloomed, leaped out of the ground and ran away, freaking us out. Then we laughed.
This cold weather and clear sky put me into a whirlpool of childhood memories. Once, while going outside to play football with friends when I was almost a teenager, I was accosted by mom. “Put a heavier coat on, for God’s sake,” she said. “It’s winter outside.”
Wise me replied, “It’s not winter yet, Mom, until the solstice, December 22.”
She answered, “It’s winter when it’s cold and the snow starts falling to me.”
We were living in Penn Hills, a Pittsburgh, PA, suburb. Snow had been falling since before Thanksgiving. Therefore, it was winter.
I used to talk to her about her winters in Iowa. She loved those days, she said, because they would stay in the house, where it was cozy and warm, and play games, listen to the radio, talk, cook, and clean. Winter remains her favorite season for those reasons.
Those memories crystallized into two songs for me last night. Both are called “Our House”. They’re very different. The first was dropped into the morning mental music stream (Trademark frozen) when a television show featured it ysterday evening. This is the “Our House” by Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young. My wife sang along with it; that stirred The Neurons up, and triggered that memory whirlpool. But a rebel group of Neurons countered with “Our House” by Madness. Two very different songs. The CSNY offering says, “Our house is a very very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy cause of you.” Madness sings, “Father wears his Sunday best, Mother’s tired, she needs a rest, the kids are playing up downstairs. Sister’s sighing in her sleep. Brother’s got a date to keep, he can’t hang around.” The CSNY version is about a young couple’s domestic tranquility. Madness offers a portrait of hustle, growth, and noise.
Let’s get positive (sung to Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical) and move forward. 2025 is almost here. Here’s the music to help you along. Cheers
We landed on Sunday, December 8, 2024, or maybe it landed on us.
Light rain graced us most of yesterday. We’ve been rewarded with a chilly, damp 38 degree F morning with silvery-gray fog as thick as my breakfast oatmeal, and I like my oats thick. No worries, as they tell us the valley’s high temperature will crack the low forties.
Papi the ginger blade is driving us nuts with this weather. My wife claims that he expects me to change the weather for him, and is disappointed that I haven’t. But rain, wind, fog, chilly weather, he keeps going out one door and returning to the other to tattoo his message to us, “Let me in.”
My wife and I watched the University of Oregon Ducks take on Penn State’s Nittany Lions yesterday. I lived in Pennsylvania for a decade plus when I was a child and have live in Oregon for months short of twenty years, and have family living in Pennsylvania, so there’s a flimsy personal attachment to the game. This is football, BTW, where the Ducks are undefeated and nationally ranked #1, while Penn State wore the #3 ranking and one loss. The game was the Big 10 Championship. The Ducks won but I’m amused how often I heard that they ‘held on to win’ as Penn State, seven points down, was trying to drive the field in the last two minutes and score a touchdown and get a point after (or two) to win. My preference for how it should be stated was that Penn State lost.
My wife had two questions about the game; what is a Nittany Lion, and why is Oregon’s team called the Ducks? Well, my wikipedia researched revealed that a Nittany Lion is made up, based on eastern U.S. mountain lions and a local geographic feature, Nittany Mountain. As for the Ducks, they were originally the Webfoots. These were fishermen who became Revolutionary War heroes who settled in the Williamette Valley. As ducks have webbed feet, some writers began referring to the Webfoots as ducks. The name was eventually changed.
I read a summary of the highlights and statements emerging from Drumpf’s ‘first network interview’ since he won the election. First, it’s wearingly to read this and think that anything he says is worth its weight in air. I mean, he has a history. Second, he sounds like he’s still disconnected from reality. In example, he still plans his mass deportation plans because, “You have no choice. First of all, they’re costing us a fortune. But we’re starting with the criminals and we’ve got to do it. And then we’re starting with others, and we’re going to see how it goes.” But economists tell us otherwise, that illegal immigrants do not cost us as much as he claims and actually add to the economy. Likewise, stats and studes show most illegal immigrants are not criminals and are less likely to commit crimes [1] [2] [3]. Doesn’t matter in Drumpf world. Likewise, he still insists on “Drill, baby, drill,” to increase oil production and drop prices, even though U.S. oil production is at record levels and oil prices are dropping due to a global lack of demand. But dinosaurs like Drumpf — and his MAGA GOP — cling to disproven and outmoded ideas.
We’re attending a holiday concert today. I was making the bed and thinking about what I would wear when The Neurons began playing “Secret Agent Man” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark chillin’). Naturally for me, it was the Johnny Rivers version of the song, which we had in our household on a 45 RPM record when I was still a singleton. I know and like the guitar oriented song. But hearing it in my head this morning, my reaction was, WTF? Where did that come from? I asked Les Neurons, what brought this on? They said nothing. I thought of what I’m writing in my fiction, and it’s not at all related. I’m reading several books but none of them mentioned secret agents. Now, I am watching “The Agency”, “The Diplomat”, and “The Day of the Jackal”. Maybe their combined weight slipped into the liminal cracks and stirred memory of the song out of its slumber in its grey cell nest. I was surprised, as other songs and ideas had been stirring in the mmms, but here we are.
Let’s get positive and move forward. I’ve moved forward with my morning coffee and feel better for the effort. Here’s the music. Cheers
It’s fun to hear inflections and dialects as folks address the days. Someone the other night sounded like there were saying ‘Saterday’ instead of ‘Saturday’. I mentioned it to my wife. She frowned and asked, “Is this a difference?” To me, yes, I heard a difference but I could be crazy.
Well, it’s Saterday, December 7, 2024, the anniversay of a day which will live in infamy, as they say. I wonder if younger people are still taught about the attack on Pearl Harbor? Or do they just pick up knowledge about it from books, movies, and TV?
A white brick of a sky overlays our valley. Sunshine is trying to chisel through but it’s a listless effort. We’re cooking along at 36 F now, ready to storm up to 49 F. The threat of light rain is dangling over us. Not bad as far as an autumn winter day goes.
Finally, the GOP is creeping out with earnest statements about cutting social security. Do recall how they insisted that President Biden was lying when he mentioned they had those plans? Classic bait and switch GOP, luring MAGA supporters in with one lie and then giving them something else.
Looking forward to when MAGA awakens to how they’re being screwed.
BTW, I shared the CBS news story about the police illegally selling guns on my Facebook feed. It’s something I rarely do these days but I thought peopl should know this is happening. FB removed it. Said it ‘violated their community standards’. Which, using the transitive property, means that truthful news stories violate Facebook’s standards. They called it ‘spam’; yes, the truth is spam for FB. Sounds kinda Orwellian. That’s the bottom line for that sinking enterprise.
Reading of the election results and other things being ‘explained’, I couldn’t help but think that a lot of it is just babbling. Pundit babbling for the most part, with some strategists thrown in for flavoring. Responding, The Neurons plugged “Psychobabble” by the Alan Parsons Project into the morning mental music stream (Trademark unravelling). The song’s last line seems fitting: “I don’t care, it’s all psychobabble rap.”
Let’s get positive, lean forward and move forward. Coffee has been re-introduced to my biosystem. All systems are go. Here’s the music.
Looks like we a bit’o Procol Harum with “Whiter Shade of Pale” taking over the autner sky. 36 F. Fog is reported. High of 51 F prophecized. Seems doable, as we hit 52 F yesterday. Do still have a stagnant air advisory camping on us. That gives us a broad range of air quality around town. Green and acceptable at lower elevations but yellow and a risk to people with respiratory issues as you go higher.
I admit to not reading the news yet today. I’ve been dealing with emails and texts from friends and families instead. Most of those fell under quake concerns or holiday plans. Sofar as the quake, we good here in Ashlandia. I did a brief scan for damage reports and saw nothing, knock on wood.
The cats are enjoying the milder weather. Both head out in search of early sun and hang around the backyard as birds visit. Good seeing them out there lounging, washing, and birding. These two are not mighty hunters. At least, they’ve never rewarded us with a trophy. They prefer kibble and wet food, and live and let live cause the alternative is too taxing.
My Neurons have a Boston song out of 1978 in my morning mental music stream (Trademark fluttering). “Don’t Look Back” was a dream admonishment. It was natural that the song filled my stream as I went through the dream review. 2024 was a meh year for me. Health issues, frustrations, and the elections results all subtracted from whatever advances I made. I won’t bore with details. Dream advice came like something out of Field of Dreams, “Don’t look back.” The woke gist concluded, created a vision and move forward. And while it sounds like it may have come out of left field, it was the culmination of several days of ruminating. I take it as solid advice: stop looking back. Move forward.
Part of the ruminations on the elections front came from a NYT piece about how Trump won. Their strategist went after the deeply undecided, not paying attention voters residing in streaming land. In my paraphrasing of what I read, while the Dems went traditional with big television buys, the GOP realized that there were large masses of folks on streaming platforms who wouldn’t see the TV ads. They, especially the young, became their target.
Looking ahead, I thought, that was clever. We — the Dems, Progressives, and Liberals — should embrace that as a counter approach to what Trump’s administration is plotting. Put it onto the streaming platforms about their plans. Be specific, repetitive, and detailed about what it means to the economy, inflation, and tax revenues if the mass deportations are allowed. Share personal anecdotes of how people are affected. Get graphic and real about what happens if Headstart and the Dept of Education are killed. Be real and give them the pointed end of climate change facts and its impact on health, safety, and the economy.
Teach them some real history. IMO, teaching to the test, the education system has been weak inculcating critical thinking among students. We need to close that gap. We need to that Republicans aren’t good for the economy. That tariffs will not save them money. Feed them information in the way that it was done via Schoolhouse Rock! style done in the latter half of the last century. As the Republicans said about President Obama’s agenda, “Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct.” We must do the same, but we also need to shift us from leaning red as a nation to deep blue.
So, I’m focusing my efforts on looking forward and moving forward. I’ll limit looking back in regret or anger, and shift to visualizing success. Hope you can do the same.
Coffee and I have done our morning meet. Time to rock on. Here’s the music.
It’s December 5, 2024. Thursday. Someone has taken a roller brush and painted the sky with thin smoky gray and white. It’s poor mixing, with tendrils of the gray sometimes thickened into a rich vein. Patching blue shows through. I take an eastern blister of white as the sun.
Morose is the word for that scene. It’s 38 F locally, 40 to 42 in other town zones. We’ll see high temperatures in the low to mid fifties.
First, happy birthday to my little sister. Point of order, she is a grandmother. Mom’s life disrupted sis’s life but sis survived and reformed herself as an intelligent, caring, forthright individual. She’s a strong person and I admire her for so many facets of who she is.
Our fear-based right wing so disappoints me. Many of our right-wingers profess to be good Christians. Naturally, I ponder what our nation’s founders would think of the right wing’s myopic attacks on immigrants. Yes, what would Jesus do? Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas. The right wing is slowly emerging as a darkly evil and inhumane force.
Away from that. WhenI looked out and spied the mostly white sky, the morning mental music stream (Trademark seceded) churned with “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. The Neurons thought, white, and went with it.
Get positive, be strong, have coffee. Coffee and I just renewed our vows once again. Keeps our relationship fresh. Here’s the music.
It’s Woundsday, December 4, 2024. The stagnant air seemed to have shifted a little, as the chill has abated. Although Ashlandia is claimed to be foggy, my perch’s view was fog free. Sunshine enriched blue skies took the vision field from end to end. Now, 11 AM, my personal weather sys says it’s 46 F outside. Alexa claimed it’ll be 67 F today but I don’t trust it. Other forecasts say 57 F today, which seems reasonable.
It’s Woundsday because I’ve been busy this morning licking my wound. Eww. Gross. Figuratively licking my wounds. The wound is the surgery site to repair my ankle. Much better today, thanks. Now I’m practicing my walk, trying to rid myself of my limp, regain some grace, and speed up my stride.
We’ve been following several news stories. One is that another Trump nominee has withdrawn. I’m not celebrating as I’m sure he’ll find a horrid replacement. My wife then regaled me with a few Buzzfeed anecdotes about people realizing what their support of Trump means to what goes on in their world. Trump nominees are surprising them. Examples include a business women who was planning equipment purchases being taught what the tariffs will do. Then there are parents with a child in Headstart just learning that Trump intends to shut down Headstart and now wonder what will happen to their child. In other words, they’re gettin’ woke by their vote.
Also following a story in Pennsylvania about a woman who fell into a sinkhole while looking for her cat in Tuesday morning’s cold, dark hours. I’m from that area and have family still living in the region, so it’s one of those six degrees of separation things. I hope they find her alive and well but I’m sadly doubtful at this point.
Today’s music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark okay) is “Feelin’ Alright”. I posted this song back in 2016. I wrote then: “I’d only recently learned that Dave Mason wrote this song. I knew that Traffic had performed it, but in my heart, this song always belonged to Joe Cocker. Whichever group or performer does it, the song always lifts me up. I loved it when he sang it in concert.” Still standing with that declaration. It’s my song for Woundsday because I’m going to have beers with my friends tonight. It’s our usual Wednesday setup. I haven’t attended for seven weeks. Haven’t had a beer in that period, too. I did have wine and rum with mulled cider on T-Day, though. Beyond that, I’m walking well and experiencing minimal discomfort and pain.
I woke from a dream this morning and remembered open lines from a Dylan Thomas poem.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The dream had been about reinventing myself and reinventing the world, so I can understand the connection with the poem. It’s one of my top five poems.
Hope you have a superb Wednesday, and the days beyond today are also superb as we count down the last of 2024. Coffee and I have rekindled our relationship once again. We’re good to the last drop. Here’s the music. Cheers
28 degrees, Twosday come into the valley with sunshine, blue skies, and patchy fog. The day hovers in the liminal folds between autumn and winter, that murky zone called autner. Feels like it could get colder. Feels like clouds could march in and dump snow. But the sunshine claims it might get warmer. In fact, some forecasters insist, as they have on previous days, that today’s high will crack the fifties and stalk the upper edges toward sixty. But the valley’s stagnant air messes with the forecasting process. Yesterday’s high attained 45 F when 56 F was supposed to be the ceiling. So, I’m not planning to see 56 F today.
This stagnant air is weird. A still, windless phenomena, the chill it carries creeps through everything. You dress for much colder air and the house heating works hard because that creeping chill.
Going through the valley yesterday to shop, I saw that a thin line of brown pollution rimmed the more populated western region. Get used to that, I thought. Trump and his clown cabinet will cut regulations. “Business,” they’ll shout, and the sheeple shout, “Yes. Business first.” Business means prosperity, right? Wage increases. Profits. Bull market.
Most of the sheeple fail to understand that the government and economy worked better under Democratic control. Their limited memories don’t pull up the dark, sooty airs the United States experienced in the 1960s and 1970s before the EPA and their pesky regs came out and ordered, “Thou shall not pollute.” Nor do they comprehend the impact on health that it brings, and the reciprical effect on productivity and costs due to worker illness and absences. They don’t think that fucking deep. Or course, it’s hard to do so with Republicans bleating otherwise in a 24/7 cacophony. And it’s hard to remember and think whn your education is being hamstrung with teachings about how Jesus saved the world and climate change is a hoax, and look! Illegals! Trans! Woke! They also believe that wealthy people won’t hoard their wealth but will spread it around like fertilizer and turn everything cash green for everyone.
Yes, they are fucking fools.
Sigh. On to other matters.
We shopped at Costco. It’s been a go-to for us since the early 1990s. Our local Costco was moderately busy on a Monday afternoon. Mostly older shoppers. Ahem. Like us. As we entered and began our prowl, my wife shouted at the milling shoppers, “What about inflation?” She’s still riled up about that. I told her, “Babe, they’ve heard whispers that it’s gonna get worse. This is Doomsday shopping. They’re out here trying to get deals and soothe their troubled minds with food and toys to help them when reality crashes in.”
Being the second day of the workweek, it’s natural that this is called Twosday. Many don’t realize that the first spelling for ‘two’ or 2 was tue. Somehow, as the language and alphabet swelled into its current shape, tue became two. But the day of the week was already cemented in influential calendar makers, so Tuesdays remained.*
* Yes, that was all b.s.
Today’s music came out in 2020, while lockdown was prevalent. Being retired, I don’t work, so the song doesn’t really address me and my grips. But The Neurons called it up because I’ve been muttering to myself, “I need to get back to the coffee shop and get back to work on my writing.” Ding ding ding. The Neurons had a piece of “Work” by Pop Evil in the morning mental music stream (Trademark being worked): “All I do is work!”
Alright, coffee and I have come to an agreement. I will make it and pour it into my watering hole, and it will kick my energy up. Look up, open your eyes, and breathe deep. Time for another Twosday to be vanquished. Here’s the music. Cheers
Yeah, it’s Munday, December 2, 2024. Just a couple notes on it. Temp is rising and falling between 26 and 28 F. Sun is kicking in. First strokes can be witnessed in the dining room’s southern window, which catches the sun’s approach from the southeast as it jabs through and around trees branches. Fog is doing a swirling veil dance. Alexa said it’ll be 56 F today. Same claim made yesterday and we barely topped 43, so I know where I’m putting my money.
Many people don’t realize the Monday as a day of the week comes from Middle English mondeyne which itself is derived from Late Latin, mundanus. It all means ‘common place’ as in ‘nothing special’. Boring. Routine. Mundane. Monday. Munday.
Trump continues with his authoritarian cabinet o’ clowns. Mockpaperscissors shares a scope outta the New Yorker about the dishonorable Pete Hegseth. True grrrspiring stuff about his drunken leadership and how he sexualizes women. Nice note about his drunken chants, “Kill all Muslims!” Bet those Muslims who clamored for Trump over Harris are creaming their pants with pleasure over that. Who coulda known that Trump woulda picked such a piece of meat for a high-rankin’ gubment position. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
My wife asked me last night how old I thought Papi was. We reminisced about his interactions with us. He first showed up on a fence back when Scheckter, one of the original Orange Boiz, was still alive. Papi, then called Meep for his tiny meow (yeah, he’s grown outta that), showed up on the backyard fence like a little Scheckter mini me.
Scheckter
Meep aka Papi
Records show Meep has lived with us since May of 2017. While Schecter was warm and sweet, Meep, I mean Papi, remains guarded and wary. When I informed my wife of my research, she remarked the same about the two floofs. Scheckter was a cuddler and lap dweller; Papi has been on my lap once for three pico seconds.
Dreams inspired The Neurons’ music choice today. I was reflecting about a dream of a levitating train I was driving through an apocalyptic ‘Merica. Thinking about the dream highights, I noted that it was a simple life of travel in the flying train with a small group of people. The Neurons shook my head. Out came No Doubt with “Simple Kind of Life”. “And all I wanted was a simple thing, a simple kind of life” keeps circulating the morning mental music stream (Trademark freeze-dried).
Sunshine owns all the living and dining rooms’ windows now. Blue sky speckled with withdrawn clouds rule the view. It’s 30 F. Coffee and I have found common ground again.Look up and open your eyes. Take a deep breath. Inhale; exhale. Here we go, December’s first Munday. Hope it’s a wonderful one for you. Cheers
December 1! Here at last. Turn the page and count down the days until your holiday of choice and the end of this year as the majority reckon it here in ‘Merica.
That cold front from out of the Arctic is still dominating. Sunday, it’s 32 F out there. Cold air throws our valley. See, that doesn’t work there, does it? Although through is a synonym for blanket, it only works in that capacity as a noun, not a verb. No wonder we’re so often confused.
While it’s 32 F now, that’s up froom the 18 that greeted me at dawn’s start a few hours back. 56 is the whispered high. We’ll see. Yesterday’s projected high was never approached. I think we topped out at 40 F. We have a stagnant air alert going on, and that always affects the temperature’s dance moves.
From a dream comes today’s theme music, “Beat It”. The 1983 Michael Jackson hit is in my morning mental music stream (Trademark icy) after a dream began playing it when the dream faded out. No credits were rolled for the dream, though. I have no idea who produced or directed it. I did star in it but I don’t know the other stars. They weren’t recognized. That’s not to say that they’re not stars in their own rights; I only have access to my dreams. They may have starred in other dreams which were only released to the individual having them.
“Beat It” came out when I was living on Okinawa, an island that’s part of Japan, and site of a major Pacific battle in dubya dubya two. I was there for almost four years as part of my military service. My neighbor, Carol, was so excited about this song and its video. In retrospect, she was a Michael Jackson fan girl. I was okay with the song. Has some interesting vocal and musical elements and tones. I don’t know why it was chosen for the dream’s closing sequence. It didn’t seem at all related to the dream’s context and action. I queried The Neurons about it but they’re as transparent as brick.
Hope your Sunday is a good one and a fine start to December. Coffee and I have renewed our vows and I’m sipping in bliss. Here’s the music. This video shows Slash from GNR standing in to interpret Van Halen’s original solo guitar. Hope you enjoy it. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 