Tag: rock

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Chillfriday

Oh, no, it’s Friday, 9/13/2024. For some with paraskevidekatriaphobia, this is a scary day. For me, raised to beware of Friday the 13th and middle-class Protestant superstitions, reinforced by movies and memes, I’m on a mildly higher alert not to do anything stupid and exercise a skoosh more caution.

It’s 50 degrees F out in Ashlandia. One of those gorgeous blue skies that look bottomless. Not a cloud present to witness sunrise. The sun’s angle has changed. Beams no longer charge through the eastern windows. They make their appearance through a southern window and then shift to the east as the sun clears the mountains and trees. Gonna be 80 F today, a comfortable autumn day.

My wife declared that autumn has officially begun. How did she know? She grinned bigly: “My feet are cold when I go to bed, so I put socks on until they warm up. That’s how I know it’s fall.”

Ah, we all have our mysterious ways, don’t we?

I’ve been reading about Trump supporters and the comparison to Hitler’s supporters. Although there is a segment of Trump supporters who wave NAZI flags, I understand why many people don’t get the Hitler comparison. Hitler’s legend is steeped with history over rounding up and killing people, particularly Jews. A warmonger, he broke treaties and ruthlessly attacked other nations.

I read of people saying, “Trump is nothing like that. He’s not rounding anyone up. He’s not anything like Hitler, and we’re not anything like Germany. This is the United States! That can’t happen here.”

Yes, they’re looking at Hitler’s later years. Those who read and study what Hitler did in the early years can build a solid comparison between his growth and Trump’s popularity. They can point at the disenfranchised feeling pervading Germany after WW I and note how rural, white, and Christian voters experience something of the same, feeling ignored and left behind. They can address how Trump, like Hitler, made promises and accusations that gave these people hope.

Of course, in the United States, there is a swath of powerful white men and Evangelicals who expoit Trump and the right-wing disenfranchised. They’re wealthy, powerful, and want more. Besides that band, there are some who are attracted to the Trump brand of GOP reactionaryism because they are hateful, sexist, racist, and resentful, and a few who tag along because they don’t know what the hell is really going on.

You always see that last in these groups in later interviews. “I was just going along. I didn’t mean to kill anyone. Everyone was doing it. I just got caught up in it.” Or, the more commonly heard refrain later, “I was just following orders.”

As for it not being possible in the United States, consider how often Trump makes threats to prosecute or imprison political enemies, claiming in essence that if they don’t support him, they hate America. Consider how often he encourages his base not to trust the Democrats and liberals, how they’re responsible for everything terrible happening. Consider how he claims ‘the Left’ has weaonized the DOJ to go after him. And if they ‘go after him, they’ll go after you.’ Consider how often his supporters robustly cheer and amplify these messages. Consider how the majority of the GOP goes along with him, refusing to check his inflammatory rhetoric, and how they stacked the Supreme Court to support him.

Then tell me again how this can’t happen in the United States.

Moving on.

Today’s song is by Bakar. “Hell N Back” is out of 2019. Has a throwback mellow sound, slightly jazzy, but definitely chill. I enjoy the song but the question is, why did The Neurons plug it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark everything). This song is about being alone and realizing it later, looking back at how someone’s presence helped them, but also, how they used drugs to have a good time. But something about it cooks up my own sense of ‘being saved’ by my wife, how she helps me keep in check against my own worst assaults on myself and my sense of who I am. Why is it coming today? Is it just generated by a sense of change in the air, perhaps from the blue wave’s rising energy, or more merely the change of season, or from the great joy and satisfaction from my novel writing? Perhaps, and more likely, it’s a kick from all three combining in subtle ways to stimulate hormones that raise my elation and hopes. Perhaps some unknown stars and planets are aligning to make me feel strong and more hopeful.

Or maybe it’s just my imagination, or part of a regular cycle of hormones just being felt more acutely.

Be strong, and stay positive. Vote blue in 2024. Here’s the chill music. I’ll sip more coffee and listen. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Fallandfell

Today is Thursday, September 12, 2024. A chilly morning here in Ashlandia, the rain has stopped and the sun is crowning over obstacles, trying to toast us a little today. Right now, it’s 54 F, and the high won’t wander much more than the low seventies.

Yesterday was supposed to see us in the upper seventies. We never made that mark at my place. When I was out writing, rain was dumping on the intersection where the coffee shop sits. Like, wow, very cool to see the silver bullets splashing up on the soaked asphalt and cement. Heavy streams built up fast, gushing into sewers. But driving home, just a four minute event, I was quickly out of the rain; we didn’t see that rain event at our place. Weather can be fickle like that.

The cats took to the rain like cats who don’t like water. After some feeble efforts to assert himself as an outdoor animal, Papi stretched out in front of the fireplace. Although it wasn’t on, it has a pilot light when I lit a few days ago, so it emits some heat. He stayed there for hours, deeply asleep. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) on the other hand headed for the bed and sacked out.

Last night at the beer gathering, a small group ended up discussing birds. One asked about robins and their migration habits. Like me, he’d been taught in grade school that robins fly away for the winter. Like many life aspects, it gets more complicated than that. Our retired biology professor recounted that a friend of his did several bird counts at a slough for several years and discoverved exactly where the local robin population went each winter, living off various winter berries.

Other than that, we talked about the election and the debate, and the vice president’s pearl earrings. You now, on the right, they believe those were audio devices, giving Vice President Harris an affair advantage over Trump. That’s why he did so poorly. Because how else could he have done so poorly when she did so well? Yes, that was morning snark, undiluted by coffee.

The Neurons fired up Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble from 1989 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark caught). The song is “Crossfire”. It seemed to come into mind as I gazed across the valley. The air feels like autumn but most of the trees didn’t get the text in this area. And then I just sort of mused about how we were caught between the two seasons. And ‘lo, “Crossfire” began playing. I always particularly enjoyed the lines, “Money tight, nothing for free. Won’t somebody come and rescue me.” Used to sort of identify with it.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote blue in 2024. Breakfast has been consumed; so has some coffee. Time to get up and do things. Here’s the music. Cheers

2

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Precipitized

Autumn was hulking against the house by the back door, sometimes gently tapping to come in. I opened the door. A lush gush waltzed in and danced around the room.

I’ve decided that I like autumn better than summer and winter. Winter and summer are fickle about their temperatures and weather offerings. Autumn seems more relaxed and straightforward about it. Yes, warm days will come, with some soaring temperatures which somehow complements a view of autumnal foliage against a blue sky. Mostly, though, memories of autumn has me anticipated a level stream of gently declining temperatures as tree shed their leaves and winter begins gracing us.

It’s Wednesday, 9/11/2024. A moment to remember that morning, seared into so many of our brains, sharp-edged memories formed as our daily routines were put on hold and we watched our televisions.

It’s 55 F at my house. My wife was up early to get ready for her exercise class. She told me after I got up that she came in and whispered to me, “It’s raining,” but I was deeply asleep and did not hear.

A little later, Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah), shouted, “It’s raining and I’m hungry and get up and feed me.” Which I did.

Ah, rain. Small drops, lighty falling, wetting everything, and releasing gases that waft up to us and awakens rain memories. The smell is so rich.

Our air is so clear and fresh this morning. Purple has the readings around me in single digits. Airnow.gov has us at 25.

Today’s high will be in the upper sixties.

I’m looking forward to having something done about my injured foot. Although I wear my brace when I’m out and about, strange complaints and sharp pains will jump out. “Hey, don’t bend me that way,” it yells. “Watch where you’re stepping. You want pain, I’ll give you pain.” I know, it’s a very small thing to endure compare to what many others suffer. I’m just a whiner.

I’m not going to comment much on the debate last night. I will say that my personal confidence and hope that Kamala Harris becomes POTUS number 47 pole-vaulted into new levels.

With the debate and the rain and season shift, The Neurons have plugged a Steve Perry song into the morning mental music stream (Trademark gone). “Oh Sherrie” was released in 1984. I don’t know why it’s in my head this morning. I can’t trace a relationship to anything that I thought, did, or dreamed. It’s just there as I walked into the office, coffee cup in hand, swallowing the last of a fig, and gazed out the window at the green mountains, flat gray sky, and cautiously falling rain. The Neurons work in mysterious ways.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee is half gone. Here’s the music video — Steve Perry with Journey playing his hit single. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Anticipedged

It’s Tuesday, September 10, 2024. The national elections are 56 days away. Vice President Kamala Harris and felon Donald Trump will debate policies and positions tonight to sway undecided voters. I expect Donald Trump to lie…a lot. I expect him to act like a little and put on an entertaining act for his base. He is all low-style and little substance. I don’t expect him to say anything about Project 2025; if he does, he’ll probably deny having anything to do with it.

I expect Kamala Harris to be well-spoken, intelligent, and upbeat.

We’ll see what happens. Kinda holding my breath. The Harris – Walz campaign has demonstrated a lot of positive energy IMO. My wife and friends are also pretty stoked. But the media casts the race as being a dead heat. While we scratch our heads and ask WTF, we wonder what people are seeing and thinking in the nation’s other regions.

Second point to that, I thought President Biden was going to be strong at his debate with Trump. Instead, President Biden’s performance ended with him stepping aside for Veep Harris a few weeks. Not a bad move in the end, but the debate night performance undermined my confidence about my perceptions and thinking. So I’m leery about tonight.

It’s 62 degrees F outside of my Ashlandia home. Today’s high will be a comfortable 83 F. The air is fresher again today, with little hint of smoke. I’ve watched people walking — with and without dogs, alone and in pairs — and runners, taking advantage of the temperature and clean air. Airnow.gov pegs the air quality for Ashlandia overall at 52, just above ‘good’. Purpleair shows the air quality is 33 down the street and 75 up the street. We’ll see how it flows.

We’re pretty excited at my house. Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow. Rain, with a high in the 60s. Giddyup.

I’m anxious about the elections. I tell myself I need patience and to be positive. The Neurons responded this morning by springing the 1989 Guns N’ Roses “Patience” on the morning mental music stream (Trademark worn). Yes, a little patience to get through this is mo def needed for this era. I’m a person who struggles to be patient at times. That’s what led to me into taking transcendental meditation instructions in the Philippines in the mid 1970s. That helped a great deal, as does my continued meditation, but impatience still gets the better of me too often.

Gotta go close the windows. Smoke smells are curling in and congestion is rising in my nose and sinuses. Purpleair has the reading at 129 up the street.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee is being sucked down. Here is the music video. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: angrified

8 AM. My wife has left for her exercise class, Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) is talking to me about breakfast, sunshine is streaming in through the windows, and I need to pee. Time to rise and stalk coffee, I decide.

I step onto the back patio with the cats. Papi is chatting up a storm. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) is more reserved. Sunshine baths us but smoke lingers in the air. Not as bad as yesterday. The air worsened yesterday as the sun arced over the sky. The air quality plummeted, skating through 190. Forests and mountains disappeared behind the smoky curtain. Fortunately, the curtain rose lost night for a while and we had a night of relatively fresh air. Looks like it’s getting pulled down again.

This is Monday, September 9, 2024.

It’s just under 60 F right now. We expect a high of about 92 F.

BTW, the MAGA answer to wildfires and its smoke pollution is to cut down all the forests. Short-sighted as hell, but that’s them: intellectually bankrupt.

I have “Good Thing” from Fine Young Cannibals ringing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark hazy). It’s because I was singing to that 1989 melody with a word substitution. “Good air, where have you gone,” was my lament.

I shifted from good air to good things as the song played. Good things like the efficient post office and delivery systems we knew for a while. Good things like safe schools.

Which triggered reflections on Vance’s comments about school shootings being a way of life because schools are soft targets, which are attractive to a ‘psycho’, as he delicately phrased it.

“And again, as a parent, do I want my school to have additional security? No, of course I don’t,” he concluded. “I don’t want my kids to go to school in a place where they feel like they’ve got to have additional security. But that is increasingly the reality that we live in.”

Vance’s memory is not impressive. People have been killed in churches. Most people passing a church will note the lack of security. And a Pittsburgh syngagogue was found to be a soft target. Malls and shopping centers are soft targets. Grocery stores. Paint stores, hardware stores.

Remember the shooting from a hotel room in Las Vegas? So a concert is a soft target.

What about the college campuses? They’ve been shown to be soft targets.

Police officers being ambushed are not soft targets, yet we read about that numerous times a year.

I remember that several work places, post offices, and a McDonald’s restaurant have been a soft target through the years.

Beyond them, we had vigilante types like Kyle Rittenhouser out looking for targets, or Trayvon Martin’s killer, who thought the kid going for skittles was a threat.

And let’s not overlooked the people shooting others knocking on their door because they’re afraid, a fear the GOP actively stokes to harvest votes. Or the man who shot a woman because he thought she was part of a scam.

As long as you dance around the obvious and pretend it’s something else, nothing will get done and the problem won’t be fixed. And the problem is America’s worsening gun culture.

Congress sort of addressed it for themselves: they’re made themselves a hard target, surrounded by security forces, a place where guns are not permitted.

Funny how that works.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee has broached my system. Here’s the music video. Cheers



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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Patientoptimism

Sunday morning brings us a dirty gray blue sky with a dirty white veneer. Air quality is in high double digits, so not too precarious as far as the readings go. Just looks off.

This is September 8, 2024. Currently 69 degrees F with smoke but it’ll climb to 92 F with smoke. Meteorological rumors has Wednesday’s high capped in the mid to upper sixties, with a 92% chance of a quarter inch of rain. We’re pretty jazzed about that in this Ashlandia household.

Peter Sage, a retired person who is now a political blogger has a post today, Easy Sunday: A word from a Trump supporter.

The beginning of Peter’s column gives the guest’s background.

Lynn Myrick is a Trump supporter. He is a retired Southern Oregon family law attorney. He practiced for 47 years and still serves as an expert witness on attorney ethics and billing practices.

Myrick is a regular reader of this blog. My critique of Trump’s criminality, his business frauds, his sexual crimes, and his seditious effort to overthrow the election did not dampen Myrick’s support of Trump.

Peter goes on, Critics may think he sounds drunk, stupid, willfully uninformed, profoundly biased, or worse. They may think Myrick is mired in the alternative reality of a religious cult led by a con-man guru. But Myrick is not stupid. This is what he thinks. Something along the lines of this interior monologue takes place in the minds of a near-majority of our fellow citizens. Read it as literature. Read it for insight on how it is possible Americans might choose to elect Trump.

I was hugely disappointed in Myrick’s post. Less of a word salad than Trump himself would present, it’s a right-wing talking points gush, without any context, historic perspective, or critical thinking. For me, it seems like he gets all his news from right-wing sources and challenges none of it. That’s a common perception, right or wrong, that I have about most Trump supporters; they’ve inculcated a narrow perception of the world and hunts facts to bolster that perception. Those facts are often wrong because the purveyors providing the false information are catering to the right wing’s need for false facts. The right wing is going through life with blinders on these days.

Worse, Myrick is like, ‘look how terrible Biden/Harris is’ without any contemplation of the alternative, Trump and Vance. Trump has rightfully earned himself a label of weird. Hugging the flag, claiming he wants votes and doesn’t want them, lying about everything and anything without any limitation. Add to that, he’s under several indictments and has been convicted. He is a felon. He tried overthrowing the election in 2020. That’s apparently okay with Myrick. He offers no comments at all on Trump. Just staunch, no Dem! Dem bad!

But then, that’s what the right wing chamber declares, along with ‘Trump good’, without offering evidence.

Myrich probably thinks he wrote a sharp, damning piece. And the right-wing probably agrees with him.

I guess from thinking about the GOP, which can be called ‘the other side’, caused The Neurons to summon “The Other Side” by Aerosmith to the morning mental music stream (Trademark dark). I remember this song coming out. I was already familiar with it, as it was released in 1990 as a single but it was from the album, Pump, which I’d already purchased. Holland–Dozier–Holland, the Hall of Fame songwriting team, threatened Aerosmith with a lawsuit because “The Other Side” had some resemblance in parts to “Standing In the Shadows of Love”.

Alright, on to other things. Smoke is getting worse out there. Over 100 now on the air quality index. You stay positive and be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee has been swallowed a few times. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: smoketeased

Saturday padded in on floof feet, bringing clouds. Not so chilly this morning, it’s already 73 but will climb to only 95 F today. That’s 10 degrees less than I saw at my house yesterday.

Quiet outside, the main news comes from the avian Karens known as scrubjays. They get involved in everything, flying around making loud announcements about what people and other birds and animals are doing. A small aircraft putters by hundreds of feet overhead, its putter a steady sound that gains volume and then falls into a distant hum.

Air quality is okay on Siskiyou Blvd., about a hundred yards down the hill from us, but quickly deteriorates into mid-triple digits as you travel up the mountain flanks. A burnt wood smell hangs in the air, leftovers from some fires, somewhere.

We did two jigsaw puzzles in August. A three-hundred-piece puzzle was done on the first night of vacation. Another was started there, and then transported home, where we finished it. We started a third one last week and finished it last night. This was another Wysocki puzzle, produced by Buffalo, one thousand pieces.

The Neurons have plugged “Notorious” by Duran Duran into the morning mental music stream (Trademark seedy). Don Old Trump’s latest round of speeches and proclamations set off the 1986 song in my head. Trump is just notorious for saying notorious crap.

At one of his rallies, Trump claimed he didn’t want more votes if they were from people who didn’t vote for him before.

“Donald Trump apparently doesn’t care whether or not he wins in November anymore.

At a Fox News town hall on Thursday, the Republican presidential nominee revealed that his 2024 campaign strategy excludes anyone who he doesn’t believe supported him in the last election cycles.

“One person who didn’t support me—he said, ‘I must admit I had the most successful four years of my life but I’m gonna vote for some—’ and now that person came back to me. I don’t want that person,” Trump said to muffled applause. “I don’t want that person.

“You know, they say you should take everybody, but that’s not the way I’m built. It’s one of those little problems,” he added.

All of this is probably depressing to those people who want him to talk about policies and be a serious politician. But he’s just too weird.

He said those things at a town hall meeting on Thursday. But on Wednesday, the day before in Pennsylvania, he was pleading for votes.

“Even if you don’t like me, you can sit there and say, ‘I can’t stand that guy, but there’s no way I’m gonna vote for her.’”

He also apparently forgot on Wednesday where he was, alluding to New Hampshire instead of Pennsylvania, and who he was running against.

“I can’t imagine New Hampshire voting for him. Anyone in New Hampshire who votes for Biden or Kamala…” he told the crowd.

Trump has become notorious for mental gaffes in 2024 as well as ducking responsibility and claiming he’s never said anything, or that he’s responsible for things. He’s claimed that he knew nothing about the photo at Arlington National Cemetery. He also claimed that Vice President Harris made it up. His campaign claimed there wasn’t a physical altercation with anyone as described.

Meanwhile, a Trump spokesperson wrote, “For a despicable individual to physically prevent President Trump’s team from accompanying him to this solemn event is a disgrace and does not deserve to represent the hollowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery,” he said in a written statement, misspelling the word hallowed. “Whoever this individual is, spreading these lies are dishonoring the men and women of our armed forces.”

The person they’re referring to is the U.S. Army employee who works at Arlington National Cemetery.

That’s Trump and his campaign. Notorious for word salads, lies, and contradictions. Notorious for lacking principles or honor. Notorious for blaming others. Notorious for being a hot mess.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Here’s the music video. The smoke pollution is worsening. Gotta go close the windows and turn on the air purifier. Cheers

3

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: speculativitis

It feels like a diluted summer day. An archapelago of gray fuzzed small white clouds spill across the sky. Today’s blue is diluted into a pale hue. Weirdly feels like rain is possible in the cold mountain air shouldering me through the window. But it’s 70 F at my house and will top off at 99 F.

Of course, summer is on its heels. Autumn is crowding in again. This is Friday, September 6, 2024. Diluted, the door is also pregnant with a sense of finality. I don’t know what pseudo psycho-quantum vibes has me feeling that.

I read my fill of the story about the Apalachee school shooting. The alarm buttons in the IDs. The congratulations that the system worked and kept the loss of life down, spoken without irony. The continued reporting that the system failed because the kid had been investigated by the FBI who couldn’t tie him to the social media threats he’d previously made about carrying out a school shooting. The later news that the father had been arrested for his role after giving his son the murder weapon for a gift — after the child had been investigated for making the threats.

The wonder, the murder weapon was a Christmas present. Ho, ho, fucking, ho. Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. Anyone care to bet that it was part of a Black Friday special? How sinisterly ugly is that?

The wonder, what were the dynamics in that household, with the kid allegedly making these threats and also apparently asking for mental health help, and Dad giving his boy, a troubled 14 year old, a killing machine? The wonder, what is the truth, and will this shit ever change?

Bet there are a lot of hopes and prayers being offered the family of the dead. They can take those hopes and prayers and add five dollars and have a coffee at Starbucks as they grieve.

All this has The Neurons playing “Once In A Lifetime” by the Talking Heads in the morning mental music stream (Trademark cracked). The 1981 song has a refrain that goes, “Same as it ever was. Same it ever was.”

You get where I’m coming from. I mean, mass shootings are a recurring part of the U.S. news scene. And let’s not overlook the other shootings. Children accidently killing themselves or another child because they found Mommy’s gun.

Let’s not overlook how frequently police officers are being ambushed and killed with firearms.

Yeah, but we don’t have a problem. Thoughts and prayers will take care of that shit.

Meanwhile, I’d read of Don Old Trump’s response to a child care question. This is part of it:

“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about — that, because look, child care is child care, couldn’t — you know, there’s something — you have to have it in this country. You have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to. But they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us. But they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have — I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country.“

And nothing in the rest of the answer will stop the swirl of ‘what is he talking about’ that’s circulating around many people’s head.

Also, though, I’m amused by the cognitive dissonance needed for this question to be asked in the first place. Project 2025’s architects wants women to return to the home and take care of the family. She won’t be working; ergo, child care isn’t needed in their heads. Plus, they want to remove barriers against children working. So the child won’t need anyone to take care of them, because Mom will be home, or when the child is old enough, they’ll be at work to help support the family, which will be needed now that Mom doesn’t work.

Asking Trump, which Project 2025 specifically mentions throughout its contents, with many of the authors directly tied to him, what he’s going to do to help with child care costs for working women, demonstrates that some folks just aren’t paying attention.

Hah, same as it ever was, right?

Pause. Or maybe the person asking the question knew and got the answer that they wanted: he’s not thining about it, and is incapable of forming a coherent sentence about it. If so, brava to her.

Alright, let’s roll on. Be strong and stout and positive, and vote blue. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: rantingspirit

Much like yesterday and the day before, and in short march of previous days, today woke up cool. We’re ’bout 54 F now. The sky carries blue undiminished by any objects or shades. With Earth rolling toward the sun, the latter brings its heat and light o’er the mountains and trees and begins stoking the air into warmer regions. We expect it to get stoked to 92 F today. Gonna start getting hotter again tomorrow. Heat warning is effect for Thursday.

This is Tuesday, September 3, 2024, BTW.

In personal news, after several months of puttering through the insurance health care maze, I now have an ASAP referral to ortho for my ruptured tendon. They’re supposed to reach out to me. My being’s jaded facet, which has had only one short sip of coffee, asked, “Gosh, I wonder when that’ll take place?” I’m betting in six weeks. That seems the norm for the IHCM, my shorthand for the insurance health care maze.

In the last two days, I went online to get new quotes for car and house insurance. This is the fallout from American Family Insurance and their decisions about our home insurance. We’ve been with them for over twenty years, first in California, then up here in Oregon. They always start their missives by thanking us for being loyal customers.

Well, this time, their missive explained that they’re no longer insuring our home in Oregon. Too much risk, apparently, for their profit margins and executive bonuses. They were moving our insurance to one of their feeder companies. The insurance will cost more but it’ll cover less, just what every loyal customer wants to hear. And BTW, since they’re doing that, I no longer get the home and auto bundle discount. So our car insurance rose, as well.

I sought quotes from new companies. They’re the same old players. Hartford through AARP. They provided a pretty good quote. Allstate through The General. The Zebra sent us to State Farm and Progressive. Great rates for the car from Progressive but they don’t do home insurance in this area. Allstate doesn’t either, but they’ll refer us to another company and get some payments from that company for doing that.

But I’m really posting about it is because the phone calls and text messages have begun. Four phone calls in thirty minutes on our home phone this morning. Only three texts about it this AM, so far I’m braced for a lot more. That’s the cost of doing business, I suppose: getting bludgeoned on phone and text by companies trying to close the deal with you.

My theme for now for my daily theme music remains songs with night in their titles. I asked The Neurons if they had any ideas. “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC began rocking the morning mental music stream (Trademark declassified). If you’re of a certain age or inclination — or both — this song will have you raising the volume, banging your head, and singing along. It’s kind of weird that the title is ‘you shook me…’ as the lyrics talk about a woman in the third person until the chorus of ‘you shook me…”

Be chill and keep dealing. Here’s the music. Cheers

NOTE: Posting this was delayed by a visit to the growers market. You probably don’t care but just in case you were wondering where it’s been, well, here’s the explanation. Cheers

2

Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: itsamellow

Can you believe it? It’s already Monday in America. September 2, 2024. Labor Day.

Windows are parted to invite the outside in. Right now, a distant chain saw whines and screams. A single car motors past as lawn mower mutters and roars. Voices which seem male carry across the air. A gas leaf blower is powered up and voices its song.

It’s cool air these machines violate, just stealing through the fifties as the sun arcs over trees and mountains, surmounting a flawless blue sky. Today’s high will see a descent from yesterday’s highs. We saw 100 at home, a surprise when forecasts called for 94. The net variously reported the high at 96 and 98 F yesterday. Today’s rise will see us through into the bottom 80s. Same is exected for tomorrow but the rest of the week will see high summer heat.

Meanwhile, trees are dancing in new autumn foliage already. Our tree’s dark green leaves already has lemon yellow clumps of leaves dotting the boughs.

Continuing with a night theme, The Neurons reprised Corey Hart’s 1983 song, “Sunglasss At Night”, and have it circulating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark deep sixed). It’s a new wave techno pop hit with 1980s stylization. Blowing out of FM stereo in a car, inspiration for the young, including me, was almost instantaneous. Especially at night. But it’s true pop, nothing deep.

Stay positive, remain strong, vote blue, and let’s move on to a brighter future. Work needs to be done to make that happen. I got my coffee; here’s the music. Cheers

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