Today is Sunday, 4/14/2024. I’m late to the show. A friend needed some help, so the day was given over to that. She’s advanced in age. Neither she nor her husband can drive any longer so we took her shopping up the road in Medford. And since it was a long day, we stopped and ate out. Just soup and sandwiches.
Soup and sandwiches were perfect for this April weekend. Rain was Sunday’s main course. Temperatures hung around in the low fifties as the rain practiced speeding up and slowing down. It’s only now, as we cruise toward sunset, that the sun made a cameo, slipping out of the clouds’ protection to say hello before it says good night.
Being with my wife and our friend, listening to them chatting about friends inspired The Neurons. They quickly planted “With A Little Help from My Friends” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark helped). Yes, it was morning. We left the house at 9:30 AM and returned about 4 PM.
Although the song is a Beatle tune, I’ve always favored Joe Cocker’s cover. Coming out in 1968, he brings such soul and energy to it. Countering Cocker’s raw vocal energy are female backup singers pitching soft, precisely enunciated verses. Hammering away on drums is B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum. Searing along with the vocals is Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin on lead guitar. Tommy Eyre offers that exquisite organ opening, gently mesmerizing but cajoling us on into a higher state. Sweet.
I was twelve when the song was released. Hearing it on my AM clock radio, the song cemented my sense of what I like in rock, and how rock carried me. Hope that makes sense.
Stay positive, be strong, Vote Blue. Hope you enjoy this music. I’ve had a day of coffee, thanks. Here’s the music.
Saturday, April 13, 2024, has emerged through timid sunshine and mild, sporadic showers. 51 F degrees now, the thermometer’s advance will end somewhere around 60 F. That’s life in April.
The cats and I were spoiled by that burst of warm sunshine, though. We want it, we cry. Papi the ginger warrior is particularly vocal about it. “Screw this wet stuff,” he cries. “Give me the shine.”
Tucker has magnificently recovered from his surgery. While still an old boy, north of 14 years old, we believe, his personality has re-asserted itself after bearing pain for several years. I’m sorry I didn’t help him sooner but I was really leery about having all of his teeth removed.
I’m feeling Saturitis today. It’s a blend of it being Saturday and the need/desire to get some work done that is also conflicting with the idea that it’s Saturday, let’s do something fun! Undermining the Saturitis mood is the weather, which doesn’t seem overly conducive to either end of the Saturitis spectrum.
Mom seems to be doing better. Hospitalized, enduring pain and discomfort, going through physical therapy. She said she’s there for another ten to fourteen days. Also said she’s doing alright. “The food is terrific.” That’s always welcomed. She had meatloaf with peas for lunch with banana cream pie for dessert.
An odd song was summoned to the morning mental music stream (Trademark showing) today. The Neurons somehow pulled up “Enola Gay” by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD).
This song was released in 1980. It’s about the Enola Gay, the American B29 Superfortress which dropped the atomic bomb, called ‘Little Boy’, on Hiroshima, Japan, in August, 1945.
I didn’t learn about the song until I was helping my wife with a Hiroshima/Nagasaki vigil she was setting up in conjunction with WILPF – Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – around 2006. She asked to help brainstorm some music. I came across the anti-war song, “Enola Gay”. The techno-pop tune was rejected as too silly and lost to the standard American anti-war and pro-peace pop/rock offerings.
I don’t have good insights into why The Neurons brought “Enola Gay” forward today. Maybe they just confused April with August. Hard to say with them.
Okay, stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue. Coffee has found its way into my body. Here’s the music. Please give it a chance. Cheers
They call it chilly Friday but Saturday’s just the same.
Yes, Ashlandia’s warm weather spurt has ben curtailed. Today’s high will crest at 64 F. More importantly, clouds have set up a formidable sunshine blockade. Rain is expected in a hour. Not heavy; just April showers. It’s 49 F right now. The cats have declared themselves to be indoor floofs.
Mom is still in the hospital, dealing with PT and mobility issues, in significant back pain. Sis says it poured rain there in Pittsburgh, PA, causing some minor local flooding. That caused Mom’s boyfriend, F, to bow out of showing up. He’s 94 and driving in those conditions are no longer in his catalogue. But sis says that’s all cleared up, so now he’s going to visit Mom this afternoon.
Reflecting what’s going on with Mom, I count back the number of other people who went through similiar issues with a parent and their end of life health issues. This seems to be growing into the common end of life way of life.
Three songs are warring in the morning mental music stream (Trademark fizzling). First came the Beatles with their 1968 song, “Lady Madonna”. I applied to The Neurons for the reasoning behind selecting that for the morning mental music stream. Their answer was, “We’ll get back to you.” My neurons are bureaucrats.
Next came Small Faces with “Itchycoo Park” from 1967. This was again done without any input on my end that I can see. The Neurons stonewalled me when I asked for more information about why this song was playing in my head.
Finally, or the latest, was Peter Gabriel with “Sledgehammer” from 1986. This, at least, has more personal history. We’re returned from Okinawa, Japan, after a four year tour that year.
Two cats, Crystal and Jade, accompanied us. They became our floofs after other military families receive orders for new assignments and couldn’t afford to take their cats with them. Both passed away in California, Crystal from cancer in 1994, and Jade, years later, when she was 21. Both were wonderful sweethearts.
Coming back that year felt like a major shock. Bell Telephone had gone through its breakup. Now mini-Bells abounded. We’d been driving on the left side of the road, so we needed to switch back over. The fastest speed limit we’d encountered was 100 KPH (61 MPH) and now we were hurtling around much faster. Yeah, a few days of adjustment was needed as we moved into a new one-bedroom apartment in South Carolina.
Hope you have a respectable Friday. Be strong, stay positive, and Vote Blue this November. Here comes Peter, previously of Genesis, with his solo tune, “Sledgehammer”. Coffee is flowing. Here we go.
Thursday arrives with a whisper so soft, most miss it. It’s April 11, 2024.
Spring outside pulls me in. 51 F degrees. Still wind and expansive sunshine. The air is expected to bring temperatures in the low 70s.
Sounds of the city travel through the yard. Cars on the roads. A train warning of its advance. Hammering and sawing. No voices except crows, robins, and sparrows passing on observations. The cats listen. They don’t reveal what they’re thinking.
OJ Simpson passed from cancer, Alexa tells me when I ask her about why she’s lit green. My wife says, I don’t know what to think about that.
Truly. Simpson was once an American hero on the gridiron. First in college, then in the NFL, if those things matter to you. Otherwise, he was just another citizen. Then came the murders, the trial, the riots, the questions. It all hangs over us like a pause in existence.
In personal news, Mom is still coping at the hospital. The place was packed. After spending most of the day in a bed in a hallway, she was moved into an ER space for the night.
She’s being transferred today. They’re going to put her into rehab and work on her balance and mobility. She’s grumbling about it. A creature of habits, she gets uncomfortable being wrenched from her ruts. I know because I’m much like her.
As far as the fever and pain over the last several days, the med staff is postulating that this is just the after effects of her abdominal surgery. The surgery was five days ago, so my little sister on the spot has flagged it as dubious. But, that’s how it’ll be treated, going forward.
Thinking about our small town’s sounds later in the morning has The Neurons summoning songs about cities. Stevie Wonder’s music about living in the city whispers through the morning mental music stream (Trademark under construction). Then comes Billy Joel. 1982 “Allentown”.
Yes, more it’s more fitting. Billy Joel’s song was about hopes and changes. Substitute America for Allentown. Change some other words and you have a new anthem for the U.S.
“Well, we’re living here in the USA.
“And the way it’s changing is hard to say.
“Standing in lines, watching our phones.”
But the song’s real heart for me comes later when he addresses the promises made or implied by teachers that we would succeed and advance, “if we worked hard, if we behaved.” The promise was hijacked. I put it on corporate greed, but that’s fueled by individual greed, selfishness, and now, by a GOP that is trying hard to go back in time as a way forward.
Sorry, boys, but there’s not a DeLorean big enough to fit all of us to take us back in time and change now. The vast majority of us know that. We’re moved on. We’re moving forward, and we’re going to keep moving forward.
I don’t think of everything in terms of politics, BTW. May seem like it’s so but it’s more that this seems like a politically charged period for me and many others. I also look back through the lens of history to see what changed, how it changed, and what did not.
Stay positive, despite what has happened so far. The promises were made or implied that we’re part of a grand experiment in the US, creating a government by the people, for the people. It’s a work in progress. Other nations are doing it as well, and many have become better at it than we are now.
I’ve already boarded the coffee train. Here’s the music. Cheers
The shorts went on. Officially, they’re ‘short pants’.
This is Wednesday, April 10, 2024. 66 F now, the warm end of our day will rise to 71 F. Everything is in bloom under blue, sunny skies. It’s bold with yellows, pinks, and white blossoms and blooms, people, against a fully backdrop of green grasses and trees — along with
Things are going well for me, thanks. A woman at the coffee shop told me, “You have nice legs. If I had legs like that, I’d be in shorts, too.”
She appeared a few years younger than me and had a perfect stage voice. I’m not one who enjoys attention. Baby, I was cringing inside. But I smiled and thanked her. She responded, “Wow, you have a great smile, too.” I felt like everyone was looking by now. I thanked her again, and she waved and went on.
Back ‘home’, Mom was discharged from Forbes Hospital after treatment for appendicitis. A day and night of diarrhea was endured. Now, after being up all night in pain, she’s back at the hospital for a CT scan to see why she has pain and a fever.
My sister, G, is on the scene, waiting for news. It’s a business day at the hospital. Parking is full. The parking situation and emergency responsiveness are hampered by a sinkhole in the parking lot.
A social worker came out and spoke with sis. No beds are available for Mom and they’re proposing to scan her at another location. Now they’re suggesting, take her home and bring her back tomorrow.
WTF questions arise. Sis is dealing with it. She’s intelligent, competent, and hard-edged at times like this, unafraid to question authority, and willing to stand her ground. In other words, she’s a good person to have on site.
I was thinking about my aunt J. She’s the one I previously wrote about with colon cancer.
I always admired her and enjoy her company. She always spoke to me like I was an adult when I was a child. I think she was instrumental in teaching me to think about matters from different perspectives. That’s a quality that I’ve often depended on, and which is responsible for whatever successes and achievements I’ve had. Good to have people like her in one’s life.
I didn’t learn about all her issues. She married and was divorced when young. One child. Then, another child from an affair. That child, my cousin, was put into an orphanage until my aunt could get her life in order. She finally met and married the love of her life, as she described him, and had three more children. She and I were together until brain cancer took him about a decade ago.
Update from sis about Mom. Fever is gone. Mom is in a bed in a hallway. Awaiting further developments.
Tucker goes back to the vet this afternoon. It’s a checkup on his thyroid, high blood pressure, and his gums after having his teeth removed. Fingers crossed that my old friend is found to be healing well and his issues under control. He’s gained weight, energy, and enthusiasm over the last few days.
Two thirds of the way through reading Kings of the Wyld. High fantasy variation, and worth reading if fantasy speaks to you. An interesting spin is that adventurers are ‘bands’, much like rock bands, and treated like rock stars. We readers are in on the idea but it’s not heavy handed. Our protagonist band broke up years before and have aged into normal lives. Now, yes, they got the band back together to save one of their daughters. I highly recommend this Nicholas Eames novel, even though I’ve not finished it. Still have about one hundred fifty pages left. My wife read it first, and then urged me to read it.
Today’s music comes straight out of 1966. After reading a Heather Richardson post, I thought, tell it like it is. One of our nation’s political problems IMO is that politicians on the right lie to their supporters, and the media goes along with it for the most part. Some journalists are beginning to seriously hipcheck some of the liars but too many get a free ride. I can provide substantial examples, if you need it.
Anyway, overhearing my thinking about Ms. Richardson’s post, The Neurons began playing Aaron Neville and “Tell It Like It Is” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark burning). A beautiful torch song, it’s a good song when you’re at a fork in the road, looking back on what’s happened while gazing ahead, trying to divine a path forward.
Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue this November. I’ll be doing the same. Now, riding on wings of coffee, I’m off to continue writing and editing.
Our intrepid band of three hundred million plus call Earthlings or Terrans come at last to the day noted as Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Once a date studied by prophets and feared by rulers, the reasons for that have been lost. Only one man knows the truth, but he’s been frozen and forgotten. And so we, the survivors, skip through this day not knowing its significance.
It’s sunny in Ashlandia. The sky’s blueness is marred by some lazy stray clouds hanging above the valley’s high edges, as though spying for an enemy ruler. Current temperature is in the upper 50s F. We’re shimmying toward the upper 60s. This is a fine example of how spring should appear in the middle of the season in Aslandia.
My wife and I have been involved in a jigsaw puzzle. She picked it up at the library of things last Friday. We began working on it that day.
It’s a Ravensburger, which is my favorite. Ravensburger puzzles have solid pieces which fit together well, and vibrant colors. This one is a tableau of a beach house living room looking out over the sea. A small dog rests on his bed in the foreground, looking back at you. His orange toy is on the bed beside him.
A coffee table dominates the center. It sits on a striped rug on a hardwood floor. Sharing its surface top is a tray of food and wine, a long scarf colorful with sea creatures and flowing aquas, purples, oranges, and blues, a gold-rimmed bowl of shells and starfish, and a plate of food. Sea foam green easy chairs and sofa are arranged on either side of the table. Past the table are open sliding doors leading to a deck.
Beyond the deck is the sand and churning waves. Further out are sailing vessels and a coastguard ship. Osprey and gulls wheel through light clouds and blue skies.
I’d love to live in that place. Wish I was there now, listening to the ocean and reading a book. Small stacks of books are on the sofa and the coffee table’s lower shelf.
The puzzle is coming together fast. We are now about 85% finished. Sky and sea remain, along with the birds.
It wasn’t that way yesterday morning. Back then, we had one edge piece missing. The coffee table was almost complete, and the dog and several other areas were completed. I’d say it was thirty percent done.
I was focused on that missing edge piece. My obsessiveness had kicked in. I hadn’t plan to work on that puzzle at the point in the day. It was mid-morning and I had things to do. But I sure wanted to find that missing piece.
Going through the pieces, I began asking deities and fates for help. None came but The Neurons, taking up my issue, began an ABBA song: SOS from 1975 began playing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sinking).
I found an American Bandstand episode with Dick Clark and ABBA on the net. Seeing Bandstand shook up memories like they were in a snow globe. Many teenagers and pre-teens hustled into a television’s presence to see the show in the 1960s. I never became deeply into it, but my older sister surely was. ABBA wasn’t a group I followed. I didn’t aspire to their style. But I respected their talents and their drive to succeed. There they were, doing what they’d set out to do. Congrats to them. I knew about them because AM radio broadcast their music. Then there were the friends who were so into them, too…
By the way, I didn’t find the missing piece and left for the coffee shop. My wife returned from her exercise class and answered the call, finding the missing piece. She’s my hero.
Stay positive, persevere, and Vote Blue this November. Coffee is being actively consumed in parallel to my typing. Hope you have the kind of day you wanted when you awoke this morning. Here’s the music.
A hearty welcome to all the moonies joining us today. Welcome, welcome, to April 8, 2024, also known a Eclipse Day 2024 in the U.S. Here in Oregonia, this is currently projected as the last eclipse we’ll glimpse until 2044, so you know, we’ve dug out our eclipse glasses and gaze up at the sun as the moon made its way.
Weather wise, we have a decently clear sky, sunshine, and wind. Presently 58, it feels like 63 F and the high will be 68 in Ashlandia, where I reside alongside the deer, breweries, wineries, and bookstores. Lovely out there, really.
Just a sidenote, but our bookstore numbers have declined since I’ve moved here. Hey, but not my fault, so don’t read that into my statement. Outside the college’s bookstore, we’re down to *sigh* three.
Also declining is the school district’s enrollment. Enrollment has dropped by 300 students since 2017. A cutback of 23 staff and teachers is in place for the next school year. Reasons cited for the decline include the COVID-19 pandemic, and fewer families moving here because of the high cost of housing. Fewer students means the state is reducing the funds allotted the Ashland School District by over three million dollars next school year.
As you can imagine, today’s eclipse has me hearing music about the eclipse. The Neurons figured out something else. Viewing videos of people staring at the sun, The Neurons initiated “Planet Claire” by the B52’s in the morning mental music stream. The 1979 song has an out-of-this-world bongo-infused sound overlayed onto the “Peter Gunn” theme music. To me, it fully encapsulates the fascination people are expressing with this eclipse.
Whatever else is happening, the house floofs weren’t interested in the eclipses. They found good cozy spots and napped through it.
Stay positive, remain strong, continue leaning forward, and Vote Blue this November. Coffee has been enjoyed; more is on the way.
Here’s the sky-staring music. It’s a fun song. I know, it’s too late for the eclypso, but we were out on a Food and Friends run. Cheers
Another spring day of entangled weather. Descending clouds obscure the western ridges’ face with rain threats. Sunlight powers through in the east and attempts to buck the temperatures up. Wind sometimes gambols like a newborn foal.
Temperatures rose to 50 F from 38 F but have now slipped back to 48 F. 55 F is as how as we expect thermometers to climb around most of Ashlandia.
Today is April 7, 2024.
Papi, my lean, lanky ginger floof, played nine solid innings of Let me in/let me out. Do you know this game? This is when a house floof makes noises to rouse their servants to let them in and out of the house. It’s scored by how many times they can make it happen and how fast it happens.
I think Papi scored a perfect score. There was some swearing involved, as he didn’t even take a seventh inning stretch. Bored, hungry, restless, frustrated, lonely, disappointed in the weather…I think it was all of these things. Started at 5:30 AM and went on past 9:30.
Mom continues recovering from her appendicitis. Late update was that the appendix had ruptured ‘some time ago’. Gangrene had set in. She was lucky, the medical folks declared.
I was surprised. Several years ago, they mentioned she’d perforated her appendix and had gangrene but then backed off and claimed something else. I was always dubious of that shift. As for surviving, ‘survivor’ is one of many words I’d immediately apply to her. ‘Tough’ is another.
Staying with family medical situations, my aunt just had her colon removed. Well, all but an inch, is the claim passed to me. My father’s sister, she and Mom are the same age and have been friends since they were nineteen. They’ve been through a lot together and remain friends even through Mom and Dad divorced back in the early 1960s.
My aunt has been intermittently battling colon cancer for a while. She was declared clean on a January follow-up. But she went back in March because “something didn’t feel right”. At that visit, they declared she had a mass as large as a cat. That description had me visualizing a cat curled up, sleeping in her colon. Like Mom, my aunt is tough, survived the surgery despite a bad heart, and will be discharged, wearing a bag, in a few days.
Texting with sisters, thinking about Mom and my aunt, I wasn’t overly surprised when The Neurons introduced “Those Were the Days” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark setting). I’m remembering the Mary Hopkins version from 1968. I seemed to have heard it a great deal in my youth but I don’t think I’ve heard it in years. It’s amusing that The Neurons pulled it up out of memory.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue. I’m on my second cup of coffee, and the day is moving on, with or without my involvement.
We’re getting started on another Saturday here in Ashlandia on the third rock from the sun.
It’s April 6, 2024. The weather isn’t anything to write about, but I will note it’s rainy and cloudy and sunny again today. Present temp is 46 F. Add six degrees to it, and you have the day’s expected high. There is enough sunshine to energize me and filet depression, anxiety, and frustration off my mood.
In personal news, Mom headed to the hospital for stomach pain yesterday afternoon. Appendicitis was the diagnosis. I called a sis for details. She was accompanying Mom and I was able to briefly speak with her. Sis and Mom were both in good spirits at the hospital. Even though, at that point, Mom was in the hall, cold, awaiting a room, awaiting surgery, over twenty hours removed from eating anything, at almost eight PM.
They operated on her that night. The 88-year-old woman survived without issue. It was related back to me that the medical staff claimed it was “the worse looking appendix they’d ever removed.” Mom seemed proud about that.
Today finds The Neurons plugging “Goodbye to You” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark eclipsed). This song by Scandal and Patty Smyth was released in 1982. It’s a fun, driving rocker. Dance floors filled up when it came on in clubs.
I know exactly why The Neurons summoned it today. My wife was reading the news and addressing her frustration with certain politicians. During her brief diatribe, she mentioned she’d be very happy to see several Republicans gone. She said, she would love to be able to say, “Goodbye and good riddance.”
Click. “Hit it,” The Neurons commanded, and the song began. I think it’s a good song for the day and purpose.
Stay positive, and be romantic, and — whoa, don’t know where that one came from. A slip of the head, I supposed. Be pos and strong, I meant to write, lean forward, and Vote Blue. Got any extra coffee on you? I think I need some.
All things must pass, and so Thursday has passed into Friday, April 5, 2024.
It’s a rainy day. Was a rainy night. Clouds are blockading the sun. That’s April weather in the US, isn’t it? “April showers bring May flowers,” and all that.
Not an American idiom, though, but a British one. I looked it up on the net, so it must be true.
April showers bring May flowers
Adversity is followed by good fortune. An old proverb, it was taken more literally in days gone by, and in fact it appeared in a British book of Weather Lore published in 1893.
So, be optimistic, I tell myself. I hold to hope even though sometimes adversity follows adversity until it’s an absolute train wreck.
It’s 38 F in my slice of Ashlandia. Expected to reach 52 F. Showers are also expected. But sunshine soaks the back yard and soars in through the southern windows. Papi, my ginger house floof, is engaging the sun in the yard. Tucker, the black and white house floof. is luxuriously grooming in sunshine through the eastern living room windows.
After feeding the two floofs earlier, Papi hunted me down in the kitchen. I was preparing my meal. (Floofs eat first. House rule. Not sure who decided…) Papi sat beside me and planted a level gaze on me. “What is it?” I asked. “Are you hungry? Need more to eat?”
Papi responded, “Meow.” I recognized that as, yes. Well, probably yes. It could also mean, no. Or, what? Or, maybe.
Taking it as one of those, I fed him again, since morning pate remained. He ate a thumble’s worth and headed for the back door. I believe I misinterpreted his meow.
We spent last night out with friends. First, food at a Medford restaurant, Tap & Vine. Then we headed to the Craterian Theater to catch a show, “The Simon & Garfunkel Story”. It’s a little story about the American folk rock duo, Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon. The story was interspersed with a cavalcade of their songs over the years.
What a cavalcade. “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “The Sound of Silence”, “The Boxer”, “Homeward Bound”, “I Am A Rock”, “Cecilia”, “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”, “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme”, “A Hazy Shade of Winter”, “Bookends”, “Mrs Robinson”, “Feeling Groovey”. I’m certainly overlooking a few.
Probably not a surprise, but the crowd was a mostly over sixty collection. One companion joked, “Gray hair is required to attend.” There was a significant quantity of gray in the hair among attendees. But Simon & Garfunkel songs peppered our youth. Yet, Mom knew them, too. I remembered her singing “Mrs Robinson” to me when I was trying to ask her some question.
The song that often stays with me is “Richard Cory”. Why not? A 1966 song based on the Edwin Arlington Robinson poem, “Richard Cory”, it’s a tale of envy and jealousy. A man works in a Richard Cory-owned factory. Cory is rich, a man about town, attending the theater, driving fancy cars, having big parties, etc. The worker singing in the song works in the factory, hates his job and despises his poverty. But it’s Richard Cory who ends up killing himself.
Ironic, isn’t it, we mock. The man with everything is the one who takes his life.
Anyway, this is the song which The Neurons planted in the morning mental music stream (Trademark illusive) on this April Friday morning. Hope it brightens your day.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue. I’m into my coffee already, thanks. Used it to wash down a buttered bagel. First course was canteloupe chunks. Fine way to start a Friday. Here’s the music.
Michael Seidel, writer 