Scheckter

Mood: Mundacity

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 Blue sky speckled with withdrawn clouds rule the view.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

Mood: Montastic

Spring has set up here in the Rogue Valley, home to Ashlandia, where professionals from California come to rest. Mountain snow remains on the mountains in places but blossoms, blue skies, and sunshine seem to have settled in. 69 F and sunny now, we’re climbing fast toward today’s 76-degree F high.

Now this warm weather does bring worry, worry that winter didn’t gift us enough, worry that March is too warm too fast, worry that summer will be stratospheric hot. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, it’ll be a moderate summer and give us a respite for recovery from the last several years.

The cats are happy as cats in sunshine, although Papi has become ridiculously restless. Out to in, in to out he goes, what he’s searching for, nobody knows. Methinks he’s hunting for some fun.

I realized from a photo that he’s been with us at least eight years now. Scheckter, one of my original Orange Boyz, passed away in 2013 (cancer) at too young an age after being with us only twelve years. Papi remarkably resembles Scheckter. Seeing Papi on the fence before he joined our household always surprised me because he was such a mini-me Scheckter.

That’s only in markings. Papi is about eight pounds less than Scheckter. Scheckter and his mate, Pogo, were large, muscular cats. Scheckter came in at 19-21 pounds while Pogo bested him with two more pounds.

News reports in the US are cycling around DJ Trump and his latest inflammatory rhetoric. Does he mean it when he declares ‘some people aren’t human. What does he mean people ask when he talks about bloodbaths if he loses.

The headline for David Smith’s article in The Guardian posits that Trump’s 2024 political campaign is about vengeance. ‘A campaign for vengeance’: critics warn of a radical second Trump term.

Smith writes, ‘Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.’

For some reason, this is what former POTUS Trump thinks is what will fix the United States. He believes this is what Americans want and what the world needs. I believe he’s wrong. The majority of economists believe his various tariffs had negative effects on the US economy or did nothing. Few believe the tariffs did any good.

As for detention camps, mass deportations, and capital punishment for drug smugglers, such draconian measures belong to a less civilized era, one in which violence and brute force were employed to achieve national objectives. Although we’re waaayyy too armed as a nation, mostly because of the Military-Industrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a Republican — warned us about in 1961.

It’s depressing that some will follow Trump and pursue these warn out ancient ideas as modern solutions. I don’t believe the majority do. I just hope the majority votes and ensures these ideas don’t become our new national policies.

Shifting from politics to music, The Neurons have “In Bloom” by Nirvana in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). “In Bloom” came out in 1992. It’s come to mind for me today because of that chorus, “He’s the one who likes all the pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, but he knows not what it means.”

I think it applies today because of DJ Trump. He says many things. But he really doesn’t understand what they mean or how incongruous they seem. He tries to spin other meanings, making shit up. And that becomes the new truth for the followers in his cult. They, and Trump’s compliant Republican supporters and right-wing press, spin and insist, “That’s not what he means.”

Outside of the cult, outside of the right-wing media bubble, and outside of the empty GOP, the rest of us understand what he means. We understand the implicit violence of his promises and declarations. We see through his garbage and recognize that he doesn’t give a shit about the United States or the U.S. Constitution and its ideals. This is all about him and his vengeance quest.

Okay, back off my box. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. I’m indulging in another serving of coffee. Here’s the music. Cheers