Tag: sprummer

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Springtied

Spring has hardened its grip on its final days in Ashlandia, pulling us back out of sprummer. Cloudy, chilly, blustery, partly sunny, it’s a ‘y’ day. Temperature is hanging onto 60 F now, up from the low in the 40s. In fact, the heat came on this morning because the house’s inside temperature dropped to around 66. The horror of it all. Today’s high is expected to squeeze close to 67 F.

No matter, the cats have found outside places to chill. Tucker is under the bush off the patio right beside the front door. Papi is on the other side of the yard, under the bushes by the wooden fence. With these positions, they have the entire yard covered. These two positions have been coveted and held by cats since we first moved here in 2006.

Our Father’s Day plans don’t include fathers. I’m still waiting for an update on Dad. I spoke to his wife yesterday. He was in good spirits in the hospital and the fluid around his heart was being removed. She said she’d have him call me when the chance came. My wife’s father passed away back in 1991, just after he retired, right after he turned 65.

But we have this monthly thing with friends. Social people, about my parents’ ages, they’ve become housebound with health issues so once a month, we go to dinner at their house. Food is provided by a local restaurant. We take turns paying. Sometimes we watch sumpthin’ on TV; once in a while we work on a jigsaw puzzle. More often, we just chat and visit. We missed the engagement in May as I was in Pittsburgh (well, Penn Hills) visiting Mom and family.

I have the Rolling Stones singing “The Last Time” from 1965 in my morning mental music stream (Trademark fused). The Neurons didn’t reveal a reason for the song but I’d guess it has something to do with Dad being in the hospital.

Be strong, stay positive, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee is making its way through my system, and here is the music video. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: smooottthhh

Sprummer still thrives in Ashlandia in southern Oregon. Clouds have departed again, leaving our June 12, 2024, coated with blue. Temperatures sitting a 65 F, they’re getting ready to stand and take us into the low to mid 80s. Windows are open and a winterish zephyr is snaking through our Wednesday, depositing chill pockets. It’s fresh, invigorating, and pleasant.

I’m hanging about the house with a bum ankle. RICE is the recipe – rest, ice, compress, and elevate — so I’m nixing my coffee shop routine. Writing at home as much as possible around interruptions. No beer with friends tonight, either.

I enjoy music and read several posts each day where they incorporate music. ‘Classic rock’ tops my list but I enjoy other sounds beyond that. I’m always surprised by how often people will say that a song isn’t to their liking.

Then I get reflective about what I mean about that. Many songs exist that I enjoyed at one point which know doesn’t work for me. Part of that I suppose is because my tastes have changed, or it could be that at some point I was overexposed to the song and became sick of it. “My Sharona” is one of these songs which now make me change the station. Several other syrupy songs are on my perpetual do-not-play-change-channel-list, like “Sugar Sugar.” Woof. But the whole process led me down a road where I wondered, am I just not discriminating about music?

Today’s song was called up by The Neurons because I was waiting for several phone calls. I’d earlier decided to slow down and take it easy, encouraging The Neurons to plug up the morning mental music stream (Trademark lazing) with everything from Frank Sinatra (“Nice & Easy Does It”) to The Eagles (“Taking It Easy”), Foreigner (“Walking Slow”), and “Slow Ride” (Foghat). But then, checking the time and wondering about the calls had The Neurons bring Blondie and “Call Me” from 1982 storming in. So that’s le music du jour.

Looking for a video to share, I found Deborah Harry performing with an orchestra at something called “Night of the Proms” (Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1997). It was fun and energetic performance. Hope you find it as fascinating as moi.

Meanwhile, looking up “Night of the Proms”, I discovered holy smoke, this is a pretty big, serious dealio in Europe. It even happens here in the U.S. Color me embarassed by my ignorance. After that, I watched a half dozen more “Night of the Proms” videos.

Stay positive and test negative (COVID is rising again) and Vote Bleu in 2024. Coffee has been swallowed, calls have been received. Time to make like a banana and slip away. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: ouchy

Sprummer continues its Ashlandia rule, with signs of summer leaking in. Already 72 F and intensely sunny, clouds have shifted in, and our high will crest at 87 F. Meanwhile, cooler temps are petering in, according to forecasts, with highs dropping into the upper seventies.

I injured my right ankle again last night. Just stepped up onto the door’s threshold and that thing went snap crack and I was down and in pain. A night of RICE helped and I can hobble today but I need to follow up with ortho and pursue the answer to the question, what the heck?

The cats’ responses to my injury and condition was amusing and interesting. When I sang my song of pain and flopped down, Papi reacted, “Run away!” Tucker came over and rubbed his head against mine and purred.

Later, when my wife had set me up with my RICE package, Papi wanted out. Now, he normally pays little attention to my wife. This time, he came in, walked past me, and appealed to her to let him out.

Meanwhile, Tucker was yelling for food in the night’s depths. This was despite his bowl full of kibble. I shouted back that I was in pain and couldn’t help him so please have some empathy and shut the fuck up. Well, he was immediately quiet, and then came to me on the bed, settled himself against me and purred.

I owe Marjorie Taylor Greene for today’s music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark drifing). In an interview with convicted liar Paul Bannon (cough, cough) about Greene’s stand on defunding NATO, MTG accused Rachel Maddow of being the fringe. She of the wildfire-causing space lasers said, “It’s not fringe at all. It’s also not fringe because most Americans also agree that the United States should not be funding a war in Ukraine.”

“So when we’re going to talk about the question, we’re going to ask the question, who is fringe?” she added. “It’s actually Rachel Maddow is the fringe person in this story. It’s not me. It’s Rachel Maddow.”

Guess that makes me fringe, as I support NATO. See, I remember why NATO was created in WWII’s aftermath. And I support Ukraine in the face of Russia’s wars and attempts to forcibly rebuild the USSR.

Anyway, as I laughed at MTG, The Neurons pulled up Bob Dylan’s song, “It Ain’t Me Babe”. There are several versons but I went with Dylan’s original. I just like its simplicity.

Stay positive, remain strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music. See you on the other side of midnight. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: spacey

The numbers are in for today, Sunday, June 9 2024. 55, 65, 83, our low, current, and expected high for Ashlandia, all in F. The numbers show that our sprummer run remains intact.

My cats are doing well. Still lovin’ sprummer. Tucker has been reborn. But that encourages him to think he’s a young ‘un. Now he wants to spend all his time outdoors. “No,” I tell him. “You’re an elderly housefloof. You’re better off indoors.”

“YOOOWWWLLLL!” he shouts back. “YOOOWWWLLLL. MeeeOWWWLLLL.” He’ll do this until my wife or I leap up and open the door, telling Tucker, “Fine, go get eaten by a cougar but don’t complain to us when it happens. We tried to tell you but you won’t listen.”

Tucker usuallly replies with a haughty, “Murpf.” Everyone owned by a cat knows what murpf means.

It’s National Donald Duck Day FYI. I’m not celebrating it, myself. I’m sure it’s a big deal to someone on this world.

No, I’m celebrating Space Appreciation Day. This is not the same as National Space Day, celebrated in May. Space Appreciation Day is not about the region beyond Earth’s atmosphere or all that ‘out there’ in the dark, starry night.

Space Appreciation Day is about private space. Leg room and elbow room during air travel or in movie theaters. Or room in bed to turn over without leaving the mattress. That’s what Space Appreciation Day, often shortened to SAD, is all about.

Take, for example, writing at the coffee shop. SAD comes into its own there. I don’t want to hear others’ phone calls. First, I’m usually only hearing one side of it, forcing me to provide the other end. Like:

“It’s scheduled for tomorrow afternoon,” I hear in the coffee shop. Which I fill in to mean, the contract killer is making the hit.

Nor do I want to be a close party to others’ sneezes. Likewise, I don’t want to share my sneezes with others because I see the accusing, wary looks they use afterward. (“What does THAT guy have? He looks like he migh be dying. Maybe I should leave or mask up.”) Ideally, I’ll have a radius of twelve feet between me and anyone else in the coffee shop. And that’s what I pray for when I dance and make sacrifices to the Gods of Space on SAD.

The Neurons wanted to play along but when I thought about space and the distance between me and other objects, they came back with the realm outside of planets’ atmospheres. So I ended up with Muse singing “Starlight” from 2006 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark out there).

Be strong and positive, and enjoy your SAD, however you decide to celebrate it. Vote Blue 2024. I’ve begun the coffee ingestion process, and we have lift off. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sumflective

Good morning, internetters. Welcome to June’s Second Saturday, June 8, 2024. If you’re like us, we celebrate Second Saturday in June. Holiday or not, we start with feeding the cats because the little dears will pester us into surrender. Yes, they have ‘just in case’ kibble in bowls and nevermind that they didn’t eat all of the previous tinned food in bowls. The tinned food bowls are cleaned and fresh stuff is spooned in for their dining pleasure.

Once we’ve taken care of the floofs, the real festivities begin. We start with coffee. While that’s soaking my system, I make my breakfast because my wife doesn’t eat breakfast for several more hours. Next, I dress. Sometimes a load of washing clothes is started for Second Saturday. The floor was vacuumed for First Friday, so no need for that today. We just go around picking up leaves and sticks floofs carried in for us, along with food they somehow transported around the house from their eating areas, along with fur and hair they’ve dropped along the way. Next, our family traditionally gets on the computer to get a Second Saturday news update, you know, see who died, who has gone to war, who has been convicted, and what new natural disasters have struck. Then we’re free to celebrate Second Saturday by washing the car and running errands. It’s a joyous day.

This Second Saturday is also the Green Bag pickup, so our bag full of supplies for the local food bank is on the porch, awaiting pickup by volunteers who transport it to the sorting and distribution center.

Our sprummery weather continues. It’s 67 F now, up from our 56 F starting point but eighteen degrees below our expected high in Ashlandia, where the creeks and rivers are flowing and full — for the moment. Sunlight is missing kissing some clouds rear end, but a friendly cool breeze is circulating, placating the likes of me. I enjoy a cool sunny morning so long as it’s not too cool. This day is just right.

I have two net friends who had floofs pass away yesterday. Thinking about their losses after expressing something toward to them, a song from 1993 filled the morning mental music stream (Trademark upended). Sarah McLachlan wrote “Possession” in response love letters from her fans. I think The Neurons pulled it out of memory more for the song’s reflective sound about yearning, love, and hope.

Stay positive, remain strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Summer is coming. Well, in the northern hemes. South of zero, winter is coming.

Here’s the music. Coffee is being sucked up. Enjoy your Second Saturday. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: sprummery

“You make me feel so young,” I told the day. “You make me feel like summer has come.”

Yes, it’s sprummer in Ashlandia, where the crows’ conversations dominate the morning’s sounds. Today is Jun 6, 2024. School is out. Light clouds sketch patterns over the blue sky but mild haze mars our western view. Dust, pollen, fire somewhere? Don’t know yet.

Our temperature currently resides at 70 F. That’s a temporary stop, up sixteen from when the cats forced me out of bed. 88 F is our forecasted high.

In surprise news, Mom is receiving her hospital bed back in Penn Hills. Last that I knew, back on Monday, more paperwork of an unexplained nature was needed. Now, bang, the bed is being delivered today.

The news set up falling dominos of actions and reactions. Mom immediately called daughters to come over with their hubbies to dissemble and move the old bed. Sisters et al responded, “We can’t now. We’re at work, we’re at appointments, we have commitments,” which dismayed Mom. She needed and expected everyone to immediately come to her aid, and adulting prevented that from happening. Stress, irritation, frustration, anger, and resentment all gyrated upward. Mom felt abandoned, and her daughters felt unreasonably burdened. It’s worse because it’s all part of a recurring cycle of ‘come help me now’ and ‘I can’t, I’m busy’.

Viewed from a distance, out of that, The Neurons initiated “King of Pain” by The Police in my morning mental music stream (Trademark changing). The 1983 song elaborates on the many small, overlooked matters that causes an observer to feel pain for the others and their situation, feeling this in his soul. That pain translates to rain, and then they express hope that another would end the rain, which would end their pain. I’m certain that it’s this circle and unfulfilled hope which attracted Les Neurons to this song today.

Be strong, stay positive, and Vote Blue in 2024. Also, enjoy, however you can, and try to make something of it. Coffee is doing its thing; time to go do mine. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today is June 10, 2023, a Saturday in this reality. Blame Pope Gregory XIII and the Gregorian calendar for that one. Although, since he’s just behind a mod for leap years and based his calendar on the Julian calendar, you can extend blame to Julius Ceasar. Of course, the seven-day week can be traced to the Babylonians even further back but diēs Sāturnī comes back to the Romans, although the Germans take some blame for popularizing and standardizing the name. Really, let’s just throw it on all the ancients and go from there.

We’re into summing, the season that follows sprimmer just before summer. Whereas sprummer is primarily springish with summery accents, sprimmer is summery with springish accents. It’s a subtle thing, a difference in blowing winds, overall temperatures, and expectations. 67 F and sunny now, with long, hazy white clouds drifting like a navy armada across the sky, Ashlandia is expecting a high somewhere in the low 80s today, with no rain or thunderstorms being mentioned in anyone’s forecast.

Oh, but the housefloofs, Papi and Tucker, are delighted with sprimmer. Both leave via the pet door at night, coming and going a bit until Tucker plants himself in front of said door and sleeps. That curtails Papi’s activity until he goads me awake with repeated beating on the slider’s screen door. Oh, that Tucker. That passive-aggressive Tucker.

When they’re out in the day, they’re asleep. I enjoy checking on them in their secret locations. Tucker haunts the front porch almost exclusively. He moves around according to temperatures and sunshine. He’ll often be found half in sun, half in shadow. Papi moves around. One favorite spot is on the house’s side under the dining room’s bay window, among the vinca, but morning finds him under the hawthorn in the back, below the center living room window. Other times of day, he’ll relocate to the front porch or the bushes under the office window.

Today’s music is “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult, 1976. I quite enjoy the song, with its layering of guitars and vocals and the intriguing lyrics and the story being told. But The Neurons planted it into today’s morning mental music stream because in a dream last night, I told another person, “Don’t fear the reaper.” Unlike several other dreams, that’s almost all which is recalled from that dream, but it was an astonishing moment.

Stay pos and enjoy your diēs Sāturnī . I think I’ll start with a beverage. Coffee, perhaps. Yes, coffee. Okay, ready. One, two, three, go. Here’s the music. Cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF7mP2LASCo
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Sunday’s Theme Music

The season dial switched back to spring from sprummer today. No blue sky. Only gray clouds lining the top of our existence box. Ashlandia is quiet, pensive, waiting for sumpin’ to break.

It’s May 21, Sunday, 2023. 64F out there. Feels like we’re sprinting for June. Like May all the sudden needs to get to a bathroom for some urgent business.

Today’s high will be a mere 75F. It’s a mere month until summer solstice lands in Earth’s northern hemi.

My stomach isn’t pleased this morning. It’s been elected to speak for the rest of the body, who are trying to organize and push forward an initiative to laze around today. Coffee has been ordered for all of them but the results from the first sips aren’t reassuring. Brain is still waking up and has no clue what’s going on. Eyes keep muttering, “Just another minute” and work on closing.

Witnessed a fierce mouse attack this AM. The mouse was being attacked. Toy critter. Papi, bored, was leading me through the house. I found one of his favorite mice toys in the designated cat toy drawer. Fifteen toy mice in there in different stages of destruction. His favorite is gray, filled with catnip, with a blue tail. I tossed it with perfect timing, bouncing it off a sofa cushion into his path. Well, it was on. Poor toy mouse kept trying to escape Papi’s murder mittens, diving under the coffee table (which rarely sees any coffee and is never given any) only to be dragged back out and thrown into the air. This lasted almost an entire minute before the exhausted floof stilled, paw on mouse, declaring, “Truce.”

Going to a by-invitation-only pre-concert this afternoon to meet the orchestra and get informed about how the magic of a concert is accomplished. We’re mystified about why we were selected but the wife was thrilled. I reminded her to be sure to take some heavy cash and the checkbook.

Today’s theme music is a pop/rock/soul ditty called “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today)”. Put out by the Temptations in 1970, the lyrics against a firm, driving beat, still merits hearing.

People movin’ out, people movin’ in
Why? Because of the color of their skin
Run, run, run, but you sure can’t hide
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Vote for me and I’ll set you free
Rap on, brother, rap on
Well, the only person talkin’ ’bout “Love thy brother”
Is the preacher
And it seems nobody’s interested in learnin’
But the teacher

[Pre-Chorus: Dennis]
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation

[Chorus]
Ball of confusion
Oh, yeah
That’s what the world is today

The sale of pills are at an all-time high
Young folks walkin’ ’round with their heads in the sky
Cities aflame in the summertime
And oh, the beat goes on
Evolution, revolution, gun control, the sound of soul
Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growin’ up too soon
Politicians say more taxes will solve everything
And the band played on

h/t to Genius.com

Well, that’s it for me. Stay pos, enjoy the day as best you can, carpe something. Here’s the music. More coffee, quick.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Ashlandia’s sprummer continues. Yesterday’s report can be recycled for today’s status — 64 F now, heading for the mid 80s, sunshine, blue sky, maybe thunderstorms will visit later.

Tucker, my wonderfloof, cracked me up in bed this morning. I was dozing, going through the dreams, when he joined me. After he prodded my hand, I shifted my position and petted him. I was on my side. He reached out and tapped my unengaged left arm. I moved it. He tapped, I moved, again, again, until I brought my arm down by him. Then he laid his head down on it. What a character.

Also on the cat front, 11:30 PM hits. My wife has retired and I haven’t seen the cats for a while. I open the front door to let in some cool air and the cats. Both cats and the air duly enter. Feels so good, I also open the back door to maximize the cool air’s access to our warm house — about 78 F inside. Then I go about doing some tidying, brush my teeth, so on.

I come out of the bath to find Tucker by his food pool, turned, looking at the slider. The screen is closed but the door is open. He just sitting there, looking. I go over, glance out. Nothing. But Tucker is freaking me out. I’m going all Suzanne inside, worrying about cougars, bears, people sneaking around the back yard.

I decide to go close the other door. As I do, I find Papi sitting in the living room, fifteen feet from the open door, watching it. Now I’m really troubled. Picking up the flashlight, I turn on the back lights, and turn the flashlight on. I step out, closing the door behind me, and listened. That’s when I saw it. Nothing. No critters or people. I went along the sides of the house. Zilch. Listened. Nada. WTH?

I go back inside. Papi is where he was. I close the door. Tail down and curled up between his legs, he skulks closer toward it, leaning forward with his nose, stopping when he’s five feet away. Then he backs up and sits. Still freaked, I close the front door.

Don’t know what was going on in the cats’ heads. Maybe they were just screwing with me. I think floofs like to do that to people.

Today’s music emerges from the cat incident and The Neurons thinking about mind games and mind control. They emerged with Steely Dan’s 1980 song, “Time Out of Mind”. Mark Knopfler does guitar work on this and weaves interesting notes around the main threads. I had a metallic brown Pontiac Firebird. Bought brand new just a few months before. Living in San Antonio, TX, assigned to Randolph AFB. I remember playing this album on the car’s tape deck as my cousins and I headed for Austin. Both of those cousins have passed away so I’m happy to play this memory.

Stay pos. Take over Saturday like you’re the dragon, master/mistress — whatever works for your pronoun — of the realm. The coffee drinking has commenced. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Spring is flirting with summer. It’s 60 now, but isn’t expected to be as warm as yesterday’s 83 F. Temperatures this week will be dropping. Rain is expected this week. It’s the last day of April, 2023 – 4/30/23 – and Sunday. Sunrise was between letting Papi out and letting him back in, sometime around six AM. Sunrise will come later, when it starts getting dark. Days like these are known as sprummer.

Fire south of us near Merlin, Oregon, in Hog Creek County Park, keeps the air from being fresh and clear. I was looking forward to the windows delivering cool healthy night air. Smoke from the fire kept that from us. Don’t know what caused the fire. News is delivered in drops, skating among titillating tidbits to keep us watching. “A race from another planet landed in the downtown area. But first, do you know what bees and spiders have in common? These stories and more, along with weather and local sports, after the commercial break.” By then, I’m long gone.

The news isn’t local, BTW, except in the sense that we’re part of southern Oregon, adjacent to northern California, an hour or two from the coast, a few hours from the capitol. That’s the stretch of our local news. Our local paper is gone; so is the larger one that served the area described. Our local coverage is due to be more truncated soon with the Sinclair Broadcasting affiliate being cut to one local news staffer. News from the nation and region will instead be delivered, unless that one person comes up with something big. See, we don’t have enough nation and region; the cable news channels can’t do it, no. Nor can all the websites and national newspapers. No, there must be another.

I later learned after the news posturing ended, the cause of the Hog Creek area fire is under investigation.

We still lack net at home. In our semi-smart home, this means we also lack all but basic over-the-air television, and our home phone line is down. So is our weather source, Alexa. We mock her but we depend upon her.  I’m at the coffee shop now, gone there early to surf before writing.

In many ways, being netless is like the good old days. What shall we do to occupy ourselves, we ask after cleaning. Clean more is suggested. Snide remarks and laughter come back. Read except, I’m short of reading material on hand. Guess I’ll hit the library today. I’ll also cut more grass, pull more weeds, trim more bushes, etc. Meanwhile, the situation caused The Neurons to dump The Stokes and “Someday” into the morning mental music stream.

It makes sense for once. We talk about the good ol’ days but they vary by age group. Saturday morning cartoons and breakfast cereal for one generation was going to the market in the wagon for another, driving to church for others, or fasting and praying. The good ol’ days are solid as slushy ice.

Been drinking my coffee. Time to punch on. Stay pos whatever happens to you, as best you can, if you can. I know, sometimes we just sink and there’s nothing we can do to stop ourselves.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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