Thursday’s Theme Music

Sunshine kicked the day open at 5:36 AM. Birds immediately entered talking and singing mode, testing new sounds. Cats continued as cats do. People variously leaped up to embrace the day, sighed and forced themselves out of bed, or whispered, “Just a little more sleep, please. Just a little more.” Those are a few of the ways the day’s beginning was addressed. It depended.

Planning was already underway to finish the day. Sunset would be at 8:42 PM. Many people find it easier to finish the day than to start it. For those struggling to get it going, caffeine often helps. Many imbibe it in tea or coffee. Some drink sodas. Adding sugar to the start up process enhances it for more than a few. It also can cause problems. People find that they’d consumed caffeine and sugar to get started. Now, at day’s end, they can’t stop.

Between those minutes when sunrise and sunset were declared, the day lurked. Many northern hemisphere areas have discovered that summer has arrived. Ways to beat the heat are conjured, just as ways to beat the cold were manifested back in the cold, dark months.

Today’s music choice is “Let It Rain” by Eric Clapton and Bonnie Bramlett, a song that came out on Clapton’s debut album to begin his solo career in 1972. Motivated by my preferences and needs, I’m thinking, let it rain, to the universe because my area would swallow fresh rain like a thirsty Steelers fan takes down a beer. After a couple days of high heat, we’d sinking into low heat. Highs are dropping from above 100 F or the upper nineties to the upper eighties. Leaves are turning brown and drying out. Hence my call, “Let it rain.”

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as required, and get the vax. Masks are less and less required here. It’s a slow transformation. We’re like critters poking out heads out. Looking around, we tentatively remove masks. Eye others. Are they still wearing their mask? They vaccinated? The air is sniffed. Seems okay. We’ll see. We’ll see.

Here’s the music. Please enjoy. Cheers.

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Sun broke in the day at 5:37 AM, kicking the heat up to 71 degrees F. We hit 101 at my house yesterday, and it only dropped to 64 during the night. We expect the high to be a more merciful 96 before the Earth’s rotation moves us away from the sun again at 8:41 PM.

Today is Wednesday, June 2, 2021. We’re almost to the year’s midpoint. As for COVID-19 vaccinations, we’ve passed 54 percent in Oregon for at least one shot. Our neighbors to the north and south, Washington and California, are about the same. Idaho to the east, though, is leveling off at below forty percent. It’s like they’re not even trying.

Today’s music is dream inspired. I joined the blues society in my dream. I thought one of my favorite performances of a song called “Why I Sing the Blues” would be a satisfying theme song. Thanks to technology, we can enjoy this moment. Here’s B.B King, Albert King, Gladys Knight, Etta James, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Billy Ocean, Doctor John, Chaka Khan…and more. What a line-up.

Get the vax, wear a mask as needed, test negative, and stay positive. Enjoy the blues. Cheers

Tuesday’s Theme Music

At 5:38 AM, a bluebird dove onto the patio and shouted, “Sunup! Sunup! Time to get your butt up!”

A nearby cat gave his whiskers a wash. “Think I’ll sleep the day away, getting up at 2040 to start my play.”

With temperatures expected to pierce 100 degrees F, the cat has the right idea on this Tuesday, June 1, 2021. I’ll continue with my room painting inside the house (yeah, can’t do that outside the house, now can I?) and avoid the outdoors until it’s cooler, say, six PM. Then I’ll head for the hills for a walk.

My wife and I were complaining about how much laundry we generate as we folded yet another load. “We could go nude,” she suggested.

“Last time I did that, I caused a general uproar,” I replied, garnering an eye roll.

I continued painting the great room yesterday, cutting in along the ceiling (didn’t do a good job, I must say), windows, fireplace, outlets…the list goes on. Music in my head played. I was stuck on one song. You’d think, end of May, beginning of June, unofficial start of summer, etc, would influence my brain’s choice. And you would be incorrect.

No, my brain began singing a 1975 Grand Funk song, “Bad Time”.

I'm in love with the girl that I'm talking about
I'm in love with the girl I can't live without
I'm in love but I sure picked a bad time
To be in love
To be in love

Well, let her be somebody else's queen
I don't want to know about it
There's too many others that know what I mean
And that's why I got to live without it

I'm in love with the girl I'm talking about
I'm in love with the girl I can't live without
I'm in love but I feel like I'm wearin' it out
I'm in love but I must have picked a bad time to be in love
A bad time to be in love
A bad time to be in love
A bad time to be in love

h/t to Lyrics.com

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, get the vax. Cheers

Monday’s Theme Music

Sitting on the cusp of June, watching the Earth’s rotations roll on. Today is May 31, 2021, a Monday. It’s Memorial Day in the U.S., making this a classic Memorial Day Monday. Now just add a mocha…

Sunshine’s streaming slipped silently in at 0538. I was there to see it, having arisen to tend the bladder’s call. Mountains and trees hide the sun’s early efforts in my house so there was naught to see but the growing emergence of a blue summery sky. Yes, it’s not summer that, but try telling the weather. We’ll be dry and in the nineties today in Ashland. The Earth’s rotation will take the sun away at 2040 or thereabouts. I can see that pretty clearly from the house’s front.

I’d forgotten about the hummingbird episode of the day before yesterday. Out walking toward sunset, I’d gone up the street a few hundred feet in elevation. Turning from one road to another to go up more affording great views of the valley’s northern side. No matter the season, I engage in slowing down to turn and consider the rolling hills and short peaks. Sunshine lingers on that side. They get more snow in winter. Spring greens are rich and lavish. Sunset brings whatever is there into sharper relief.

While doing my contemplating, a green hummingbird darted down and hovered in front of my face. Edging left, right, vertically dancing, the little black-beak friend seemed to be scanning me. This habit of theirs always entertain me. I speak to them with my mind, saying hello and such. This one stayed for about ten seconds before climbing and turning, losing itself behind a veil of leaves. Hummingbird visits are fortifying. I continued on my way a bit happier.

Memorial Day offers a rich memory lode. Mom enjoyed holidays and made the most of these to create memorable family get togethers. In good years, we headed to a state beach, going early to get good parking and good spots. Food was prepared ahead. Think fried chicken, potato salad. Then there was grilling burgers and wieners, lavishing them with condiments. Make mine a cheeseburger, please, with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, ketchup, and mustard. Dessert — we’re talking pies or cakes here, but often also had watermelon — followed. Augmenting these courses were chips, pretzels, and cookies. None of us were fat, though. Besides all that, we played sports like volleyball or badminton, and went swimming. Time was also spent walking around, enjoying the natural environs.

My wife’s family had a different take. Their Memorial Day was Decoration Day, a time to load up in the car and go visit the family cemeteries, say hello to deceased members, put flowers on graves, and remember those folk. Socializing with other family who lived nearby followed. Then, back home.

For our holiday in 2021, I’m painting more of our house’s interior. We’re far from family. Most of her nucleus has passed away. All of our relatives live thousands of miles from us. It’s a low key celebration and reflection for us.

All this memorifying has me nostalgic for old rock. Enter Jefferson Airplane with their 1967 song, “Somebody to Love”. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when asked, and get that vax. Cheers

Sunday’s Theme Music

After peeking in through windows at 5:38 AM in Ashland with shy pale goldens, the sun boldly shouldered in, shouting, “We got your sunshine. We got your daylight.” Such a bold sun plans to put out browning, sweat-inducing heat, don’t you know. Temperatures will hunt the lower nineties before the sun, still in its place, disappears from the valley at 20:39.

Got the darkness trying to throttle me. It’s a debilitating but brief trough experienced when I ponder what’s the use of all this nonsense? I was walking as it struck, like a bolt into my soul, just before sunset last night. Because a wildfire is being fought and people evacuated, I was thinking about wildfires and water shortages. Many new homes are being built in Ashland. Development is the daily cry as the trucks lumber in with supplies and workers busy with foundations and walls. We were already being told to conserve water. Now there is less water to be divided among more households.

Dev is good but with that shrinking water base, we also have an expanding wildfire season. Before COVID-19 shut down activities, wildfire smoke did the same, cratering the local economy becoming an annual thing. The first time it happened, businesses dismissed it as a one off. Second time, some pulled the plug. Third time, dark mutterings about what are we going to do were heard.

City council lacks the leadership to move out of this mess. Frankly, the mess is bigger than them. Is it climate change? By the time sufficient data is collected, we probably won’t be around to know. Meanwhile, the new houses being built are closer together as land becomes a precious commodity. Streets are narrower. Traffic density rises. Did I mention that a two-lane state highway longitudinally bisects the town? Only one way in and out, not a reassuring realization for planning evacuations. Every street feeds into it.

With the darkness and these bleak realizations colliding, on came an old song by the Smiths. Here are the lines.

This town has dragged you down
And everybody’s got to live their life
And God knows I’ve got to live mine
God knows I’ve got to live mine

h/t to Genius.com

The 1984 song is called, “William, It Was Really Nothing”. Yes, it’s really nothing; just a little darkness nibbling the psyche. Stay positive (you know, like me!), test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

As expected, Sol arrived at the expected time, 5:39 AM on this Saturday, May 29, 2021. Good ol’ Sol. So dependable. Like clockwork. Which means, given his predictability, he’ll depart the Ashland area about 8:38 PM, as the world turns.

Meanwhile, the clouds have done a runner, leaving Sol to throw down some heat. Highs almost touching ninety are expected, prelude to next week, when we’ll start playing with 100 degrees F.

Drinking water this morning, I happened to be looking at a wine bottle. This juxtaposition fed the 1968 Canned Heat mellow song, “Going Up the Country”, into my thinking spectrum. That’s due to the lines, “I’m goin’, I’m goin’ where the water tastes like wine. I’m goin’ where the water tastes like wine. We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time.” Calling to Alexa to play it, she did, like a good little machine, feeding my net history with another piece of information.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax when you can. Have some coffee. Doesn’t taste like wine but it sure do taste fine.

Friday’s Theme Music

The welcoming committee began tentative sounds a few minutes after five thirty this morning. 5:39 AM came, and with it, the sun’s first official appearance of May 28, 2021, in Ashland. Clouds departed. Cool mountain air muted the sun’s efforts, but warmth of around seventy-eight degrees F is anticipated before the closing ceremony begins, ushering the sun away at 8:37 PM.

Today finds me hooked on a 1968 anti-war song, “Sky Pilot”, by Eric Burdon and the Animals. Out walking, I heard a small airplane passing overhead. Studying it brought “Sky Pilot” to mind. This is pretty ironic; “Sky Pilot” isn’t about aircraft. It was that chorus that ricocheted through me: “You can never, never, never, reach the sky.”

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as required, and get the vax. Speaking of the mask, the whole approach has unraveled around here since the CDC made their new mask policy announcement a few weeks back. Witnesses attest to people entering stores with a mask on, per the stores’ signs and policies, and then promptly removing them. Pretty undermines the spirit and intent, doesn’t it? Store managers report they’ve been directed by their corporate law offices to pretty much leave it alone.

Here’s the music. Cheers

Thursday’s Theme Music

As the Earth turned, the majestic local star, Sol, rose over the Cascades, striking Ashland in the valley at about 5:40 AM on Thursday, May 27. 2021. As part of the celestial dance, the Earth’s rotation will make it appear that the sun is moving across Earth, disappearing from Ashland’s view around 8:36 PM, give or take some seconds. Night will then rule again. Meanwhile, daunting clouds have collected, plotting against blue sky and sunshine, muttering, “Rain, rain…”

Speaking of night, the 1978 Cars song, “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”, arrived into my interior sound system last night. I was out checking on the moon, ensuring it’d shown up and looked okay. I’m a moon child, see? It being my ruler, I had a little amygdala hijacking that caused a spasm of worry, OMG, what if the moon isn’t there? But it was there, in my sky, a formidable silvery disc ruling the stars.

Anyway, here’s the music. Stay pos, test neg, wear a mask as required, and get the vax, you know, like they’re doing in Vermont. Seventy percent have gotten at least one of the shots there, leading the United States. WTG, Vermont! Keep on truckin’…

Cheers

Wednesday’s Theme Music

At 5:41 AM, Sol glided over the hills toward Ashland nestled in the valley below. Darkness fled ahead of her. Such a coward, always fleeing light. Breathing out, she spread warmth across the valley. Birds tested notes. People clambered out of beds, out of houses, into cars, buses, trucks. Cats and dogs looked up at Sol, yawning and stretching, back legs, front legs, done.

Sol was pleased. She checked the time. She was due to stay until 8:36 PM, almost fifteen hours. Spring and summer were always so generous in their allowances to her. On a whim, she began singing “Light My Fire”, a song made popular by The Doors in 1966. Always up for a song, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and John Lennon joined her. Michael Jackson and Prince came by, putting in their twists to the song, followed by David Bowie, George Harrison, and finally Jim Morrison, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Jimi Hendrix. Soon came other musicians and singers, adding to the sound and light.

A warm, pleasant day was in store for the area.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask if needed, and get the vax. Cheers

Tuesday’s Theme Music

5:41 AM.

Darkness heard Sol coming. He slithered a few steps back, moving carefully. Sol could be warm…when she wanted. But she was always dangerous. Darkness could be, too, but not as dangerous as Sol. Best info about Sol was her predictability. Judging by the time of year, she’d be leaving about 8:36 PM. Darkness would lay low until then.

Darkness considered his plans. Just May. May 25, 2021. Plenty of time yet to do what’s needed. Darkness’s greatest strength was patience. Nobody was as patient as Darkness.

He’d wait. Come back after Sol left, for whatever she did wherever she went. Darkness never knew.

Mind hating a vacuum, he began humming a tune. Identification came a few beats later: “A Shot in the Dark”, covered by Ozzy Osbourne. 1986.

Continuing to move away from Sol, Darkness told himself, “Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Get the vax.” That was part of the plan. Once he mastered that, he would move to the next phase.

That made him smile.

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