Thirstda, July 17, 2025, slid into Ashlandia with a fresh load of heat. And here we were, still dealing with the heat we already had. We’re in the yellow for air quality, a mind surprise if you look at the air’s discoloration. 87 F now, 1 PM, it’s hit 99 F before the heat subsides. Same ol’ story for the last several days.
Yes, we did early morning shopping runs so I’m into writing late. For reasons which The Neurons keep closehold, they have Van Halen playing “Finish What Ya Started” from 1988 and OU812 in the morning mental music stream. It could be very any number of recent news stories. One that particularly jumps out is the morphing Epstein saga. Once told as a horror story about Democrats, Trump wants it out of print and out of mind. His stance, so curiously different than how he stood not so long ago, amuses many and inspires more to want the files released. Who knows if that’s what The Neurons had in mind. They may have also been pointing to TACO’s tariff tango, where he slides forward and slips back about what’s going on with tariffs.
Coffee has been rehomed in my systems. Time to rock and roll another day. Here we go. Hope it all goes well for you. Cheers
Come in, come in, come in. Welcome to Thursda, June 12 2025.
It was a beautiful night for sleeping for me. After a high in the low 80s F yesterday, the night temp zipped down 52 F. I had a window open over my head and a light blanket on my nekkid body. Cool breezes lapped and refreshed me all night long. Truly a sinn-sational sleep experience. Hope the rest of the world experienced the same.
Today’s weather peeked over yesterday’s shoulder and said, “That’s what I’m going to do, too.” 64 F now, sunshine is climbing though cloud-hazed blue sky toward a high of 81 F.
It’s a rare Thursda’s fourfer in the morning mental music stream. Four reasons stand behind The Neurons’ thinking. First and second, two major musical influences on my childhood passed away. That would be Sly Stone and Brian Wilson. Third, PINO Trump is rolling the nation back to the 1960s, escalating violence and warning, “If you spit, we hit.” Fourth, I did some dreaming.
For Brian Wilson departure from this existence, The Neurons summoned a favorite of theirs, “Good Vibrations” from 1966. I was ten years old when the transistor radio speakers roared with this Beach Boy tune. I enjoyed it from the start.
For Sly Stone, The Neurons recalled “Everyday People”. I remembered my buddy Curt talking about this new song and how excited he was when it came on the radio when we were at the ballfield talking about getting a pickup game of baseball going. The song was a wonderful mélange of funk, rock, and pop with neat but meaningful lyrics.
For the 1960s vibe, Jackson Browne was drafted to play “Doctor My Eyes” from 1972. I just felt that the song, though an upbeat melody, captures and projects the weariness we’re enduring in the Age of Trump, when right is wrong, good is evil, and down is up. I particularly enjoy the memorable guitar work by Jesse Ed Davis.
Doctor, my eyes have seen the years And the slow parade of fears without crying Now I want to understand I have done all that I could To see the evil and the good without hiding You must help me if you can?
Doctor, my eyes, tell me what is wrong Was I unwise to leave them open for so long
‘Cause I have wandered through this world And as each moment has unfurled I’ve been waiting to awaken from these dreams People go just where they will I never noticed them until I got this feeling That it’s later than it seems
Finally, from the dream world comes the 1986 Van Halen offering, “Dreams”.
World turns black and white Pictures in an empty room Your love starts fallin’ down Better change your tune Yeah, you reach for the golden ring Reach for the sky Baby, just spread your wings
And get higher and higher Straight up we’ll climb We’ll get higher and higher Leave it all behind
Run, run, run away Like a train runnin’ off the track Got the truth bein’ left behind Fall between the cracks Standin’ on broken dreams Never losin’ sight, ah Well, just spread your wings
We’ll get higher and higher Straight up we’ll climb We’ll get higher and higher Leave it all behind
So baby, dry your eyes Save all the tears you’ve cried Oh, that’s what dreams are made of ‘Cause we belong In a world that must be strong Oh, that’s what dreams are made of
Songwriters: Sammy Hagar, Edward Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony. From Musixmatch
Well, I’m off. Have your best day possible. Coffee, quick. Let’s go.
Another sun filled blue sky day cups Ashlandia. It’s a quiet one out there. Like it’s a holiday and everyone else has gone away. They don’t know about the 70 degrees F and sun-kissed wind toying with our hair in Ashlandia. Clouds are gathering and we’ll top off our temperatures at 75 plus F today.
Papi is loving this weather, prancing in and out of the house with his tail up. Whenever we go out back, he emerges from his sun nap to visit with us.
This, for the record, is May 25, 2025, part of the Memorial Day holiday weekend in the United States. As always, my wife and I compare our childhood Memorial Days. For her, it was Decoration Day. Her family would make the pilgrimage by car to the family’s graveyards. They had two, one for Mom’s family, and the other for Dad’s line. Both were born and raised in southern West Virginia and had a family line that went back several hundred years. The graveyard was cleaned up, if needed, and fresh flowers were put on the graves.
My family, in contrast, were relatively new, in some ways. Mom’s side came over on the Mayflower and kept moving west. She was born in Turin, Iowa in the 1930s. Her grandfather helped establish the town, and her mother was born in Turin in 1910. Dad’s father’s family came over in 1899, went to Pittsburgh, PA, and stayed. His mother’s family arrived in Pittsburgh a little bit later and also stayed.
Memorial Day for me, then, wasn’t and isn’t about graves, but about sports, family, and food. As I aged, it did become more about military service and sacrifice. Now it’s just my wife and I out here in Oregon. Her mobility and diet are limited, and Memorial Day has been relegated to just another spot on the calendar.
My theme music today relates to a conversation with my wife this morning. A friend highlighted a post for me on Facebook. I don’t go much on Facebook. My wife doesn’t have a FB account but uses mine to lurk, so she saw the post and told me about it. The post is about misunderstood song lyrics — mondegreens. One song was “Panama” by Van Halen. A popular mondegreen, unfamiliar to me, is that they’re singing “padded bra!” instead of “Panama!” Reading this to me, my wife sang the “padded bra!” part, cracking herself up. The Neurons immediately shipped the song into the morning mental music stream, where it shares time with my thoughts.
My wife and I were in the office this morning, each pursuing our computer agendas. Suddenly she bursts, “There’s a FEMA carveout for Trump’s residences in the bill that was just passed.” She was livid. “Trump doesn’t send FEMA to help anyone any more but if one of his places are hit, he’s taken care of. This is ridiculous! This is disgusting! He’s supposed to be the servant of the people, not the other way around. When will those idiots wake up?”
A few minutes later and she launched into Trump’s latest crypto scam, piling on about how he’s using the presidency to enrich herself. I commiserate but don’t otherwise respond. I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of how Trump and the Greedy Ol’ Trump Party is enshittifying the United States. I’m taking the day off from it.
Hope you have the best day you can. I’m gonna try to do the same. Coffee is at hand. And away we go.
December 1! Here at last. Turn the page and count down the days until your holiday of choice and the end of this year as the majority reckon it here in ‘Merica.
That cold front from out of the Arctic is still dominating. Sunday, it’s 32 F out there. Cold air throws our valley. See, that doesn’t work there, does it? Although through is a synonym for blanket, it only works in that capacity as a noun, not a verb. No wonder we’re so often confused.
While it’s 32 F now, that’s up froom the 18 that greeted me at dawn’s start a few hours back. 56 is the whispered high. We’ll see. Yesterday’s projected high was never approached. I think we topped out at 40 F. We have a stagnant air alert going on, and that always affects the temperature’s dance moves.
From a dream comes today’s theme music, “Beat It”. The 1983 Michael Jackson hit is in my morning mental music stream (Trademark icy) after a dream began playing it when the dream faded out. No credits were rolled for the dream, though. I have no idea who produced or directed it. I did star in it but I don’t know the other stars. They weren’t recognized. That’s not to say that they’re not stars in their own rights; I only have access to my dreams. They may have starred in other dreams which were only released to the individual having them.
“Beat It” came out when I was living on Okinawa, an island that’s part of Japan, and site of a major Pacific battle in dubya dubya two. I was there for almost four years as part of my military service. My neighbor, Carol, was so excited about this song and its video. In retrospect, she was a Michael Jackson fan girl. I was okay with the song. Has some interesting vocal and musical elements and tones. I don’t know why it was chosen for the dream’s closing sequence. It didn’t seem at all related to the dream’s context and action. I queried The Neurons about it but they’re as transparent as brick.
Hope your Sunday is a good one and a fine start to December. Coffee and I have renewed our vows and I’m sipping in bliss. Here’s the music. This video shows Slash from GNR standing in to interpret Van Halen’s original solo guitar. Hope you enjoy it. Cheers
Hello, sugar plums. It’s Monday again, January 22 2024. Dawn broke open another day of sprinter — spring and winter — on us in Ashlandia, where the people are natural and spring is above average. Rain has stopped but temperature is now 54 F with high in the upper fifties. Looks like we’ll go below 40 F for the first time in a bit and a half.
Our weather change has the cats acting joyous. They’re like, “Meow hoo, it’s nice outside. Can we go outside and sleep? Can we, can we?”
“Alright,” I replied, “but stay close and safe, and be smart.”
“We will, we will,” the mewrished. I opened the door and they dashed out, tails streaming high, sat, and began washing.
Before letting them out, I was a-singing to my floofs when I fed them. The song was, “There’s only one way to eat,” based on “There’s Only One Way to Rock.” Natch, The Neurons fired up the song in the morning mental music stream (Trademark classified). Originally by Sammy Hagar and released in 1982, it reached new heights when Sammy joined Van Halen and cranked it out together. No wonder that Van Halen was sometimes called Van Haglen. But come on, Eddie’s guitar style carries it to a higher level of rock, proving that there’s more than one way to rock, and playing against him, Sammy brought energy to his lead guitar. Fun watching the two share lead guitar in this recording of a live performance in Tokyo in 1989.
Let us pause now to lament the end of DeSantis’ run for President, 2024. He’s slunk back to Florida, where he can resume his hypocritical existence as a government agent against small, unintrusive government and equal rights for anyone who isn’t CIS. For him, there’s only one way to live, so everyone should live his vanilla way. Such an unimaginative and closed mind.
That means, though, that it’s only Nikki Haley and DJ Trump running now. Gosh, it’s such an intense intellectual race, makes my spine tingle. Not. (Yeah, that was full snark.)
Stay pos, be strong, and keep leaning forward. Remember to vote this year. I recommend President Joe Biden, because he was sent by God. (Just sayin’ that if Trump was sent by God, so was Biden. Why not, if you take that stuff without any evidence one way or the other?)
Coffee is being sucked up; here’s the music. Cheers
Hey ho, it’s time to celebrate. That’s right, it’s the First Thursday of the new year. More specifically, it’s January 4, 2024. Raise your cuppa coffee and toast the First Thursday. After all, it’ll never be here again.
Bleak outside, with everything doing a post-rain slow dry as a gray sky mutters by, threatening, “Want more rain? I got more if you want it.” A meek sun stays in the clouds’ background, offering little sunny warmth. 39 F now, we’re talking about a 50 F high. Snow warning in effect for chunks of several southern Oregon and northern California counties, including Ashlandia, where the drivers are below average. Snow level is dropping to 2500 feet, just a few hundred feet above my place. 2 to 3 inches of snow are suggested. Yeah, not much, but as this would be our first snow of winter, just weeks after winter officially started, we’re ready for it.
The cats are enjoying the weather. Going out there, finding a covered dry spot, one in front, the other in the house’s rear, they curl into traditional sleeping positions. As it’s not too cold and not too wet, both dismiss my offers for them to come in the house and be domesticated.
Today’s theme music was “Staying Power” by Queen from 1982. I mostly know this song from a friend. Stationed on Okinawa in the early 1980s, I would encounter him playing Queen albums in his car and home, and he really enjoyed this song. It didn’t do much for me, but the repetition planted it in my head. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it out of outside of his house or car, but I woke up with it in my morning mental music stream (Trademark complicated) today. I asked the almighty Neurons, “Dudes, why are you playing this today?” They giggled like children caught playing a silly game. Honestly, my Neurons can be so immature, which potentially explains a lot.
Then, though, The Neurons called an audible and slipped Van Halen in with “Mean Street” from 1981. Perusing the AM news was the catalyst for The Neurons’ shift; there’s an early line, something like, “I see those same ol’ faces and I hear that same ol’ talk.” That’s how the news felt in this early new year.
Alright, coffee has cometh, let us drink. Stay pos, be strong, and lean forward against the regressive wind. I’ll do the same. Here’s the music — please enjoy their colorful outfits. Sadly, it’s not ‘live’, they’re just faking it. Hell, instruments aren’t even plugged in. LOL
Tiw’s Day is here at last, and the God couldn’t be happier about it. Breaking out in tears, the one-handed God thanked everyone with deep sincerity, not leaving anyone unmentioned, and then resumed his duties.
For those keeping score at home, this is August 8, 2023 in Ashlandia, where the train’s horn is loud and persistent against the quiet day. The sun’s influence and fronts have combined to breach 73 F right now, and they vow to keep going into the low nineties. Good to have goals, even for the sun and weather system.
(Meanwhile, the sun, upon reading this, asked himself in a bewildered murmur, “What’s he talking about? I don’t have goals. Do I have goals?” It gave him something to ponder while sipping his coffee.)
I have Van Halen performing “Best of Both Worlds” in the morning mental music stream (trademark TBD). Came upon that song as I noodled through my clothing needs for the day. Be walking in the morning, when it’s cooler. Than I’ll be in the coffee shop, where they like to pump up the A/C because it’s hot behind the counter, then walking again, and it’ll be in the eighties by then, before going to the movie theater, where it’s icy cold as deep space. We’re seeing Barbie today. I’m looking forward to watching Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie. Always enjoyed her on “SNL”, especially when she was talking about her alien abduction experiences.
Anyway, I was thinking that I’d be wearing shorts, of course. It’s summer in Ashlandia. I wear shorts everywhere, unless it’s declared to be something semi-formal or above or the wife says something like, “You’re not wearing shorts.” “Of course I am,” I always reply before getting up to change. The shirt was the issue here. How heavy should the shirt be to meet my various needs? I’d be inside and out, and would thus need something to — ready? — cope with the best of both worlds. Yeah. That’s how The Neurons do it.
Be calm, stay positive, keep that strength up, and keep moving forward. It’s getting to be a long list, yeah, the things you must do to remain sane and healthy, hopeful, and optimistic, the things you must do to put in the work. I’ve have coffee but I’m having more, okay? Here’s the tune. Let’s go with it. Cheers
June showers bring chilly temperatures. It’s Monday, June 19, 2023. Raining. Started about midnight and has been singing from the skies since. 45 F. Not heavy stuff, but still wet and, sporadic. High today will be about 55 F. Yes, here comes summer.
Big battle between our house floofs at 4 AM. Tucker likes to sleep in front of the pet door. Papi enjoys going in and out said pet door. I can only imagine what the ignitor looked like for this incident but battling high notes snapped me out of sleep and launched me across the room yelling, “Hey,” once in a loud and irritated voice. That voice always stops their actions. Learned it in the military as a senior NCO. Worked there, too.
Lot of fur, mostly Papi’s, was left behind. Neither seemed injured. They’d separated themselves. I isolated them for a while as cool down and closed the pet door for business. Letting in cold air anyway. They’re in the house, Tucker asleep back on a bed, Papi asleep on the sofa.
I was remembering a friend this morning. Something about the weather and date triggered thoughts of him. About a year older than me, he passed away seven years ago. An interesting guy and fun to be around. Big Van Halen fan. So after thinking about him as I tended to morning duties and requirements, The Neurons kicked in a Van Halen song, “Runaround” from 1991. Don’t know why they slipped that Van Halen offering into the morning metal music stream. Randy enjoyed watching it being performed while smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. He’d be outside, window open, watching through it, as smoking in the house wasn’t permitted. The song’s words make little sense. Lots of innuendo but it’s all about Eddie and the guitar, isn’t it?
Stay pos, if and when you can. Bounce back if you fall. I’m about to embrace a cup of coffee and study the rainfall for a bit. Then it’s get up and move, move, move.
Snow had fallen during the night. The 7 AM sunrise brought the heat and chased the thin wet snow away. We’ve regressed from winter to autumn again. A brisk wind adds some winter snap but the leaves keep autumn’s vivid colors present.
It’s Monday, November 14, 2022. Sunset will happen at 1650. Meanwhile, the temperature, now at 40 F, will hump up to 52 F.
Getting a late posting start today. Wife and I did our monthly food delivery. She wanted to leave early. Don’t know why, as we’ve learned the best time to go. I began protesting but saw the set lip and a lost argument. We went when she wanted and ended up waiting twenty minutes while they got everything ready. Yes, I’m whining. It’s Monday and my low-coffee warning is going off.
The continuing episode of life as a couple married for almost half a century awoke The Neurons. They started plinking a line, “Change, nothing stays the same,” because the disagreement was one of those things that does stay the same. It might not stay the same but oak trees grow from seeds into mighty trees before change in the relationship is seen. I mean, Gen Z will be grandparents first, if you see what I’m saying. Dave Chappelle will be a MAGA running for POTUS first.
So, Les Neurons quickly had “Unchained” by Van Halen (1981) perking in the morning mental music stream. It’s all based on that, “Change, nothing stays the same” moment, although Der Neurons also like the phrases, “Non-stop talker, what a rocker, blue-eyed murder in a size five dress.” Those are lines that conjure sharp impressions. I’m gonna miss Van Halen, both the rocking guitarist and the band. Yes, the song is a repeat. I’ll refund the money that you paid to read this to compensate.
The second round of coffee has been delivered to offset the clanging need for more. Stay positive and test negative. We’re good to go for another day. Here’s the music. Cheers
Tuesday has settled into the spring groove. A light breeze frolics. Lawns and trees vibrate with greens and flowers add rainbow splashes. A dusting of high white clouds flavor the blue sky. Sunshine adorns every corner. The temperature is 62 F and we expect 81 F. Darkness will come after sunset at 8:34 this evening while sunset let the sun’s influence in beginning at 5:42 this morning. So it goes this May 24, 2022. The back door is open, bees dance and zip around, and the house felines are pleased.
The cats are responsible for today’s music. Both insisted on heading out around eleven thirty-ish last night, prompting me to say, “Okay, go dance the night away. Bang on the door when you want back in.” I said that even though I’d already created a mental note to let them in a few hours. Fast as you can say van Halen, the neurons brought out their 1979 song, “Dance the Night Away”. I’m always a little surprised that the group wrote it. It seems like, even feels like it could’ve been a cover of a song that already existed. It’s more mellow and light-hearted than the majority of van Halen offerings.
Stay positive, test negative, etc. I’m here for the coffee. Got any left? Here’s the tune. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 