Guten morgen. Today is Wednesday, May 29, 2021. Muted sunshine began filling the valley this morning about 5:46 AM and will go on until the sun leaves the scene 8:29 PM. Cold cloudiness could lead you to think we’re headed toward autumn instead of summer. People on the morning’s exercise Zoom call were worrying over their vegetable plants and freeze warnings.
I’m in a “China Grove” frame of mind this morning. No particular reason for the 1973 Doobie Brothers song except that I like its energy, and the feel it imparts. So, why not, right?
Wear a mask when needed, stay positive, test negative, and get the vax. Cheers
Today is Tuesday, know what that means? Means it’s May 18, 2021. Your reality may vary.
Sol pulled out over the hills and sluggishly beamed into the valley where Ashland is nestled at about 5:47 AM. His visit is expected to last until about 8:28 PM, when we’ll wave farewell and watch him set off for the rest of his daily visits. It’s never ending for that guy. He just keeps going and going…
Sol’s arrival was sluggish because surly clouds, puffed up and thick as steroid-infused weightlifters, wouldn’t make room. Some rain could be in our day, fingers crossed. ‘Too dry’ is how I’d label this spring. Temperatures will tug onto the lower seventies, maybe just the high sixties, depending.
Historically, Mount St. Helens blew on this day back in 1980. I just read it, otherwise it would’ve blown right past me. The old volcano had been threatening for a few months. When it finally blew, it made major headline news. We just don’t experience many volcanos erupting in the continental United States.
I was in the Randolph AFB Command Post at the time (in the Taj Mahal, under the water tower — yes, it’s true), and called the commander with the information when the volcano finally erupted. My wife and I lived in base housing with two cats, P.K. and Roary, watching cable TV on a big Magnavox console. We were getting ready to leave and head to Okinawa on assignment. Our car was a metallic copper Pontiac Firebird, the first new car we ever bought.
Dredging up music, I came up with Pink Floyd The Wall and Billy Joel. “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” was a big song at that point. Billy Joel was on a roll, pumping out albums and hits, and in the news because of his successful roll. I’m going with it because of its sentimental connections with who I was when. “Hot funk, cool punk, even it it’s old junk, it’s still rock and roll to me.” We can add a few more genres now, can’t we? It’s still rock and roll.
Stay positive, test negative, adjust your mask wearing as appropriate, and get the vax. Also encourage your friends and relatives to get the vax. Here’s the music. I’m gonna get coffee. Be right back. Ta
Sunshine came busting in all ablaze at 5:50 AM this Saturday morning, May 15, 2021. Their twin, Sunset, is likely to sneak away at 8:25 this evening. Between, comes weather. Yesterday’s weather iteration brought us sunshine. 83 degrees F. Clouds. Thunder. Lightning. Cold air. Petrichor. Could today do the same? One never knows with weather. Fickle as a drunk, is weather.
Music today comes out of 1981. “Invisible Sun” by The Police struck a mental chord as I thought about COVID-19 statistics. That connection was made when I thought about government charts.
I don’t want to spend my time in hell Lookin’ at the walls of a prison cell I don’t ever want to play the part Of a statistic on a Government chart
As for COVID-19 locally, we jumped back on for another ride up and down. 7-day average continues falling but then you get a day that leaps back into the forties and think, “Damn. Thought we were done with that.” Mask wearing is the topic. Is it safe without masks? Many declare they’ll continue wearing them while a large percentage immediately whisked their masks off. We’ll see what’s what in about ten days, I think. That’ll give time to see if people immediately stripping away their masks sends us a new spike of cases.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when needed, and get the vax. Please get the vax. Please.
Welcome to the day, by international standards, which is the fourth day of the week, Thursday. We count Sunday as the first day of the week in my house, so Thursday is the fifth day of the week. Regardless, it is May 13, 2021. Sunrise, by scientific observation, came to Ashland at 5:52 AM and sunset will follow at 8:20 PM. Outside, we’re expecting a dry, warm, spring day, with temperature pushing into the lower eighties.
We saw 40 new cases of COVID-19 in Jackson county yesterday, continuing the roller-coaster trend. Our seven-day average has declined to thirty. Thirty-six percent of Oregonians are fully vaccinated. Almost fifty percent have had at least one shot.
Dreams were of a wide variety last night. They featured a great deal of domesticity like shopping and house-cleaning, but also trended to having broken machines (like vacuum cleaners) and broken remote controls. Must go through the debrief about what it’s all about.
Today’s music choice comes from Chris Rea. Released in 1986, “Let’s Dance” was a small hit in the U.S. for him but made into the top ten in several other countries. I always like the jaunty tune. Feels optimistic. That summarizes my mood: optimistic.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Yes, we’ve made it to Sunday May 9, 2021, and Mother’s Day in America. The sun’s fresh start in Ashland came at 5:56 AM while it will finish its day at 8:19 PM. Fine spring weather has come into the valley for the holiday. Temperatures, as it was yesterday, will creep into the low seventies. The air is clean and fresh.
Learned via correspondence with Mom that she’s going to my sister’s house for the holiday. Sis’s husband, Pat, is going for all the mothers and families. Very sweet of him. They’ve all been vaccinated. I still worry, though. It’s my nature. Locally, COVID-19 cases are declining again after rising throughout April. Two weeks ago, our seven-day average peaked at 49. Yesterday, it was at 33.
Went to ER yesterday. Yeah, wrote and posted about it, to help me process, and I slept in this morning. Anyway, the result left a song about doctors echoing through my mind. Here is Robert Palmer with his 1979 hit cover of, “Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor)”.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax.
Besides COVID-19, the drought and the threat of wildfires, we’re wondering about how the crazy worms will affect us.
I’m also concerned that I’m not cheugy.
Well, not that concerned.
I’ve been accepted by Medicare. As a military retiree of a certain era, I’m covered by Tricare. Tricare requires me to get Medicare A and B when I turn 65. That happens in July. I applied when I became eligible. A few days later, I was accepted. Meanwhile, I receive phone calls, emails, and snail mail from individuals and companies offering to help me navigate making my Medicare choices. It’s another industry. Everything becomes an industry, and as you reach certain milestones, they make you aware of it. It used to be that my junk mail was all about buying a new car, shopping for clothes, or taking vacations. Now it’s about hearing aids, funeral services, Medicare, reverse mortgages, and Viagra.
Of course, there’s a few new industries afflicting all of us who own a home or car. We receive regular phone calls about our car and home warranties. In our house, we don’t answer the phone unless we recognize the number. The other industry that’s aggressively chasing us is insurance against our water pipes bursting in our yard. A WaPo article says, in essence, yeah, it’s another scam.
I think one of my cats has short-term memory issues. Whenever Boo encounters our other cats, Papi and Tucker, he reacts like, “OMG, who the hell are you?”
To mitigate the fire threat in our town,a ‘firewise’ program has been established. Basically, don’t use any bark mulch on the ground. Don’t grow any flammable plants within five feet of the house. Store wood products that you might have at east thirty feet from the house. Trim back all branches so they’re not touching the house or close enough for flames to leap from the tree to the roof. Get rid of wooden decks, wooden fences, conifers and blackberries. Walking around Ashland, I can see that the program has made little progress. We were affected by a fire last year. There were actually three fires on the same very windy day. All three were started by individuals. The firewise program can’t address the wind or deliberate fires.
They also tell us to keep your plants watered so they don’t dry out and become fuel, but we’re in an extreme drought, so hey, there’s little water to water plants. The only option appears to be to pull out all your plants except those of a desert variety and put small stones or pebbles in your yard to help reduce moisture. Of course, I’m also exploring polymers that are supposed to help the soil retain moisture.
Delivering decorative bark (or mulch) had become a growing industry. Go to any hardware store’s garden area and there’s bags and bags of variations. Blower trucks will load up and come to your house and spread it for you with a giant reverse vacuum cleaner. Now, I suspect a new industry, to vacuum it all back up, will begin taking root.
I thought that killer bees and murder hornets were bad. Now we can add crazy worms to the list of things nature has devised to make the world more interesting. The MSN story says, “Pick one up, and you’ll see why, as the creepy-crawly jerks, writhes and springs out of your hand. (It may even leave its tail behind, as a grim souvenir.) And now, scientists are finding the wrigglers have spread to at least 15 states across the U.S.” They resemble regular worms and are bad for the soil.
I have a crazy cat. I really don’t want crazy worms.
My wife is on her weekly coffee clatch call. Pre-COVID-19, they’d meet after exercise class every M-W-F. Their pandemic compromise is to meet every Friday after exercise class. They have a good time. Lots of laughing. I hear her now talking about her sagging breasts and my drooping scrotum. I’d told her that my sack hung in the water in the hotel toilet during our visit last week. Disgusting, right? Once you feel and know it, you can take action by not sitting all the way down. This is another reason why I prefer to stand and pee, even though I’m cursed with a forked stream. Aging. There’s always something.
Haven’t smelled any skunk for over thirty days, yeah, knock on wood. I’m superstitious that way. Haven’t smelled the skunk, or sighted one, but my wife reports that she heard a thump last night for the first time in weeks. Time to block the entry (again) and see what happens. I would mount my camera but it has quit working. I’ve not been able to reset it and connect it nor receive any images from it. I don’t want to buy a new one because, waste. We’re such a throw-away consuming society. It’s frustrating.
Being cheugy doesn’t offend me. And, from what I understand, I am cheugy. Apparently emerging from TikTok, cheugy is the new ‘square’, a way of saying something is passé, or out of it. Tres important, right? I’m bothered by too many other things, like crazy worms and skunks under the house, to think about being trendy.
Got my coffee. Time to go write like crazy at least one more time. Before the crazy worms get here. We’re already full up on crazy. Even bought a warranty. It was offered on the phone.
Here it is, Friday, the first in the merry, merry, month of May. It’s Friday, May 7, 2021. It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday in the U.S. My card has been sent off, the notes prepared for the call on Sunday to Mom. I don’t think she’ll be doing anything special for Mom’s Day. Three of my sisters live in Mom’s region and generally celebrate holidays together. All of them are moms, and two are grand-moms, and Mom is a great-grandmother. But this is 2021, where COVID-19 continues its reign. They used to all go out to brunch somewhere together for this holiday. I suspect that Mom’s daughters, grand children, and great-grands, will bring food and flowers by for Mom and will visit with her a few at a time.
Clouds moved in yesterday, delivering chilly overnight temperatures but no rain. The sun’s first showing was at 5:59 AM, but did little to warm us, so far. We’ll see what happens between now and 8:17 PM, when Sol announces, “See you tomorrow,” but general consensus is that the highs will be in the low to mid-sixties.
Alarming news came out regarding rain and water for our area. We’re in an extreme drought. Weather conservation and curtailment actions have yet to be enacted locally. They always take a ‘wait and see’ approach until it’s a crises, which serves no one. The area depends heavily on the TID, and the city has been told it’s not getting as much TID as last year. Forty percent has been cut from one contract, while one hundred percent has been cut from the second. Local reservoirs and dams are at bleak levels. I’m breaking out my rain stick. It scares the hell out of the cats, but anything that can help must be done.
Of course, this might be the wrong way to go about it. “Wrong Way” is today’s music choice. At its core, the 1997 Sublime song is about a fourteen-year-old prostitute whose only family is ‘her seven horny brothers and drunk-ass Dad’. The is song is rife with references to doing things the wrong way as the singer rescues her but then mistreats her, himself.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. That seems to be the right way. Time for my coffee. Cheers
Season’s greetings from the Pacific Northwest. Today is Wednesday, May 5, 2021. But you knew all that already, didn’t you? Summer is creeping into the region. The sun was creeping over the horizon at 6:01 AM. The outside temperature is already creeping past 71. It’s believed the sun will creep out of sight at 8:14 PM.
The cats are enjoying the weather for sure. Out through the pet door (which I think would be a pretty good album title, or maybe a novel) before sunrise, they find places to flooze all day. Cool. Youngblood (formal name, Papi) likes the cushioned patio chairs. Boo (the big mini-Panther) prefers grass just in the shadow. Tucker stomps around to the front porch (“Ain’t no one getting past me”), curling up just off the porch, behind the pillar, under a bush.
Such warmth has stirred gardening aspirations again. My wife made the call yesterday. “We’ll grow lettuce, squash, and tomatoes. To the Grange!” Masks on, we stormed the nursery. Plants were selected, six-packs and pots purchased, plans were made. Fingers are crossed that we’ll have water. Meanwhile, the garlic is almost ready for harvesting, though my wife worries, “It’s thirty days too early!” Her giant onion is bolting. She’s letting it do so, figuring it deserves it after all it’s been through. The only worry is that we’ll have the water to, well, water the garden for the entire season. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc.
Musically, Ima on wavelength with a 1979 Talking Heads melody. Lyrics crept in like sunshine breaking through the clouds after a heavy afternoon rain.
Yes, it’s time for “Life During Wartime”, which could easily be repurposed as “Life During Pandemic”. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get that vax. Cheers
Yes, it’s May 1, 2021, a Saturday, for official transcripts. 2021’s fifth month has leaped onto our backs, the preceding four months going by on express rails. Sunanigins began in Ashland at 0607 and will cease at 2010.
We were over on Oregon’s coast, admiring the Pacific Ocean, for the last several days. An enchanting host, the Pacific gurgled with bright sunshine and flirted with fog. I love hearing the waves booming over the rocks with great explosive thuds that send shivers through the earth. Amazing.
Back in Ashland, the weather service claims the the days have been sunny and in the eighties in Ashland. If so, the weather slipped us a change up. April showers are falling, though it’s May. I’m for it; give us more rain, please. We’ve already had reports of wildfires. Fire services scrambled and put them all out, but it does give the day an edge to read about this.
Musically, I’m humming the song, “Down Down” by Status Quo (1974). It’s a rockin’ song. Driven by that line, “You’ll be back to find your way, again, again, again, again” (don’t know how many times they say again there), I was thinking, okay, back to writing. You took three days off. Need to get back to it. That’s sort of a party trick for writers, to find your way back, again, again, again, again, etc. That’s why the song occupies my mind space this morning.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. That is all.
Good morning! Welcome to another edition of Tuesday, the day that prompts you to ask, “Really?” Today is Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Yes, we’re skidding down April’s final days. Then comes May when we sit back and think, remember April?
The sun also rose today, clocking in at 6:12 AM, with plans to clock out at 8:06 PM. Serving notice that yes, summer is coming to southern Oregon. The day plans to be fair, but with some semblance to spring, with temperatures ranging from 37 F in the morning to 63 in the late afternoon. Perfect weather for something.
Today’s song comes to us from the Cure, all the way from 1987. I had several substantive dreams in vivid color last night. At the end of it all, awakening and thinking about them, the Cure’s song, “Just Like Heaven” was left ringing in my mind. It’s that one line that first stayed, and then invited the rest in, “You’re just like a dream.”
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 