- 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.
Friday’s Theme Music
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
Wednesday’s Theme Music
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.
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey
I ain’t got time for that now
h/t to Genius.com
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
Saturday’s Theme Music
Mother, May I? Yes, you may.
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.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
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
Saturday’s Theme Music
Welcome to a chilly, drizzly, southern Oregon Saturday. The date is April 24, 2021. We’re almost to a wrap on the fourth month of 2021. Whizzing by for me. What about you?
Outside, it be 49 degrees under a sky rich with clouds and miserly with blue. Rain has dumped off and on through the night and morning. Nothing major; just enough to wet our lands and deter the cats from looking for sunshine. The sun’s morning appearance arrived at 6:16 AM. Sol will no longer be visible after 8:02 PM.
We’ve arrived at day 8 of our three-day green smoothie fast. Yesterday’s experiment was using cauliflower in the smoothie, with strawberries. My taste buds said, “I don’t like that. Don’t do it again.” I remain moderately hungry throughout the day with my stomach singing love songs to foods that I enjoy, but it’s all good. Last night was the first time I really thought hard about breaking the routine and eating something like a pizza, sandwich or burrito.
Good having rain. We experienced a relatively dry winter and spring. A friend sent numbers for the acre-feet of our local reservoirs, the Howard Prairie Dam. The measurements were taken on the same day, which they’ve been doing since 1968. In most years, it’s 40,000 plus acre-feet. 60,000 plus was not uncommon.
Then we have the last four years.
2018-04-17 38726.00
2019-04-17 27675.00
2020-04-17 16681.00
2021-04-17 05833.00
The reservoir was below 20,000 acre-feet only one other year in its history, 1992. It’s never been below 10,000 acre-feet, until this year.
That rain has my brain singing the 1982 song, “It’s Raining again”, by Supertramp. Think I’ll deploy it as today’s theme music, especially since rain has again begun pecking on the window.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Tuesday’s Theme Music
It’s a chilly Tuesday morning, April 20, 2021. I wanted to put the year as 2015. I don’t know what’s causing that faux temporal shift.
We had our first sun peek at 6:22 AM and expect to bade farewell for the day at 7:58 PM. It’s chilly because clouds are shading the edge from the sun’s influence. Still, 55 degrees F is better than, say, ten, twenty, or thirty degrees colder. The cats are eating it up, diving outside as the sun breaks, staying out in the yard, floofzing away, awakening when yard work or birds disturb them. 76 degrees was seen yesterday, which was great for walking, sitting outside in a chair reading, etc. I expect today to be about six degrees cooler.
For music, I’ve trapped an old Ramones song in my brain. “Blitzkrieg Bop” is a short but rousing ditty that came out in 1976. I’d always interrupted the lyrics ‘tight wind’ as ‘time wind’. I thought the idea of a time wind was really cool. “Hey, it feels like the 1960s blowing through here.” A little disappointed when I learned the true lyrics.
They’re forming in a straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop
They’re piling in the back seat
They’re generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop
Hey ho, let’s go
Shoot ’em in the back now
What they want, I don’t know
They’re all revved up and ready to go
They’re forming in a straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop
h/t to AZLyrics.com
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music
Boom — it’s Monday. It’s like it happens every week. Today is April 19, 2021, which doesn’t happen every week. In fact, this date makes this day unique. Meanwhile, over in the sky, the sun came creeping around my back window in Ashland at 6:24 AM. It’s fully out now, and will steal away at 7:57 PM. Speaking of sun and long hours, yesterday cracked 80 degrees F but didn’t take us to the heat they’d been forecasting. We’ll strike the mid to upper seventies today.
It’s day three of our three-day green smoothie fast. It’s working well. Hard a handful of raw almonds, another handful of raw walnuts, a few celery sticks, and prunes, along with three smoothies. My favorite was the mango-pineapple-banana super-greens offering. Other than when I was out doing yard work and smelled someone’s Italian meal preparation floated through the air did I think, gotta eat. Didn’t, though. The smell reminded me of good food, but also things that Mom used to cook when I was a kid. Need to stop writing about it now because it’s having an adverse effect on my willpower.
Musically, “Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders (1979) came to me after my shower, when I was drying off. Brass in pocket? Don’t know. My wife and I take little book-cations this year. A book-cation involves taking the book you’re reading, getting into the car, driving to the park, getting out of the car and finding a place to sit and read for a while. It’s just a break in routines and fresh air/experience nature opportunity. We went yesterday (got a new book to read, “The Resisters” by Gish Jen”) (yeah, finished “Circe”, “The Night Watchman”, “The Sentinel”, and “The Death of Vivik Oji”). When we did, though, I also took notebook and pen, like the old days, to think about the novel revisions and write through my thoughts.
How does “Brass in Pocket” fit in with that? Well, the song always struck me as a cocky attitude, a sort of ‘I can do this’ stance. I later saw confirmation of that in a Christine Hynde interview (she wrote the song’s lyrics). So, I suspect my mind pulled it out as an affirmation. It’s a good song for re-attacking a project, and a good song for a Monday.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music
“Good morning, star shine. The Earth says, ‘Hello!'” Yes, just thinking of that 1967 hit song from Hair. Not the day’s theme song, though. I have another song in mind for that.
It is another Sunday in southern Oregon, and we dutifully note and mark, April 18, 2021. The rise of Sol came about 6:26 AM, and the western sky fade away is expected at 7:55 PM. Between those hours, the sun’s going to have her scientifically-grounded impact on our temperatures, taking us from where we reside now, 60 F, to something in the seventies, or maybe the eighties. The weather prognosticators told us yesterday would be at 80 but my thermometer noted 77 as the high. Nothing to complain, just noting.
It’s day two of the three day green-smoothie fast. It’s not quite a fast. I augmented my green smoothies with a handful of almonds, another handful of walnuts, four prunes, and two stalks of celery. Never did have my coffee. I prepared to make it but didn’t follow through.
The day’s first smoothie (wife-prepared) accentuated raspberry highlights, which I found too tart. My next two smoothies (prepared by moi) were blueberry oriented, more agreeable to me. She noted it tasted very banana-y to her. I noted that no bananas were used in preparation of those smoothies. Yeah, I forgot the banana.
I felt fine yesterday. Mild hunger pangs in the early evening. More at midnight, right before retiring to bed. Breakfast time this morning found my body snarling in its best hungry-lion imitation, “Food! Now!” I went with a mango dominated smoothie. All is good now. Kind of. I wouldn’t say no to a breakfast burrito. Nor a stack of pancakes (flapjacks, waffles…whatever). Or scrambled eggs with toast. Maybe an omelet.
Music choice is writing-driven. Finished working copy number five of the novel in prog., final draft number one. I hate it. I had the this-writing-sucks blues. Writings is fine; major story issues. They must be addressed. Took the day thinking about that and knew what must be done. Now I must do it. Like many things, making that decision to do it is the hardest part of doing it. Then it’s deep breaths. Go. Start cutting. Revising. Editing. Changing. Doing it over.
The song inspired by this is “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc, 1980. The lines, “Gotta move on,” is what has me hooked. You see the writing connection? First draft is done; not what I wanted or expected. Work is needed. Gotta move on from cursing my meager skills to getting things done.
Here’s the music. Stay posi, test negy, wear a mask, and get the vax. Gotta go see some machines about smoothies and coffee.
Never saw this video before. Talk about funky. Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
Congratulations! You have made it to today, which is Saturday, April 17, 2021. I salute you.
Sol’s day began when he came creeping around the window at 6:27 AM in Ashland. He’ll be stealing away at 7:54 in the evening. That’ll give us a long period of sunlight. I will say, though, I was up on floof business at 4:15 and was surprised by the amount of light already in evidence. Yesterday was a wonderful day. The sunshine bookjacked my plans. I ended up in the backyard reading, enjoying the 73 degrees air. It’s already 60.
We’re starting a three-day green smoothie fast today. My wife is a big fan of this process. She makes green smoothies for us every day. The shopping expedition on Thursday was for firstly and mostly procuring more stuffs for the green smoothies. Power greens, pears, and a wide variety of frozen fruits were acquired. We already had a bunch of the stuff; just needed more. Fingers crossed that we make it all the way. Should add that I allow myself an exception. Yes, one cuppa coffee, black, no sugar, per day.
Today’s music is just stuck in my head. Been going since my eyes first groaned open to see what was going on with the three floofketeers. There were mutterings among them along the lines of, “He’s looking at me,” “He’s standing too close to me,” “Stop looking at me,” “I was here first.” They are fur children.
So, the song. “Save Your Tears” by The Weeknd was released in 2020. I sometimes think the title should be “Sve Yr Trs”. Guess the trs could be misconstrued as ‘trees’. That would be a good song: “Save Your Trees”. “Save your trees for another day.”
Sorry. Haven’t had any coffee. Or food. Smoothie is being prepared. I began making them. My wife came in and pushed me aside. No, I didn’t take it personally. Not at all. I didn’t stamp away muttering, “Fine. You make them.”
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
