Frieda’s Theme Music

The week’s days have puddled together in a limpid pool of memory. I organize a flock of Neurons into enough intelligence to figure out that it’s Frieda. Part of the process is done using the Fitbit on my wrist. It tells me that it’s March 28, 2025. By going backward through the week’s blizzard of news and activities, I reach my conclusion.

Alexa tells me that it’s rainy in Ashland, forty rainy seven degrees with a high of fifty rainy two expected, and a chance of showers. Sunlight boils through my windows, mocking that weather forecast, further confusing my coffeeless Neurons. The weather likes teasing me, mystiying me about how to dress and challenging me to reconsider my plans. I think it’s mean of the weather but I don’t voice that thought. That would just make the weather mad.

A mystery has the household in a tizzy. My wife announced, “I found one of those little microfiber cloths for glass in a package when I was cleaning. I thought I’d put it in the office by my chair so I can clean off my glasses. I must clean them five times a day.”

I’m half listening, half reading, so I deploy supportive husband speak. “Good idea.”

“But it’s gone. I can’t find it.”

I remembered seeing it, too. We talk about our memories of seeing the cloth, when and where, like it’s a wake. We search the area where it was last seen, the laundry room counter used as the cat food service station. Nope, not there. Nor on the floor or behind the dryer. Things fall behind the dryer. I want to install a shelf across that space. I proposed that solution the year we moved into the house in 2006. I suggested it again last night. “Let me think about it,” my wife replies in throughful wife speak, the response first given in 2006. I mentally shrug. If the cloth is behind the dryer, I’m not getting it.

A cursory flashlight search behind the dryer shows nothing. We walk around, combing through other potential places, wondering, where did it go? It’ll turn up someday, we finally decide, quitting. Then a new mystery will start: how did it get there?

PINO Trusk’s number one component, Donald J. Trump, has inspired The Neurons again today. Thinking about how he’s wrecking the world through his prejudice and ignorance, Der Neurons cranked up the 1978 song, “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult, in the morning mental music stream. The latest trigger about my irritation with the mango beast came from Trump targeting ‘improper ideology’ at the Smithsonian Institution. Avoiding laws, debate, popular opinion, etc., he’s using his favorite tool of destruction, an executive order.

Weirdly, Trump’s prejudice against the Federal government’s role in places like the Smithsonian Institution can be traced directly back to the Smithsonian Institutions origins in 1836.

Conservatives and champions of states’ rights, such as John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, argued the federal government did not have the right to establish a national institution, conduct scientific research, or promote knowledge. Federalists and northerners, led by the learned and well-traveled John Quincy Adams, maintained that it was in the nation’s best interest in many ways. Happily, they won out.

As many, including me, note about Trump, the Trusk Regime, Project 2025, and MAGAts, their idea of progress is by going back to the 1800s.

The Neurons created an alternate version of first lines, featuring Trumpzilla and what he’s doing. Did this while making breakfast, so, yes, as little thought as you can imagine was actually engaged.

With a golfer’s grimace and a terrible sound, he pulls the United States government down.

Helpless people around the nation curse his name as he looks in on them.

He picks up a club and throws it back down as he leaves the course and heads for lunch again.

Oh no, they say he’s got to go, go, go Trumpzilla.

If you’re familiar with the song, I naturally had to address the closing lyrics as well.

History shows again and again
How politics points up the folly of man
Trumpzilla!

Okay, off I go. Coffee and I met a match in each other once again. Hope your day brings you some good cheer and satisfaction. Cheers

Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

Arias ring through the room’s air. These originate in my wife’s digestive system. She’s on day 3 of a fast. A lacto-ovo-pescatarian for over 30 years, all that she’s permitted herself during these days is green tea and water. Plenty of both have been consumed.

Fasting is her go-to response to matters. First time that she fasted was while I was in the Philippines on military assignment. Living with her parents, she decided to fast and did so for ten days. In this case, she’s dealing with two fronts: RA flares afflicting her shoulder, and being dispirited about the current political clime in the United States. She’d taken to long days of doom scrolling. Friends finally told her, “You need to stop.”

So stop she did. She stopped eating and doom scrolling. How long will she continue, is the question put to her. She’s not certain. She’ll reach some point where she’ll decide she’s clean enough and will resume eating.

While she isn’t eating, she’s still treating herself to warm epson salts baths and near infrared red-light therapy in our home pod. She’s also staying in the house, limiting social contact and physical activity. She’s reading a lot of fiction.

I hope it all works. I hope she recovers and is eating again soon.

Goldilocks

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite type of weather?

I’ve become a sunshine person. It wasn’t always like this. When I was young, I’d go out in weather that had others questioning my sanity. As I grabbed coats, shoes, whatever was needed, people would eye me with aghast expressions. “You’re going out in that?”

“Sure,” I’d answer, “it’s just a little rain.” Even if was a monsoon. Rain, snow, sleet, wind, nothing kept me in. Not even thunder and lightning. “Just going for a walk.”

I loved pitting myself against the elements. Felt like a hero out of a 19th century novel, just a rugged individual surviving against the elements. I thought myself quite heroic. Especially when I knew there was somewhere safe, warm, and secure to retreat to when I had my fill of being heroic.

Different these days. “Where’s the sun?” I ask. I search all of the sky, even though I know where it’s supposed to be. I know where east is. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I know those directions. Still, I sweep the sky in search of the sun, in case it got off its leash.

I don’t usually get an answer to my question about the sun’s location. Others always think it rhetorical. Probably because everyone knows where the sun is going. Not like it’s a wandering cat.

I used to be more indifferent to the sun. Now, I’m very picky. I don’t want it too bright, too hot, or too much. I have become Goldilocks sampling the three bears’ stuff.

I like a good warm sunshine. Not enough for sweat these days. Used to be — but you know. I don’t want to sweat. I want to be warm, with enough sunshine that wearing sunglasses make sense. Not that it really matters to me: I’m almost always wearing sunglasses outside. Sometimes I wear them inside.

“Why don’t you take off your sunglasses?” my wife will say. “You’re inside now.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look ridiculous.”

I shrug. I’m used to that.

So Easy

Daily writing prompt
What do you wish you could do more every day?

This is such an easy question to answer. I wish I could write more every day. Yes, fill my cup with coffee and let me write without end. I’m talking about fiction writing. Novels and such. I really enjoy writing fiction.

I also wish I could eat more every day. I’m limited in my eating by obscure factors like sodium in foods, gaining weight, and staying healthy. So I’m restricted in how much I can eat every day. It’s a shame, too, because there are many foods which I really enjoy and would like to eat more every day. Like, right now, I could really go for a piece of pie. Blueberry. With ice cream.

Of course, I’d also like to socialize more every day. I’m writing, and that’s not a social activity, speaking for myself, of course, so that limits how much time I have to socialize. A few more hours of socializing every day would be good for me, I think. So I wish that I could socialize more every day.

Spending more time reading is also something I’d wish to be able to do more every day. I love reading, and there are so many awesome writers out there. So many great novels, books, essays, and articles to read. While I’m at it, I also wish to study more every day. I would love to be able to spend time deeply studying art, architecture, and history, along with literature and quantum mechanics.

Then again, if I could, I wish I could spend more time with my wife every day. She’s an intelligent person and a lot of fun.

Another wish I’d have is to be able to visit with my family more every day. They live in other parts of the country, so it takes time and money to visit them, and doing so interrupts my other wishes. But if we had a teleporter, I could probably make it work.

While I’m thinking about it, I also wish I could travel more. I’ve done some traveling, mostly around the United States, Far East, some northern Africa, and Europe. I’ve rarely been south of the equator, so I’d like to visit ruins and cultures in the southern latitutes. I wish I could travel more every day and go to places like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Antarctica. I’ve also always wanted to visit Sri Lanka.

I also wish I could time travel more every day. I’ve learned through hard experience that time travel has a lot of perks but man, when you screw it up, it’s downright hard to fix. There’s a lot of things I need to apologize to the world about which has happened because of my botched time traveling. I feel really guilty about it, too, but if I can just find the time — ha, sorry about that, that pun wasn’t planned — I wish I could time travel more every day.

Since I’m confessing, I’d also wish to be able to see the future more every day. You know, predict things. But time travel has screwed that up, too, as has my dimension clones. If it wasn’t for them bouncing between dimensions, I’d have a much better life and would be way better at seeing the future. I think we all would. But, anyway…

Other than that brief list, there’s nothing I wish to do more every day. Oh, except exercise. And paint. I painted a great deal when I was young but not so much as an adult. I wish I could paint more every day.

Oh, and go fishing.

Other than those few things, there’s nothing.

Oh, except sleeping. I really wish I could sleep more every day.

But that’s all.

Except, I wish I could just relax and do nothing more every day. Because I really am lazy at heart.

And that’s it. There is no more.

Well, except for a few DIY projects around the house. I wish I had time to do more DIY every day.

And that’s all.

I think.

Saturda’s Theme Music

It’s a blah day outside our windows. Winter is singing its final stanzas. Bleak ropes of gray clouds are strung together. Mists cling to the snowy mountain tops. Rain has fallen off and on, and the temperature has crept from 34 F to 41 F as a sharp wind whistles and moans.

This is Saturda, March 15, 2025, in Ashlandia.

My wife has been busy doomscrolling. She mostly goes onto Reddit and hits different forums. People who worked for the Federal government have set up many of them to tell about what’s going on in their offices around the nation. She shares tales with me. She also passes them on to her friends; they suggest that she needs to do less doomscrolling because she’d acting so dark, depressed, and pessimistic. I agree with them. But, it has a hold on her. Despite her statements that she wants to do less doomscrolling, she keeps feeding on the darkness, and it feeds on her.

The newscape is fucking bleak out there. How cheerful are we expected to be as PINO Trusk and the GOTP guts the government, slashes services, burns the U.S. Constitution, and talks about using American troops to invade other places?

How much cheerfulness should we offer as the stock market drops and drops, wiping out years of gains?

How cheerful can we be as PINO Trusk tries moving the country backwards in regards to air and water protections, civil rights, especially minority rights, trade and defense agreements?

What level of cheerfulness should we convey as greater discussions of a financial recession become more frequent?

Cheerfulness is a hard-won currency in this era. Maybe it’s just me and my wife. Maybe we’re too invested in following the news and doomscrolling. Perhaps we’re in an information silo where we’re only fed bad news, and it’s really much better. Inflation is dropping, and despite the stock market declines, people are growing happier and more satisfied. Maybe the erosion of freedoms isn’t as great as we fear.

Out of all of this, The Neurons have employed a song called “Unwell” in the morning mental music stream. “Unwell” was released in 2003 by Matchbox 20. The group’s lead vocalist, Rob Thomas, wrote the song.

On the live DVD Show: A Night in the Life of Matchbox Twenty, lead singer Rob Thomas states that he wrote the song as a metaphor for humanity in general, a song for people who are “messed up and feel alone like that. We all feel a little messed up sometimes… you’re not alone.”

h/t Wikipedia.org

I think many of us ar feeling messed up and alone. We’re also feeling frustrated, disappointed, and depressed. The future does not look good as we try to see what is to come. As the song’s lyrics go, “I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired.”

Coffee and I have reached another cooperative agreement. Hope your day is strong, filled with hope and optimism. Here we go. Cheers

Sexist of Me

Daily writing prompt
Where would you go on a shopping spree?

If a shopping spree is planned, you can leave me out. If that’s an option. I’m only interested in shopping sprees when I go to a book store, although I don’t mind shopping sprees in wine and cheese stores (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

My wife is the shopper, and I support her shopping sprees. I’m the driver and help carry the booty when we’re perambulating through shopping venues. She’s a meticulous and thoughtful shopper. Not one for quantity, she seeks quality and deals. She can go anywhere, though. Loves to visit Goodwill stores, flea markets, ‘thrift’ stores, and ‘vintage goods’ places, trying to sniff out interesting deals. She’s fond of shoes and doesn’t mind a shoe shopping spree. It just wears me out. Then again, with both of us, a shopping spree is a once in a while thing when the moon is the right color thing, and doesn’t often happen.

When it does, I’m in the driver seat, but she’s the navigator, telling me where to go.

Not An Easy Answer

Daily writing prompt
Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

This is another of those questions with contingencies circling around a word. Today, it’s ‘gift’. I mean, the gifts of life and good health are often on people’s lists. I’ve experienced enough personal health scares to appreciate those words. A memory seared into my being is of being very sick one year. Bronchitis turned to pneumonia. I awoke to Mom’s high pitched appeals, “Please, Lord, let my son live.” Her efforts worked, as here I am. Pretty good gift, I think.

Then there is the best gift received as a present. That would be a 1/20 scale model of a 1961 Jaguar XK-E. I was around nine or ten years old. Car fever bowled me over. Porsches, Corvettes, Ferraris, name it. But that Jag impressed me as the most stylistic art on four wheels. The roadster was my choice but the model was a coupe. It was fun to build, and I displayed the result with pride.

However, there was a shirt given to me when I was fourteen. A female classmate had a crush on me. I was aware of this because other girls wrote me a note informing me of the fact. Later that week, she bought the shirt, and gave it to me as a gift. Although the shirt wasn’t my style, I was flattered. Astonished, really. In retrospect, I understand how much courage it took her to buy that and give it to me.

I suppose, though, the best gift is that kiss and hug my wife gave me the first time she ever told me she loved me. Unable to speak the words, she wrote them in the steam on a window. We were teenagers and that’s another memory captured in amber. Married a few years later, we’re still married fifty years later.

So, not an easy question to answer. The question does force me to realize how many great gifts I’ve received.

I hope I was able to give a few to others along the way.

Yes!

Daily writing prompt
You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

I’ve thought about what I’d do if I got some great, amazingly fanastic news before. In fact, back in 1994, I bough a lottery ticket. The jackpot was some ridiculously high amount. A co-worker asked, “What will you do if you win?”

And I said, “I will shout, yes! Yes! Fuck yes! And I’ll punch my fist in the air for emphasis.”

That, I think is what my response will be to any great, amazingly fantastic news that I get. Then I’ll tell my wife so she can share my excitement.

Saturda’s Wandering Thoughts

My wife doesn’t want me to mop the hardwood floors. I asked for feedback: “Why?”

“You don’t do a good job.”

I was insulted. But, the craftiness in me decided, well, that means that she will always mop the floor.

On the other hand, she admits that I do a much better job cleaning the stainless steel kitchen appliances. Although, she notes, she thinks that I’m “a little obsessive” about having it streak free.

It all works out. I do those items, and she does the floor, and we’re both happy.

Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

It’s funny, sometimes.

My wife picked up a skillet the other day. Washed and dried, she was putting it away. When she turned, the skillet nailed her glass of water on the counter. Put the glass airborne and shattered it into sixteen zillion pieces of glass. Water, Everywhere.

We have hardwood floors in that part of the house — kitchen, foyer, dining room, halls. The glass was cleaned up as best as we could. But. It’s glass.

A few days after the incident, a piece of glass found my heel. Bleeding and pain followed. As the situation unfolded, after almost fifty years of marriage and three more years of being together, my wife asked me, “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

I replied, “I don’t wear shoes in the house.”

Yep, it’s funny, sometimes.

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