Feb. 10, 2025, is a wintry Mundaz in Ashlandia. White sky holds no promises. White sky offers no sun. White sky offers no solace.
No precipitation is falling but we’re hovering at a toasty 23 F, ten degrees below our average low for this calendar date. Snow that fell last week still has a meaty white presence on the ground. The pine trees have finally shed that winter weight. Last week’s snow and ice had many pines bent to half of their height.
As for today, ‘they’ tell us that the sunshine will overcome the white sky and take us to 43 F, ten degrees below our normal average high.
Sorry that KC Chiefs were so dominated by the Philly Eagles in the SB yesterday. Unfortunately, PINO Trump predicted they’d win. That doomed them. As we’ve seen repeatedly demonstrated, Trump bestows the kiss of death on everything.
The Neurons surprised me with today’s music. It started as a tangent off some floofcourse between me and my felines. I asked them, “What’s wrong now?” Their answer came as pouty stares and circling watchfulness, which just dumped Les Neurons into bafflement. As I shifted to news reports with growing, heavier sighs, I thought, “Too many problems.”
A song began in my morning mental music stream. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong now? Too many problems.” As it pulled up volume and melody, I hunted the who, what, whens behind it. Unable to answer those myself, I turned to the net. It educated me that the song was “Nobody’s Home” by Avril Lavigne from 2004. I guess I heard it in the car. Back in that decade, I moved to Ashlandia and began doing regular I-5 commutes from my place in southern Oregon to visit with my team in Mountain View, between SF and SJ on the peninsula. Guess I heard it then.
Hope you can get positive that something good will come about and it won’t take a miracle from some deity or an eternity to happen. Coffee and I have embraced again. Off we go, into the wild white yonder, a fresh start on another day.
Good mornin’! It’s Sunda, February 9, 2025. Sunshine is crowding the window, pressing its rays up against the glass. We started the AM at 25 F in my locale but the sun soon had us soaring past 33 F. ‘They’ tell us 43 is possible. Don’t know if their fingers were crossed behind their backs.
The sun has been working its magic. Trees and bushes are pushing their heavy lids of snow back and stretching and flexing into their normal postures. Seeing sunshine, both floofs clamored to escape the house. Checking on them later, the two sat, eyes closed, soaking up rays on the patio’s sun-warmed cement. After being sun-doused, they returned to the house. One is now napping on a bed while the other is in a chair in sunshine snoozing.
What a night of dreams. Another military dream was among them. Classic of these dreams, I’m in the military again, and again coping with a uniform malfunction. In other words, I was out of compliance and trying to solve that. It’s my version of being pantless in school. But a twist arrived when an officer accosted me and asked, “What are you doing?” I figured he was going to ladle grief on me for my uniform. I whipped out an explanation and told him I was trying to rectify it. “Why?” he responded, surprising me. Then he added, “You retired.”
Oh, yeah.
That sunshine had me thinking, I hunger for a bouncy, energetic song. Something as an antitdote to PINO Trusk’s destruction. Drifting back into time, The Neurons surfaced with a Who offering from 1972. Although the video is silly with them miming playing their instruments and singing, the infectious blending of instruments stirred the kind of hope I felt when I was sixteen. That — and coffee — is just what my spirit ordered.
Coffee saved me again. Brekkie is done, cats are fed. Time to gen up other activities. Hope your day serves you well. Cheers
Daybreak’s first peeps brought awareness. Today is Saturday. Were I a child of the days back then, I’d be up with joy, heading into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal and into the living room to check out cartoons. Maybe it’d be Bugs and the Roadrunner. Johnny Quest. Speedy Gonzales, Top Cat, Deputy Dawg.
With awakening today, I thought, February 8, 2025. Taxes have been prepared but not filed. We owe money at this point so why pay now? Wait till the bill is due. Not acutally my philosophy; this was my spouse’s input.
It’s 25 F outside. Sunshine and clouds take turns showing themselves. Snow flurries fall. The road looks slick with ice. Snow is still the landscape’s dominant feature. Much melted off yesterday as the snow turned to rain and rain turned to sunshine. The temperature climbed into the low forties before retreating into the mid-20s overnight. ‘They’ tell us today will bring partly sunny skies into Ashland and a high in the upper thirties.
Today’s song is from a movie. The movie is is based on the 1979 book The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage by Robert Lindsey. A friend of mine was the book’s editor, and he told about how the manuscript came to be in his hands and his conversations with the author, insights which I lapped up. The movie was released in 1985 and starred young Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton. I’ve posted about the hit song that emerged from it before. Suffice today to say that after reading news yesterday about PINO Trump and Musk — PINO Trusk — activities, The Neurons plucked the song from memory and has it rolling in the morning mental music stream. Key to the song’s position in the MMMS is the line repeated throughout the song, “This is not America”, which is also the song’s title.
Unfortunately, through an accumulation of actions and a confluence of misguided thinking and behavior, what we have now is America. It’s not the place visualized by our founders. Nor is it the nation which survived a civil war and two world wars. No, this is an ugly vision of America, and what many feared would happen. Too sadly, it is celebrated as ‘the right direction’ for a segment of the population.
I ran into coffee in the kitchen and consumed. Sunshine has lifted the light and temperature outside and the falling snow has faded. Ice has melted on the streets.
Things are looking up, for the moment, here in Ashlandia.
We’ve clocked into Friedaz, February 7, 2024. Snowfall greeted me when I checked the weather. A couple more inches had been added during night’s rule. Now 30 F, more was piling up.
Or was it? The temperature crept up to 31. 32. 32.3. 32.4.
Papi the ginger blade, aka, ginger butt, had a vet appointment. 10 AM. I’d made it three weeks ago. He was suffering fur loss, ravenous appetite and some weight loss. Hyperactive thyroid was suspected by us. We’d seen the same in Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah). In fact, based on that, we’d started sharing Tucker’s medicine with Papi. Stopped it on Monday so we could get it out of his system and see the test results.
After strapping chains onto the tires and putting a complaining Papi into a kennel, I made the drive under heavy snowfall.
Turned out that chains were only needed for our driveway and street. The city’s main roads were plowed. As we traveled west and north, the temperature rose. Snow became rain. Precipitation ceased by the time we reached the vet.
That’s okay. Little inconvenienced. Important thing is to get Papi checked and healthy. Yeah, blood work shows hyperactive thyroid. Five hundred clams later, she prescribed the same med that Tucker is getting. Wants to check him in a month.
BTW, I researched why we call money ‘clams’. Turns out that it’s an old joke, based on settlers observing natives using clams for cash. Actually, I made that up. Figure that in this era of fake news, what’s a little more?
I have a 1974 Procol Harum song, “Pandora’s Box”, in the morning mental music stream. Procol Harum often brought interesting music to the scene. This is one I knew from their albums but I don’t believe I ever heard it played on the radio. Funny enough, Aerosmith had a song with the same title in the year before. That caused some confusion among some of us. The two songs sound nothing at all alike, with vastly different intentions presented by the lyrics. I later bet a friend about who performed the song, cleverly inserting the year as part of the bet. I won but he accused me of being underhanded and taking advantage of him. Guilty! But the bet was just a beer, come on. It was at the NCO club and was five dollars for a pitcher. Of course, it was American lager…Miller Lite, I think.
Coffee has resuscitated my energy levels again. Time to get on the day and ride. Hope your day fills your needs.
Hey, look, the snow has stopped and the sun is out.
By the way, I thought I’d utilize the original spelling used today, Friedaz. In doing research, I learned that ‘day’ was actually ‘daz’ almost universally until it became Anglicized. And the prefix, Fri, was originally Frig or Frigga, after a Nordic Goddess. Those rebelling against Nordic influence because they were chaffing from looting done during Viking raids in Europe, changed it to Frie. That spelling upset Christians, as Frigga day or Frieday was a day of fasting. People thought that calling it Friedaz gave them permission to eat fried food. Hence, they started eating fried fish on Friedaz, giving rise to the Catholic rule of eating fish on Friday. The spelling was changed to try to stop people from eating fried foods on Friedaz, but it had became too embedded. Even so, a last ditch attempt was made by religious authorities: they changed the spelling to Friday. And that’s why we have that spelling.
Naw, I made that up, too. Blame the coffee. It’s always forcing me to write and say crazy things.
Greetings from snowy Ashland. It’s Wenzda, February 5, 2025. Our first snowstorm of 2025 came in, kicked our asses, stamped its feet, and moved on.
The entire time that it snowed, there was no wind. The snow fell straight down. The temperatures hung between 31 and 33 degrees. When the snow ceased late yesterday afternoon, the light shifted. Rosy hues colored the snow. Probably sunset from behind clouds, I speculated. Then, it all went gray.
Next, the temperature, released from its obligation to remain at freezing while the snow fell, shed nine degrees in three hours. Clouds now sail through blue skies and sunshine. Trees and utility lines are shedding large clumps of melting snow. It’s up to 29 degrees F. A high of 38 F is possible, ‘they’ tell us. When all the snow stopped falling, my yard was buried under 14 inches.
Watching all that snow falling yesterday, my wife summarized the day well for us: “I guess it’s good to be retired and not need to go anywhere.”
Yes, good thing, because the storm dropped a ton of chaos on our little town. White stuff falling from the sky really confused people’s sensibilities. Didn’t help that the city on which we depend on services seemed really confused by what was happening. Or maybe it was people out sick, miscommunications, or people overcome with two much going on. Roads weren’t getting plowed — no, some roads were getting plowed. Several roads were plowed over and over while other roads, particularly on the newer south end of town, didn’t see plows at all. For the record, our road was just plowed for the first time. It’s not a major matter, as it’s not that long and only has about forty houses on it.
FB photo of I-5 in the valley not far from Ashland. If you zoom in on the road, you’ll see what looks like a train. Those are actually semis stopped in traffic because the Interstate is closed.
Other factors threw complications into the mix. Trees and branches found new resting places on the ground. So did power lines. People who lived on hills parked down where the roads were flat and walked home. Snow convinced some folks to just stop their cars where they were and walk away.
Without much local media, we were at a disadvantage. The city did nothing to bridge that gap. We have an emergency text message system but that wasn’t engaged much, other to say, “It’s snowing. Stay home.” Our best tool turned out to be Facebook. Friends in three other parts of town reported their situation. Between the four of us, we could compare notes and track developments.
One thing that puzzled my household as we surveyed activities from our window: why were so many people out in light jackets without hats and gloves?
But it’s over. Lessons learned? Probably not.
Our snowstorm stirred memories of another snowstorm. This one was in 1978. I’d just returned from a tour of duty in the Philippines. My wife was living with her family in WV while I was overseas. Now, with me back in the U.S., we bought a car and were driving to a new duty location by San Antonio, Texas. A huge blizzard struck. We made the decision to get the hell out of there and drove several hundred miles through blinding snow.
Thinking back on that time, I looked through a pop list, remembering songs. I’d been overseas. This was pre-Internet, pre-satellite TV, etc. When I returned to the U.S., I felt a deep disconnection with the nation. Looking at a list of songs from that time, I saw “Follow You Follow Me”. I know the song but there’s no memories connected to it, much like a lot of music I know from that period. It’s just there, floating in my mind, unmoored to anything.
One good thing emerging from the two snow days for us is that we used the time to clean the oven and pantry. My wife was the major mover on the pantry, emptying it, tossing outdated stuff, wiping the shelves. I only helped with the reorg and handing things to her.
The bad thing about the snow days is that she kept getting sucked into the bad news cycle. Infuriating to watch the checks and balances disintegrating in the face of GOP complicity.
Coffee and I have ran into each other in the kitchen, so we sat and had a cup to talk about the day. Hope you enjoy a good one. Cheers
Sunda, February 2, 2025, arrived in Ashlandia as inviting as a gray, wet mop. Sunshine feels like an alien life form. 35 F, the thermometer says the air temp is, and ‘they’ tell me that the temperature will punch up to 36 F. Light snow is falling.
Kind of light snow is falling. Sometimes, it’s rain, sometimes it’s sleet. A position can’t be staked and claimed for the local weather. Reactions on NextDoor about the weather are frequently amusing about this. “The forecast is for rain. Or snow! Maybe we’ll get zero inches, maybe we’ll get 88! Who knows?!!!” I can imagine someone looking a little wild-eyed and giggling to themselves typing this up. But she has aptly captured the general flow of thoughts.
Part of all this is elevation. Ashland is built on a series of southern mountain slopes. Weather changes are experienced as you slipslide up and down. Our house resides around 2100 feet. Looking up the street, where elevation increases a few hundred more, snow is visible lining roofs.
A winter storm warning is out for our area, so ‘they’ think it’s gonna be something. The rest of us are giving the forecast a jaundiced ‘we’ll see’ gaze. It is good soup weather. Soup, with hot buttered bread, as been conditioned into me. Mom had a practice of dishing out soup on days like this. Campbell’s had advertising campaigns predicated on the need. My wife is also out of that school. Her eyes and expression gain a little light as she states the idea, “This looks like a good soup day.” Best of all on a day like this, with trouble in the news — I haven’t looked but this is now the Trump era, and that’s all there is since he’s been installed as POTUS — would be a big bowl of Mom’s chili. She had an awesome recipe, and I could eat that stuff eight days a week.
Today’s theme music emerges from more conversations with my wife. A lifelong feminist who took on the ideology that everyone is born with equal rights regardless of anything else at an early age, the Trump’s administration to break the world and shove us back into the 1800s has her GRRRRRRR cranked up to eleven. The match point from the convos is that Trump respects nothing. We suspect that he doesn’t even have much self-respect; although he blusters about how great it is, his statements ring with a desperate need to be believed. That’s why he lieks his rallies, where the gullibles line up to worship him as he needs.
The other portion of these talks is that Elon Musk doesn’t respect the Trumpet at all. Being genuinely more intelligent, craven, and cruel, Musk is eagerly taking advantage of Trump to plunder the United States, with eyes on plundering the world. He has no respect for anyone but himself.
All these talking about respect invited The Neurons to pulled up a song from my teen years and dropped it into the moring mental music stream. “Respect Yourself” begins with the lyrics, “If you disrespect everbody that you run into, how in the world do you think anybody’s gonna respect you?” Trump thinks he can get respect by bullying everyone; he’s convinced himself that’s how it works, and his sycophants feed him a steady diet of ‘you got that right, sir’, so he never hears — or learns — otherwise. So this 1971 tune by The Staple Singers is dedicated to Trump and the Grand Ol’ Trump Party as they go about disrespected all others. No one is gonna give you respect in return.
Beyond the sentiments of the song, I love the funkiness dropped by the electric piano and bass. What a sweet sound. With its beat and vocals, it’s an excellent song to sing along with as you dance around the house. Feel free to turn it up loud.
Coffee has suggested that I have a cup. I didn’t want to be rude, so I agreed. And off we go, into the gray and white yonder. Look, it’s raining again. Or is that snow?
Good morning’! Welcome to Sunda, Jan. 26, 2025. We’re closing out 2025’s first month, and what a first month it’s been!
Here in Ashland, we have…drum roll, please…blue skies and sunshine again. Current temp is 33 F and the ever present ‘they’ are speaking of highs in only the upper forties. A stout wind carrying wintry shards have cranked up. It’s moanin’, groanin’, and hissin’, while tossin’ loose things around like an irritated gorilla.
Today’s song emerged because I was singing “Hash Pipe” to myself. “Hash Pipe” is a 2001 Weezer song. Its first vocal line is sang in descending notes. The words go, “I can’t help myself, I go out of my mind.”
Hearing that, The Neurons unburied a point about those lyrics. They’re lifted from a Beatles song, “You Can’t Do That”, from 1964. Pivoting with that, Der Neurons filled my morning mental music stream with the Beatles’ song.
Sing along with me.
“So please listen to me if you want to stay mine. “I can’t help my feelings, I go out of my mind. “I’m going to let you down and leave you flat. “I told you before, oh, you can’t do that.”
Never bought it, but I know the song well.
“Hash Pipe” was being sung because of a NYTimes Tale. I read a piece about MAGA folks and where they thought Trump was leading them. They were interviewed after the inauguration. Man, talk about a misinformed, misguided bunch. Even after all these years of exposure to their many instances of ignorance, I’m still shocked when I encounter it. For instance, here’s a woman from PA:
We are so divided. It’s scary. Scary for the kids that are growing up, like my grandkids. I don’t like the way this country’s turned — all this woke stuff. Stuff that the kids shouldn’t be exposed to. I think I was 18 before I knew that there was gay people, you know? I listened to Queen. I didn’t know he was gay.
Amish came out in Pennsylvania. They came out in droves. They came out in their horse and buggies. It was incredible. So that’s a united country again. We’re tired of being lied to.
I infer from what she said that she thinks Trump speaks truth. *head shake*
Beyond that example, they demonstrate no idea how tariffs, the economy, or energy production and prices work. They believe all those things Trump says he’s doing with his magic pen. They believe this, of course, because they’re fully wired into right-wing news sources. So even when inflation doesn’t drop, prescriptions drug prices increase, unemployment rises, food shortages spread, and pollution mars our land, water, and air, they’ll be blissfully touting all the great things Trump is doing.
That is part of the big picture. Create a right-wing media that disparages the left and praises the right without regard to the truth or facts. Dismantle the education system so people no longer know history, economics, science, and government. Shutter transparency on the government by firing inspectors and dismantling agencies. Crush opposition so there are no dissenting voices. Teach the big lies in church as part of their religious worship. And of course, keep ’em soaking in fear: fear of what the left is doing by mislabeling Democrats as socialists and communists, which are dirty words in the right-wing. Keep ’em in fear by lying to them about what the LGBTQ+ community does to their children. Fuel their fear with worries about immigrants taking their jobs and eating their pets.
The transformation will be complete, and Trump voters will never know. They’ll go down, whining about increased prices, high unemployment, dirty air, and so on, without ever understanding how they were part of it, how they were duped and used. It’s a con on a national scale.
And that’s why “Hash Pipe” was being sung. There’s a chorus about being kicked in the song.
Oh, come on and kick me Oh, come on and kick me (Whoa) Come on and kick me You’ve got your problems (Whoa) I’ve got my eyes wide (Whoa) You’ve got your big G’s I’ve got my hash pipe
h/t to Bing.com
See, those GOTP supporters are asking to be kicked. But that’s okay. They got their hash pipe. In their case, their hash pipe is the fear hatred that fuels their bitterness, sexism, and racism; or entertainment like video games, television shows, sporting events, and movies that keep ‘em distracted. Meanwhile, reality will keep kicking them, and they won’t fuckin’ know it.
Ignorance is truly bliss.
Coffee and I have are into another one-morning stand. Here’s the music. Hope you have a strong day. Please, don’t ever turn your back on the truth. Here we go with some music. Cheers
Ashlandia is soaking in blue sky and sunshine. The temperature has topped 33 degrees F. But the good weather news is that the conditions causing the stagnant air has ended. Besides causing an accumulation of pollution and reducing the air quality, stagnant air in the winter seems to amplify the cold. Feels like that cold air is just marching walls. Maybe that’s just my impression but when I mentioned it to friends, they agreed that they noticed the same. Anyway, we’ll going to scale the thermometer all the way up into the fifties again. A cold spell is on the way, though. Don’t know if it’ll bring any snow; we still have not had winter snow.
The cats inspired The Neurons this morning. The floofs began singing ‘feed me’ while I was still burrowed in my warm bed. Each took turns entering the room to sing, “Feed me.” Soon, their singing had taken on the cadence of a 1998 song by Sixpence None The Richer called “Kiss Me”. Not long after that, “Kiss Me” chased the dreams out of my head and was circulating in the morning mental music stream. I have no choice but to make it today’s theme music for this Saturday, January 25, 2025. You should mark this day as special, because historians say that there will never again be a 1/25/2025. I don’t know if you believe that, because historians are a flighty bunch, prone to partying and making wild claims.
Speaking of kissing, coffee and I have made up and kissed. There was just a small spate, brought on by my quasi-firm rule not to drink coffee after 4 PM. It hurt coffee’s feelings. So I had to apologize to it this morning, reassuring it, “Of course I’ll drink you after four.” Had to repeat it a few times because coffee was like, “You’re just saying that.” But coffee finally accepted, and now I’m drinking it again.
Hope you have a strong day in your location, no matter your activity, although certain restrictions about murder and abuse apply. Here’s the song. It’s a solid soft rock-pop offering with delicate folksy overtones. Hope it helps your Saturday on its way. Cheers
It’s raining abundant sunshine down on us on this, Twosda, January 21, 2022. Temperature is up to 30 F after landing at 26 F overnight. ‘They’ inform me that today’s high will exceed 50 F. It’s all possible, from the general appearance, and we did do it yesterday.
All this is better than my sister’s world back in Pennsylvania. She texted me that it was either snowing heavily or the wind was blowing the existing snow around. Either way, there was a lot of white stuff obscuring vision. She was at work on her midday when she reported this to me. She reported that the temperature was 5 degrees F. That’s barking cold, brothers and sisters.
Today’s music came from a mental exercise. I was on a news blackout yesterday. So I was unleashed in my net surfing. I soon hooked a clickline about the 50 greatest one-hit wonders. I decided to brainstorm and see how many I came up with. About half was the reckoning. Guess I needed more coffee. One song that I missed was “Criminal” by Fiona Apple. Weird thinking of her as a one-hit wonder, because I know a few other songs she released which were hits, but here we are. Naturally, after seeing it on the list, The Neurons carried it into the morning mental music stream, where they’ve released it on a loop. So I share with you to free myself.
Coffee has offered to pour into my mouth and invade my system and kick my energy into a higher gear. I gladly accepted. Here’s the music. Let’s light the fuse on the day. Cheers
We’ve slipped into foggy bottom or foggy bottom slipped over us. Fogda, Jan. 6, 2025. 40 degrees F, sunshine has taken some time away, apparently, giving us over to clouds and rain. 56 F is the projected high. An air stagnation advisory has been slapped on us.
Yesterday turned into fine, sunshiny day. Of course, we were slightly out of town for most of the afternoon, and in a slighter higher elevation, visiting our friends for a party. Good cast of characters, and the house is beautiful. The owner joked that it was a two-bedroom five two hundred square foot home with five fireplaces. Main house had a beautiful small living room and a large living room which used to be the original owner’s home movie theater. That was a natural for that original owner as he owned a chain of movie theaters. Finances crashed and he quit using the house during COVID. The owner related that everything had quit working and they needed to repair and replace multiple things when they bought the home. But they did the job and it showed. There’s also a .5 acre fishing pond, heated pool, a separate artist studio, two-bedroom guest house with a two-car garage, and an RV parking garage with space for three RVs, which cracks up the current owner. “Definitely something we don’t need,” he said. It’s about eight minutes out of Ashlandia. A hallway off the foyer has his and hers coat closets, along with a guest closet.
Papi continues losing fur at a startling rate. He’s not going bald or anything; fur keeps growing in to replace it. We don’t know what’s going on. His appetite is good, he’s as perky and conversant as ever, and he looks good. We keep thinking, must be the weather, but he’s never done this before. We eye him for signs of things going amiss. If it’s there, we’re missing it.
Today’s song was born out of texts swapped between Mom, me, and a sis in the Pittsburgh, PA, region. They had snow coming down, impeding traffic, limiting outdoor options. The Neurons took the opportunity to start “Snow (Hey Oh)” by Red Hot Chili Peppers in the morning mental music stream (Trademark blizzard). The 2005 song is about getting a fresh start. Hey, it’s kinda still a new year, new month, new day, and a new government administration in the U.S. Okay, I kind of choked on that last one. I’ve always enjoyed this hard rocker. Easy to follow and sing along. And hey, it’s also about surviving, so there we go.
Be chill and don’t thrill. Coffee and I ran into each in the kitchen and swapped some spit. Hey ho, listen to what I say yo, it’s a fresh new day. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 