Sunday’s Theme Music – Spring!
Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, April 19, 2026.
It’s an amusing but irritating thing. Whenever I type Sunday into WP, it automatically suggests December should follow.
It’s a comfortable, green spring day. Clouds and sunshine are mixing it up. It lightly rained earlier. We’re sitting at 59 F and expect to reach 72.
Mom is still at the assisted living facility. Says she’ll stay there until May 1. Plans after that? She has none. She meets with a social worker and therapists this week. They’ll give their assessments. Mom says the social worker told her that she’ll provide Mom with a ride to Mom’s house. The social worker says she hasn’t spoken to Mom.
Mom’s yard needs mowed. She wonders why her son-in-law won’t do it. This is the same SIL who she accused of doing things to her. The same one she says is hateful and mean. The one who moved her into his house and rearranged rooms to make space for her.
My wife’s elderly aunt passed away, 86. That was the last of her mother’s brothers and sisters. She was a sweetie, religious, a bit conservative, but tolerant and friendly. RIP, Betty.
I think it was on Meidas Touch where I read of the Strait of Schrödinger: the Strait of Hormuz is open and they’re not. Iran boats fired on tankers, another testament to Trump’s marvelous negotiating and planning skills.
How is it Trump’s fault? The strait was open until he attacked Iran. He destabilized the government. Although a hardliner is in power, the factions are stronger now. They’ve seen that blocking the strait is a money-making proposition. A toll must be paid to get through. Thanks, Dozy Donny.
Ever a cliche, Trump warned Iran, “No more mister nice guy.” Apparently, he thinks that dropping bombs, killing a few thousand people and threatening to wipe them out is being ‘mister nice guy’.
I read up about TrumpRx this morning. If you recall, Trump touted this as a historical achievement which will significantly impact drug prices.
- About 24,000 drugs are available for sale in the US. TrumpRx has less than 100 on it.
- A survey of adults showed that two thirds said they’d heard nothing or little about TrumpRx.
This is much like Trump’s other promises, big on hyperbole, short on execution, tiny on impact. Examples of that is his wall with Mexico. Now in Trump’s second year of his second term, 25 miles have been added. But they have big plans…
Trump has canceled Operation LOOK – SQUIRREL! He’s replacing with Operation EPIC LOOK – SQUIRREL! This is because Trump and his planners like using ‘epic’ in their project names. Operation EPIC LOOK – SQUIRREL! has two objectives: stop people from talking about Trump’s role in Epstein’s life and crimes, and to improve Trump’s approval ratings.
Unfortunately, it’s not working for him to date. His approval ratings are tanking. Two thirds of the nation say the nation is heading in the wrong direction.
I have Bruce Springsteen singing “Hungry Heart” in my morning mental music stream. I have no idea why The Neurons are playing it. Far as I could tell, the 1980 song is a jaunty tune about a man abandoning his wife and children. But that’s The Neurons for you: they play by their own rules.
I’m off to Operation Epic Yard Waste Cleanup. Loaded it all up last night. Now it’s time to drive to the disposal center, get in line, and drop it off.
Hope you all have a great day, full of peace, love, and good food.
Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music – Wild Life
Ashland, Oregon — Friday, April 17, 2026.
The clock is running; here we go.
It’s up to 44 from its overnight low of 32 F. Clouds and fog were graying the blue sky but now they’re gone. Unbridled sunshine lights up the green spring world. We’re heading for the upper sixties, they say.
Mom’s deadline is today. 30 days ago, she told the assisted living facility she was moving out. She then started searching for someone to ‘take her home’. It’s been a tug of war since. Today is quiet; no texts from Mom or sisters. I wait on pins and needles.
There’s breaking news — again.
Crude oil prices fell to $90 a barrel based on something Iran was said to agree to. The stock markets were quick to shout good news and go up, but then, that is its modern nature.
We won’t know what it means for a while. Higher oil prices are already embedded in our economic fabric. It will take a while to get it out.
Will the war be over? Will the US military forces leave that area? Depends on what Trump’s bones say.
Even if this war ends, what will happen next? What nation will Trump next attack?
Waiting to see when SOUTHCOM kills some more people in boats in the Pacific.
Still waiting to see what else is in the Epstein files.
Still waiting to see what’s really going on with Trump’s health and mind.
That brings me to “Wild Wild Life”, a 1986 song by Talking Heads.
I’d read a piece about Kavanagh saying, oh, based on Dobbs and original intent, the military draft could be illegal, because it’s not mentioned in the Constitution. That encourage me to scowl and mutter about cherry picking precedence and the dead hand of our founders — all white men — orchestrating our response to modern issues via conservatives who want to turn back the clock.
That all triggered Der Neurons to bring “Wild Wild Life” lyrics into the morning mental music stream.
Like sitting on pins and needles
Things fall apart
It’s scientific
Sleeping on the Interstate, oh-oh-oh
Getting wild, wild life
Checking in and checking out, oh-oh-oh
I got ’em, wild, wild life
Spending all of my money and time, oh-oh-oh
On too much wild, wild life
We wanna go and we go where we go, oh-oh-oh
Ah, doing wild, wild life
I know it, that’s how we start, oh-oh-oh
Got some wild, wild life
h/t to musixmatch.com
Hope your wild, wild, Friday is a safe, prosperous, peaceful one for you, maybe with a little celebration and libation. Have the best one you can make.
Coffee, please.
Cheers
Fascinating Dream: Aliens
It was a fascinating dream for me. When I awoke from it, I thought, I’d been watching a television show or movie. With a bit of surprise, I then realized I’d been in the dream, along with my wife and two children, which were my offspring. But I was both involved by watching as a minor character and sort of injected into some scenes.
My wife and children and I were tourists processing through some station. Aliens were there; sort of Klingon-like, in light grey blue uniforms with a jacket which has a deep red collar and a matching red shirt under it.
While traveling, all of us are stopped by these others who basically want to enslave us. It’s a troubling scene. I’m passive with my wife, not sure what will happen to us verses the others because we’re human and are supposed to have a different status. Nonetheless, we’re detained with the rest.
There’s then a scene where our captor and one of the captives go back and forth about what’s go be done in this cave where we’re being held. I realize that they’re having a disagreement over a matter of reference and perspective.
The captor keeps saying, ‘to your right’, and the other keeps saying, ‘that doesn’t make sense’. I then try to clarify that the captor is talking about the direction from the way he’s facing, while the captive is facing the opposite direction.
I end up getting up and pointing this out on a diagram they have posted on an easel.
We then ‘watch’ as captives are taken to another place to mine stuff. I don’t know what they’re mining. They make a show of it. I then suddenly realize that they’re secretly mining knowledge.
When the captive of before decides they’d learned enough, he reveals that he has a weapon. Shaped like an obelisk – really, just like a foot tall reproduction of the Washington monument, but shiny, silver-gold – the captive holds it up. Pressing a button, he sends a signal.
Suddenly, all these other dead, sleeping, and collapsed aliens awaken and rise. Each of them are equipped with a like obelisk. Using these, they overpower their captors.
As my wife and I watch, we realize that the revolution has begun.
Dream end.
The Comparison: Computer, Trump
It feels like my computer is starting to treat me like it’s Trump. It doesn’t tell me what’s going on or give me a reliable time window.
I’m accustomed to my computer telling me to do things but explaining why it’s doing things. They gave me options: do you want to update and shutdown, or shutdown without updating? Other options were also available.
Along those lines, the computer would inform me about how long it would take — three minutes, two minutes, six.
Yes, they were using computer time. This is not ordinary time. Comparable times are shopping time and waiting time.
“It’ll be just a minute,” I hear. “Maybe two.” Those minutes compound into ten. Fifteen.
Worse, though, are NFL minutes. Especially the last two minutes of a half or game. I did some research and the average final two minutes of an NFL game lasts ten to twenty minutes. Some estimates show that the final two minutes of a four-quarter NFL football game can consume about five to ten percent of the game’s total time, which is wild if you think about it.
The NFL does give us a ‘two-minute warning’. Unfortunately, they’re very terse about it. “This is the two-minute warning.” They should add, “The next two minutes can take anywhere from two and half minutes to eternity. Go use the restroom now, get something to eat and drink, and let your family know where you are.”
Computer time has now overtaken the NFL’s final time minutes as ‘the time that can’t be measured’. My computer doesn’t tell me many times now how long updates or searches will take. It leaves it vague: “This might take a few minutes.”
You think?
I was running a process to check for memory leaks the other night. Yes, on my computer, not for me.
Anyway, the computer warned me, “This might take a few minutes.”
Thirty minutes later, I was still waiting for an update.
And that’s like Trump. Time doesn’t mean anything when he makes promises or projections. Well, neither do facts, for the most part.
For example: Trump was asked when he would come up with his replacement for ACA. Two weeks, he told us, over five years ago.
When will the Iran war end? “When I feel it in my bones.”
Great.
Sounds just like my computer.
When will the search be finished?
“When I feel it in my hardware.”
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Michael Seidel, writer 