Sunday’s Theme Music – Dreamer
Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 22, 2026.
Light clouds dappled with gray and white haze the sky. Blue peeks through like a shy child. Sunshine has grown bolder, spreading over the greening valley. 56 F, it’s springy in the best way, with the upper 60s listed as the day’s highs.
My wife and I are going through tasks challenges. Each night we ask the other, “What are you going to get done tomorrow?” The answer must be besides the normal activities. Yesterday, she did the quarterly shredding of receipts. Today, she is cleaning the bottom of the freezer. We have a drawer type freezer. I don’t know what happens in there, but below that drawer gets amazingly messy.
My chores include washing her car, pulling weeds, activating her new ID card, and buying a new phone. I already activated her ID, so I’m 25% done. *smile*
Here’s the long story behind that. I’m retired military, and she’s a retired military spouse. When I retired, my retired military ID became “Indefinite”. It wasn’t really indefinite: a new card was needed when I turned 65. At that point, I was eligible for Medicare Part B. My era’s retired military medical benefits change once I’m eligible for that, as Medicare becomes my primary insurance. My Tricare 4Life becomes my secondary insurance.
My wife’s retired military ID continued expiring every four years. That used to mean a trek to an office where a new card could be issued. The computer systems being used made getting this take about an hour. The local office is in Medford and didn’t do appointments. Everything was walk-in. So we would walk-in, join the line and wait about an hour to 90 minutes.
My wife’s card was expiring in July. Imagine my surprise and delight when the systems reached out and asked if we wanted to renew it online. Why, heck, yeah! Double the surprise when her card now has an “Indefinite” expiration now, too!
Thinking about the political and war news today, and Trump and his support, I wondered, are they dreamers? I’d had a very vivid dream and wondered how their minds work. From my POV, they’re unrealistic and full of illusions and delusions.
Proof of this to me is that Trump says one thing, does another, and it doesn’t work out. He’s done this all his life. He’s had failed businesses and bankruptcies. His supporters say, yes, but he’s a billionaire. Yes, but we know that he built that off his father’s empire, inheriting substantial money, lying, cheating others, suing others to bully them to ‘go along with him’.
Trump breaks promises, laws, rules, and norms. He broke businesses; now he’s breaking our nation, and maybe the world. He’s certainly has made it much messier.
Anyway, with those thoughts stacking in my mind, The Neurons responded with a Supertramp song, “Dreamer”, in the morning mental music stream. That actually had roots in the lyrics “Far out, what a day, a year, a life it is”. Of course, I was shaking my head as I thought it. *smile*
“Dreamer” is a simple song. I found a video of it being done as part of the Night of the Proms series. I always like how the orchestras add to the song. Honestly, I find it fun to watch the musicians and choir.
Hope your day progresses with joy, happiness, and good vibrations for you.
Cheers
Running Late: A Dream
I was running late! Very late!
Arriving at where I needed and expected to be – which was never fully realized but was full of busy people – I found the people I work with/for were gone! Worse, I didn’t have the clothing or office equipment like computers and phones which I required.
Tense seconds were spent cursing and thinking. Then, I knew that my team would have provided for me. I just needed to find that stuff.
Considering the environment, I didn’t see anywhere or anything obvious until I spotted a pallet of trash.
Yes, they would hide it there.
I pulled the top of the trash away. Below it was a large black plastic shipping bag. I tugged it out and opened it. Inside were materials marked with my name, including phone, laptop, clothing, and several folders containing information about my assignment and tickets for my trip.
Relieved, I dressed and began wending through the crowd, on my way again.
Oops, I DIY’d It Again
The DIY cycle continues. This week, I bought and replaced a burned-out bulb in my wife’s car, replaced window blinds, and exchanged some bathroom faucet cartridges.
The blinds were for the guest room and are part of our modernization process. The window is 72 inches wide. We had wooden plantation blinds in there. While visiting Mom last year, we saw zebra blinds. Deciding that we liked them, we bought them online. They were frankly a very easy swap over. I did need different mounting brackets but that ‘weren’t no thang’. Whole thing of moving the bed to reach the window, taking down the old stuff, putting up the new, and cleaning up afterward took about 45 minutes. The results are very pleasing.
Changing the damn bulb for the car, though, was accompanied by a lot of GRRRRs and swearing. The bulb was in my wife’s 2003 Ford Focus driver side headlight. It’s a tight space, cleverly engineered, but TIGHT, and required a lot of working via just the feel of my fingers. Removing the old one took about forty-five minutes and ten thousand swear words. Most started with F. Putting the new one in required another fifteen.
The thing is, the bulb is held by a spring door, if you will, which must be pinched and swung aside to get it out. Man, that thing refused to obey my bidding.
But it’s done.
As for the Kohler faucet cartridges…
This is a regular thing. We have three bathroom sinks with these cartridges with two per sink. They seem to need to be replaced about every four to five years. It’s exasperating but easy. I only needed to do one cartridge, one sink on this round. Five minutes, in and out.
Now I’m waiting to see, what’s next?
Something always emerges in DIY world.
Saturday’s Theme Music – Round and Round
Ashland, Oregon — Saturday March 21, 2026.
56 F, spring is holding on against a late winter effort. Today’s sky favors heavy cloud blanketing and pots of sunshine. Blue has been shouldered out of the scene. Our high will tap the low sixties and tomorrow is supposedly going down into the 30s at night.
Round and round is going round my head. I began writing about the news. It became so Trumpcentric, I split it off.
I’m also going round and round with health matters. It’s bizarre to me because I feel pretty damn good. Could lose a few more pounds, and if you’re giving out miracles, put some hair back on my head.
They found a mass in my bladder yesterday. Not big, something like 2cm. We’ll check it out next week, see what it is, deal with it. The CT scan said liver, intestines, spleen, pancreas, appendix all look good. No loose fluid. Kidneys are intact and the right one has come calculi. The summary says all those things look just like they did in the 2021 scans, when kidney stones advanced out of my left kidney. Oh, what a night.
Everything with Mom is going round and round. The tale is familiar and old. Mom seems happy, enjoying others’ company, goes silent with all. All seems well. Then WHAMO. We’re bowled over by unexpected news and then wait for updates. Mom is being very cagey. We’re letting the assisted living home and county adult social services run the show.
So round we go, weather, health, Mom, Trump. The Neurons have blessed me with “You Spin Me Round” by Dead or Alive in the morning mental music stream. The song’s sentiment is about seeing and wanting someone. The disco beat just has me hooked on the idea that things keep me going round like a record.
Amusing: do the children know what it means to go round like a record?
Probably as much as I knew about ‘going spooning’ or a bicycle built for two.
Going round with a cup of coffee now. Hope your day goes well and peace and grace came around.
Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music — Nobody Knows
Ashland, Oregon — Friday, March 20, 2026.
Spring has officially sprung north of the equator. It’s 56 F in Ashland with high, thin white clouds coalescing in our blue sky. 72 will the high.
Just returned from a CT scan with iodine contrast. Had blood and clots in my urine last week. Urinalysis earlier this week showed cloudy urine with high levels of blood, along with particulates associated with kidney stones. Not a surprising. I passed a kidney stone on my left side in 2021. One was found in my right side, but at 15mm, it was too large to pass. That one seems to be getting cranky, agitating the kidney around it.
Texts are arrived talking about Mom moving and contacting an attorney. Details are sketchy. My app seems to have missed several texts. A new phone is being ordered. This one is now almost ten years old.
The Trump partial government continues to cause travel congestion due to long TSA lines.
Gas and oil prices continue to rise due to Trump’s war on Iran as Trump moves more troops into the middle east. Trump’s war is also producing an increase in mortgage rates, which have reached their highest level in 2026. 2025 home sales were already the weakest in three decades.
Trump’s tariffs continue to drive up food and housing prices. Have you seen the recent price of coffee?
The national debt is going up fast, thanks to Trump’s fraud and waste.
And more rural hospitals are closing, especially in Trump strongholds in the Midwest and South, accelerating a rural hospital crisis.
— Just in from Mom’s assisted living place, Mom has put in a notice to vacate by April 17th and contacted a lawyer about elder abuse.
With these topics and uncertainty inhabiting my thinking, The Neurons are assisting by playing “What Happens Now” by Duran Duran.
Hope your change of seasons bring the best to you. Whether you’re going into spring or fall, may peace and grace find you.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 