Thursday’s Theme Music
Mood: repetigird
Thursday, September 19, 2024, kicked off split between sunshine. One end of the sun was bathed in refreshing warm gold light. The other end was dim, caught in shadows. The situation is slowly changing as the sun lifts over the barriers and heaves into the sky. Which, accidently, sounds like the sun might be puking up there.
58 F here and now, we have blue skies in the main, with some haziness coalescing along the horizons, especially to my west, where the valley flattens out. Yesterday presented us with a gorgeous warm but not overbearing afternoon of sunshine and breezes. Today might duplicate the results, with a high of 79 F being batted around.
Speaking of weather, I’ve been reading about the U.S. healthcare system’s ranking compared to like countries. Yes, that’s a non-sequitar, ain’t it? Few should be surprised that our nation was ranked last, with higher costs, lower levels of service, less access to care, and shorter life spans. I find the comments of Dr. Joseph Betancourt, President of the Common Wealth Fund, relevant.
“This report reveals that our health system is continuing to lag far behind other nations when it comes to meeting our citizens’ basic health care needs. The US spends more on health care than any other country, and Americans are sicker, die younger and struggle to afford essential health care. We spend the most and get the least for our investment.”
“As a primary care doctor, I see the human toll of these shortcomings in our system on a daily basis. I have patients who need medications they can’t afford. I spend time going back and forth with insurance companies who have denied care I know my patients need, and I see older patients who arrive sicker than they should because they’ve spent the majority of their lives uninsured.”
Reading newspaper, magazine, and online articles, I’ve encountered the story he tells again and again. Worse, the laws and actions the GOP and the right wing are initiating are compounding health issues for women by inserting the state and religious views into the transactions. Neither have a need to be there, and both are detrimental to good health practices. Trump and his concept of a plan would most likely worsen the situation, as he’s for business, against government, and has little empathy for the middle class and below. This fuels our need to vote blue in 2024.
We ordered six more Harris-Walz yard signs last night. These are earmared for friends who are looking for yard signs. One woman said she’s putting on on her fence, facing her Trump-supporting neighbor. All turned down bumper stickers. This is a blue to purple area, with a lot of red inflammation around the edges. My friends stated that they have real concerns about what those MAGAs would do to them or their car; yes, we’ve seen the videos and heard the threats MAGAs like to issue.
Without great surprise, I read of an EPA IG report that said top EPA officials had retaliated against whistle blowers. This was done under the previous administration.
Ah, moving on through the morning. I have Jackson Browne singng “The Pretender” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark calloused). The Neurons brought it up when I was sipping coffee, watching cats wash after they’d eaten, studying the line of the morning sun moving across the backyard. Then the songs’ lines came up, “And when the morning light comes streaming in, we’ll get up and do it again.” Yep, that’s where I stand. Time to do it again.
Be strong, stay positive, test negative, and vote blue in 2024. Here’s the music. Cheers
Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts
It’s a recurring theme for me. I see old people and wonder what they were like when they were young, and I look at young people and wonder, what will they be like when they’re old.
Like her, in the floppy sun hat, green pants, and multiple pastels scarves, short grey blonde hair and wire-rimmed round gold glasses. When did she become that person?
Or take her for example, the blonde early tweener with blue hair and fringe bangs, dressed all in black, with a long-sleeved shirt and tight shorts, white crew socks, and white canvas shoes. She’s a gregarious presence in her small knot of companions. What will she be like in the future?
Weird thing: thirty-five customers by my count in the coffee shop. Four of us are male. Two of the men are working on computers. It looks like the women are all socializing.
Contemplating the dynamics and speculating about people is an attractive way of engaging my mind as I sip coffee and the muse comes to write.
Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts
Another grand opening has commenced in Ashlandia. A food truck and picnic table are in the parking lot. Couple chairs. Band is setting up under a white canopy on one side of the small lot. Merchandise has been pulled from the store and is displayed on racks and tables. Vintage clothing. Looks like a good turnout.
Third business in that location since I lived here, which is nineteen years. Once upon a time, that place was a bakery called Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Place to go for pies, cookies, breads, turnovers…well, bakery stuff.
Beside it was a small Italian restaurant. Wiley’s World. Excellent food. It’s now a plant store. Across the street used to be a bank but is now a Starbucks. A coffee shop, updated and modern, replaced the old, beloved coffee shop on the corner that went out of business almost ten years ago when the building’s owners upped the rent. And on the other corner was a bowling alley that is now a small strip shopping center that seems to stay half empty.
Then again, I used to walk to this corner to the coffee shop. Just about a mile, every day. When the coffee shop went away, I had to walk further and further till it reached the point that I was consuming too much of my writing day to reach my writing destination and go back home. Then COVID hit and everything shuttered and there was little walking to anywhere.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is the expression. The flux of business and life, revealed in the shifting landscape.
Michael Seidel, writer 