Tag: wrong direction

Thursday’s Theme Music — State of things

Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, May 14, 2026.

It’s blue out there, full of sunshine. Clouds are absent. 50 F with a high in the mid 70s today.

Thunderstorms looked possible yesterday but it didn’t happen. Just as in the previous days of forecasted activity. After the winter snow drought, May is at 3% of its average rainfall.

Our snowpack is at about 7%. While the reservoirs are above 80%, without snowmelt to replenish them, it’ll be a hot, dry summer. Stack the El Nino predictions, many of us are bracing ourselves for a rough year ahead.

Mom’s state is not good. She wasn’t responding to my sister’s texts. Sis called the assisted living facility, Heritage Grove, to ask about Mom. They said Mom went to bed before dinner and had not felt well all day.

On the optimistic side of the board, two neighbors are reportedly interested in buying Mom’s house.

My wife and I had new tires installed. For the record, we replaced a set that we’d bought in 2019. Got 35,000 miles out of them. Not great, not bad.

We bought them at Costco and had them installed there, shopping while we waited. As we were in the Medford area, we decided to eat out and chose the Texas Roadhouse Restaurant. My wife likes the salmon they serve there.

We couldn’t eat there. The way was blocked by ambulances and firetrucks. Wondering what’s going on, we took to our phones to learn. Nothing at the fire department, alert system, social media, or local television stations could give us that info.

This duplicated a Tuesday incident, in my mind. Driving home from writing at the coffee shop, one lane of traffic was blocked off in front of an SOU building on Siskiyou Avenue. What happened? I searched for information after I got home and couldn’t find anything. 24 hours later, the answer came: a woman had driven across the median strip, up a walkway, and into a building, breaking a gas meter along the way.

Miserable headlines fill my feed. When will there be good news? I’m not sure what I mean by good news at this point. An end to wars would be nice, along with a return to normalcy. Normalcy to me is let’s take action against polluting our air and water. Action against climate change. But the cynic in me says that PINO Trump would take credit for whatever and enough brain-dead people would slurp that down and bray about how great Dozy Donnie is that I’d regurgitate everything taken in during the last three days.

But here’s the state of things in the United States nation in one sharp observation someone else made:

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Paraphrasing, Trump lies, says this isn’t so bad, Biden! Because that worked well previously under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!

Enough people with brains are responding, screw you.

You started a war, Donald J “No new wars” Trump.

The economy is a mess, gas prices are rising, all the prices are rising, Donald J “We’ll cut prices on day 1” Trump, and the country is going in the wrong direction.

And you, DONALD J TRUMP, YOU ARE THE REASON WE’RE IN SIX MILLION MESSES WITH NO WAY OUT EXCEPT TO FIRST GET RID OF YOU AND YOUR CRONIES.

Now stop building the damn ballroom and release the damn Epstein files so we can feast on your political corpse.

The Neurons inserted “Mind Games” by John Lennon into my morning mental music stream. This actually came about from Papi’s state of mind this morning. I played with him and his favorite nemesis, the red dot. The play began abruptly. As soon as he engaged, I stopped for about a minute. He kept peeking left and right, waiting for it to reappear. Just as he started walking off, I blinked it back on. Off Papi went, chasing it across the room, then stalking it.

I hope your Thursday brings you some good news and fair winds, assuming you need winds to get somewhere. Like you drive a sail car and need to have wind to blow you along the Interstate.

Have my coffee now. Cheers

2

Sundaz Theme Music

White frost inks the grass and bare mulch. Sunda, 23 November 2025, is seeing another morning of fog and a temp of 32 F. Walking around yesterday, a distinct wintry essence infiltrated the air. Snow felt imminent. But now sunshine is spreading, lighting up a blue sky. The temperature has crept up to 39 F. 66 F is possible before night takes it all down again.

Today’s song is “Sunshine”, a 1971 Jonathan Edwards song. Though I know the lyrics and melody well, I looked up the song writer and performer. I haven’t heard the song in years that I know. It overwhelmed the morning mental music stream, introduced in there by The Neurons when I happened to look out a window and say, “Look, sunshine!” That’s how Der Neurons roll.

The song’s lyrics always intrigue me. It seems like a song of defiance and hope mixing it up with grumbling, determination, and impulsiveness.

Sunshine, go away today
Don’t feel much like dancin’
Some man’s gone, he tried to run my life
He don’t know what he’s askin’

Well, he tells me I better get in line
I can’t hear what he’s sayin’
When I grow up, I’m gonna make it mine
These ain’t dues that I’ve been payin’

How much does it cost? I’ll buy it
Time is all we’ve lost, I’ll try it
He can’t even run his own life
Be damned if he’ll run mine

How much does it cost? I’ll buy it
Time is all we’ve lost, I’ll try it
He can’t even run his own life
Be damned if he’ll run mine

Working starts to make me wonder where
All that I do is going
He says in love and war all is fair
He’s got cards that he ain’t showing

How much does it cost? I’ll buy it
Time is all we’ve lost, I’ll try it
He can’t even run his own life
Be damned if he’ll run mine

Sunshine, come on back another day
I promise you I’ll be singing
This old world, she’s gonna turn around
Brand new bells’ll be ringing

Songwriters: Rodney Jerkins, Lashawn Daniels, Leendert Bolier, Cheryl Elizabeth Gamble, Johan Jacobse, Freddie D Iii Jerkins, Frederik D Freek Geuze.

We’re mock laughing in our household about brave Marjorie Taylor Greene. Oh, she’s resigning from Congress…in January, after her retirement benefits are won. What a deal! That will let this former MAGA star suckle off the public for the rest of her life. She also made a ton o’ cash with stock trading during her years of public service. Meanwhile, she’ll probably plop into some fat gig as media star commenting on current events, and we’ll be stuck with her for years as she pops up, trying to be relevant and insightful. Meanwhile, whenever she speaks, someone will say, “MTG is still alive? I thought she died years ago.”

Public service. Pays well for some, working for We the People. Just ask Trump. He’s certainly doing well, financially, as he craters the nation, starves people, and struts around bleating about how great he is, backing up his assertions with outright lies. Word is, it’s catching up with him, judging from polls and confidence indexes. As he crows about how popular he is, the number of people saying they disapprove of him, his regime, the economy, and the nation’s direction, are all climbing.

Peace and grace haven’t answered my invite. Hope they answer yours and show for us soon. Meanwhile, pour a cuppa and sit, read the news, think and sigh. Here we go. Cheers

5

Sundaz Theme Music

Sundaz has slipped in, wrapping an autumn day around its shoulders. Sunshine and clouds and shuffling and bumping one another. Temperatures are moldering around the low 50s with plans for the high 50s. We’re now halfway through the eleventh month of 2025, as it’s November 16, 2025. With 2025 slinking toward the end, we wonder, are we on the right path as a nation? My Neurons answer with a resounding, “Hell, no.”

My sisters reported on progress cleaning Mom’s house out. She’s lived there thirty plus years. Stuff accumulates. Bills and paperwork. Memorabilia. Clothing. Food, utensils, bowls, dishes. Three sisters reported for duty, taking what they wanted for themselves, otherwise tossing things, filling up the trash and recycling cans. Sad, depressing, normal.

Today’s music comes from being outside at midnight last night. (Yes, it was a cat thing.) I was looking for the moon, the northern lights, meteorites, alien spaceships, bears, cougars, etc. But The Neurons took it in a different direction, bringing up a cover of “Shame on the Moon” by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. I remember that song arriving on the radio scene and singing it to myself later as I walked at night, admiring the moon. It’s a mellow song for a mellow day when they tell us rain is on the way.

It’s Sunda so the news cycle is slow. I can’t pretend to guess what Traziness will strike. He’s retreating on tariffs, sweating bullets over the Epstein files, and continues to rule over Project 2025 chaos, inflicting dumbassery and cruelty wherever and whenever. The Trump Epstein Shutdown is over but the Trump Epstein Shitshow goes on.

Have a great Sunda. I’m gonna strive to do the same. Coffee is up. Here we go, one more time. Cheers

0

Wenzdaz Theme Music

Papi’s sour expression talked down the weather change. Colder at night, he’s happier in a comfortable shadow on a hot day. I feel him. Yesterday’s temperature rocketed up to 98 F at our place, then drooped to 54 F overnight. With have blue skies and sunshine but shifting angles have us yielding to cold mountain air at night. 72 F now, it’s wonderful outside. Delightful place to visit with a ginger floof and a cuppa coffee to soak up sunshine. But it’ll peg the mid 90s before the Earth’s curve cuts off our sun supply. Then the mid fifties will take over, temp wise. Politically, we’ll keep dropping until we’re in the early 1800s.

This is Wenzda, September 24, 2025. If you thought the Dementor in Chief’s power would be waning by now, you’d be half right. It’s waning, but he doesn’t know it. As always, he’ll be the last to know.

The Neurons were working as dreams were ending. While I dismantled the dreams and picked through the pieces for whys and whats, The Neurons cranked up “1999” by Prince in the morning mental music stream. I laughed at that. Clever Neurons. Back in the 1980s when Prince wrote this beat, he was proposing a party for 1999 because that was to be end of an era. All this was based on a Nostradamus prophecy. After 1999 came dystopia.

Then the 2000s began. The hanging chad Florida voting fiasco. Gore v. Bush. 9/11. Global War on Terror. Attacks on Afghanistan. Iraq. Then, Trump, and Trump again. Tearing into basic fundamentals of our nation. National Guard units are being deployed to opposition cities based on Trumped Reality. Aided by the Supreme Court, it’s now okay to discriminate on the basis of skin color to arrest and deport people — without due process because the man ordering it is now above the law — but it’s bad to adjust for shortcomings to advance people in employment, culture, and education based on their skin color. “Free speech for me but not for thee” is a growing Trump thing as he shuts down even complaints against him, let alone protests.

So, thinking on it, a quarter century after 1999, we should party like it’s 1999. Because we were culturally, socially, and politically more advanced back then, and going in the right direction. Now, as polls will tell you, we’re veering into an ugly, ugly place. It’s the wrong direction. And Trump the Disuniter isn’t going to do anything but make it worse and accelerate the decline.

I bet Trump’s BFF, Jeffrey Epstein, his running partner of that earlier era, would also agree, things are going to crap.

Have coffee, will function. Hope peace and grace climb out of their graves and finds us all. May it begin today. Cheers

0

A Wrong-way Highway Dream

The highway dream began with ice cream.

Bowls of fresh ice cream covered a small table. There were different flavors and colors. As I checked the ice cream, I realized that some of it was blueberry. I thought, that would be tasty.

Mom was there, and my wife. Mom said, “There’s more ice cream in the freezer. The freezer’s not working so we need to get rid of all this ice cream because it’s going to melt.”

Get rid of ice cream? Why don’t we just eat it, or give it to people to eat?

Nobody wanted ice cream because they’d had too much ice cream. Cats and kittens came along. I scooped spoons of ice cream out for them to eat, which they did. Then I gave them a bowl.

Time to go. My wife and I got into a car. (I didn’t see the car at all in the dream but knew it as mine.) We were immediately on an broad, convoluted highway with many lanes. Traffic was heavy. Following signs, we ended up a hill along a long curve that went to the right.

I passed a man on a copper-colored motorcycle with a sidecar. He was in the right hand lane and I was in the middle lane. I thought my car had bumped him, and I worried. Trying to check, I couldn’t see the sides of my car. I couldn’t see any of the car, in fact, so I didn’t know where I was in the lane. This unnerved me.

I stepped on the accelerator to go faster. We were still going up a long, curving hill. The man in the copper motorcycle began passing us. I didn’t want that, so I pressed harder on the accelerator. Still going up the curve, we began slowing down, going slower and slower until we pulled into a place where the highway ended and stopped.

I didn’t understand. The highway had ended. How the hell did we end up here? My wife and I got out of the car to ask questions and found ourselves with others in the same situation. We’d all been following the highway but had ended up stuck here, off the highway.

We were told, “You were all going the wrong way. That’s why you’re here.”

Going the wrong way? I’d been going straight, following the road. There wasn’t any other way to go. How could that be the wrong way? And, I protested, “It doesn’t make sense. The faster that I tried to go, the slower I went.” It frustrated me.

Another man agreed, saying, “Yeah, that’s what was happening to me.”

It seemed like I could learn more up a small hill. It was a paved white cement ramp. I started that way but people told me, “Don’t go that way. If you do, they’ll arrest you.”

But I wanted to see what was going on, and I thought that going up there could help.

“No,” others kept telling me, including a woman dressed in an official-looking uniform. “If you go up there, you will be arrested.”

A few others were going up there. From what I could see, they were being taken away.

I decided not to go up there. Staying where I was wasn’t working, though. I told my wife, “Come on, let’s get back in the car.”

“Where we going?” she asked as others asked me, “Where are you going? What are you doing?”

I said, “I’m going back down there.”

“But that’s the wrong way,” everyone said.

I said, “I know. But I’m going back down there, to where the wrong way began, and figure out how to get out of here.”

People were telling me not to go there, but I was adamant. I felt, being who I am, I could go back and figure it out, and fix the problem. With my wife with me in the car, I began driving backwards back down the road.

The dream ended.

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