Kitternator (catfinition): A young feline who won’t give up, and comes coming, even after it appears it was stopped.
Sunday’s Theme Music
The Wayback Machine began streaming another relic of a song to me. This one blasted me from the early 70s. I’ve found that when my writing sessions are going strong, my song list shifts into that period. It wasn’t my happiest time, so I don’t know why I stream that era’s music.
Here’s those synthetic progressive rock masters, Emerson, Lake and Palmer – ELP – with, “Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends.”
The Connection Dream
My streak of dreams continue. I remember many. They generally flow into some semblance of meaning for me. I’ve had nothing disturbing. All are interpreted as useful, healthy, and reassuring dreams.
One of last night’s dreams was reassuring, but also amused me. I fell asleep in the office recliner after watching “The Friends of Eddie Coyle.” Tucker and Quinn joined me, sleeping on my lap and my legs. The lights were off, but the television was on. Once the movie ended, though, the Roku went into screen saver mode, displaying the date and time.
I dreamed I was being told, “Stay there. You’re okay. Don’t worry. Stay there. A connection needs to be completed.”
Drifting awake, I stared at the television. Anxiety trickled through my mind. I had the sense I was supposed to be doing something, and I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be doing.
But the dream voice said, “You’re okay. Stay there. A connection needs to be completed.”
Hearing that pushed questions along about what connections were being made. Some sort of update must be taking place, I concluded.
That satisfied my anxieties. Calmed, I returned to sleep. A little later, the dream voice said, “The connections are done. You’re good to go.” Waking up, I got up and went to bed. Awakening this morning, and thinking about it, I wish I knew more about the connections being made.
The Door Game
The Door Game (catfinition): A feline leisure activity. The rules and scoring system seems impenetrable to the human mind. Catologists, such as Dr. Felix Lachat, have observed that the door game apparently involves getting humans to open doors to let cats in and out multiple times. It’s speculated that the more doors that cats use, and the shorter period, appears to increase the score, as do elements such as the weather, and the time, with success at night counting for more points. Households with multiple cats report that the cats seem to take turns attempting to score.
Saturday’s Theme Music
It’s a quiet autumn Saturday morning, a perfect day to sip coffee and listen to some nineteen seventies era American rock. How ’bout Aerosmith, with “Sweet Emotion,” from nineteen seventy-five?
This one came out while I was going through technical training. I didn’t listen to music much during that period. I basically had a clock radio in my dorm room in the Triangle on Keesler Air Force Base outside of Biloxi, Mississippi. I was there for two months, and then went to Wright-Patt for my first duty assignment, and married. With all this, it wasn’t until the next year, nineteen seventy-six, that I listened to Aerosmith.
In September of seventy-six, I reported for duty at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. “Sweet Emotion” was on Aerosmith’s “Toys In the Attic” album. I was on an unaccompanied tour and living in the barracks. I bought some stereo gear, and “Toys In the Attic.” It was available, and I knew it and liked it. I also bought Al Stewart’s “The Year of the Cat,” something by 10ccs, and Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life.”
Besides their hits of “Sweet Emotions” and “Walk This Way,” Toys had several songs I enjoyed, including “Sucking On My Big Ten Inch,” “Uncle Salty,” and “Toys In the Attic.” I listen to any of them, and I’m suddenly twenty-years old in the Philippines again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvKF3WQYADk
The Writing – Wait
On normal days, I sit down, and take a few sips of coffee. Then I turn on the writing mode and brace myself. Sights and sounds pummel me. Smells come last.
Seeing the scenes happen, hearing them, and smelling it, I struggle to keep up. I can’t type as fast as it comes. I barely think fast enough to keep up with what’s streaming into me. It’s more like a movie, with smells. I’m more like a man with a hammer, chisel, and stone table.
I begin with a stream of consciousness form to capture it all. My writing frustrates me, though, correcting me, and suggesting changes, improvements, and elaboration even as I still try to type what was already given. The replay is wonky, so it needs to be caught the first time. Sometimes there are leaps into other avenues that are to come, like coming attractions, or previews. Those are most exciting, the spur that digs in to sit down and repeat this process.
Not much time is consumed during my writing sessions. I’ll typically write forty-five to ninety minutes. I’d like to extend my writing period to a three hours in the afternoon. I envy those who can pace themselves, handle the onslaught, and pump out five thousand words in a day’s work. I’m below half that, and feel spent when I stop. Worse in this process, though, is that I’ll finish typing for the day, the writing mode doesn’t get turned off. So I walk, and remember what I’ve written, and what needs to be written. Sometimes a flash of a scene comes to me, and I remember, “Oh, yeah, I need to go in and add that.”
This methodology always prompts wonder in me about how others work. Please share, if you’re willing.
Now, time to turn on the writing mode. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Unanswered
She’s a Luddite, no doubt. Never had a computer or a personal email account. She’d had the one when she’d worked, in email’s early days. Didn’t have a cellphone and was only vaguely aware of selfies, and she didn’t have a television.
But she did have a P.O.T. – a plain old telephone – and an answering machine. When they called, though, it ringed without switching over. One day. Two. Twice on that second day, once each in the morning and afternoon, and then again twice on the morning of the third day. Official worry had launched by then. That. Was not. Like her.
Nerves coiling into a rat’s nest, they went to her house. Her car was there. The house looked normal. Sunning cats watched their investigation with narrow eyes, their ears pricked forward to hear their soft voices. Soft voices were needed in a moment like this, when you don’t know what you’ll find.
No one answered their knock.
They walked around the house. She wasn’t in the yard working, or in the shed. They checked the shed…in case.
The cats looked okay. They discussed it. How the cats looked meant nothing. A window was open for the cats to come and go. They could see a feeder half-filled with kibble inside, and a water bowl.
She kept her doors unlocked. That’s how she was. He remembered her answer to his amazement about how she lived. She said, scoffing, “I don’t think I remember where the house keys are.” They thought she was joking, but she said she wasn’t. Remembering that she didn’t lock her doors didn’t make them feel any better about the lack of connections to her.
Knocking again, they opened the door and called her name.
No reply.
Entering, they crept around, invaders of a friendly territory. It reminded him of entering a church when nothing was scheduled. It was a clean house, but not organized. That wasn’t a concern. They had other concerns, like bodies.
No bodies were on the floor. No blood. No signs of fights or struggles, as they’d seen in movies and television shows. They called her again, in bolder voices. The kitchen was clean. There was food on the refrigerator. The dishes were done. Nothing was in the sink.
They looked in all the rooms. No one was found. He went to her rotary Trimline phone and picked it up. He heard a dial tone. The answering machine was beside the phone. A red light showed it had power. Blinking showed it had messages. Maybe it was full.
Further walking around did nothing but reinforce the fact that they’d walked into another’s house without an invitation. “Let’s leave her a note,” he said. “Tell her we called and came by, and that her answering machine doesn’t seem to be working.”
They wrote the note, and left after two more minutes. They’d allowed that time in case she was out somewhere. She could return at any moment.
They closed the door behind them, and looked around again, to see what they’d missed. The sunning cats watched, and wondered who they were.
Kimmel: Day 3
Turn it up. Republicans think only Kimmel and Sanders oppose Graham-Cassidy. They’re oblivious to the widespread condemnation and opposition to this bill. Turn it up. Let them know. Let them know that AMA, AHA, AARP, and others oppose this bill.
Friday’s Theme Music
Boy, do I remember first hearing this song.
Nineteen sixty-nine, thirteen years old. The Rolling Stones were one of the hottest, biggest rock groups around. And this song, “Gimme Shelter,” stopped me with its opening. Haunting, arresting, it gave me pause to hear what was going to come next, revealing intense, moody, and angry lyrics.
Just like nineteen sixty-nine.
Floofketeers
Floofketeers (catfinition): cats who enjoy one another’s company, hanging out and playing together.
Michael Seidel, writer 