New Demands

Pent up by a winter storm, my cats conferred and emerged from their confab with new demands. Each demands that they get at least fifteen hours per day of personalized care and attention. Said personalized care and attention requires me to pet, scratch, caress, play, and feed each one (or allow them to sleep on my lap) for a total of at least fifteen hours per day. They’re calling this the fifteen-hour minimum initiative.

I pointed out to them that the day has only twenty-four hours, that I have other things to do, and there is no way that I can give each one fifteen hours of attention.

They reacted with sad head shakes. Boo, the spokes-cat, said, “Anything is possible, if you set your mind to it.”

They’re boycotting me until I come around, or feeding time, whichever comes first.

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music straight out of my dreams.

“I’m Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter” has a remarkably long title. It came out in 1935, twenty-one years before I was born. It’s one of those songs that’s been sung throughout my life, covered by everyone from Fats Waller to Frank, Dean, Tony, and Paul McCartney, Sarah Vaughn, Madeleine Peyroux, and Tony Danza.

I recall a distinct swing version. I suspect from its style and where it registers in my memories that it came out in the mid-sixties. I sought it on the net, and I couldn’t find it. Frank Sinatra? Tony Bennett? Nat King Cole? No, no, no. Their versions all sounded too prozac mellow.

After listening to many, I decided to go with a Nat King Cole recording, even though it’s not the one that I remember.

Floofstakes

Floofstakes (floofinition) – potential outcome for housepets; in jeopardy for being a positive or negative result for a pet.

In use: “He hated taking his fur friends to the vet. Too often, the floofstakes weren’t good, beginning the slide down a long hill he’d gone down too many times.”

A Writing Class Dream

Three classes were taking place in a large, modern building that reminded me of an egg because it had curved, white ceilings. I looked like I was twenty years old in this dream (I’m sixty-two and a half), and was in the advanced class. We’d finished our lessons. I was pleased by everything that’d happened. Now, I was basically waiting to leave and employ my new knowledge.

For some reason, I couldn’t leave just yet, so I went around exploring the other classes. Not too large, one class seemed to be people in their mid-teens. Walking among them, I noticed that they were writing letters, using pens. All of them had small computers with strange, springy raspberry, lemon, and lime-colored thin wires that dangled down. Checking, I found that they weren’t connected to anything. I asked one if they needed to be connected. She said, “Don’t worry, they’ll come and do it in a little while.”

 I went on. The next class was larger and filled with children. They were waiting for someone to give them their notebooks. Seeing a stack of notebooks, I passed them out to them, and then decided to join them. Taking one notebook, I opened it and saw that it’d already been written in. Every page had sentences, paragraphs, descriptions, or stories.

I checked other notebooks. They were written in, too. I said, “These notebooks are all written in.”

A child beside me nodded. “Yes, you just write some more. Just write around them.”

I was thinking that over when another child said, “Everything is already written but that shouldn’t stop you from writing.”

The dream ended.

@70

He was comfortable, and she wanted to turn the heat up.

She was going to dance-exercise classes, and he was counting pills.

He was impatient to drive faster, and she thought he should slow down.

She was remarking about the pleasant evening they’d had, and he was complaining about the price of a dinner for two.

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