Month: June 2019

The Green Chair

Above – Scheckter (on ottoman) and Pogo on the green furniture.

Well, the green chair is gone. 

I know, it was just a chair. An ottoman and love seat originally went with the chair. Made of a textured green material, the furniture had straightforward lines and were without embellishment. But they were comfortable and sturdy, and they fit our little study.

The little study was in the first home that we bought in Half Moon Bay, California. It was right off the breakfast nook, by the dining room. Sounds fancy, right, but it was small, yet elegant. It’s where we ended up spending a lot of time. With the windows open, we caught a cooling ocean breeze diluting the sunshine. Fog horn often sounded above the sound of Highway 92 traffic. We could watch television, read, and listen to music in there, and be very cozy. Our living room furniture was too large for the little study. Besides, if we put that furniture in there, we’d need to replace it. More furniture was needed, an exasperating decision.

The green chair with the ottoman supporting my legs is often where I sat. That’s where the cats would join me. We had three then. The elderly Queen, Jade, had joined us when we were stationed on Okinawa in 1982 and was twenty-year when she passed away in our HMB home. The sweet, affable Rocky came from our Germany assignment in the late eighties, the sole survivor of his litter. Later came the black long-haired, handsome fellow, Sam, as direct and unpretentious as his name, abandoned at Moffett NAS when some family moved away. Each gave me happy hours of purrs vising with me in the green chair before passing away.

The orange boys, Pogo and Scheckter, (Chubbosaurus Orange) found their way to us, joining us on the green chair and the green love seat, stretching out in the sunshine. They moved up to Ashland with us in 2005. Between cancer and a car, Ashland is where their story ended.

As we moved, the green furniture dwindled. First, the love seat went, because there wasn’t room in our newest house. The green chair and ottoman ended up in the master bedroom. Alas, though, besides sleeping on the chair, the cats found the green furniture to be excellent scratching posts. After Rocky, Sam, Jade, and the orange boys made their marks, Lady and Quinn took up the task of shredding the chair and ottoman. The ottoman was finally defeated and tossed. Tucker and Boo joined Lady and Quinn to work over the chair. All had floofnesia about not scratching the furniture. Lady and Quinn found their way over the rainbow bridge, but then along came Papi, aka Meep. He found the green chair quite comfortable.

Now the final piece, the green chair where I shared their company, is gone. It was just too shredded for my wife’s tastes, so out it went.

Stupid chair. Makes me tear up and cry just remembering it.

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Floofnesia

Floofnesia (floofinition) – a condition where housepets forget instructions, guidance, etc.

In use: “Opening the front door, they walked in and saw their Great Dane sprawled out on the sofa. He’d clearly suffered floofnesia about not being permitted on the furniture.”

6

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Reading news about the Middle-East puts me in a martial mood. Military.com wondered if war between the U.S. and Iran is inevitable, and have thoughts on how that war would play out.

*snark alert* I know that most believe that war with Iran can be avoided because John Bolton is on Trump’s team. One of the architects of PNAC, Bolton was a prominent voice in demands for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He thinks that went well. He also wants preemptive war with North Korea. With Bolton in place, surely the lessons of other wars will be learned and war will be averted.  *end snark*

All that reflecting introduced a 1970 Black Sabbath tune called “War Pigs”. A taste of the lyrics that Ozzie sings:

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’til their judgement day comes
Yeah!

h/t to lyricsfreak.com

 

4

The Medical Bill

My latest medical bill arrived. This was a follow-up to the doctor’s office. On that day, I was weighed and then peed in a cup connected to a computer to measure my flow and output. Then a nurse asked me some questions about how I was doing, before the doctor came in, read the reports, and made some follow-up actions. Including waiting — they were overbooked and I waited twenty minutes to see him — peeing, and talking, I was out of there in about forty minutes.

Before going further, I want to say that I’m amazed and grateful that my military retirement gives me health benefits. I can’t say that enough. That’s not what this is about. This is about a neophyte in the healthcare’s billing process.

The bill began as a total of $277.10. That’s not bad, I thought. Insurance covered $59.36. Cool. Then, total adjustments and discounts were $180.84. Of that, $4.10 was a discount given to me for the prompt payment of previous bills. The other $176.74 was an insurance adjustment. The total due for me to pay is $36.90.

I’m not complaining so much as stating my surprise and confusion. What in the world is that insurance adjustment that reduces the bill by sixty-three percent? Is it a volume thing between Tricare and Asante? Makes me wonder about the original bill and its legitimacy.

I don’t know. The discount wasn’t explained. I suppose I could do an Internet search, but, well, I’d rather just note it and press on, at least for today.

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Floofquest

Floofquest (floofinition) – 1. A housepet’s arduous or determined journey to achieve something or reach or capture an object, such as a red dot on the floor or a buzzing fly. 2. People’s efforts to find a new housepet. 3. Rescuer’s efforts to find and help animals.

In use: “The new young dog discovered treats after he’d arrived in his new home and came out of his shell. Within days, he began a floofquest for treats whenever a human went to the kitchen. And with those big eyes of his and his happy grin, it mostly worked.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

You ever play with those idle daydreams about your life and where you’re at? Maybe think, if I wasn’t married, or didn’t have kids, or this business, or this job, I’d be gone? Think about getting on that long train running and disappearing?

It’s not that your life is so terrible, but you’ve wearied. The sameness of your routines bury you. You eat the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner, perhaps varying it by the day of the week, perhaps spicing it up by a change of season. The sameness is unrelenting, with breaks for holidays. Once that holiday ends, though, it’s back on the bus, back on the line, back in the cubicle or the office, back with the laundry and dishes, back in the car in a car, racing to work so you can make up the hours and race back home. Then you sit down and watch variations of the same television shows, movies, and sports.

Maybe, instead of disappearing, your fantasy is that you make it big because money, while it won’t buy you happiness, can give you enough room to breathe and try to do go to some of the places of your dreams, something that will break the damn sameness of your existence. Your fantasies veer toward winning the lottery or publishing a book that becomes a best seller, or finally getting recognized and promoted at work.

Doobie Brothers noticed that most people stay where they are because of love. Maybe it’s the love for another person, or maybe it’s the love of the place where you were born, or where you live. Without that love, where would you be now?

Sorry. Pre-coffee rant. Monday morning blahs. The same old song and dance.

4

Breaking it Down

While working on the yard and house today, songs run through my head. I don’t mind it if they’re barefoot, but some of them wear heavy combat boots. That leaves a mark.

One song was the Rupert Holmes song, “Escape”. Most know it as “The Piña Coladas Song”. It’s all about how badly Rupert and his lovely lady were doing. He sees an ad in the newspaper’s personal columns and reads, “If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain. If you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape. Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me and escape.”

So he writes to the paper, answering the ad. They meet, and guess what? It’s his own lovely lady that he’s meeting. She’s the one that put the ad in the paper! So, Rupert continues, then we laughed for a moment and I said, “I never knew
That you like piña coladas and gettin’ caught in the rain. And the feel of the ocean and the taste of champagne.”

Mind you, she’s advertised for a lover; he answered that ad. They were both looking for someone else.

At this point, in real life, if he said, “I never knew that you like piña coladas, she’d reply, “That’s because you never listen to me.” Then it’d probably be on. He’s already confessed that he was tired of her. She’s clearly tired of him, too.

Yeah, I don’t see a happy ending here. I don’t think that either one is the lover that the other one was trying to find.

Of course, my mind also suggested, “Well, maybe it’s a small town. What are the odds of her putting the ad in and him answering? Those odds improve if it’s a small town.”

Then my mind went all Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on me. I imagined the bar patrons familiar with the situation saying, “Oh, no, here we go again.”

I concluded from this that my romantic band of my spectrum of being must be tiny.

5

Floofball

Floofball (floofinition) – A broad set of games involving housepets and round objects. Balls may be used, but blueberries and peas suffice, as do lids, buttons, and pens. The rules vary, usually dependent on species. Generally, cats like to play, “Knock It Off” and dogs enjoy fetch.

In use: “She wasn’t large, but she was smart and playful, particularly enjoying floofball games. While an expert at “Knock It Off”, which she played on the bedroom dresser at one in the morning every day, she also starred at knocking down bouncing ping-pong balls, and was a champion playing fetch with plastic jingle balls.”

 

 

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