Saturday’s Bumper Sticker
Unflooftested
Unflooftested (floofinition) – Objects, locations, or people who have never been exposed to animals once they’ve been acquired as new.
In use: “She worried about her new black sweater and how it would fare; Kathryn had two cats and one dog, and the sweater was unflooftested.”
Strangers
He knew their faces, knew them well,
saw them every day.
When they weren’t present on their appointed time,
he always wondered about their fate.
They never looked at him,
when he was looking at them,
and never shared a sound;
not hello, good-bye, or how’s the weather,
their lips were sealed against verbs and nouns.
They were his daily companions,
he knew them well,
saw them every day,
and knew the gulf between him and them,
and wondered why it wouldn’t go away.
Pawtillism
Pawtillism (floofinition) – Animal artwork in which small dots or strokes of paws, feet, beaks, noses, ears, and other body parts are blended together to create a scene. The movement was originally done only by paws, with other body parts being incorporated later.
In use: “The first dog to use pawtillism is lost to history, but when art historians investigated the cave, they could do nothing but marvel. Preliminary testing revealed the paints was over eleven hundred years old. Then they realized that the powerful, primitive scene, of people by a fire, also had strokes that could only have been done by a bird’s beak, fueling their amazement to greater heights.”
Saturday’s Theme Music
I awoke with a Pearl Jam/Foreigner/Yes medley bubbling through my stream, with “Alive”, “Long, Long Way from Home”, and “Roundabout” dominating. With a mental throw of some imaginary dice, “Roundabout”, Yes’ 1972 hit, was selected.
Many fond memories are associated with “Roundabout” for me, and they’re mostly related to art. I loved painting and drawing when I was young, something that I continued to do into my late twenties, playing with paints and styles. I typically put music on, and then went to town. Regular favorites cropped up. In the early days, my music was on vinyl. I had an open reel system, so I recorded a painting tape. Multiple Yes songs made it to the tape. Looking back, I realize that progressive-rock and blues dominated it.
Alright, stop writing, Michael. Here’s “Roundabout”.
Floofscribe
Floofscribe (floofinition) – 1. A person who writes about animals, particularly housepets. 2. An animal who acts as historian or recorder, keeping notes on what happens.
In use: “Bunny the cat was the official floofscribe. She protected her diary because she had the kibble on everyone. It would be especially bad if the Humans ever found it. Well, if they found it and could read flooflish.”
Flooflish
Flooflish (floofinition) – Official written and spoken common language of housepets.
In use: “When in private, that is, when Humans weren’t around, the dog, bird, and cat conferred in flooflish to decide what to do about the overheard plan for the Humans to sell their house and move to the city. Floofcon 1 was immediately declared.”
Cake On My Mind
If you know me and my blog scribblings, reading the post’s title might prompt you to think that I’m talking about the alt-rock group, Cake, being in my stream. They’re not, although I sympathize with them and the theft of their music gear in Portland, OR.
But, if you read my blog posts, you might also think I’m talking about food. I like food. I don’t often post about it, but it’s been on display recently in conjunction with health issues (nothing too serious).
The cake, though, comes from my writing and dreams. Ahah, there we are the other tracks that I’m often following when I post.
Cake has been part of my writing and dreaming worlds the last few days. My April Showers 1921 protagonist encounters a survival group. The group is made up of children. After rescuing him from an attack by a pack of dogs, they take him to their fort to have cake, incidents and details delivered by the muses on Wednesday. Thursday was spent broadening and detailing the scene. Several cake options are available. He likes chocolate, so he chooses to have a large slice chocolate layer cake with buttercream chocolate between the layers and fudge frosting on top. A team of children baked it; teams of children baked all the cakes. Anders wonders where and how they have these resources to bake cakes, but other important matters are at hand, and he can’t pursue the answers.
So, okay, been writing about cake. It must’ve bled over into real life, because, last night, I dreamed about cake.
In a rollicking dream, a competition was going on. The activity was too frenzied and chaotic for me to keep hold off upon waking, but I know that I did damn well in the dream competition. What I do remember very well was that cake was being served at the end, to reward participants. I was so happy, I was giddy. The big piece of sheet cake presented to me on a plate had yellow cake and white frosting with roses, and it fell apart on my plate.
The server apologized and told me that she’d get me another one. I took the plate, though, telling her, it didn’t matter. I could eat it even if it was falling apart.
Then I ate it with my hands, laughing as I did.
It was a weirdly satisfying dream.
The Sodium Take
Having experienced benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and then discovering my blood pressure was residing north of 220/130, I’ve become more mindful about my food and nutrition. (BP is now hovering around 136/70 now, thanks.) Searching for foods that are benevolent to my prostate, I read recommendations about celery. In my own tests, I felt that the results bore this out; eating a stalk of celery each day seemed to please my prostate.
However, I read, beware: celery has high levels of sodium. Oh, dear, don’t want that; sodium is bad for blood pressure. Wanting hard information, I hunted the net and discovered that a stalk of celery can have as much as almost thirty milligrams of sodium.
That didn’t strike me as high. As far as I could tell, that was pretty low, as long as I wasn’t eating stalks by the minute. Thinking about it more returned me more net searching about sodium levels in food.
The U.S. government’s nutrition guideline recommends that people keep their daily sodium intake below twenty-three hundred milligrams a day. There’s a big gap betweeny celery’s thirty and twenty-three hundred. For a food to be considered low sodium, it should have one hundred forty milligrams per serving, or least. Calling celery high in sodium compared to that seemed excessive.
Which prompted me to hunt for common food’s sodium levels. Fortunately, many websites eagerly compile and post this information. The American Heart Association provided a summary of the CDC’s findings in 2017. From that, they created a list of the twenty-five most hazardous foods for sodium levels in the U.S. It’s a disturbing list. They then distilled the list into the top ‘Salty Six’:
- Breads and rolls
- Pizza
- Sandwiches, including burgers
- Cold cuts and cured meats
- Canned soup
- Tacos and burritos
These are foods that I was frequently eating. I was checking fat, sugar, and fiber levels but ignoring the sodium levels. Now, it was like, holy crap. Gotta check those sodium levels, too.
I know, this is a post by the converted. I respect that response, but my ignorance went on until it was an emergency. Just thought I’d share my experience and maybe keep you from stumbling down the same path.
On the bright side, I found that beer and wine do not typically have much sodium. There’s some in them, with beer typically have eight to twelve milligrams of sodium per sixteen ounces, and most domestic red wines containing twelve milligrams per glass (imported red wines have about six milligrams); mindfulness about how much is being consumed — and what else is being consumed that day — is required.
Just like with celery.
You’re now free to resume your normal day.
Michael Seidel, writer 