Month: March 2020

Puzzle #5 Is Finished

We finished puzzle number five, the Casablanca movie poster (and also known as Schrödinger’s puzzle) this evening. We’d started it back around Feb. 11. Fifteen hundred pieces, it took us some time, but we’re pleased.

We thought two pieces were missing, and it bugged us. We’d bought the puzzle at the Goodwill; plots about hunting down the previous owners festered in me. Once we finished, though, we got down on our hands and knees to confirm pieces weren’t on the floor. We have an oriental rug under the dining room table where we worked on the puzzle. This Ravensburger puzzle’s pieces have a blue backside. And, yeah, the pieces were there.

Casablanca is considered a classic American film. One of the stars is Humphrey Bogart. He happens to star in the movie that’s definitely in my top ten list, African Queen, with Katherine Hepburn. Directed by John Huston, it’s based on a terrific E.M. Forester novel of the same name. I always worry that they’re going to remake African Queen, because a remake (or a reboot) will soil my memory. That’s petty and selfish, of course, but it’s my nature.

On to puzzle number six. Don’t know if we’ll devote as much time to it. Longer days of sunshine are arriving. Travel plans are in the air. So is yard work, and hanging around outside, which isn’t as fun in the cold weather. We’re warm weather people at heart.

I’ll let you know when we begin.

 

5

Floofpathy

Floofpathy  (floofinition) – The sympathy and empathy that one animal has for another.

In use: “While eating its kibble, the kitten noticed the dog wanting some. Demonstrating a little floofpathy, the kitty dished kibble out of the bowl and batted it to the dog.”

 

 

0

Friday’s Theme Music

“The trouble with you is the trouble with me,” I thought. I was dealing with a cat (“You don’t want THAT food? What is it that you want, because I don’t understand”), but it applies to life partners, politics…yeah.

With that line of lyrics, hello, “Casey Jones”. The 1970 Grateful Dead song jumped head first into my thinking stream.

Not a bad song for the day. While it’s a song about a train engineer high on cocaine with a train coming toward him on the wrong track, I always see it as a metaphor, modern warnings to all of us. Watch what you’re doing, give it some thought. Be alert because the potential for trouble remains all around us.

Walking, of course, requires a lot more vigilance than the drives are employing. This seems especially true with weather shifts. Weather shifts change energy; drivers, feeling it, become distracted. Just my theory, but I see it all the time, you know? Lot of anecdotal evidence.

With COVID-19 also traveling person to person, nation to nation and town to town, it’s a good time to be aware of that threat and mitigating steps you can employ.

0

“This Is Spinal Floof”

“This Is Spinal Floof” (floofinition) – Floofumentary about an English floof band and their misadventures during their latest U.S. tour.

In use: “Led by David St. Bernard and Nigel Floofnel, Spinal Floof was a flooftitious band whose minor 1960s pop hit, “Listen to What the Floof People Say” was part of the floof power movement.”

1

Profloofic

Profloofic (floofinition) – 1. A person or household with a large number of animals.

In use: “Birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, lizards, and turtles were all part of the profloofic household collection, along with the required cats and dogs, and a pig and goat, yet they were always ready to adopt more.”

2. Someone who champions or favors animals or animal rights over other priorities.

In use: “He’d decided, at last, that he was profloofic, that how people treat animals is the mark of our civilization and a bellweather for what matter happen in the future.”

0

Neofloofic

Neofloofic (floofinition) – 1. Something that’s new to an animal.

In use: “The box was neofloofic for all the animals but that didn’t stop a march as all moved en floof to sniff it for evidence of its purpose and travels.”

2. Period when new animals first met humans after migrating to Earth.

In use: “Dogs and cats (who were thought to be domesticated by humans) arrived during the Neofloofic Wave and decided that conditioning people to take them in and care for them was easier than living as many other animals did, hunting others to eat while huddling for warmth, seeking shelter, and ensuring that they didn’t become the prey. Why seek new shelters when people were already building them?”

0

The Photograph Dream

It was such a short and simple dream. As I was in the kitchen, I froze with a question in my mind, did I dream that or imagine it?

Walking back through thoughts, I eventually went into my office. Sitting there, dream fragments surged forward.

I’d dream that I was with a group of people. I think we were at a flea market or something, as tents and canopies were set up. The place was very busy. It sort of reminded me of a flea market I visited in San Jose, California.

Walking around, I’d found a number of old photographs piled on tables. Most were in color. I didn’t see anyone I knew in the photographs. They were photos of people at holiday dinners — Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. — vacations, and birthday parties. Some seem to be retirement parties or celebrations. Everyone looked happy and were raising glasses. Most were of different people but as I looked, I recognized some that were the same people in different photos.

I wondered how the photos had come to be there, what had happened to the people? Photographs of such happy-looking people, and here they were, collected on a table. As I held a photograph and thought about that, I looked out from under the tent and saw people outside taking selfies or photographs of one another as they held things.

The dream ended.

0

Thursday’s Theme Music

A double-whammy brought this song into the stream this morning. First were dreams about photographs. Then, as I’m sitting at my desk thinking about the dreams, I see a photograph of my wife on the desk. Taken of her in Christmas, 1981, it was our first Christmas in Okinawa, Japan. A note on the back in her writing says, “I was sick as a dog.” She looks wonderful, though, in a bright purple short-sleeved top. Her hair is bobbed short, as she wore it for a number of years.

Between the dreams and memories, Ringo Starr’s old hit song, “Photograph” (1973) arose. About the only thing in common between the song’s lyrics and sentiment, the dream, and the photograph on the desk is that word, photograph. Everything else is quite different.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑