New Technology
I just read of a new technology that I could actually use. The latest activity trackers, like Fitbit, have a new optional app called Closer. It works like this. If you and your spouse or partner, or whomever, have activity trackers with Closer on it, the systems can be bonded. Closer can then be activated by cycling through apps, then pressing on it when it’s on your device face.
What’s it do? Well, the bonded devices will show an arrow to where the other is located. The closer the two devices are, the larger and greener the arrow will become. If you’re moving away from them, the arrow turns red and small.
Ad campaigns tout several uses. One, if you’re in a store like Costco or a mall and don’t know where the other person is, just call up Closer and follow the arrow. Two, you can find the other’s device if they’ve misplaced it.
Pretty neat, huh? I know it’s a lot like the apps and trackers used to find keys and phones, but I just made all of that up. Closer doesn’t exist, as far as I know. Consider this an early April Fool’s Day entry.
Cheers
Inspirational Quote # 3306
Here, here.
Floofboree
Floofboree (floofinition) – A large, festive gathering of animals.
In use: “After midnight, the housefloofs went outside and hosted a floofboree in the backyard, inviting the local skunks and squirrels, raccoons and bears, mice and rats, along with the other cats and dogs. It was a swell time until the skunks got overly excited and sprayed everyone.”
The Dark Dream
Dreamed I was walking home alone, in my present neighborhood. Premature darkness dropped as the wind hissed and moaned, thrashing tree branches. I thought it might rain. Turning up the street, I came to my house. One of those POD storage units was by the tall wooden fence in the side yard, smothered in shadows. I did a doubletake when I saw it, then remembered, oh, yes, I’m getting rid of all those things.
I was inside the house. It was dark, without electricity. We were mixing fruit juices. I was contemplating lemon, lime, orange, with cherry and grape. I said, “Those flavors won’t mix.” I knew someone else was there, but I couldn’t see nor hear them. I collected more flavors but didn’t mix them. Then I said, “I must mix them, and then drink them. If I don’t, I’ll never escape.”
But I worried. If I escaped the house, I still needed to face the vampires outside. Surely drinking the mixed juices and escaping had to be the first priority, though.
One candle lit the space. I was in the dining room. A man came to me with a large, flat red box. He wore a black coat with a white shirt. His face was unseen. He presented the red box to me. I didn’t want to take it. “How much?” I finally asked.
Seven hundred, I knew he said without hearing him speak.
I repeated, “Seven hundred?” I shook my head. “That’s not enough. A thousand.”
A thousand was agreed.
I walked outside. Rain was falling but I was protected. I walked down the sidewalk and stopped. Lightning lit the night. The bolts held, frozen in place in the sky. The rain hung, unfalling, lit by the lightning. I could see miles and miles ahead across the dark landscape.
Dream end
Thursday’s Theme Music
Here we go, the end of the month, Thursday, March 31, 2022. About a quarter of 2022 has fled into history. Gray cloud layers in the west fondle the pines on the ridges. Broken clouds up north hover like an anxious herd ready to flee. In the east and south, smaller, tattered pats yield to sunshine and blue sky. Are you up for rain? It might come. Might not, too. Just be a brief spit, probably, if it does.
Sunshine trickled in at 6:55 AM. The sun will do the fade at 7:35 this evening. Temperatures hunker in at 44 F right now, with a cold, northern edge to it, like winter is saying, let me stay. A high of 58, not too ambitious, is possible.
I went out with the cats this morning to feel the air. They found sun pools and stayed. I shivered and slipped back in. Somehow, in that process, the neurons decided “Take Me to the Pilot” by Elton John (1970) fit the moment and inserted it into the morning mental music stream.
Stay positive, etc. Sorry, I need my coffee. Here’s the song. Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Mottled gray nimbostratus clouds stretched across the valley from the mountains and ridges on this Wednesday. The clouds and news cycles leave me feeling gray and tired. It’s mid-week, too, the end of a wearying month, a week out from a trying week. My complaints are first world mutterings about losing friends, the weather, inflation, oh, and what will I do with myself today? It’s darker times for too, too many people. Damn, shouldn’t really write these things until I’ve had some coffee, done a Wordle and a Sudoku. Doing those always gives me a boost, as if successfully solving these silly games can be applied to life, to the world situations. I feel like the fool upon the hill.
It’s March 30, 2022, March’s penultimate day, then April takes the stage. I’m holding my breath to see what she might bring.
Sunrise kicked in at 6:57 AM and sunset will be at 7:34 PM. Temperatures have dipped again under the umbrella of rain ruling the area. The temperature is 46 and the high will be 56 F.
My dream mind was busy creating complex scenarios full of bright colors. I was not young in these dreams. Numbers were prominent features. Scribbling them out left my fingers knotted and my mind busy, trying to figure out WTF is going on in my head.
Of course, I’m writing. I’m in that stage of my novel writing process where scenes and ideas leap into the concept, which is still the broadest of sketchiest ideas. Thirteen characters are on hand, plus two cats and three dogs, and the ship. All of the characters have become someone other than expected when I sketched their basics in my head and documents. Like the muses are sticking their tongues out at me, taunting, “You don’t know anything.” They’re right. Every leap and change encountered makes me ask, “Wait, why.” They reply, “Just write. The answer will come.” I don’t know that I have that much faith or courage. Still, it’s an entertaining, satisfying, challenging, frustrating, exciting, despairing, exhausting process. I highly recommend it.
Hah. Had to break off writing this to attend a floof request. Immediately began writing in my head; the muses instantly said, okay, now this happens. I said, “WTF? Seriously?” Yeah, they answer. Yeah.
As you might imagine, the morning mental music stream is busy this AM, too. Looking out windows, thinking about writing, dreams, weather, mood, news, past, and future, I saw so many birds busy with spring rites. Jays, robins, sparrows, finches, wrens, crows were all energetic. Bit uplifting. Out of that morass came a Nelly Furtado song, “I’m Like A Bird” (2000). Where her song is about flying away and flying around, my thoughts are more about rising and falling with the beatings of wings, following a course when it seems like everything is a whim.
Stay positive, test negative — do you know this one? Good. Here’s the music. Excuse me while I see the coffee man for a fix.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 