He bent to the bathroom sink to wash, brush his teeth, and shave.Movement made him stop. A small spider was trying to climb up the sink’s white porcelain surface. Each time the spider came within an inch of the top, he slid a few inches back down.
He put his finger out to help the spider. The spider darted back and slid all the way back into the basin. After a three-count, the climb back up was begun again.
He looked for something to use as a spider lift. But as he finally found something, he saw the spider was almost to the top again. He leaned closer to the arachnid. “Come on, you can do. Just think of yourself as the little spider who can. Tell yourself, I think I can, I think I can.”
The spider made it. After a pause — orienting himself or catching his breath? — the spider turned and marched along the counter top and on to another adventure.
FloofsNotes(floofinition) –1. Abbreviated notes and pamphlets prepared and maintained by animals summarizing people, places, and events.
In use: “The stray didn’t have FloofsNotes so a local floof shared his dog-eared copy. Using it, they were able to find a house where the lady took her in so she could give birth in safety.”
2. Records or notes kept about animals as an aid to people’s knowledge about an animal.
In use: “Adopting two new rescue kittens, Karla immediately invested in a lab notebook to use as FloofsNotes to record the health, activity, and behavior of her new fur friends. They could come in handy if something happened later.”
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Sunshine and blue skies. Presently on the mid side of 60 F, up from 52 F overnight, we’ll be hunting the mid 80s before the sun skirmishes with the falling night and carries us into a new day.
It’s June and Saturday, June 3, 2023, for more exactitude. The cats are loving this weather, right? Mostly out there sleeping in part shade, part sun. Seeing them out there, and I drift through memories. Tucker has always been a little strange about doors. He goes to the linen door, coat closet door, garage door, pantry door. A drawn out merow is issued. His meowing is either very loud or barely a whisper. No midpoint for him. When it’s a loud meow, he draws out the sounds and employs several syllables.
I ask, “What? You want into the <insert location here>?”
Head nod (yes, by him), mumbling mew sounds, a head tilt at the door in question, his look shooting from it to me, back to it, conveying his desire.
Head shake (yes, by me). “Okay, buddy.” Sigh. Door is opened. He heads in for investigation, sometimes dwelling in wherever for fifteen to twenty minutes. He’s old now, a long-furred black and white stray who chose to stay with us, showing up with matted fur and bad teeth almost ten years ago, I think. Need to check the histories to know with certitude. Point is, these demands have been incorporated in his behavior since his first year with us.
The Neurons planted “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” into the morning mental music stream. 1966 Yardbirds song. Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page on lead guitars, I thought this song was so cool when I first heard it, one of those radio offerings that had me jumping for the radio and reaching for the volume knob. Never heard it much on the radio in the years since. Don’t know when I last listened to it. But this morning, walking out of dream sleep and into the other room to begin standard morning practices, the first lines broke out of memory and into conscious thought.
Meeting people on my way Seemingly I’ve known one day Familiarity of things That my dreaming always brings
Happenings ten years time ago Situations we really know But the knowing is in the mind Sinking deep into the well of time
Wasn’t long after that before The Neurons delivered the song to a loop in my head. I think it’s a related-to-writing thing. I obsess over time, reality, and questions of what we know vs what happened vs what we think we know is one that in my novel writing. Memory is a mischief maker and history is written by the winners and then revised, leaving many of us floundering about it all. So here we be.
Stay pos. Coffee drinking has commenced. Big old cup is a quarter down already. Goes well with a cool summer morning on the patio, sunshine blazing down, cats washing in the green grass, jay yelling at us all from different perches as he surveys the yard and lands on chairs and trees. Could be a good day, you know?
Michael Seidel, writer 