Category: Cat

Saturday’s Theme Music

Just after sunrise at 6:02 AM, the sun began clearing the mountains and threw unmistakable blood-orange light through the windows. Smoke hazes and clots the air. Wildfires are burning somewhere. We can smell it. Our AQI has jumped to 90 around our part of town, 117 downtown, two miles away. Either the fire is nearby, or the winds and terrains are lifting and channeling it in our direction.

Good morning! Today is Saturday, July 30, 2022. One more day and then July is history. On to August.

Yesterday reached 112 F at our house. That was my home weather station’s reading. The net claimed 109. Alexa agreed. At 8:30 AM, it’s 81 F. The humidity has gone up. It’s only 39% but it feels heavier. Today’s high is expected to reach 106 F before sunset @ 8:32 this evening. The overnight low was 75 F last night.

That overnight low staying so high hurt. We kept waiting for the air to cool down outside so we could open doors and windows. It finally dropped below 90 at 11 PM. Yes, some relief. Then a skunk struck. Maybe two. The house was re-sealed for an hour while the winds scrubbed the odor away.

The heat affected our big black and white cat, Tucker. He’s older, and older cats struggle to deal with extreme heat. I brought him in, dampened a washcloth with cold water, and rubbed him down a few times. He really enjoyed it and is quite energetic this morning, with a strong appetite. Now, he’s resting by my right hand, providing editorial guidance. Papi, of course, is all, “It’s cool. I’m good.” I keep an eye on him. He appears to be telling the truth.

The Neurons are playing “Lovesong” by The Cure in the morning mental music stream. They’d started with “Friday I’m In Love” and then segued into “Just Like Heaven” before launching “Lovesong”. I asked them, “What’s with the medley? What do you know that I don’t?” They, sipping their espressos, snickered and replied, “Ho, ho, a lot.”

“Lovesong” came out in 1989. I was still in the military, in Germany, then, and found I really enjoyed the song’s moodiness. Hope you enjoy it on this July Saturday, 2022.

Stay positive, test negative, and take care of yourself, yeah? Sure. Back to reading. Back to writing. Back to a cup of coffee. Then, things to do. It’s Saturday, you know. Cheers

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Floofnimical

Floofnimical (floofinition) – An animal who seems hostile or malevolent.

In use: “Many animals, when first encountering humans, seem floofnimical — especially if sick or injued — but people find a steady, patient diet of soft words, healthy food, and some space for the animal to relax often causes a one eighty in the animal.”

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It’s Alive

Three AM?

An insistence buzzing breaks my sleepwall. As consciousness is dragged forward, so comes awareness that this noise is arriving from the Fitbit on my wrist. Yes, I’m one of those who sleep with a bit on my wrist. Use it to wake up, check time, a quick splash of illumination when necessary, and such matters. But why at whatever broiling dark thirty hour was it going off?

Don’t know. Checked the digitalware and found it cycling through its functions. Perhaps it’d gone crazy from heat or being with me. It’s a Charge 2, an old device that’s not even supported any longer. I’ve worn the bugger for years, going through fasteners and bands.

A smart person would have plucked that sucker off their wrist and gone back to sleep. But I ignored it, leaving it on my wrist, as it came up and buzzed every three seconds, announcing, “Notification” like it was telling me nukes were inbound or fire was consuming the house. Eventually, no surprise, all those notifications sucked the life right out of it. It was totally dead when Tucker awoke me for Sixes, his affectionate term for a six AM feeding. He was meowing, “Get up, get up, time for sixes.” I put the FB on a charger. My wife started her day shortly later. I told her about the Fitbit and asked her to wake me when she left for her exercise class because I was going back to bed.

“It’s probably dead,” she said. “You probably need a new one. It is old.” Then she promised to wake me.

The final exchange left me wondering about electronic lifespans among devices and their ratio compared to human years. It probably varies to some degree between, say, microwave ovens and iPhones. I decided, without real reason except how often and quickly our tech marvels expire, that one human year equals ten digital years. Your ten-year-old electronic device is 100 in digital years. JMO.

When I checked on the Fitbit an hour later, it was fully charged and alive. My dashboard showed no data lost except for about two dark hours.

All’s well, then, though, looking at it, I could use a new band. This one looks fifty years old. Makes sense. I bought it four years ago.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

It’s your choice. Will you stay with what you have or will you trade it for what’s behind one of these three doors?

They’re going for door number three. Let’s see what’s behind door number one and two first.

Door number one is…Monday, May 1, 2028. So that would have been a small trip into the future for you. And door number two is…a slip to the past, Friday, August 16, 1996. Have you experienced that year yet?

Okay, let’s see what they won. Let’s open door number three. Good luck.

Today is Thursday, July 28, 2022. Today’s high temperature for Ashland in southern Oregon is 108 F or 42 C. 108 is pretty high and I’m dubious we’ll hit it. Only touched 103 F at my house yesterday. Right now it’s 74 F (23 C). Sunrise was at 6 AM exactly. Expect the daylight selection of our day to finish at fourteen hours and thirty-four minutes later.

The felines have been loving the heat. Go into a torpor in shade for the day. They don’t eat or move much during the high heat portion. Come night, they turn into homicidal psycho jungle cats (a phrase borrowed from Bill Watterson), prowling and pouncing, muttering and munching.

In news —

No, let’s skip the news portion. Speaking of 1996, The Neurons plucked a song out of that portion of the memory puzzle, I mean palace, and slotted it into the morning mental music stream. See, I was writing in my head as I went about feeding beasts and prepping my breakfast, following up on what was written yesterday, dipping into where I want to go today, addressing a character and what they’d believed and what they now believed, which meant they needed to do this — well, you know the chains. Out of that, The Neurons plucked “Stupid Girl” by Garbage. Took a long several minutes to get more than, “all you had you wasted,” but I could clearly hear the voice and supporting music for that slender segment. More would not come. Just as I drifted away with the attendant thought, it’ll come later, pop, The Neurons released more and the song and band were fully recalled. Yea, go neurons, go!

Stay positive and test negative, and so on. Three friends have announced they’re COVID free while another announced he just tested positive. So it goes. I’m going for coffee before it gets too warm. Here’s the tune. As a bonus, you get it performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman”. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

The dice have been tossed. Rolling to a stop, they come up Tuesday, July 26, 2022.

106 F is today’s magic number for our valley. We hit 103.5 F yesterday. Only cooled to 22 C overnight. Already 24 C this morning.

The sun peeled back the night at 5:58 AM. Night will reclaim the valley upon the sun’s setting at 8:37 PM. Them’s the rules.

All this warm weather has the cats in an interesting zone. During the day, they staked out cool shade and slept. One took up the front door and the other guarded the back. This morning’s cool air turned the house into a grand prix circuit as the cats exercised some zoomies, accelerating down hallways, blasting around corners, obliterating toy mice and throw rugs encountered along the way. The FIA should check out it as a new race venue: the Clay Street Grand Prix. Seating will be limited so they’ll need to turn to television to keep their lofty revenues up.

Today’s music came from eavesdropping on two young women. I’d bet on them being twenty-somethings. One was encouraging the other in some enterprise and told her, “Your day will come.”

Well, The Neurons leaped right on that, popping “Our Day Will Come” into the mental music stream where it remained this morning. The original hit that I knew, from a year I couldn’t remember, was by Ruby and the Romantics. A 45’s label is burned into memory as it was loaded on a pink and gray little portable record machine. Where, who, when are blanks. Covers and other variations of the song were encountered throughout my life but I always enjoyed the one with the organ solo in the middle.

BTW, I just love that expression, “eavesdropping”. Hearing it conjures a person hanging upside down from eaves outside people’s windows.

Well, here we go. Stay safe, test negative, exercise some critical thinking, and remain positive. Coffee time now, before the heat becomes oppressive.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Kibble Balance

Kibble Balance (floofinition) – The extremely precise quantity and kind of food an animal, especially a housepet, deems acceptable. The Kibble Balance exists on a spectrum known only to animals and is thought by humans to constantly fluctuate. Such fluctuation vexes humans’ ability to feed animals.

In use: “The cats just loved the new grain free kibble Michael provided them but abruptly turned their noses up to it on the third day, when changes to the Kibble Balance shifted their interest in the that food.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

105 F is today’s magic number. Ashland’s forecast high temperature, keep it in mind as you plan and pursue activities. Cooling shelters have been set up around town at churches, community centers, and the library.

The house system says it’s 66 F outside. Alexa claims it’s 21 C in Ashland, where I reside. The net says it’s 74. It all makes sense because they’re all correct. Depends on where you live, the mountains’ shadows, and the sun’s reach, yeah? Hope the weather is kind to you wherever you are. If it’s not, then I hope you’re in a safe place.

Another week has begun. This is Monday, July 25, 2022. July has entered the final stretch. 2022 is halfway through summer in the northern hemisphere.

Old Tucker was active last night. The big guy was feeling it. I opened the back door just after midnight to let in some cooling air and check upon them. When I flicked on the light, I saw Tucker dash out into the yard. He seemed to be after something. Well, the light was bad so I dropped back for a flashlight. When I illuminated the scene, I saw a young raccoon facing off with my cat. The raccoon was a little larger than my boy but Tucker goes aggro with animals. I called for him to come back. The raccoon tried to make an escape. Tucker gave chase, but the raccoon made it into a bush. Tucker sat there to ensure the critter didn’t leave. I went out an coaxed Tucker back, allowing the other to make their escape.

Meanwhile, the orange menace known as Papi, aka Meep, had watched all this from the patio’s safety. Once Tucker returned and the raccoon was gone, Papi went over there and laid down in front of the bush where rocky raccoon had taken refuge. He just grinned at my efforts to get him back in.

“Everyday Is a Winding Road” by Sheryl Crow (1996) has settled into the morning mental music stream. The Neurons riffed on my thought upon reading some news and thinking, “Well, anything goes these days.” The Neurons promptly launched the song, homing in on the lyrics, “Everybody gets high, everybody gets low, these are the days when anything goes.” Like almost every song residing in my mental juke box, the song has a story attached, although it’s just a regular tale of hearing the melody during my Silicon Valley commutes, passing the time as we motor slowly through the webs of interchanges clotted with cars.

Stay pos, etc. It’s still cool so I’ll refresh with a little hot java, yeah? Yeah. Have a better one.

Later, gator.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s supposed to reach 99 F today. They’re telling us, tomorrow, it’s gonna get hot.

Today is Sunday, the 24th day of July in the common era year of 2022.

Our thermometers hover at 12 C right now, which is not bad. We’ll surge over 100 F tomorrow, and hang around that territory for the week, where much of the U.S. is already residing this July. Clouds have been peeled away, leaving a blue veneer that inspires paintings. Sunrise kicked off the daylight hours at 5:56 this morning. Night will commence after sunset at 8:38 PM.

“Tired of Toein’ the Line” by Rocky Burnett from 1980 is in the morning mental music stream. The Neurons put it there after a conversation with the cats. They seemed to be telling me that they’re tired of toeing the line, breaking out in zoomies and galloping in and out of the house, their response to me telling them that it’s gonna be hot so they need to take care of themselves and toe the line some to stay safe and healthy. Their demo ended when Papi raced in and threw himself down across from me. Fixing a steady amber gaze on me, he seemed to be saying, “That’s what I think of your line.”

Well, they were acting out but I’m sure they got the message. They’re not stupid, just independent and a bit mocking. Tucker is less so, being older.

While I heard the song, I had no clues about its year or performer nor even the title. I guessed at the last and suspected that it was related to 1980. I’d been thinking about that year. Living in San Antonio, it was the first time that my wife and I expected consecutive days over 100 F, and we went through twelve of them that summer. Had to search the net to bring it all together.

Okay, stay positive and test negative, keep cool and take precautions as needed to protect thyself and others. Gonna get hot coffee before it gets too hot out to enjoy, right? Here’s the tune. Do you know it?

Peace out.

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Psychosweet

Psychosweet (floofinition) – Floof expression for an animal who is alternatively very sweet, relaxed, and friendly, and then outrageously crazy, aggressive, and energetic.

In use: “Thomas and his family fostered three kittens — Wendy, Tootles, and Mongo — and soon discovered they were psychosweets.”

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

Every once in a while, not enough to be predicted, his cat meowed like he was Jimmy Durante imitating a cat.

Here’s a taste of Jimmy Durante’s voice for a point of reference.

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