Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Joie de Floof (floofinition) – The intense joy or sense of vitality that an animal can deliver in a situation. Origins: France, 1889
In Use: “Gadget was a tripod but with a joie de floof that overwhelmed all in his sphere, and the videos of him soon had millions of hits.”
In Use: “After a tiring day, Duke’s singular joie de floof revitalized Dija and helped her shed the frustrations and irritations of that enforced pastime called ‘work’.”
Mood: adultuated
Autumn continues it new reign of weather, pale blue sky, bold but late sunshine, goldenish green trees. Upta 56 F now, with 80 F on the horizon. 80 F makes a fine temperature for Ashlandia. If you ever vote for the temp for this place, I urge vote 80.
Told my wife yesterday after we got some things done, “You know, as I look back on October, I’m impressed with how much we got done.” Cuz this is Wednesday, October 2, 2024.
I enjoy watching Papi. Papi is the ginger blade component of our felinious duo. Younger. Very outdoorsy. Coming in the back door, he avoids stepping on the mat. Like it’s lava. Then inside, he circles around the outside of the sofa, to the room’s far side, like he’s a scout in enemy territory. Cuts back in to the rug under the dining table. Like it’s a safe base. Talks to me from there, tail up, back arched, whiskers brimming. I make inquiries about his appetite and willingness to eat. Tail still standing like a sundial, he races alongside as I head for food prep. Gives me some vocal encouragement. Then sits. Patient. Waiting for the food. Final burp of pleased noise as his bowl lands. Sitting, body adjustments, because he must be postured just so, it’s a thing of his, he commences.
Brother-in-law’s mother passed away. 92. COVID pneumonia. She, like all of her children, including BIL, are Trump supporters. But her grandchildren are not. Sorry for the loss, etc, but my emotional sea churns with conflicting currents.
I went out with the cats and enjoyed the still fresh air. They groomed and tended to sounds while I just did breathing exercises and reflected. For some reason that only The Neurons know, Tom Petty ripped into “You Wreck Me” from 1995 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark wrecked). Could be simple association. (Ya think?) October 1974, I entered the military, October, 1995, I dished the retirement papers to the service. This song is from ’95. So. Not saying the military wrecked me. Not at all.
Stay positive and lean forward and vote blue next month. Coffee and I already rendezvoused on familiar grounds. Here’s the music, and away we go.
Mood: Postsunday
Proceeded through the morning essentials. Complained to Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) about the stench of some of his essential. Both floofs begged release from the house to the rear yard. I headed out with them.
September 30. 2024. Monday. Cold autumn morning. Even the rising solar orb gave a little shiver. Cats sought sunshine arrangements for grooming. I launched back into the house, thinking, cold now but will cap at the mid to upper 80s F today. No clouds effing with today’s blue, either.
This is it. September’s last shout. Like other months this year, September of this year will be able to brag to historians about disasters, politics, and violence. History will give it a glance and reply, more of the same but intensifying. Probably ask, “Couldn’t the people see the direction they were heading? Did they not give a fuck to try to change it?” We’ll defensively huddle together and reply, “Well, it’s complicated.” If MAGAs and the GOP ever emerge from their holes of irresponsibility and weirdness and wash the cult off, will they be able to understand how they contributed?
The Neurons offer a slice of song from the South Pacific musical: “Gonna wash that cult right out of my hair and send it on its way. Get the picture?” I thank them for the mild snicker they induce.
Moving on to music, thoughts about waiting and patience impell The Neurons to move on from “Bali Hair” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sinking) because they kept on going with South Pacific tunes (once they’re on something) to a 2003 Audioslave song. The melancholy rock song, “Like A Stone”, is about waiting for the afterlife, patiently at that, where they’ll hope to be reconnected with someone. Doesn’t purely translate to today’s situation ‘cept for that idea of patiently waiting for some of this mess of 2024 to clear up, patiently waiting, as it’s sung, like a stone.
Be positive, patient, and strong. Test neggy and lean forward. Vote blue. Coffee has washed down the breakfast components. Here’s the music part of the post. Cheers
Floofpes (floofinition)– Internet slang. Literally, ‘floof tropes’, overused cliches and outmoded themes about animals. Origins: Worldwide Web, early twenty-first century.
In Use: “One floofpes children often heard as they grew up was that they were ‘fighting like cats and dogs’, which many of them doubt as they see videos or personally witness dogs and cats getting along very well.”
Mood: Coffeenical
Slept in, and the overfloofs allowed it. Rising ticks after 8:30, I found a comfy autumn day hunkering in. Blue sky like we’ve seen thousands of time, but is still wondrous. A full sun was encroaching, driving up the mid 50s temperature. We’re due to make a final stop in the mid 80s before the sun finishes business.
This is Saturday, September 28, 2024.
Today’s theme music overtook me from a song’s line. Yeah, unusual, right? Yes, that was snark.
I was reading Things the MAGAs Claim. A wearying trope. Turning off from that, I mentally countered, “Well, you got your reasons and lies.” As the standard morning activities continued on semi-auto-pilot, The Neurons introduced a vocalist singing “Well, you got your reasons, and you got your lies” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark streaming). Wasn’t until coffee blessed my throat that I was like, oh, hey, that’s that Tonic song. What’s that Tonic song? More coffee and I remembered, “If You Could Only See” from 1997.
I figured, oh, I had to have used that before. So, I sat and searched. Yep, December of 2020, I posted this:
I ended up with a political spin on a love song today. The song, from 1997, is “If You Could Only See” by Tonic. It came to me as I read some interview with another Republican insisting that the election is a fraud and everything must be tossed out. They don’t want a do-over, mind you: they just want Trump declared the winner. Never mind any facts that say anything about the election’s validity. Some nefarious, shadowy and powerful individual allowed Trump to be elected four years ago, let him run the country, but now said, “Oh, but enough. We will rig the election so he loses.”
Such bizarre reasoning always prompts wonder in me. Why do they so love Trump? Why do they put so much faith in unproven conspiracies? Why do they believe statements shown to be lies and fabrication?
Yeah, we have theories about it all. It brought some lines from Tonic’s song into my mental stream this AM.
Well you got your reasons.
And you got your lies.
And you got your manipulations.
That sums it up for me. Strange reasoning, reinforced by lies and manipulation. Truly, this song from 1997 is proper for this era in 2020.
Funny that the song fit my mood as Trump lost the 2020 election and declare it had been stolen from him, and now, as he runs for office again, with the GOP doing their best to steal it for him by hampering voting.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote blue. Here we, Saturday is underway. Cheers
Neofloofthic (floofinition)– Belonging to a previous animal and now outmoded. Origins: 1865, Sir John Floofbock.
In Use: “She thought that the dog’s toys were neofloofthic relics of another era when she began taking care of her daughter’s cat for two weeks but on the first day, the cat was attacking everything that the dog used to play with.”
My wife chastised me for ‘using too much soap’ when I was cleaning the cat’s bowls.
I apologized, having been unaware the restriction existed. Ignorance is not a defense, of course. I await my sentencing.
Mood: Frigruff
Some artists got together and painted us the bluest sky. Brill sunshine was dabbed in o’er the goldenish green trees towering across the backyard. Cats and I were well-thrilled with this autumn display, frolicking in a mature way in the 50 something F air. We’ll plumb the mid 80s F today but autumn is bigfooting its presence on Ashlandia.
This is Friday, September 27, 2024.
I’ve circled at the usual AM stops and found some part of me meditating on What Constitutes A Healthy Breakfast? Trader Joe’s sheet cake was inviting me for a taste but that’s not healthy, is it? Well, it could be. Pumpkin and spices. Probably all artificial. But tasty.
Laboring through the morning news. Hurricane Helene did the wreckage as expected. Still rampaging. NY’s mayor indicted. The noble and dignified Trump hawking watches. They say they found the world’s oldest cheese, too. I thought that was in my fridge. I checked; still there. So that’s another example of fake news, innit?
Maggie Smith passed. 89, which is now considered a youngerish sort of age. Suppose because I’m closer to that yardstick. Beloved is an often overused word, up there with superstar. Beloved seems apt for Maggie Smith.
Alice in Chains is dominating the morning mental music stream (Trademark trademarked) with “Would” from 1992. I check and learn, yes, I used “Would” before as theme music, in September in another year. I have detected a trend of having the same songs come to me in the same months of different years. Serendipity? Random psychosis? Bullshit observation? I don’t know. It’d take more study and I haven’t had enough coffee to pursue it past my fingers bashing a keyboards.
I sneeze several times. My wife isn’t here so I need to tell myself, “Godzilla”.
Which inspires Blue Oyster Cult and their ode to the creature terrorizing Tokyo. It’s been pinned as theme music here too and doesn’t feel synchronized to my day, although nothing else does, either.
Then, clicking and muttering, I’m lead to Stevie Nicks’s new offering, “The Lighthouse”. Nicks said that she’d been on the road, listening to a newscaster talking about Roe v. Wade being overturned. Thinking of what it would mean, she had to write a song.
Nicks sings,
Because everything I fought for
Long ago in a dream, is gone
Someone said
The dream is not over
The dream has just begun
Or
Is it a nightmare
Is it a lasting scar
It is unless you save it
And that’s that
Unless you stand up
And take it back
And take it back
h/t to Genius.com
Yes, this feels like a song for today. Hope you give it an ear.
Be strong and so on as we wade through the days, 39 of them, until November 5, 2024. Coffee still tickles my throat in measured swallows. Here’s the music. Cheers
Mood: Footsensitive
The blogging day has a late liftoff. It’s a matter of scheduling.
Today is Thursday, September 26, 2024. Another autumn day, hotter than yesterday but it’s not supposed to scorch us. 70 F now, we expect 82 to show up on the temperature measuring devices before the fat boy sings. The sky is autumn blue, complimentary to the trees’ autumn wear.
I left the house at 7:30 this morning. Destination, Medford. Orthopedic surgeon office. My faithful companion rode shotgun. She and I figured that we’d do other things in Medford after clocking out of the doctor’s office.
I was there for my right ankle. After spraining out on it twice, May and June, MRIs showed a high-grade tear of my longus tendon. Fresh x-rays confirmed the status, along with his examination of my foot and stance. The surgeon’s recommendation: cut the longus tendon end out.
A surprise to me but his reasoning was sound. Longus doesn’t do much and is kind of redundant to the brevis. My brevis, and the rest of my tendons, along with my ligaments, muscles, and bones, look good. My instablity is being triggered as a response to pain in the longus. Basically, I feel pain from its remnants, and react, causing a wobble. So cut it out and the pain is gone. We discussed also tring to replace it with something else, since it’s been ripped away. He recommended the removal and after thinking and discussing, I lean toward having that done. Recovery will mean off the foot for a few weeks, a walking cast, and no driving. Six weeks on and it should be good, and therapy will be pursued for the leg, foot, ankle.
He was complimentary about my state of health, over 68, with only high blood pressure, a condition which has plagued me since my yute.
BTW, doctor and staff impressed me. All were professional, courteous, friendly. No one was condescending. Everything went on time and was methodical and straightforward.
Next steps, check with my PCP for any health showstoppers, and run it past insurance for their approvals. Of course.
Today’s theme music was floof inspired. After my doc appointment, we went to a breakfast trough, did a little shopping and zipped home. Once in the domicile, I did a cursory flyover to find Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) and Papi the ginger blade. I figured they were in the backyard, by the back door. That inspired The Neurons to sing “They are back door kitties” to the tune of Foreigner’s “Juke Box” hero from 1982. Within a second of that inspiration, JBH was rocking the morning mental music stream (Trademark rocked).
Had an interesting encounter after parking at Trader Joe’s in Medford. A guy parked his vehicle behind ours and said, “Hey, nice bumper sticker.” That would be my “Vets for Kamala Harris” bumper sticker. He told us he’s out west in Grants Pass often, and it’s wall to wall Trump flags and signs. “Makes me want to gag,” he revealed.
BTW. the ACLU is suing the City of Medford Police Department for allegedly spying on progressive organizations/individuals. “The suit alleges that the southern Oregon police department monitored social media accounts and combed news stories to build files against individuals and groups when they weren’t suspected of any criminal activity.” h/t to OregonLive.com
Stay positive, lean forward and remain strong. Vote blue for the difference it will make. On to write and coffee and all those other elements of my daily existence. Oh, and here’s the music. Just remember to sing “Back door kitty” whenever they sing “Juke box hero.” Cheers
Pecfloofniary (floofinition) – Of or related to the money spent on an animal, or an animal’s worth.
In Use: “After Jared spent money on his floof’s medical needs, many people focused on the situation’s pecfloofniary aspect, but to him, his dog’s companionship was priceless, and he would prostitute himself if it brought in the money for his dog’s medicine, surgery, and x-rays.”
Michael Seidel, writer 