Floofbucks(floofinition) – 1. Money set aside to pay for things such as provisions, food, care, and toys planned for animals.
In use: “During an economy when inflation threatens spending plans and savings, many people become more mindful of their floofbucks because they need to keep their fur buddies healthy, fed, and happy.”
2. Black-market currency used by animals to buy favors and information from other animals.
In use: “Stray cats and dogs often scrounge for floofbucks by trading whatever they find to other animals, then using the floofbucks to buy information about houses where humans are known to be easy touches for animals.”
Execflooftive(floofinition) – Animal is who part of management or shares in the decision-making process.”
In use: “Quite often, people will include their pets in their decision making, asking the animals, ‘What do you think I should do’, for example. But that often leads to the animals assuming they have execflooftive privileges to eat what they want, sleep wherever desired, and do whatever impulse seizes them.”
Monday muscled into the morning, declaring, “Ready or not, I am here.”
It’s October 17, 2022. Half of October has fled under the bridge and over the horizon of the past. But they tell us the past doesn’t really exist once it’s done; really, all the previous days have evaporated, except for what we hold in our minds.
After reaching 95 F yesterday, half a dozen degrees higher than prepared for, today will drop into the upper seventies, maybe striking 80 (26 C). It’s a clear enough sky for it. Nothing but blue from my vantage. Trees have at last begun shifting colors here. Local leaves are mostly going gold or yellow.
Monday’s sunrise tiptoed in at 7:26 this morning like it had a hangover. Sunset will come at 6:26 this evening, just eleven hours later. Next Sunday, we ‘fall back’ in most of the U.S., resetting our clocks to be an hour later, part of a hugely debated bi-annual ritual adopted as law last century.
The Neurons were spying on me this morning. No surprise, right? The tiny peckerheads often do. Going about the usuals needed to void my body and begin to re-assume form and manners for being among humans, I found myself examining a memory about meeting a man. After carefully checking it to see where it came from, I realized it was from a dream – ‘we’d met each other in a dream.’ Case closed, I decided, but the dream was suddenly so vivid.
Well, The Neurons heard ‘we’d me each other in a dream’ and called up Heart and “Magic Man” (1976) for the morning mental music stream. It’s been going over and over in an endless loop, kind of like how phone calls and meetings take place on Monday. Chuckle, chuckle.
So that’s the theme music for this October Monday. Stay positively oriented and negatively tested when it comes to COVID and its variants and the flu. It is definitely coffee time for me. I’m positive about it. Here’s Ann and Nancy and the band with their song. Cheers
Helifloof(floofinition) – An animal, particularly a pet, who pays close attention to another being, often a human.
In use: “The rescued puppy gained energy after a few days of care, showing a curious and playful nature while developing into a helifloof who was there for everything from people’s bathing to their eating and sleeping.”
He has a small, really tiny rant today. Websites like to entice him with a headline. While he reads that article, a video plays about the same article. Then, though, another video about a different article begins.
Seriously, WTF? It’s chaotic and annoying. They must think we’re children, running around, high on sugar and caffeine, too buzzy to pay attention.
He has the bug. It overtook him without warning and is as insistent and annoying as a mosquito visiting his ear canal. Acknowledging what must be done, he goes into his closet and begins pulling out clothes and trying them on. Yes, they’re his clothes, and not his wife’s – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just a point of order.
First to be tried on is the flight suit that he last wore over thirty years ago. Does not fit, he finds. Hell, it can’t ever be tugged over his shoulders without his spouse’s help. It’s surprising how much it’s shrunk since he last put it on. He keeps his Air Force service dress uniform out of nostalgia, even though it also shrank.
Business suits are next. He formerly wore a lot of them during his time in marketing but hasn’t put one on for almost twenty years. They have also shrunk. He makes a mental note to google why some closets make clothes shrink. Maybe it’s the way he’s storing them or something. Jeans, pants, and shirts are pulled out, tested, and put into neat piles. In an hour, he’s collected three towers of clothes which have shrunk. He’ll donate them to charities.
The shrinking worries him, though. Maybe he should move his other clothes somewhere else before they shrink.
We’re under a blue egg sky this morning. A half-moon that seems almost translucent studies us from a perch above the western horizon’s trees. It is Saturday. Looks like we made it.
October 15, 2022, the Gregorian calendar system employed in most of the world declares. I appreciate the decisions made way back in the 1500s and further back, in the third and fourth centuries about how calendars work. Saves me the headache of doing it myself. I’d need a Youtube video for that. The current calendar is built on the back of other calendars, like the Julian. We owe some of our current calendar use to Pope Gregory XIII. I learned these things back in junior high but that’s all I can share without a dose of coffee. The Neurons have ordered a work stoppage until said coffee arrives.
I can still type, though, and note that it’s Saturday, either the end of the week or next to last day of the week, depending on whether you think the week starts on Sunday or Monday. I lean toward Sunday as the week’s beginning, making Saturday the end of my week, but I recall a family argument about when the week begins. Boy, was that a crazy morning.
It’s 61 F right now. Weather analysts tell us that 32 C is possible by late afternoon. No doubt it has a chance. The sun is strong, clouds have slipped away for a long weekend (probably at Cumulopalooza 22), and windshifts are moving the Cedar Creek fire’s particles away from our faces. Located in a steep, rugged area, the fire jumped containment five days ago and is forty percent contained as of today.
Sunset will come at 6:23 PM while the heavenly mechanics brought the sun back into our valley at 7:23 this morning.
The Neurons have seeded the morning mental music stream with “19th Nervous Breakdown”. Doya know the song? Released between fifty and sixty years ago, it was a hit single for this Brit band called The Rolling Stones. This tune was selected, The Neurons inform me, because I went outside, and then told myself to stop and look around. I was enjoying the morning air, breathing deep, letting the sun bathe my face with warm light, and planning my yardwork. The Neurons, of course, carried it off in on a whole other track. But now it’s here, and I must abide by The Neurons.
Coffee is also here, a welcome jumpstart to my taste buds and energy. Stay posimatic and be a negabot. Also take care of yourself. You’re worth it, to steal a commercial line about hair products, don’t you think?
Floofdunnit(floofinition) – An investigative effort to uncover what animal was behind an act.
In use: “Many pet owners with more than one floof will experience classic floofdunnits such as which creature stole their food, knocked over the trashcan, tore up a plant, or redistributed a cushion’s contents.”
The organized chaos of commercial air travel reminded him of several things. Number one, always read the fine print. When he bought his ticket, he also bought a seat for a few extra dollars, reasoning, he’d never seen anyone standing up for an entire flight. What he didn’t see anywhere in the seat description was that the seat he selected didn’t recline. He found that out the day before, when he reviewed his flight details.
Naturally, he entertained getting a seat for the five plus hour flight. Several were available for an extra $130. Being one that often spites himself to prove a point, he refused to buy one.
He was sure, though, someday the airlines would figure out a way to start charging for air.
Michael Seidel, writer 