Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Crucifloofbalist (floofinition) – An animal, person, or entity skillful in solving problems involving angry or irritated animals. Origins: Flooftin cruci-, crux cross + floof animal+ English -alist (as in verbalist)
In Use: “Just 8-years-old, Megan showed herself to be a natural crucifloofbalist, marching up to the quarreling cats and yelling, “No,” which ended the noisy standoff post haste.”
It’s Wenza. Middle and high school are in session. You know what that means.
2:03 PM, the murmuration of children begins. Noises double in decibels and echo like we’re in a gym. Screeches, shouts, laughter, blow out my ear drums in three second sound bites.
Cliques form. Tables and chairs are hunted. Backpacks are dumped. A line snakes out from the counter. Drinks are ordered, picked up, shared, consumed.
Happens every Wenzda when school is in session in Ashlandia.
Oddly, today, besides the sounds and visuals, the school children bring in smells of a lunchtime cafeteria. It could be roast turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just memory of another time making itself known.
Floofweg (floofinition) – Chief navigable space, such as a path through a room, which constitutes the boundary line between clowders, herds, flocks, and packs. Origins: High Old Floofman, from tailswag.
In Use: “The dogs had their beds, and the cats had their trees, boxes, and beds, forcing Ali to follow a careful floofweg when she had treats to ensure the delicate balance of power wasn’t disrupted.”
In Use: “The established cats and dogs expected the floofweg to be respected but the kittens spilled across the boundary with careless, exuberant energy.”
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Finally, a reason to smile.
Planning for Easter Brunch is underway. I am fortunately a passive participant. My wife keeps me apprised of developments. She was searching for some Easter-themed drinks. I found some for her. She rejected them. I did find Chocolate Bunny Coffee. She laughed at that.
“Prude wants to have a Prosecco bar,” my wife says. Prude and her hubby, Carl, are hosting the Easter brunch for the third consecutive year.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I’ll chat with her. The brunch is getting big. Twenty-seven people are going to be there.”
“Twenty-seven.”
My wife nods in confirmation.
I do the math. “That’s almost twice as usual.”
“I know.”
My wife gives details of new invitees. Many are people I don’t know. I’ve heard about some of them via my wife’s recounting of ‘Tales from the Y.’ The main characters are all members of the Y, like my wife, and they bring a guest, like me. Most participate in Mary’s exercise class. Mary is celebrating her 50th anniversary of her class next year. The Y wants my wife to organize something for them. Mary’s exercise group has given birth to multiple friendships and activities, including a book club, New Year’s Eve gatherings, and nights out to go dancing.
“Deborah is in charge of the coffee,” my wife says. She’s talking about the brunch. “I mentioned the Chocolate Bunny Coffee. She laughed but said she is not buying that.”
I’m not surprised. Deborah takes her coffee as seriously as I do.
“Mary told me that she has champagne left from a party at her house last year that she’ll donate,” my wife says. “I told her it’s supposed to be Prosecco. Mary said that Prude told her that you and I are going to be there at 10:30 to help set up.”
“We are?” I helped with that last year. Everybody prepares and brings food. A buffet is set up in the kitchen and dining room. The drinks and coffee and dining tables are outside.
“I don’t know,” my wife says. “I’ll talk to Prude.”
I have to decide what to make. Last year I made a potato casserole. It seemed pretty popular. I don’t know what I’ll make this year. I was thinking about a French toast casserole.
Maybe I’ll just buy a fruit tray.
Floofkensian (floofinition) – Originating with or reminiscent of an animal. Origins: Charles Dickens, English Novelist, 1858, “A Tale of Three Kitties”.
In Use: “Floofkensian habits often endured for Jerry long after his floof’s departure, such as looking for them when he woke up in the morning or came home from work or shopping. Years passed before he finally and totally shed those habits.”
In Use: “Dickens left his mark on the household. By the time the rescue puppy passed away, floofkensian routines like afternoon walks, sharing food with the housefloofs, and sleeping with a furry warm body against you was firmly entrenched.”
The Trusk Regime elitests are at it again. They’ve already well-established multiple double standards.
Like, there is one set of law, justice, and order for everyone except the wealthy. There’s another for the wealthy. Now Trump and the Grand Ol’ Trump Party has established that they put themselves above the law, even the law enforcement standard meant for the wealthy. Look at Trump’s Oval Office crowing about how much money he made his cronies after his tariff pause. Tsk, tsk, tsk, the people bellowed. Isn’t that illegal insider trading? Not if you’re part of the Trusk Regime.
How ’bout that pesky law that established that the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff’s requirements. The law said the nominee must have been a vice Chief of Staff or a chief of staff, of the Air Force or Army, Commandant of the Marine Corps, or Chief, Naval Operations. Besides those rules, he the nominee was commander of unified or specified command, that was accepted.
All of those are four-star positions or higher. Trump wanted a loyalist in there, so that law and its requirements were dismissed. Yet, the compliant Congress installed the retired three-star who Trump wanted. Yeah, that’s good news.
In the latest example of do as I say, not as I do, the Trusk Regime is requiring scientists, biologists, etc., to clean restrooms. If you recall, the Trusk Regime fired 1,000 national park service employees. That was a ‘money-saving move’. That meant that there was no one around to man the gates and clean the parks and clean the restrooms. So that genius called Trump and his surrogates decreed, hey, let’s have the high-priced professionals hired for their research skills go clean the shitters.
See, I wouldn’t have a problem with this, but I haven’t seen the Trump administration doing the same. How many White House staff has been cut? Why isn’t JD Vance and Elon Reeve Musk cleaning the West Wing toilets once a month? Why doesn’t Trump order noted drinker and partier Pete Hegseth or his three-star pet, John Dan Caine, to clean the Pentagon latrines? Peter Navarro should be put to work cleaning Mar-a-Largo’s bathrooms for Trump. Kristi Noem has time to cosplay as a border patrol agent on government time; surely, she can take time to clean some toilets, too.
Or is the Trusk Regime and his minions just too elite to do such work?
I shared this with friends. Some replied, “I wasn’t really sure this was satire. Because, you know, Trump.”
Indeedly do, we do understand. Trump can be a nutter! He often says things that prompt many of us to respond, “Whhhaaattt?” Then we embrace the task of dissecting his crazy verbiage to understand what he’s saying and then struggle to pierce the insanity for truth, logic, and reason.
LucN over at Daily Kos gave us a pitch-perfect youarthere performance of the Donald, and it is so funny, I felt it incumbent to ensure others read and enjoy it.
Trump’s plan to introduce honeybee colonies to public school cafeterias goes spectacularly awry
So, read and enjoy! Laughter is good for you, you know.
The weather was lively but not overly warm. Kind of late spring with mild summer suggestions.
The weather change ordered a wardrobe shift. My go-to coat for the last five months was now too warm and heavy. A perusal of closet offerings later, I was donning a zippered dark blue fleece piece.
Not worn for so long, finding it surprised me. I thought I’d gotten rid of it. Has to be twenty years old. Yes, I told myself, believing that I remembered buying it at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto when I lived in Half Moon Bay. Plenty of pockets. “Of course,” I imagined my wife saying. “It’s a man’s garment. If it was made for women, it wouldn’t have any pockets.”
Yes, the lack of pockets in women’s clothing was one of my wife’s peeves. After putting on the fleece, pleased that it still fit well, I dove into the pockets. The thing has six. One inside zip pocket over my right breast. Two inner pouch pockets lining either side of the zipper. An outer zipped breast pocket on the left, and two zippered outer vent pockets.
I started going through them. A pen. Wadded, dusty tissues. Tightly folded five dollar bill, kept company by two weary ones. A wrapped cough drop. Mask, as we wore during the pandemic. A quarter and two dull pennies. And a hard, small thing.
The hard small thing was dark gray. Plastic. Looked almost like a small car key fob. I didn’t recognize it. No markings on it at all. One center button. “What the fuck?” I asked the air.
My mind squirreled through my maze of existence, trying to place this thing. Failing that, I searched my memories for when I’d last worn this garment. Must have been during the pandemic. Because there was a mask, right? That made sense.
Frowning with deep concentration, I held up the gray thing and pressed the button and listened. I heard no sound. I pressed it in again, holding it in, raising it to the side of my head as I did.
Dizziness swept me up. My head lolled left. The urge to puke scaled my body. Lips tight against retching, I reached for a piece of furniture to hold myself up. Missing, I fell to my knees with a thud that shook the room. Trying further not to puke, I dropped to all fours.
“Got you, got you, got you,” I heard.
Who? my brain queried. Legs in jeans were to my vision’s right. “Who?” I wanted to voice but knew that I couldn’t without puking.
The gray thing was on the floor. I must have dropped it. A hand went for it. Dark blue fleece covered the arm.
I knew that fleece.
I was wearing that fleece.
A face showed up in my eyesight. My face. My hazel eyes were bright with humor. “It’s me,” the other me said. “Remember me?”
Belatedly remembering, I lunged for my other self.
I nimbly danced away with laughter. I looked up. Red darkened my vision. My eyesight was a tunnel that was growing smaller. The last thing I saw was my finger pressing the gray thing’s button.
Then I was inside it, looking out.
“You bastard,” I shouted. I knew what had happened. I didn’t know how I’d manage to get the gray thing into my pocket. Maybe I left it there. But I should remember. I must have blocked my memory of what happened before. I did now know that I was the visitor. I was the alien who had occupied that human body who I knew as me.
And now, it had been reversed.
Raising the gray thing, I looked at it at eye level. A grin sprawled over my face. “Now where should I put this?” I asked. “Clearly a pocket is not the best place.”
I watched. Nothing else I could do. Humming, I carried the gray thing with me inside out to the garage. I began realizing what I was going to do. I said, “No. No. Don’t. Wait.” I knew I didn’t hear me. I knew I wouldn’t care.
I picked up a shovel. Screaming inside, I listened as I went outside and dug a hole. A short drop followed, then I bounced around as the gray thing landed in its new home.
The light fell as dirt dropped in on the gray piece. I looked around my new place. Not as bad as I remembered it. A suite of rooms, replica of the place where I had just lived as a human.
Memories began returning about how everything worked here. It was not the same as the real world. Moving fast, I ensured the doors and windows were closed and locked.
As I said, it’s not the same as the real world.
