I encountered a man yesterday as I was walking along a street. I wear a hat with ‘flair’, and it attracted him. He wanted to see my US flag one. As he admired it, he asked, “What’s that beneath your flag pin?”
“That’s my retired USAF pin.”
“Oh, you were in the Air Force.”
The Neurons jumped up with responses like, “No, I just like the pin.”
I beat The Neurons back and answered, “Yes, I was.”
I wondered what his Neurons were saying to him about his question. I imagine they were like Homer Simpson’s neurons, muttering, “That’s it, I’m out of here,” followed by footsteps and a slamming door.
When I say thank you in response to service, the young baristas respond, “Of course.”
Makes me smile. I remember when I used to respond, “No problem.” Then some elder – he must’ve been fifty or more, and I was pushing through my teens – said, “Whatever happened to ‘you’re welcome’?”
One of last night’s dreams included a giraffe. I don’t think I’d ever dreamed of a giraffe before. It also seemed at odds with the rest of the dream. Having written and thinking about it, I put it aside with a promise to self to look up what a giraffe in a dream might mean. This explanation came up in my efforts.
Dreaming of a giraffe is a pointer to the challenges and difficulties you’ll have to face to streamline your life.
The giraffe dream tells you to see beyond the immediate challenges. Just as the giraffe can see predators at a distance, this dream calls on you to be wary of danger.
I might be groping for straws, but this definition fit with my initial, spontaneous take on why a giraffe was in my dream.
I don’t know about other generations, but my fellow Boomers and I are frugal. At least the ones in my acquaintance are.*
We get a tube of something, we cut it open to get the last of it. I thought it was something only my wife and I do. But, oh, no. Friends and family all spoke up. Tubes, squeeze bottles, whatever, they all do their utmost to get the very last drop.
It’s odd and funny. Many will put themselves through ridiculous measures and extended time to reach that tantalizing last measure. I shouldn’t be surprise that it turns out to be so prevalent. After all, there are a remarkable spectrum of devices out there sold just to help, and tricks and tips on blogs, websites, and magazines.
We were doing this way before any economic recessions or the C-19 pandemic. My wife and I originally did this because we were in the military. Back then, in the 1970s and 1980s, they didn’t pay well. Everything had to be stretched.
Always amazes me how I arrive home and suddenly need to urgently pee. It’s not like I was driving home and had the urge and ignored it. No, it strikes after I get into the house.
It’s not just me, either. My wife usually reacts before I do, walking into the house, greeting the cats, and then announcing, “Oh, gotta pee.”
I always wonder if it’s another case of event boundaries. Like, oh, you’re home, so you pee. Or is it conditioning built up over the years: you come home, you pee.
Don’t know. Maybe there’s something in the house air that triggers it.
Employees at a local grocery store wear shirts with “Look for the food you love” on the back.
I got caught up thinking about what food I love. Pie jumped into mind. I didn’t look for pie that day. Nor did I look for fruits and veggies, which I also love, or nuts and seeds. Nor cheese. Sandwiches. Didn’t look for them, either. Or pizza, another food I love.
I just looked for yogurt that day. It was on sale. A good price.
That’d be on my tee’s back: “Look for food you love with a good price.“
They call it chilly Friday but Saturday’s just the same.
Yes, Ashlandia’s warm weather spurt has ben curtailed. Today’s high will crest at 64 F. More importantly, clouds have set up a formidable sunshine blockade. Rain is expected in a hour. Not heavy; just April showers. It’s 49 F right now. The cats have declared themselves to be indoor floofs.
Mom is still in the hospital, dealing with PT and mobility issues, in significant back pain. Sis says it poured rain there in Pittsburgh, PA, causing some minor local flooding. That caused Mom’s boyfriend, F, to bow out of showing up. He’s 94 and driving in those conditions are no longer in his catalogue. But sis says that’s all cleared up, so now he’s going to visit Mom this afternoon.
Reflecting what’s going on with Mom, I count back the number of other people who went through similiar issues with a parent and their end of life health issues. This seems to be growing into the common end of life way of life.
Three songs are warring in the morning mental music stream (Trademark fizzling). First came the Beatles with their 1968 song, “Lady Madonna”. I applied to The Neurons for the reasoning behind selecting that for the morning mental music stream. Their answer was, “We’ll get back to you.” My neurons are bureaucrats.
Next came Small Faces with “Itchycoo Park” from 1967. This was again done without any input on my end that I can see. The Neurons stonewalled me when I asked for more information about why this song was playing in my head.
Finally, or the latest, was Peter Gabriel with “Sledgehammer” from 1986. This, at least, has more personal history. We’re returned from Okinawa, Japan, after a four year tour that year.
Two cats, Crystal and Jade, accompanied us. They became our floofs after other military families receive orders for new assignments and couldn’t afford to take their cats with them. Both passed away in California, Crystal from cancer in 1994, and Jade, years later, when she was 21. Both were wonderful sweethearts.
Coming back that year felt like a major shock. Bell Telephone had gone through its breakup. Now mini-Bells abounded. We’d been driving on the left side of the road, so we needed to switch back over. The fastest speed limit we’d encountered was 100 KPH (61 MPH) and now we were hurtling around much faster. Yeah, a few days of adjustment was needed as we moved into a new one-bedroom apartment in South Carolina.
Hope you have a respectable Friday. Be strong, stay positive, and Vote Blue this November. Here comes Peter, previously of Genesis, with his solo tune, “Sledgehammer”. Coffee is flowing. Here we go.
I’ve been living with cats all of my life. It may be affecting me. When I see something on our house’s hardwood floors, I tap it to see what it does, as I’ve witnessed my cats do.
I don’t sniff it, though, as they do. Or eat it. I’m not at that stage of my metafloofaphosis.
Michael Seidel, writer 