Floofdischronia – (floofinition) Mental condition which causes people to lose time to spending time learning about animals or interacting with animals. Origins: Greece, 1671.
In Use: “Greek doctors responded to a crises of economy by examining how humans and floofs engaged and soon found that animals exerted a hypnotic hold on many people of a certain disposition, causes sch individuals to forget about time or deliberately ignore it to stay with animals, a condition which the labeled floofdischronia.
Recent Use: “The pandemic hitting U.S. shores in 2020 brought a precipitous rise in floofdischronia for several years, even impacting the U.S. economy as people chose to quit working to stay home with their pets.”
Après-petting Cleaning (APC)(floofinition) – The fur cleaning required after a human touching a floof’s fur after the floof has just finished cleaning it. Origins: US, derived from French. First use observed in 1960.
In Use: “Barney had just finished cleaning his fur and was settling in for a nap when Meg came him, saw him, and came over, burying her face in his side’s fur as she covered him with smooches, forcing Barney into a vigorous après-petting cleaning.”
Recent Use: ‘Carla’s Instagram account is a popular place, with many people tuning in to see what her cats are doing, especially when she forces them into après-petting cleaning by touching the cats on their backs while saying, “Doink.”‘
A night and morning of rain with temperatures drifting up and down through the forties made this a happy Monday. A single prop plane is droning through a flat milk gray sky. Sunshine rules somewhere behind those clothes.
It’s November 13, 2023, and per customs, there will be fall weather in autumn in Ashlandia, where the trees foster leaves that still change color and wait to drop for the holidays. Some might be waiting for Black Friday, because Black Friday is ON, everywhere and all the time, now. Stores tell us, “Get ready for Black Friday deals with these pre-Black Friday deals, on now.”
It’ll be 58 F later, they say, but it’s 49 F now. The cats have settled on porch locations and told me, it’s acceptable…barely, but a treat will help them cope.
“Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand (from 2004) is in the morning mental music stream (Trademark existential). The Neurons put it there after I watched one of the Bourne movies with Matt Damon. Someone ordered another to take him out, and a little later, I found “Take Me Out” being sung in my head, where it stayed until…well, it’s actually still there. The lyrics are very simple, although I like some of the wordplay they employ. The song has a nice thumping beat if you’re into that. Their style reminds me some of a harsher version of The Killers in many ways.
Anyway, that’s the song today. Be strong, lean forward, and extend your positivity energy as far as it can go. Don’t worry, more will come. Here’s the music. Cheers
Cogfloofscente(floofinition) – A person who has expert knowledge of an animal or group of animals. Origins: borrowed from Italian with roots in Latin cogfloofōscere. First use observed in 1786.
In use: “Insperable from one another, Naia was a cogfloofscente of Lucky, claiming to know everything the floof’s expression showed and understand every sound the animal made.”
In use: “Familiar with routines, habits, and predilections, Corvette was a cogfloofscente of his family of humans and their close friends, taking advantage of them to get treats, belly rubs, and laps.”
Recent use: “In the first year of COVID sheltering-in-place guidance, many people and their floofs became cogfloofscente of the others, recognizing not just what made the other happy or upset, but also effectively comforting the other.”
Fog dismays me outside the window, blocking the sun and keeping us chill between its icy fingers, shutting me out from even seeing beyond the houses across the street. I know the sun is out there, first from learned science from my early childhood years, but also from a glimmer of light warring with the gray at the spot where the sun should be. Could be aliens coming to get my coffee, I suppose, but I’m keeping my money on the sun.
It’s November 12, 2023, and Sunday. About to go out and start the writing day but enthusiasm cringes in the face of the fog and 37 F temperature. Supposed to warm up to 58 F but first that sun needs to hammer its heat beat over that fog until the latter fades.
Le chats sure don’t like it, with the number one boy, Tucker, immediately returning from outside with a ‘screw-this-noise’ expression. He’s folded his black and white fur back in bed. Papi, always more stubborn and independent — he is an orange boi — tried to prove what a floof of the wild he is but his path always came back to the door, and quickly. In and out four times, he finally admitted, enough, and is not resting on the sofa after those exhausting forays.
If such creatures as these mighty housepets couldn’t withstand the weather, what hope do I, a mere mortal, hold? Well, for one, I have a coat and gloves, garments which they resist. Two, I won’t be out there long, not in the actual outdoors. I’ll hustle the car from the garage to the coffee shop parking lot and then shift my derriere’s load from the car to the building. There will be walks later, but it does have some measure on dependence about what the sun, fog, and temp do.
With fog stealing the sunshine, The Neurons thought it would be fun to play Len and “Steal My Sunshine” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark indestructible). Coming out in 1999, the song was the group’s big hit. I haven’t heard it in a car’s age at least, so The Neurons’ ability to shift it from my mind’s stasis to the active region surprised me.
Len — who are a brother and sister combo — have a lot of fun with words. Take this example.
Thursday, November 9, 2023, has come to have its say in what happens and how it happens with little clear explanation about why it happens. Many people like muddying the clarifications about why things happen because they dislike those explanations. Angers them because they can’t grasp the explanation, so if they can’t understand, why should anyone else? Shut it down; hide it; don’t teach it. Make it a mystery, so they can smugly say, “Nobody knows.”
Down to 34 last night in Ashlandia, where the schools are first rate and the arts and athletics are above average, it’s forty and foggy now as frost covers the bare ground and glazes some grasses. Don’t you worry, though; partly sunny skies will see us through to 57 F by daylights end. The remains of the day will deliver us back into darkness and 37 F.
When I awoke this morning, I opened a window blind. Soft dawn was crawling white through the trees and across the yard. Among the denuded poplar branches, a hummingbird hovered for a few seconds and then zinged away.
The hummingbird’s appearance surprised me. Cold, mid-autumn, winter hustling toward us, I figured hummingbirds would have better places to be.
Meanwhile, Tucker the magnificent (which is the mixed long-haired/short-haired cat’s official title) rose, ate, used the litter box, and went back to bed. Papi, the ginger blade feline floof, went out, declared it too cold, came in, declared himself bored, went back out, declared it too cold, came in, declared himself bored, went out, declared it too cold…get it?
I was outside at midnight last night. Clouds and moon were absent, letting the stars and other celestial bodies take a turn at shiny. Beautiful and serene with clear fresh air, but the black night was hugely cold to my body, driving me into my shelter after just five minutes of standing outside and thinking.
Somewhere in the night, I thought about the GOP – Right Wing – MAGA approach to governing and education. Limitations are the key the their approach. They will not accept anything being taught except what they like and understand as history, which is very, very narrowly defined. Their version of history must not show our nation or white people in a dark light. Our nation is good, because, come on, it’s christian, you know, one god, and all that, as the Founding Fathers so ordered, amIright? In their view, slavery was a good thing: sure people were locked up, traded, and beaten, but they were taught trades and given food and shelter. Surely that’s enough, so don’t dare teach that slaveowners were cruel bastards who often raped slave women and treated slaves worse than animals, unworthy of human rights.
It seems like they take the same approach to anything other than two sexes, male and female, whether it’s in gender or sexual preference. That’s what the bible says, they say, so they must be right.
They only want – no, they only accept – one religion, their version of christianity, and their god, a white, benevolent man who knows everything and is the only deliverer of knowledge, justice, and love. Such a god can’t have ideas about other religions and philosophies, so they can’t be taught because they’re not in their religious book, and their tiny minds can’t brook anything other than what their little black book says, even if they only follow the parts of the little black book that THEY like. Screw the rest of that silly, ancient black book, they decide by action, even if they won’t say it. Like, what’s that whole thing about loving thy brother, turning the other cheek, and that whole thing about bankers and rich men being in the temples and entering ‘the kingdom of heaven?’
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” But, but, capitalism! We are a christian nation, and can’t have rules and regulations which limit our abilities to exploit others and grow wealthier. We’re Capitalists!
“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”
I’m sure wealthy Americans plan to do that after they die, right? Until then, they will donate to charities which support their principles to grow wealthier, as long as it’s tax deductible.
Meanwhile, it’s not the government’s job to take care of anyone else, not in our christian nation. No! That encourages laziness. If they’re lazy, they won’t work for others for low pay so companies and the wealthy can make more money. No, no, no. And if companies pay them too much, then the companies will make less profit, and the shareholders will make less money, and the rich executives won’t be able to collect larger bonuses and buy more beautiful, pretty things for themselves, like mansions, vacation homes, jets, cars, and yachts. So pay for the lower classes must be kept low, for so it’s written in the bible…innit?
It all falls back on education then. Limit what is taught or don’t teach them at all beyond the basics of following instructions. That’s all that’s needed.
All that has me and The Neurons singing Pink Floyd’s mashup from The Wall in the morning mental music stream (Trademark unavoidable). See, the way it goes in The Neurons’ view, the Right Wing dictates and limits what will be taught in school, threatening the school systems and teachers with punishment if they don’t adhere and obey (exhibit A: Florida; B: Texas; C: Wisconsin. Etc.). They want perfect little white children (some blacks might be acceptable, as long as they adhere to the doctrine), all male or female – and nothing else because the bible! (And then they descend into lies about what those ‘other’ so-called sexes do, and how evil they are.) Because, see, they don’t understand. And if they don’t understand, they can’t accept. And if they can’t understand and accept, why should anyone else?
Under the GOP plan, aided by the misnamed “Moms for Liberty” who are all about censorship, which as Matthew Perry imight have said as Chandler Bing on Friends, “Can anything be more anti-liberty than stopping what other people read?”, schools become mills to turn out perfectly ignorant, intolerant, non-thinking little images of their white, bible-thumping masters. And the teachers will be the ones molding these little monsters of tomorrow, so long as the teachers adhere to the doctrine, don’t think, and obey the rules, which they will, or the GOP will beat, intimidate, and incriminate the teachers.
Because anything other than the GOP curriculum is ‘woke’, and that’s communist, socialist, thought control.
See how they turn it on its head? It’s no wonder that the GOP and its christians put its greatest faith in trying to build walls.
Stay positive and woke, be strong, and lean forward for others’ rights and freedoms as well as your own. Coffee is now at hand and warming my innards. Here’s the video.
Despite a cloudy presence, it’s a sunny Tuesday, November 7, 2023. An election day in many precincts, we’re not voting on anything this year in Ashlandia, where the voters are blue with purple tints and mostly retired professionals. It’s 49 F now with plans to burst into the low fifties, perhaps even hitting up to 53 F. Woo – break out the shorts and tank tops.
Do people still wear tank tops?
My clothes amused me today after I dressed. They were so funny, cracking jokes among themselves. Yeah, I need to say that information differently: The Neurons pointed out how old my wardrobe is, amusing me. Like, the jacket was purchased in San Francisco at Macy’s in December, 2005, during a trip to the city from our new home in Oregon to visit with friends and hear some blues at a club. Pants, underwear, and socks are fairly new at four ~ five years, but my brown Nunn Bush shoes are over twenty-five years old, which strikes me as impossible. And they still fit and are amazingly comfortable. Just a little older than the shoes is the Arrows shirt, purchased at the Naval Air Station Moffett Field Exchange back in 1996.
Weird what memories stay sharp in the mind. Adding it all up, I’m an old clothes man who will never be accused of being a fashion plate. Oh, well.
I keep finding pieces of kibble at odd places in the house, such as the bedroom hallway, in the living room by the television, and in the office. I normally pick them up and toss them away. Yesterday, though, I saw Papi, the ginger blade, come up, sniff the kibble, look around, and then head for the feeding station. That put it all into context: these kibble pieces are not lost or misplaced, but precisely located elements of the KPS, the shorthand for the Kibble Positioning System. Consulting the KPS provides the floof about food locations. The floofs have such amazing technology, yeah?
The Neurons knocked me back with the music they slotted into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fishy). I was in the kitchen, minding my own business, getting on with needs. Having fed the house floofs, I’m preparing my own brekkie when I hear, “Words can’t bring me down.” Within a heartbeat or two, I’m hearing more of Christina Aguilera singing “Beautiful” from 2002.
Why this song today? I asked Der Neurons.
No, they didn’t respond, but I knew that it was about words. First, words in the news about polls, politics, and elections; then words about wars, killings, and death; and finally, words in my novel-in-process and where it stands and what I’m gonna do with it next.
It’s such a strong and lovely song, though, well sung and produced, I’m happy with it in the MMMS.
Every day is so wonderful Then suddenly it’s hard to breathe Now and then I get insecure From all the pain, I’m so ashamed
I am beautiful no matter what they say Words can’t bring me down I am beautiful in every single way Yes, words can’t bring me down… Oh no So don’t you bring me down today
To all your friends you’re delirious So consumed in all your doom Trying hard to fill the emptiness The pieces gone, left the puzzle undone Is that the way it is?
You are beautiful no matter what they say Words can’t bring you down…oh no You are beautiful in every single way Yes, words can’t bring you down, oh, no So don’t you bring me down today
No matter what we do (No matter what we do) No matter what we say (No matter what we say) We’re the song inside the tune Full of beautiful mistakes
And everywhere we go (And everywhere we go) The sun will always shine (The sun will always, always shine) And tomorrow we might wake on the other side
We are beautiful no matter what they say Yes, words won’t bring us down, no, no We are beautiful in every single way Yes, words can’t bring us down, oh, no So don’t you bring me down today
Oh, yeah, don’t you bring me down today, yeah, ooh Don’t you bring me down ooh… today
It’s a song worth listening to and thinking about. I hope you’ll listen and agree.
On to the day. Stay pos, be strong, lean forward, and remember that you’re beautiful. Coffee is at hand once again to bolster my will. Here’s the video. Cheers
Obsfloofscat – (floofinition): A view or situation confused or obscured by an animal’s presence or behavior. Origins: borrowed from Late Latin, first observed in use in 1536.
In Use: “Awakening, Skylar wanted to see the time, but the view was obsfloofscatted by Norman, a large Maine Coon in his prime, resting on her chest, his bushy black tail across her face.”
Recent Use: “An online video showed a cat, dog, and broken plant, with dirt and plant spread around the room. The animals’ expression obsfloofscatted the guilty party’s identity as both animals’ fur was absolutely clean.”
Sunshine clashes with multi-layered grey clouds over Ashlandia, where the weather is variable and the people are resigned.
It’s Sunday, November 5, 2023, and 57 F degrees, close to the projected high of 62 F. Was raining a short while ago, not a ‘oh-no-the-flood-is-coming rain’, but a light shower that had the cats curled up outside with their heads up asking, “What’s making that sound?”
We did the deed of turning the clocks back. I prefer that expression, ‘turning the clocks back’, over ‘setting back’ or ‘falling back’. Setting back sounds like something has gone wrong. Some wags will declare, “Well, that’s exactly what all this Daylight Savings Time clock changing is about. It’s government control and regulation gone wrong. We don’t need it.” Falling back feels like we’re retreating, as in, “Everyone fall back. Retreat.” So I will go with turning the clocks back, if and when I remember.
By Dog, I did enjoy the extra hour of sleep. When I first rose and saw the time, I thought, oh, please, just give me a little more sleep. Then I realized, hey, time change, and dove back to bed, pleasing one cat (Tucker) and dismaying the other (Papi). Papi doesn’t give a damn about any time but his own, and no schedule but his own. (Neither does Tucker, but Tucker likes cozying up to people in bed.) Seeing me go back to bed made Papi’s little face fall as he realized that he wasn’t getting his wet food breakfast yet.
Given that time was on my mind this morning, it’s not surprise that The Neurons began playing time-oriented music. I can list multiple songs that entered the morning mental music stream (Trademark derisive) as I stumbled in and out of light dozing with Tucker purring in my ear, but the song that finally found a firm grip in the MMMS is “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day. Some people will know this gentle, reflective song from Seinfeld‘s penultimate episode, but I know it from driving around the SF Bay area when the song was released in 1997 back and forth to work or out shopping. Although the song has such a sentimental and nostalgic air, it’s about a breakup with a girlfriend who moved to another country. In that light, with the “Good Riddance” aspect of the title, you realize that the singer is being sarcastic. That actually makes more sense for its inclusion in the Seinfeld‘s episode; Jerry never wanted any sentimentality on the show, although it seems to me that the montage shown as the song played was completely sentimental.
Stay pos, be friendly, strong, and optimistic, and lean forward. With coffee safely in hand yet again, I’ll try doing the same and maybe we’ll meet on some future date and place where we say to each other, “Isn’t this great?” Here’s the video. Cheers
Infloofcapitate(floofinition) – To be disabled by an animal. Origins: 1660s, Old French and Middle English, first noted widespread use in Britain.
In use: “Many people with pets often find themselves infloofcapitated when they sit down at a computer as a household pet horns in to either be part of whatever’s happening, or trying to stop activities that takes attention away from themselves.”
In use: “When she went down for her nap on the sofa, the household managerie joined her, infloofcapitating her and extending what was to be a twenty minute respite into almost two hours.”
Recent use: “During COVID era Zoom meetings with people working from home, the Internet was enriched with tales of pets showing up. floofrupting meetings and infloofcapitating people.”
Michael Seidel, writer 