Tag: humor

Hallfloofcinate

Hallfloofcinate (floofinition) – To affect with visions of animals or imaginary perceptions of an animal’s presence.

In Use: “Folks who think they spotted an animal only to not see it again likely did not hallfloofcinate but instead glimpsed a floof traveling via quantum portals.”

In Use: “When a pet hallfloofcinates by leaping up and staring, listening intently or even growling, their people are often freaked out and worried that something is in the house.”

Recent Use: “Atlas frequently hallfloofcinated — or seemed to — leaping up and growling with stiff hackles, but no matter how many times this happened, Suzanne was compelled to get a baseball bat to protect herself and lock the door to whatever room she was in.”

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Mild Rant

Mindlessly net surfing, I encountered stories that mildly attracted me, just to see what they were about. They were probably among twenty stories of this kind that I encountered. These two, though, pressed my Rant button.

Take One: Atlanta home demolished

That’s what it says on the Bing search page. MSN, AP News, USA Today, and others are covering the tale with headlines like this one from AP.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

Woman returns from vacation to find Atlanta home demolished

Makes it sound to me as if the destroyed home was the place she was living in. But no.

From the article: ‘“It’s been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean,” she said. “The taxes are paid and everything is up on it.”’

It’s been vacant and boarded up for fifteen years. While I admit that someone made a big mistake and demolished a vacant, boarded up home by accident, and that would be upsetting, I think the way the story is projected is wholly misleading.

Take Two: Former Teammates Now Opponents

Yes, this is what’s on ESPN/NFL’s page: a story about two NFL quarterbacks.

TEAMMATES TURNED OPPONENTS

DOLPHINS-EAGLES: 8:20 P.M. ET

Inside the complicated rivalry of Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts2dTim McManus and Marcel Louis-Jacques

The way this story is presented, they make it sound as if the NFL isn’t full of college teammates who get drafted by NFL teams and end up playing against one another.

This article focuses on Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, quarterbacks who played at Alabama. Hurts was the starter. With a record of 28-2 and a national championship, he was highly regarded and respected, and definitely capable. But Alabama was being shut out. So he was pulled and Tua was put into the game.

Gosh, that never happens in a football! Coaches are always very careful about these things, putting players’ feelings and reputations above winning (yes, that is snark). I can’t think of any other time that a player who wasn’t doing well was benched so another player could be tried, neither in college or the pros. (Yes, that was more snark. It’s a snarky kind of day.)

Fast forward to this year. Hurts now plays for the Eagles and lost in the last Superbowl and Tagovailoa quarterbacks the Miami Dolphins. The two will meet again when their teams play today. Hence, the story.

Yes, I read both stories. Fortunately, they’re not major events. Sure, it’s upsetting to the woman to lose her vacant other home this way; I’d be pissed, too, if someone went to the wrong address and tore the place down. And the way the company has handled it (so far) does nothing to redeem them. But no one was hurt.

Likewise, the football story was a small distraction in an otherwise war-weary and politically numb world, a story significant or meaningful to some serious fans of the teams or players involved, but net fodder for the rest of us.

And yes, in a way, I’m doing the same thing: posting net fodder. But I’m doing it to distract myself from doing other things.

Hope it wasn’t too boring. Cheers

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Perspectives

My wife shared a friend’s anecdote.

She hadn’t seen the friend in a while. They have a regular gang that meet for coffee at Growlers after exercises classes each M-W-F morning.

Converted from an old gas station, Growlers, nominally a purveyor of beers, is in downtown Ashland. It actually shares its space with a small coffee shop. It’s normally not busy in the morning. That allows the coffee gang to pull together tables and make noise as they please. Outdoor seating with firepits is available, and that’s where they’ll typically be.

The gang is a flexible group with active lives, so the group meeting ranges from four to fifteen people. They’re mostly women. Grandmothers and great-grandmothers, retired teachers, programmers, nurses, musicians, accountants, architects, artists, firefighters, college professors, and so on. They’re characters, and have been coming to the same exercise class, with the same instructor, Mary, for over thirty years. My wife, in her mid-sixties, is the youngest. She started the coffee gant back when she began taking the class after we moved here in 2006. Always pursuing fitness, when she arrived here, she began looking for a new exercise routine, and heard about Mary’s Y class. That’s where she was told this tale this morning.

Weirdly, my wife doesn’t like the coffee at Growler’s, so she has tea.

“We’ve downsized,” L said. L is the friend. “I’m 76 and my husband is 82. We had a 3,000 foot home and five and half acres just outside of Ashland. We were talking and agreed, we don’t need all this property. So we sold our place and bought a smaller one here in town.

“Well, after we’d sold our property, the new owners called us. They wondered if we could meet at our old house and walk the property line with them so they can learn about their new land. Naturally, we agreed, so a time and place was set.

“We’d never met them. Well, we got out of the car to wait, and then they arrived. Well, they were older than us! Both had walkers.

“Then they told us, they were downsizing, too. We were speechless.”

I laughed when I was told the story and wondered, moving into a 3000 square foot home with some land while downsizing, just how big was their last place?

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Floofgestible

Floofgestible (floofinition) – Easily influenced by animal requests, behaviors, or presence. Origins: 1890, borrowed in Middle English floof and directly from Latin adjective suffix -ibilis (-able).

In use: “The new cats, Scout and Snickers, quickly established that Carla was floofgestible, and soon had her wrapped around their tails.”

In use: “Many people who declare that they’re aren’t ‘animal lovers’ and find themselves with a innocent animal needing assistance quickly realize that they’re floofgestible, doing anything to help their new fur friends to keep them alive and comfortable.”

Recent: “One friction point between Cameron and his wife in an otherwise idyllic marriage was that he was floofgestible, and always donating to animal causes such as rescues after an earthquake in Turkey and the war in Ukraine.”

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: spirited

The crescendo you might have heard earlier today was Tuesday, October 17, 2023, arriving. We’ve now passed half of the tenth month. Many are gearing up for the holiday season to launch.

It’s 53 F in Ashlandia, where the animals are feted and the people drink coffee all day. It feels curiously warm and pleasant. Forecasters expect our temperatures to crest at 71 F. We may see another degree or two at our house. Where and how we’re situated in relation to mountains and sunshine often results in a little more heat found in my space.

Beautiful out there, though, with stingy white clouds drifting through a strong azure sky and an invigorating sun.

A friend forwarded some humor to me. I plucked a few out for your morning jollies. They seem relatable to modern life and might distract us some from the wars and political messes swirling through October.

I’m feeling much better today. It’s been days since I’ve had any energy. This illness drained and wearied me, and became a stanch reminder of how often we don’t appreciate things until they’re gone. In my case, it was energy, willpower, clear thinking, and being pain free. I hope I never reach that state on a regular basis. So many people live like that with diseases and sickness. I saw it regularly when I visited Mom and witnessed her enduring and coping with multiple issues.

I also see it with my buddy, Larry, who lives on an oxygen bottle these days, Most painfully, I see it in my wife as she fights with flares of pain and stiffness delivered by her auto-immune issues. I took my own decent health too much for granted.

The Neurons have “Love Will Keep Us Together” looping in the morning mental music stream (Trademark flabbergasted). Although Neil Sedaka was co-writer and originally released it, I have the Captain and Tennille cover from 1973. As I said the last time I shared this song, back in 2018, it’s not my style but it was being played frequently on the radio stations where I lived, so I heard it all the time. I don’t know what prompted The Neurons to bring it out of the music vault but I fear I must play it for others or it will keep going around my head.

If you read a previous post this week, you might remember that my wife and I couldn’t remember what I thought I might buy Mom for her birthay. Well, one happy tidbit is that my wife pulled enough out for me to recall all the details. See, two brains are better than one.

The converasation was about genealogy. We were specifically talking about the Mayflower and William Brewster. Three of us are related to him via DNA. In my case, he would be my great-grandfather by ten. From that conversation, I thought buying Mom a gift to the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. I wonder if they shorten that to ‘the society’ or ‘the descendants’ in private conversations?

Stay positive, be strong, and keep optimistic. I’m up for coffee. Anyone else?

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

Watching an NFL football game on television yesterday, I heard the analyst say about a running play where the team lost yardage, “He ended up with a negative loss.”

That spun my thinking. I’d never heard it before during a football game. Hearing it prompted me to wonder, can a football team have a positive loss? It seemed like a screwy way to express the results.

I can imagine some football fans trying to come up with a way to establish a negative loss. Like, not only did they lose yardage, but the clock kept running, meaning that they’re running out of time. That means, with the score as it is, they’ll probably lose because they’re behind and not much time to play remains.

That sounds like modern NFL football, convoluted and a little contorted, becoming more abstract by the week.

For instance, on a quarterback sneak, it looked like the player was stopped short of the goal line. It was fourth down, so that team turned it over on downs.

But wait, it looked like the quarterback fumbled the ball and another player on his team recovered it, so it’s a touchdown.

No, the referee explained: “Only the person fumbling the ball may advance it. Therefore, the ball will be placed at the point of the fumble, and possession has changed due to loss of downs.”

Got that?

That wasn’t the end. The team who didn’t score — the Eagles, BTW — threw a red flag to challenge the result. That ended with the Eagles having a touchdown awarded them. That’s because, before the QB fumbled, the ball crossed the plane of the goal line before his body was down. Officials in New York figured that out by using multiple sychronized television angles to determine exactly where the ball and the QB’s body parts were during which point of the play.

Yow. Watching resulted in a positive increase of confusion AND exasperation.

Imagine trying to use ‘negative loss’ in other ways. I know that in some emotional situations, people like to express positive loss and negative loss, trying to spin, for example, someone’s death in a positive way. I have done that: “At least they’re not feeling pain.” I think that’s positioning a negative event with a positive outcome.

Drinking my coffee. I suppose I could say, “I’m going to drink more coffee, which will result in a negative loss of coffee in my mug.”

I wouldn’t, though. That’s laborious. I’d just say the obvious, “I’m going to drink more coffee, so there will be less remaining in my mug.” I could even shorten that: “I’m going to drink more coffee, so I’ll have less remaining.”

Or, I could tell my wife that after shopping for groceries, we had a negative loss in our checking account.

I’m sure that would earn me a WTF look from her.

Why, though, would such a declaration be even needed? Isn’t it self-evident that there’s less coffee after I drink some? I think it is, unless it’s a magically self-refilling cup. As for whether it’s positive or negative, that depends on your outlook: is the mug half-empty or half-full? Are you a pessimistic or optimist?

I don’t usually think in terms of glasses and mugs being half-empty or half-full. I usually think, “I have some left,” or, “It’s gone.” Does that mean that I’m just a pragmatist? Or am I merely focused on the situation’s bottom line: I have some or I don’t.

I’m no doubt overthinking the turn of words, but I hope ‘negative loss’ doesn’t catch on. It probably will, the way that saying, “I literally died” is now acceptable to so many. Sure. Now that you ‘literally died’, you’ve returned to life. Are you undead or have you been resurrected?

I suspect some became zombies after they ‘literally died’. That might explain our state of politics. *rim shot* (Yes, that was snark.) The ‘literally died’ lost some brain cells during their experience, negatively decreasing their thinking skills. (See what I did there?)

It’s like hearing, as I so often do, “I was thinking in my head.” Well, where else would you be thinking? In your foot?

That’s like saying, “I was chewing in my mouth.” Okay. I’m glad you’ve mastered that. (Yes, that was more snark.)

Although, after drinking coffee just now, I had a positive gain in my energy and focus. BTW, I drink my coffee black, without cream. (Hello, it’s more snark.)

It’s kinda like saying that football team had a negative loss.

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The Declaration

I'm an independent floof, 
and I go at my own speed,
No matter what you plan to do,
Nor where you need to be.
Whether you’re taking me for a walk,
Or waiting for me to pee.
Or I'm getting up from slumber,
And demanding something to eat.
Even if I'm coming to see you,
Or you're coming to see me,
I'll select the gear I'll use,
And establish the speed it'll be.
You'll soon learn from whatever I’m doing,
Whether it’s sleeping in sunshine or in bed,
Or getting petted or kissed,
On my belly or my head. 
Or sitting and chewing,
Or flying or swimming, 
Or brooding and stewing,
Or complaining and pooing.
Or staring and listening,
At scary things in the night.
Or walking and talking,
And chasing things in flight.
Or meowing and purring,
Or barking or squawking,
Or kissing and squirming,
Or running and stopping.
I can’t be ordered to make it fast,
Nor told to slow down to make it last.
You can try, but you can't change me.
And though you keep trying, you'll eventually see.
When it comes to living and dying and all in between.
No matter the activity or who gets involved,
You have no choice,
But to go with my flow.

So when I get going

— If I do —

I'll go at my own speed.
And you will, too.
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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

I’ve been thinking about spiders the last few days.

I don’t love or hate spiders; they’re another critter inhabiting the spectrum of our existence. I’ve been thinking abut them more because we don’t kill spiders in our household. We co-exist with a decent size population of them, including black widows. The biggest thing about all these spiders is that we end up with a lot of spider webs. I sometimes clean the webs away, which often displaces some. I don’t kill them as they run away from the cleaning, but I do apologize to them. No one likes being forced to move from their home.

Anyway, I turned on the kitchen light last night and headed for the sink. A windowsill rests just above the sink. A spider sitting on the window sill bolted away, as if I’d frightened them. About a quarter inch long, dark brownish with red legs, I don’t know what kind of spider they were.

Maybe the light spooked ’em, I thought, completing my task (which, not surprisingly, was washing the cats’ food bowls). Watching that spider tear along the window’s length prompted me to wonder again, how well does that spider see? I had the impression that despite eight eyes, they were running blind, maybe yelling, “Run away! Run away!”

Spider vision preoccupied me the night before. While cleaning away webs on the front porch, a spider dropped from the ceiling to the floor and scurried away. This was a ‘daddy long legs’. We have about seven hundred billion living around our house, I think.

That drop was about eight feet. Well, when the spider was dropping from the ceiling to the porch, did they have any idea of what was below them? Think about the courage that must entail. “Well, can’t stay here, gotta get out of here, so I’m just letting go. Wheee.”

Yes, I know that since they have so little weight and mass that they don’t have issues with gravity as we do, but still, dropping like that when you don’t know where you’re going?

Made me think of paratroopers in WWII.

Of course, on the other hand, spiders proably never learned to fear dropping to the ground. Not like us speaking before a crowd. Before we speak in a public gathering, we often absorb what people say about speakers. Lot of times, it’s mocking and casual insults. Listening to those things indoctrinates a fear of what they’ll say about us while we’re speaking, or how we might mess up and OMG, embarrass ourselves.

I conducted brief online research about spidey vision. Which reminds me; when Spiderman was created, why didn’t he grow eight eyes and eight limbs? How was he just limited to his spidey sense, making webs, and being a creepy crawler?

Articles I read about spiders confirmed what I suspected. Spider vision varies and often isn’t real great. Their hunting and nesting roles, along with their socializing skills and hunting style, guide their vision development and how the eight eyes generally function. (BTW, not all spiders have eight eyes.)

That spider may have kind of running blind, depending on those factors, but it was’t totally blind. Their running blind is more like if a human with vision problems who need corrective lenses might be running if they weren’t wearing those lenses.

Now I can imagine a spider with glasses sitting in a web, talking with another spider about how glasses improved their life.

Like other creatures, spiders present complicated and fascinating life form variations. I still don’t understand why they terrify so many people. Yes, they have venom and can bite and others can die from those bites but that’s not all of them.

I guess that’s another matter which I need to research.

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