Floofnacious(floofinition) – An animal’s strong trait or ability to hold on, persist, or cling to things. Origins: Floofin, 400 BCE.
In Use: “Papi demonstrated an unexpected floofnacious knack for evading Michael when the latter tried to administer the cat’s morning medicines.”
In Use: “Rocky never said a word, but his floofnacious staring at Brenda always won him treats to make him go away.”
In Use: “The cat’s original name was Corey but after the little mogie grabbed a piece of pizza and refused to release it, he was renamed Floofnacious C, after the rock duo, Tenacious D, but also out of respect for his holdontoitiness.”
It’s a bleak and featureless Sunda morning. Like winter and spring both decided not to show up. The sun complained, “If you guys aren’t in, I’m not either.”
The gray feels like a weight pressing down. I wonder what the weather was like when Robbie Robertson wrote “The Weight” for The Band.
It’s three quarters through March, 22 of 2025. 46 F now, the weather ‘they’ are trying to sell me on mostly sunny skies and a high of 66 F. I’ve gone past skeptical about that. Then I read that we’re hitting the seventies for Monday through Wednesday here. My heart harbors doubt. Do they mean the 1970s? With Trump still in office, there’s a reasonable question about the reference.
Papi the ginger blade is energetic today. I make a critical mistake. After feeding him breakfast, I give him his blood pressure medicine in some Churro. He loves that stuff and this is our regular process. But stupid me, I think, I’ll do two things at once. Give him his BP med in the Churro and while he’s eating that, I’ll rub his thyroid medication in his ear. That last is something that must be done twice a day.
Except my nose is a little snoggy. I hear myself breathing through it. In and out like a wheezy, broken machine. Were it a machine, I’d think, I need to replace that thing. It’s beyond fixing.
Doing Papi’s morning meds is not a favorite activity for me. Tucker was on the same regimen. He lasted a year. Papi began it the same month when Tucker passed. Lot of burdensome memories organized in this task.
I bend down to administer the thyroid med. Papi hears that breathing. Thinking a bear or something must be after him, he hits reverse like he’s a Corvette in a police chase and speeds through my legs. I bend over double, trying to grab him while saying, “No, stay there, let me do this, please, Papi. Papi..”
He darts away. I get the gooey white medicine on me. That’s toxic to humans. Cursing, I take off the used finger cap, dump it, and wash off my hand.
Papi has settled by the back door. He did not eat his Churri with his heart medicine. He’s eyeing me the way a quarterback is looking at a defensive end just before the ball is snapped. He is thinking, “Is he coming after me? How do I get away?”
I carry out the Churri bowl like a peace offering. Papi gallops up, all purrs, and bends his head to the task. I back away to give him space.
Papi takes two licks of his Churri and speeds off again. WTF? The Neurons ask. There is no answer.
Okay, I’ll go to the other med. We’re on the clock. This stuff is s’posed to be given every twelve hours. I don a new little finger cap. Put new med on it. Head for Papi.
“Mrr,” Papi says. Watching me, we begin a ballet. I move forward. He moves right. I go right. He backs up and heads left, then turns and prances around the coffee table, saying, “Mrr,” as he does. He looks yearningly at the back door. He wants out. I’ll try to trick him. Heading to the door, I unlock it. Opens it. Papi darts up and skids to a halt. “Mrr.” He knows this trick. Smarter than me, he doesn’t budge when I open the door and brightly declare, “Do you want to go out?”
Papi shies back into the room. I close the door. Verbally cajoling him has worked in the past. That’s the past. Papi’s not having it this morning. He keeps circling me, telling me, “Mrr.” I keep explaining that he knows that I need to give him this med. It’s not that bad. We do it everyday.
He finally decides, okay, here I came. Purring, he edges up to my leg. I slowly bend. Holding gently onto his back, I thank him for indulging me and gently rub the medicine into his inner ear.
Released, he bolts to the back door and releases a plaintive cry. I get what he’s saying. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Time to go out.” I open the door. He’s like a fast wind blowing out. Halfway across the patio, tail up, he turns around, sits, and stares at me. I can’t read that expression. Telling him the usual precautions whenever he’s out, I close the door. Whole thing has taken thirty minutes. I feel like it’s been ninety, ninety five minutes. Back in the office, I take a long gulp of cooling coffee.
Here’s The Weight by The Band. If you read this far, you know why it’s in my morning mental music stream.
I type up this post. Papi comes back in. I set the Churri with his meds down in a different room. He eats it up.
I come back into the office and set. Papi joins me and purrs as I scratch his head and chin.
This is such an easy question to answer. I wish I could write more every day. Yes, fill my cup with coffee and let me write without end. I’m talking about fiction writing. Novels and such. I really enjoy writing fiction.
I also wish I could eat more every day. I’m limited in my eating by obscure factors like sodium in foods, gaining weight, and staying healthy. So I’m restricted in how much I can eat every day. It’s a shame, too, because there are many foods which I really enjoy and would like to eat more every day. Like, right now, I could really go for a piece of pie. Blueberry. With ice cream.
Of course, I’d also like to socialize more every day. I’m writing, and that’s not a social activity, speaking for myself, of course, so that limits how much time I have to socialize. A few more hours of socializing every day would be good for me, I think. So I wish that I could socialize more every day.
Spending more time reading is also something I’d wish to be able to do more every day. I love reading, and there are so many awesome writers out there. So many great novels, books, essays, and articles to read. While I’m at it, I also wish to study more every day. I would love to be able to spend time deeply studying art, architecture, and history, along with literature and quantum mechanics.
Then again, if I could, I wish I could spend more time with my wife every day. She’s an intelligent person and a lot of fun.
Another wish I’d have is to be able to visit with my family more every day. They live in other parts of the country, so it takes time and money to visit them, and doing so interrupts my other wishes. But if we had a teleporter, I could probably make it work.
While I’m thinking about it, I also wish I could travel more. I’ve done some traveling, mostly around the United States, Far East, some northern Africa, and Europe. I’ve rarely been south of the equator, so I’d like to visit ruins and cultures in the southern latitutes. I wish I could travel more every day and go to places like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Antarctica. I’ve also always wanted to visit Sri Lanka.
I also wish I could time travel more every day. I’ve learned through hard experience that time travel has a lot of perks but man, when you screw it up, it’s downright hard to fix. There’s a lot of things I need to apologize to the world about which has happened because of my botched time traveling. I feel really guilty about it, too, but if I can just find the time — ha, sorry about that, that pun wasn’t planned — I wish I could time travel more every day.
Since I’m confessing, I’d also wish to be able to see the future more every day. You know, predict things. But time travel has screwed that up, too, as has my dimension clones. If it wasn’t for them bouncing between dimensions, I’d have a much better life and would be way better at seeing the future. I think we all would. But, anyway…
Other than that brief list, there’s nothing I wish to do more every day. Oh, except exercise. And paint. I painted a great deal when I was young but not so much as an adult. I wish I could paint more every day.
Oh, and go fishing.
Other than those few things, there’s nothing.
Oh, except sleeping. I really wish I could sleep more every day.
But that’s all.
Except, I wish I could just relax and do nothing more every day. Because I really am lazy at heart.
And that’s it. There is no more.
Well, except for a few DIY projects around the house. I wish I had time to do more DIY every day.
Celfloofbrity(floofinition) – A renown or celebrated animal. Origins: 15th century, Middle Floof, Floonch
In Use: “The lithe black and white tuxedo floof arrived at the horse farm and established his celfloofbrity by killing thirteen mice, according to legend. Naturally, with that killing skill and that tuxedo, they named him Bond; Cat Bond.”
I went to the store yesterday. AAA batteries were on sale at a good price. My modern life depends on AAA batteries. At my house, they’re employed in flashlights, remote controls, and the medical devices I use to monitor my health. I don’t run out of AAA batteries often but when I do, I end up having to hustle to a store and pay whatever pain to get them. It’s not much but my wife and I are deeply ingrained frugal beings. We like sales.
So I hit the battery display. Problem is, I saw the sale in a flyer at a glance. I didn’t drink in details like the brand. I thought that the store would make it evident.
There I stood, gazing at the racks of batteries. Have you shopped for batteries lately? There’s an amazing variety among sizes, intentions, brands, etc. It’s almost as bad as shopping for cereal, cough medicine, and ice cream. The offerings can be overwhelming.
As I considered it all, a store employee popped up. “Need any help finding anything?”
“Yes, I’m looking for AAA batteries on sale. Supposed to be a 16 or 18 pack on sale.”
“Hmmm.” He leaned in to help, pointing out different batteries. About the only other detail I’d noted besides the batteries’ size was the package size and the price. So I kept responding, “No, it’s not a four pack. No, it’s triple A. No, they were a less than eight dollars.”
Hope waning, I suggested, “I’ll just go to the front of the store and check the flyer.”
Suddenly, the store clerk pointed at a sign at the top of the display case. There was the info on the battery sale.
I laughed. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that. Thanks.”
He laughed. “You know what’s bad? I put that sign up there yesterday.”
“One of those days, huh?”
He grinned. “More like one of those weeks.”
“I hear that.”
As we both laughed, I took my batteries and we parted ways.
I apologize, but neglected to give a shout out, so I need to correct that.
The United States went through a time change recently. It seems like it went off without a hitch. In this Age of Enshittification, when minor things are routinely screwed up by PINO Trusk and his regime, we should acknowledge when things go right.
Because it’s becoming pretty rare, in the Age of Enshittification that began January 20, 2025.
My friends have bought a new EV. Hyundai IONIC 6. All wheel drive.
The purchase surprised everyone except the husband. He orchestrated the deal. He’d been planning to purchase a Tesla, but…well, was now too dissatisfied with the CEO to buy one of them. Besides, he’d read good things about the South Korean EV and its price was much better than the Tesla rival.
But…there’s been a few problems.
As background, they’re intelligen individuals. Tech savvy. She’s my age, and he’s two years younger. He graduated from MIT and was an early Apple software engineer. She’s a University of Michigan graduate. They met at Apple, where she also worked. Since retiring from their Apple days, he’s continued as a digital entrepreneur, creating apps for Apple products. She wrote a textbook on computer network security and teaches computer forensics at our local college. Both have been involved in genome projects.
But their new car has them challenged. First day, they hopped in for an errand. A chilly morning, they turned up the heat and then…tried to start the car. It wouldn’t. They were forced to leave the vehicle, re-enter, and try again, this time starting the car before turning on the heat.
The next day, she was late for exercise class. She’d started the car, then adjusted the heat. Then, she could not get the car into reverse. She sat in the driver seat, madly googling on her iPhone about how to put her new car into reverse. Not getting any joy, she turned off the car, left it, and got back in.
On hearing these stories, my wife said, “So you’ve had to reboot your car a few times?”
Knock on wood, I am not superstitious. I’ve owned three wonderful black cats in Crystal, Sam, and Boo. Each gave me nothing but purrs and good company.
Of course, I do respect that others are superstitious. That affects things. So, for them, I throw salt over my shoulder when I spill it. With many affected by Friday the 13th, I know that many people are a little more distracted and nervous, so I’m a little more careful and alert.
Sure, I do have my lucky underwear, but that’s not superstition. I’ve observed the cause and effect of having them on. I only wear them when extra luck is needed these days because the elastic waistband is worn out and its cotton material has grown as sheer as a silk negligee. The light blue boxers also have a couple holes torn in them from getting a toe ripping through the material when I was putting them on. My wife wants me to throw them away but come on, that would surely be temping the gods to do that.
I do wear a pen on my shirt, but that’s not superstition. I’m a writer and the pen is a talisman to enhance my creativity and prevent writer’s block. What fiction writer would turn that down?
Also, I don’t walk under ladders just as a matter of safety and common sense. Someone could be doing something up there, drop it, and bonk me on the head.
Well, I suppose I would compare myself to common, lowly housefloofs. Basically, a floof is an animal, bird, fish, or reptile. A housefloof is then one of those critters living with humans, even if their accomodations aren’t an actual ‘house’.
I say that I’m a housefloof based on my observations of housefloofs residing with me. Those were cats and dogs. My typical housefloofs were creatures of comfort who enjoyed lazing in sunshine, periodically apparently thinking themselves into a doze. This is something which I also do, although I’ll often have a book in my hand and will read myself into a doze. I have seen animals with books, newspapers, and magazines; they enjoy sleeping on them. I’ve yet to witness any housefloof holding a book. I suppose they could be waiting until I’m not around to pick up a book. They do the same with my computer, logging on when I’m not using it, trying to order themselves things from the net. How else can some of the things delivered to our door be explained?
The other thing about housefloofs which I’ve noticed which cements my comparison to one of ’em is their interest in food. They can be sound asleep — or so convincingly pretending to be that I can’t tell they’re awake — when a can, bag, or refrigerator is opened. Then, pop! Their eyes open. They sit up and look up, orienting their senses with precision: “I hear food; there it is.” Some are so adept at this, they react to the sound, leap up, and dash to the food before awakening. I swear, one cat became so good at this whole thing that she picked up our intentions to get something to eat and was there to greet us when we entered the kitchen.
I can honestly say that I’m quite like those housefloofs. I hear the ‘frig open or a bag. Click; hello, what’s that noise? I seek out my other to see, “What are you eating? What do you have?” And like my housefloofs, I’ll sometimes try to surreptitiously seize a share and scurry away.
Sometimes, though, like the housefloofs, I’m disappointed by the result, and sulk away to resume my previous activity.
Michael Seidel, writer 