Floobble

Floobble (floofinition) – Behavior shown by animals when they appear to be caught between two or more simultaneous reactions. Origins: Internet, 2022, combination of floof and wobble.

In Use: “Hearing a noise, wanting to investigate but also eager to run away, Papi floobbled into leaning toward the sound and then doing two steps in each direction, like he was in his own square dance.”

Recent Use: “A classic floobble seen on YouTube is when an animal starts to run, then pauses and stands up on their back legs alone to see what’s happening.”

Infloofcerate

Infloofcerate (floofinition) 1. To confine an animal. Origins: 1575, in general use.

In Use: “Many people fostering young animals such as kittens or puppies infloofcerate them at first until they’re more developed, comfortable, and aware.”

In Use: “Whenever guests came over, Barb infloofcerated Chet because he was such an energetic, inquisitive, and social fellow, jumping on guests, furniture, and counters to better involve himself.”

Recent Use: “Cam systems have become a regular tool for folks when they infloofcerate, allowing them to track the animals and ensure they stay healthy, comfortable, and safe.”

2. To be trapped or imprisoned by an animal.

In Use: Whenever Kat sat, she was quickly infloofcerated as pets found her and claimed spaces on and around her, limiting her ability to shift, let off moving.”

Recent Use: “Jorge’s pizza was inflooferated as soon as he opened the box as his tiny new kitten, Forester, immediately grabbed a piece by the crust and stood in the pizza’s middle, refusing to cede his spoils.”

Floonergy

Floonergy (floofinition) 1. The animation, action, and movement demonstrated by animals. Origins: 1974, United States.

In Use: “A pile of puppies’ floonergy can overwhelm many households; having children on hand to watch and play with them is a good counterstrategy.”

In Use: “The cat demonstrated huge levels of floonergy as a kitten, accepting every challenge to climb curtains, take over the ceiling fan, and lounge in a room’s tallest places, and she kept that same floonergy until her middle teens, impressing everyone.”

Recent Use: “Videos of pets demonstrating their floonergy permeate the net, where viewers marvel over animals galloping around a house and leaping over furniture.”

2. Calming influence cast by animals over others.

In Use: “Reaching home, Carmel immediately removed her shoes and sat down. Her cats joined her, spreading their relaxing floonergy over her and extinguishing her work weariness.”

Recent Use: “Although a huge dog, Master G radiated a peaceful floonergy which immediately relaxed those in the same room.”

Just Get Over It

It’s another Trump moment.

Know Trump? I’m writing about Donald J., a guy who lost the popular vote in 2016 but won the Electoral College outcome, ending up as POTUS #45.

He’d been lying throughout his campaign and continued it during his term of office, demonstrating he had an exceedingly thin skin and was reality-warped. Like, take that whole thing about losing the popular vote. He claims he won it but cheating, you know, denied him the numbers.

And so it went for the next four years, until President Joe Biden decisively won the 2020 POTUS election, taking both the popular vote and Electoral College results. Trump had already been looking forward to losing and had declared that the election was rigged, and he’d been cheated of victory. Despite many challenges in court, no evidence showed up to support his claims. Yet, he and his misfit menagerie continue to push that claim and have convinced sufficient numbers of Republicans that he’s the nominee this year, even though he’s involved in four court cases for fraud, cheating, and lying, and was twice impeached.

Now he’s campaigning in Iowa. Perry, Iowa was the nation’s latest school shooting site, where a seventeen-year-old killed one child and injured four other children, and two adults. And what does Trump tell Iowa voters?

“It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.” h/t to MSN.com.

Isn’t that something? This conman who refuses to surrender to facts about his election loss, who has declared that if he wins, his term will be about revenge and retribution, is telling these grieving people, “But we have to get over it.”

The shooting happened two days ago.

His election loss was over three years ago and has mired the nation in hate, scorn, and lies.

Trump, please take your own advice. Get over it. Move on, so the nation can as well. We don’t need the shit you’re selling.

Flooftuseness

Flooftuseness (floofinition) Individual or organization who struggle to comprehend the importance of treating animals kindly, or human’s loving relationships with animals. Origins: 16th century, Europe

In Use: “One obvious sign of flooftuseness is when a person says to another person worrying about their fur friend, ‘What’s the big deal? It’s just an animal.'”

In Use: “Cementing her decision to separate from Derrick, who was showing himself to be less than the ideal mate than first impressions, was when Derrick refused to stop to help an injured animal because he wanted to reach home to watch an NBA game, a flooftuseness which Karin would not accept.”

Recent Use: “Donald Trump, Jr., proudly and consistently displayed his flooftuseness by going on hunting trips and then proudly showing his ‘trophies’ on social media.”

Flooftrigue

Flooftrigue (floofinition) – Secret or underhanded floofinations done by animals. Origins: 1676, France.

In Use: “Nobody could understand how the kittens were escaping their safe room every day until a camera was installed and caught the flooftrigue as the Retriever sniffed the door and then then opened it, letting the kittens loose before nosing the door closed.”

Recent Use: “People in Texas were intrigued by Cleo the cat burglar and the flooftrigue around his stealing antics that were caught on camera.”

Lootching

Lootching (floofinition) – Combined stretching and looking at something by an animal who has been sleeping. Origins: Internet, US, 2023

In Use: “Walking into the bedroom, he awoke his floof, who responded with some intense lootching before curling into another sleeping position and resuming his nap.”

In Use: “The dogs and cats conducted synchronized lootching when Carrie walked in, and then pause, watching to see if she offered food, before returning to their snoozing.”

Recent Use: “An ancient Floofverb states, ‘There’s no lootching among distrustful animals.'”

2023’s Final Jigsaw

We enjoy jigsaw puzzles at our house and do a few a year. I do most of them as my wife does the edge, walks away for a while and then returns to help finish. We usually get them from the local library of things in Ashlandia. That was the case for this one. Unfortunately, as happened with two other puzzles this year, this one was missing pieces. The first one missing a piece this year, we didn’t know it was missing one until the puzzle was done. With the second episode, a note in the box noted that a piece was missing and showed where it was missing.

In this case, nothing was said about a missing piece, and it was more than one piece. In fact, six to nine pieces were missing, including multiple edge pieces from two sides. As we didn’t know, we spent a lot of time carefully going through pieces looking for those edges.

It’s a shame, though, because the thousand-piece puzzle was challenging and otherwise fun, and a beautiful scene. Several times while working it, I thought, I wouldn’t mind being there, sitting a table with a glass of wine.

When we take it back to the library, we’re going to point out how many pieces are missing. My wife says she’s going to suggest to them that it be removed from circulation.

Coffee Powr

I’m a retired military veteran and over sixty-five years old. That combo means my health insurance is through a hybrid product that requires me to sign up for Medicare A & B when I turned 65. Mediacare provides primary coverage to me and my wife; TriCare for Life (TFL, officially known on the web as TriCare4Life) gives us secondary coverage. It’s not a bad deal. It isn’t free; my wife and I both pay for Part B.

What made my coffee taste more bitter than usual was a bill from my provider received this month. They said I owed them over a hundred dollars for lab work and that TFL hadn’t paid anything. Egged on by my other, that sent me into a tizzy of indignation. A website I found said, yep, TFL doesn’t pay for preventive lab work. This made no friggin’ sense and only urged me to greater outrage.

I logged into the various systems this week to find answers. Not finding satisfaction there, I was forced to *gag* call them and speak to people. I have nothing against people or talking but I dislike phones and bureaucracies. Girding myself with a mug of stout dark goodness, I called T4L. After providing evidence of who I am and waiting a few minutes, I was connected to Derek.

I explained it all to him and proved who I am to him. Derek began ferreting through the systems for more about my grievance. I logged into my provider portal and dug out more details. Shame on me, but only then did I realize that this bill was for services from May of 2022. That just seemed wild that I’m dealing with that over eighteen months later.

Derek looked into it and discovered that T4L didn’t pay it because Asante, who did the work, didn’t send an EOB for the Medicare part that was paid. “Have more coffee and call the provider,” Derek advised.

Thanking him for his assistance and wishing him a good day and Merry New Year, I did so. After providing evidence about who I am and a short wait, Karen heard my tale. “Interesting,” she said. “We show that T4L denied the claim.”

What?

She went on to tell me it’d been rejected three times and that’s why they were now billing me. “Let me contact the insurance section and confirm they sent the needed EOB,” she went on. “I’m going to email them now.” She typed away while I listened to keyboard clickety-clack. “There,” she said. “Now we’ll see what happens. Your bill is due next week but ignore that. If you get another bill or notice asking for payment, give us a call to check on the status, okay?”

Sure. I thanked Karen, wished her good day and Happy New Year, hung up and wrote up my notes. Now I wait, but I feel optimistic about the outcome. The whole thing only took one hour.

I couldn’t have done it without coffee, though.

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: peckish

December 29, 2023. Today is Friday, and it’s a wet windy time in Ashlandia, where the New Year Eve celebration preparation is below average. 59 F degrees right now, 61 F has appeared on the offerings board as our high. It’s like winter has declared a moratorium on snow in our valley, and the mountains around us. While it’s nice for now, we need the snowbank to be replenished.

The cats are happy, though. I let them out and they settled on the covered porch, leisurely surveying their kingdom as the rain fell, yawning, washing, then drowsing. Tucker stayed out but Papi banged for re-entry to get some sugar from me and have a third breakfast.

No serious plans for NYE in our house. We looked for dancing and dining opportunities but nothing called the inner rocker. Seriously, the pickings were lean as a wheat crop in the Sahara. So, shrug, it’s a quiet evening planned for us. Neither of us seem overly upset over it.

The Neurons fed a Triumph song, “World of Fantasy” from 1983, into my morning mental music stream (Trademark fantasized). A convo with the significant O opened the portal for the song. We were talking politics and how some seem to live in such a fantasy world. I was later humming but didn’t quite recognize what it was. Later, in bed, the song came more deeply but I still couldn’t hook up with the title or band. Come morning, while downing coffee, The Neurons tipped that it was Triumph and “World of Fantasy”. As I remembered it, I thought how Triumph, a Canadian group, sometimes reminded me of Rush, another Canadadian group.

Stay positive, be strong, test negative, and lean forward a better future. Coffee has been sucked up and is yielding positive results. Here’s the music for you. Cheers

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑