I wrote this eight years ago. I remembered it this morning as I was thinking about my life. “I gotta do something about” remains my life’s expression. Cheers
Supfloofvisor
Supfloofvisor (floofinition) – Animal who oversees or takes charge of organizing or directing activities. Synonym: Supfurvisor. Origins: 1970 United States
In Use: “Border collies and corgis are two dog breeds known for being supfloofvisors, and often want to round up other animals and guard things.”
In Use: “Popsicle, aka Pop, always arrived for meal preparation, setting himself as supfloofvisor, meowing and waving a paw until he was permitted to sniff each ingredient.”
Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts
It’s first world blues time again.
Emails slide into my inbox. Netflix, Amazon — sorry, Prime — Hulu, et al urge me to watch shows I’ve already seen. ‘Based on my history’, they recommend shows nothing at all like the ones that I’ve watched. In fact, looking at their recommendations, they’re throwing everything against the wall to see what clings to my mind. Netflix urges, ‘We think you’ll love these” and shows me “Paul vs. Tyson”. I have never watched boxing, wrestling, or fighting anywhere, so WTF?
They’re so bogus. Little of what any of them from Apple to Amazon offer reflect my watching patterns. If they did, they’d be zeroing in on darkly comedic/quirky British, Australian, and Scandinavian shows. Encountering these weak, pathetic recommendations jars my brain. They’re pretending to be caring and involved with me and my viewing habits when they clearly lack all insights. In fact, when they do this, a deep glower spreads across my mien. They’re wasting my time and mocking my intelligence. A vow to not watch anything they offer begins to burn deep inside my brain.
Not just streaming services doing this to me but they’re the worse. Amazon recommends ‘Picks just for you’. Sounds so sweet. Like they went about picking flowers and arranging them. “Here, a bouquet pour tu.” They show me pots and pans collections. Frying pans. Kate Spade purses. Like, WTF? I’ve never shopped those on Amazon or anywhere online.
They all must have me confused with another Michael.
Monday’s Wandering Thoughts
Ah, I feel so much better.
Just took my first shower since October 30th. Don’t know if others are as binary as me on this, but I’m a firmly committed shower guy. Baths in a tub will only do if a shower is out of the question.That felt so good. Washed my hair and everything. Had been doing that in a sink, with help from a measuring cup to pour water over all of my head. It worked but it wasn’t satisfying.
Well, when I was booted up, showers were out of the question. Had to keep that sucker completely dry. Which meant it was bagged in plastic and resting outside of the tub. That forced for into additional contortions and requirements. My wife had to be my hands while I held myself up with my foot out of the tub. My remaining bandage and wound could be damp but not wet, and I was to keep soap off it. So I showered with the affected foot thrust out like I was a posing dancer. Then I had to pat dry the affected area.
Let me say this: we have a standard tub. Just one out of the two baths. The other bath has a shower stall. That tub isn’t large enough for mature adults. I mentioned this to my wife. She replied, “I’ve already decided that my tub in our next house is going to be bigger and deeper.”
Agreed.
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
I was thinking of a cozy mystery series based on pizza. I decided to challenge myself with ten titles for the series.
Family Size Murder To Go
A Slice of Death
Murder with Extra Cheese
Pineapple, Pepperoni, and Death
Deep Dish Murder
Personal Pan Killer
Pizza, Salad, & Murder on the Side
Three Slices of Death
Killer Delivery
Chicago Style Murder
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
I witnessed a coffee house conversation that threatened to escalate into violence.
It was a mildly busy day as people gathered and socialized with pleasant autumn weather outside. Many were bent over phones, laptops, or notebooks.
One table hosted an octet of chatting women not far from me. Their age hovered around my own, which is to say sixty to seventy-five years young. They were mostly laughing and talking about books. Somehow their conversation rolled into the important question everyone wants to know, “How much paste should you put on your toothbrush?”
I haven’t read any books on the subject, and I didn’t study it in school, but I agreed with one brunette woman. She said, “Oh, I read that you just need a dab. Especially with an electric toothbrush.”
“No, no, no,” a red-haired woman erupted. “That is wrong. You need to cover the bristles from end to end with paste.”
Coffee shop conversations dropped off a cliff. Focus went to the table of women.
Other women at the table started disagreeing with paste woman. You’d think they were assaulting her grand toddler from her reaction. Voice rising into a screech, she declared, “No! No!” It was like she was channeling Khruschev addressing the United Nations. “The paste must be on all of the bristles! Anything else is wrong!”
I expected a duel to erupt. Pistols at twenty feet on the sunlit sidewalk outside.
Maybe she’d had too much caffeine. Maybe she didn’t have enough. The other women, wide-eyed with alarm, were backing down fast, trying to placate the redhead before she whipped out a sword to defend her toothpaste position.
Thank God they weren’t discussing politics.
Something Else
The signs of aging pile up,
Promising on some days to beat you up.
Hair losses, hair changes, where the hell does it go?
Why can’t I get it to look right, why won’t it look just so?
Sometimes you ponder the person you had been.
You think you see them staring back, hiding from within.
Other times you wonder, if you ever were that way?
And if you were, what can you do to look that way again?
The weight you gain, how the body thickens,
Everything sinks and sags and generally looks in ways that sicken.
Then someone tells you how great you look,
and you wonder, is that a joke?
If you think I look good today, you want to say,
you should have seen me back in the day.
I was something else.
Friday’s Political Thoughts
My wife and I ventured out of the house and down the street a mile to the Presbyterian Church. We’d signed up for the latest COVID vax shot being offered by Wellness 2000.
All went well with our paperwork and we joined the line for our turn. The woman ahead was wearing a pink ball cap. When she glanced back, I saw that it had “,la” on it. A Kamala supporter!
I began leaning forward to speak to her when my wife stepped up to the woman and said, “I love your hat.”
Nodding, I added, “I was about to say the same thing.”
The woman behind us said, “I was admiring it, too. That’s a great hat.”
The hat wearer replied, “Thank you. I suppose it depends on which side you’re on.”
The rest of us, joined by another woman, agreed. Then several of the women said, “You’re on the good side. We are, too.”
Vote blue in 2024.
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
Coffee warms my throat as I watch fat dark gray clouds sailing across the sky. Sunlight clears the clouds, dramatically lighting their heights. Looks like fall, alright.
Many people live by the weather when it comes to the season. I’m one of those. My attire today are jeans. Long pants. Long sleeve shirt.
Wind, chill, and rain, and lack of sunshine pulled the decision to don jeans free of my brain cells. Much as anything, it’s that feel to the air, the color of the sky, and the mood it all presents as winds chase leaves down the street, that the seasonal change is really here.
So, I’m wearing jeans, looking back on the hot, smoky summer, shifting my gaze toward the future, to the coming winter, and what it might bring.
Much like my ancestors probably did. Without the jeans.
Sunday’s Wandering Thought
I was walking down street when a silver Hyundai Santa Fe pulled out of their drive and turned my way. As they came on, I realized that a can was resting on top of the car on the passenger side.
“Hey,” I called. Gesturing, I tried playing charades with the driver: something. Car. Roof. Meanwhile, I hollered at him, “There’s a can on your car’s roof.”
Beaming, he gave me a big, friendly wave.
“No, no,” I cried out. “There’s something on your car’s roof.”
He drove on around the corner and was gone.
C’est le vie.
Michael Seidel, writer 