Tuesday’s Theme Music

7 AM. I open the blinds because I know sunrise was at 6:59.

No sun. Droves of fat flakes lash the window and veil the world. It’s 37 degrees F so it’s not sticking.

I meander through the house TCB. An hour later, I’m at the kitchen window. 37 F. Sunny as Florida.

Florida comes to mind because my wife spoke with her sister yesterday. Sis lives in Florida. She was in her pool. 80 F.

Back in Ashlandia, ten minutes later, it’s dark and gloomy. Low clouds hide the mountains.

It’s 37 F.

This is Tuesday, February 21, 2023. Winting rules Ashlandia. Weather sages tell us the high will be 42 degrees F later today, then we’ll drop into the twenties for the night. Snow is expected to fall after sunset at 5:51 PM.

10 AM. It’s a broken blue and white sky. No sunshine.

Papi, the ginger marvel, has been galloping around the house, wailing to be let outside, beating on windows to come back in. He is not a fan of winting weather.

I have “Jumper” (1997), Third Eye Blind, looping through the morning mental music stream. The cause mystifies me. The Neurons must have something in mind but they’re not telling me. Behind the song was a story of a high school committing suicide after being bullied about their sexual identity. The song was played for Republicans in 2015 at the convention to protest the GOP’s anti-LGBT positions.

Stay pos. Enjoy the weather as best as you can. It’s almost sunny here now. No, wait, clouds have skated in. It’s snowing. No, it stopped. Look, it’s sunny.

Here’s the tune. Where is my coffee?

Here comes the snow. Cheers

February 21, 2023 0

Monday’s Theme Music

Woo hoo. It’s Monday, February 20, 2023, and we did it. Sunrise is at 7 AM in Ashlandia today. A surfeit of daylight and sun greeting me upon admitting Papi back into his house after his 6:37 excursion.

It’s Presidents’ Day in America. Time to sell some cars, furniture, and appliances at significant savings! Doesn’t change the weather. Winting stands strong, 29 degrees F at dawn, 38 F now, 62 F later. Dusk will resume around sunset, 1750. Winter warnings are out. Apparently, winter is coming back for another engagement.

“Faint” by Linkin Park (2003) plays in the morning mental music stream. There are lines in the song about not being ignored and don’t turn your back on me. I was trying to ignore Papi’s request to exit again (he’d come in fifteen minutes before, and the sun wasn’t yet up). I told him, too, “We’ve had this conversation. You need to stop going in and out. I need sleep, please.” His response was a yowl, which my FVD Mark IV said meant, “I will not be ignored.” Ah, said The Neurons, “here’s ‘Faint’ by Linkin Park.”

Here’s the music for you so you can see how music sounded twenty years ago. Stay pos and take over your Monday like a floof boss. I need coffee. Already ate waffles for breakfast. Maybe I’ll have a brownie with my coffee. For energy.

Here’s the tune. Cheers

February 20, 2023 0

Saturday’s Theme Music

A whitewashed sky met the sun as it hopped the horizon at 7:05 this morning. 36 F now, the weather goons says to us, they say it’s gonna be 49 F before the sun’s sojourn over Ashlandia ends on this Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.

I’ve found that feeding Papi the ginger wunderfloof at 5:30 slows his roll. Yes, that’s AM. I can do it in my sleep. He gets so happy about having a little tin of something opened and spooned out. Amazing that he only nibbles five bites before declaring that it was enough and heads to the kibble. He enjoys the pomp and ceremony of wet food twice a day but he’s a kibbler at heart. Tucker eats it all. The wet food is attacked with low purrs and gusto. Very sweet and funny to watch. Specially at 5:30 AM. He reasons, if the other boy is getting some, he’s getting some, too. Then it’s back to the bed beside me for Tucker, wearing a cat food fragrance, washing himself with such rigor that the bed shakes me awake, and I think, earthquake. Naw, just a floofquake.

The Neurons are singing “(Absolutely) Story of A Girl” by Nine Days (2000). All started with a cat. Whole story begins back in the eighties and my main floof of the period, Rocky, sole survivor of his litter and a hoarding situation. He and I became acquainted in Germany when he fit in my palm and his eyes weren’t open. His mom wanted nothing to do with him but he was a true sweetfloof, total playhead. When “(Absolutely) Story of A Girl” was on the air as part of the rotations, I naturally sang “This is the story of a cat” to hijm. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? Decades later, the song was revived for Papi this morning. “This is the story of a cat, who woke me up to go out and come back.” Time after time, as Lauper would say.

Stay pos, catch the light and tame the day. I’ll get right on that as soon as my brain has more coffee. Here’s the tune. Know it? Cheers

February 18, 2023 0

The Time-Travel Device Dream

I’d noted before that Papi, my ginger-flavored housefloof, picks 6:37 AM to demand — again — to be let out. This is true plus or minus a minute each time. I meantion ‘again’ because he’s usually been in and out three of four times by then.

Now 6:37 probably isn’t early to many. It used to be non-early to me. Military, I worked shifts on and off for fifteen years. Day shifts often started between 6 AM and 7 AM at most locations, depending on our mission, so rising early was regular. My Space Command days, though, I was a superintendent and then the QAF advisor and made my hours. I always chose to be in by 7 AM, and I carried that forward after retirement, when I began work for a corporation.

All that’s dream background. In the dream, I decide to investigate whether it was true that Papi always wanted out at that time, and further, what the orange wonder did when he went out then. So, there I am, peering down on the world, zeroing in on my house, through the roof to my bedroom. Here comes Papi. I check the time and confirm it. He just goes outside, sits and washes, looks around, nothing special. Good, that’s one day but I need to check more.

Someone else there tells me, “You want to use our time machine?” I never see the others but I know that three are present.

I reply, “You have a time machine?”

“Yes, we use to go back and find the truth of what happened so that it can be properly documented.”

Yes, I’m floored. “Sure, I’d like to use that.”

I can see the other’s hands and arms at this point. All are wearing white gloves and a black coat. They give me a small black box, rectangular, maybe four inches by two inches by one. Blue numbers are on its front. I see labels for months, time, year. “Just put in the particulars which you want and it’ll take you there. You can’t interact at all but you can observe.”

Doing as directed, my instructors realize that I’m going back one day at a time and explain how I can do it more efficiently by using a little scroll control to the side. I can designated how I want to scroll, by year, day, hour, etc. So I play with it, confirming that Papi has been asking to be let out at that hour and minute for some time.

I finish with that exploration and give it back. “This is really useful,” I say. “It’d be great if I could go back and see what happened during other times, with other people.”

“Oh, you can do that,” one answers. “You can use it whenever you want. Just let us know.”

Dream end

February 6, 2023 0

Wednesday’s Floof Music

Papi here. Michael is my can opener. I’m helping him out. He’s running late, partly because he slept in because I woke him up six times during the night to go out and come back in or garner his attention because I was bored and had nothing to do. He was cool about it other than daring to lecture me about interrupting his sleep. These humans have such nerve, lecturing a cat about sleep. Cats know how to sleep. Humans can learn from us.

It’s Wednesday, I heard him say. As if I care. I know humans’ days of the week. They are so funny about days and dates. Take it from me, it’s not what you call a day that makes it smell and feel different. I’ve told him so before, but humans are slow learners, almost as slow as fish.

The sun came up after my first breakfast. Weather outside was cold enough before the sun came that I fluffed up my fur to keep warm. No one was out at that hour, which is why I wanted back in. I tried opening the door myself, but they locked it, and they won’t let me have a key. I tried getting the other cat to unlock the door, but he’s as slow as a human. Fortunately, it became sunnier and warmer. I like the sun.

I understand that I’m required to select a song as today’s theme music. There are many wonderful songs which I know would be great for that. I learned “Moonlight Singing” and “Attack, Attack” when I was just a kitten, of course. Youthful favorites include “Knock It Off”, “Catch It, Kill It, Eat It”, and “Damn Red Dot”. Now that I’m older, I’m more drawn to purr music like, “Find Some Sunshine”, “Let’s Cuddle Together”, and “Don’t Touch Me, I’m Sleeping”. Of course, the Floofies had a big hit with “The Sound of Kibble”. I always like it. I can’t go wrong with Stray Floofs and their huge hit, “Hungry Again, Feed Me”, either. Oh, and “Meow Now” by Kittahn would be an excellent song for today.

The can opener is reading over my shoulder. He told me that since I’m typing for him, I need to have human music. Like that stuff they listen to is music. Dog songs sound better than that human crap.

He said that his neurons (whatever they are) suggested “Honky Cat” by Elton John, even though he’s done it before. He’s drinking that hot, smelly, black water that he likes to sip. I’ve smelled it and can tell you that it’s not worth it, but that’s me. He said that he used “Honky Cat” three years ago but that it would be okay. I don’t care. I’m ready for a nap.

Here’s that music. Meow.

January 25, 2023 0

Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

The little cat, who isn’t little any longer, but is younger than the household’s alpha floof, is called Papi. He’s a ginger character, sweet but quick to put up his claws. He enjoys spiriting out to guard the yard every night. I say night, but he likes going out about 3 AM. Technically it’s still dark morning in my realm. The thing is, he returns every morning at exactly 6:37 AM, rapping on the door to get back in. His punctuality is admirable, but it makes me wonder, is the cat going off to a duty or paid position somewhere, finishing his shift at 6:30 and then returning home?

It seems reasonable…doesn’t it?

December 28, 2022 3

Freeday’s Theme Music

Today is Freeday, August 5, 2022. Today you have the right to declare yourself symbolically free. Sounds like a waste but when you do so, using whatever styles desired short of hurting and killing other beings, it’s invigorating, liberating, stimulating, and intoxicating.

Weather is a very comfortable hazy and cool 72 F after an overnight low of 14 C. Highs of 94 F are expected. Freeday opened with a smooth and deliberate sunrise at 6:08 AM. Daylight hours will continue until the sun ‘drop’ at 8:25 this evening. All times are Pacific.

AQI is good. More fires have started, some have been partially contained, others have been extinguished.

Watched my cat, the ginger prince, study a large raccoon using the top of the back fence as a freeway about six thirty this morning. Meanwhile, as that went on, I tracked a skunk going around the yard. The skunk stayed to the perimeter, going through the leaves and making a lot of noise about it. Papi paid no mind to it. Once the Raccoon departed, Papi hopped up onto his patio condo – guess that’d be a pando – and went to sleep. What did fascinate me about the skunk was that a jay flew from tree to tree, spying on the skunk, never making a sound.

The Neurons had several Beach Boys and Beatles song skirmishing in the morning mental music stream. I called up Kings of Leon with “Sex on Fire” from 2008. The Neurons asked, “Why that song?” Tables turned, I replied, “Why not,” and laughed. It’s because I like the sonic influences, though, innit?

The coffee has commenced issuing its wake-up fragrance. I’m in the mood to have a cup. Stay positive test negative, etc. Here’s the music. Cheers

August 5, 2022 0

Good News

My cat Papi, aka Meep, Youngblood, the Ginger Blade, and the Ginger Flash, has been in the animal hospital for several days, suffering from concurrent inflammation of his pancreas, bile ducts, and liver, which is called traiditis. He’d not been eating, had vomited a few times, and wasn’t drinking water. After a few days of antibiotics, IV fluids, and rest, he finally ate last night and this morning. We can bring him home today.

It’s a relief. I shared the happy news with my big black and white boy, Tucker. “Good new, buddy. Papi is coming home.”

Tucker replied, “Who? What? What are you talking about?”

While Papi’s immediate threat has been countered, I’ll need to monitor his behavior and watch for a recurrence. Fingers crossed, this was a one-time thing, but you never know.

Thanks for all of your support. Look forward to bringing him home this afternoon at three. Just hasn’t been the same without him.