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.
It’s a stillish fall morning outside the windows. Rain’s been falling from darkly loaded clouds. They’ve overtaken the blue and sun today.
It’s Thursday, October 17, 2024. Chilly with that rain, the high will be 61 and the low will be 37 F. Freeze warnings are in effect for tomorrow morning’s early hours. On the bright side of matters, our air quality is excellent, just single digits.
Got a call this morning from the county emergency system. Today is the great shake-out. They wanted us to pretend an earthquake was underway and practice surviving it. I’ve been through a few smaller quakes so I easily imagined the shaking.
The situation provoked some pre-coffee thinking. When I was a child in Wilkinsburg, PA, I remember us doing a duck and cover under my desk, in case the commies launched their nukes. Then, in the military, we were always practicing surviving war and natural disasters. There were fake NBC attacks. Fake unexploded ordinance to deal with. And of course, nukes and EMP. What would happen if we lost our telecommunications; how would we survive? We practiced decoding messages which would send us to war, and other exercises to receive notification hostilities were over. My career’s final years saw me fighting simulated space wars. Throughout, I was engaged in war planning, getting ready to deploy equipment to some theater’s front lines, etc., and reporting on our efforts to get ready and be ready, briefing the general who was our commander five days a week at one assignment, and getting ready to brief him.
Naturally, here in southern Oregon, we stay ready for wildfires. We have checklists and go-bags for evacuation. I’m fairly prepared in that regard, as I wrote local plans, checklists, and guidance for evacuating bases for wherver I was, and trained others in executing that stuff.
Seems like a lot of my life has been about getting ready. I was getting ready to be an adult as a teen. Beyond getting ready for war and natural disasters during, I was constantly getting ready for flu season, to move to another assignment, and I was getting ready for retirement.
Now I’m getting ready for my foot surgery. Getting ready for Mom and Dad to pass. That could be my life motto: “Get ready.”
Of course, as I reflect on my needs to get ready as a child and adult, I think it’s better than the active shooter drills so many children now go through to get ready for the real deal. Their need is driven by people with guns walking into schools and committing mass murder. My need to get ready was much more abstract and distant.
I have a pre-op appointment for my foot surgery next Wednesday. It’s to get me ready for the surgery. Actual surgery takes place the following Wednesday. The pre-op appointment came out of the blue. No phone call or coordination about what time works best for me; just a sudden message through Mychart telling me that the appointment was made. Poor communication, to me, and sort of arrogant, and annoying. Like, hey, what if I was out of town that day? Fortunately, I’m not, but still…
Today’s music comes via Tom MacInnes’s website. I enjoy Tom’s posts about music history, along with his experiences as a teacher and a father, particularly his stories about reading with his daughter and his students. Yesterday’s post was “The Great Canadian Road Trip…Song #76/250: Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne”. I ended up with “Sk83r Boi” in my morning mental music stream (Trademark bopping). It’s a lively, energetic song, and completely free and clear of political nuances, so I latched onto that. I need a political break from scanning news on either side of the schism, and tales of polls, rumors, innuendoes, and courts. Just give me some simple teenage offering.
I’m pretty pleased with it as a song choice. The Neurons had been offering “The Monkey’s Uncle” from the Disney movie with the same title. I don’t know why the hell The Neurons chose that song. Never saw the movie, but I knew of its elements, and obviously that song and some of the other songs the movie offered. That was from an era of beach movies. I never dug ’em.
Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee has been introduced to my systems once again and I believe I have a pulse. Here’s the music. Get ready for the election.
Good morning, fellow travelers. It’s Sunday, October 8, 2023.
Indian summer continues in Ashlandia, where the people are mostly progressive, and concern about climate change continues to rise. Today’s weather looks just like yesterday’s with sunshine and blue sky continuing its autumn takeover. Temperatures range from 56 F in the morning to 87 F in the afternoon’s final hours. I am very happy about it and hope it doesn’t end soon.
A friend’s seventieth birthday was celebrated at her house yesterday. She has two sons. It was her sons and her son’s husband, along with her other son’s boyfriend, who planned and hosted the bash.
She’s a retired botanish. As such, the taught botany at California and Oregon colleges and universities. She also worked with the forest service extensively. Naturally, that life work and its locations were dominated the guest list. Many Phds attended. Professors, BLM and forest service people were plentiful. Botanists dominated.
Let me tell you, these botanist are engaging, charming people. They love to have a good life. So we all had a good time.
The party defined The Neurons’ music selection today. I have “Get A Haircut” by George Thorogood and the Destroyers circulating in the morning mental music stream. Released in 1992, the song tells the story of a long-haired fellow who keeps receiving the advice to cut his hair and find real employment working nine to five. Thorogood didn’t write the song; that was done by Bill Birch and David Avery. Thorogood heard it while in Australia and liked it because it pretty well defined exactly what he was hearing.
The Neurons began playing it because I asked many people last night about their jobs. I enjoy drawing people on these things. For example, one woman had retired after thirty years as a librarian, even though she’d been educated to be an urban planning. After receiving her degrees, she decided that she didn’t want to be involved with urban planning. But a job was needed to pay bills, so she applied for a job as a part-time librarian. Its order and structure appealed to her. This was back in the days when people, organizations, and businesses would call the library for help on research. She especially enjoyed that. That job is rarely needed these days because corporations bought or developed their own databases, and the Internet emerged. Just fascinating to hear her recount as the slow change in her job took place over the final twenty years.
Stay pos, be strong, and keep reaching for the stars. Here’s the music. Let me go find coffee. Cheers
Flooflovian(floofinition) – Relating to classical conditioning conducted by an animal to create a predictable behavioral pattern.
In use: “The rescue cat, Elsa, was a flooflovian master, teaching her new ‘master’ to share her food, surrender her pillow, and generally do as the cat desired, mostly through purrs, gazes, and quiet meows.”
Michael Seidel, writer 