I’m trying to make sense of last night’s dream, or at least scrub some details out of my hazy memories of it.
I know it started with some type of intel analysis regarding Iran, and then someone bombed Yellowstone. And then I was at my old junior high for a play that was writen by and starred Cleveland from ‘Family Guy’. I don’t remember many details, but there was a trapdoor in the stage with a long spiral staircase under it, and there was some music from ‘Phantom’ in it, and the crowd loved it. I was sitting on the floor in front of the first row of seats, and some guy next to me kept trying to ask about the free gift for the kids, and I had taken my socks off. (No idea if I had shoes at some point). The play was over and I was leaving with someone (not the guy who was sitting next to me) but at the door we realized it was snowing, so I had to stop and put my socks back on. I was digging through my bags (I was carrying reusable shopping bags) and one of them was full of ice water, but eventually I found my socks in the pocket of my coat. And then I went out and got into the cab of a box truck and the person I was with took the other car (I do not know what ‘the other car’ was) and then a couple older women got in the cab with me. As I drove off, I realized I couldn’t use the brake pedal with my boots on (I don’t know when my socks turned into boots) but after a while I figured it out. Then the kids who were hiding in the shopping bags reminded me that I had to drop these old ladies off at their homes, so I took the next right onto an on-ramp, but it was the wrong way. So I pulled off the road into the grass and started pedaling my way (the truck was suddenly a bicycle) up the grassy hill to get back on the other road, but it was really hard because I hadn’t mowed the lawn, and when I tried to bunny-hop the box truck (yeah, the bike was a truck again) I couldn’t get over the curb, and then I woke up with a head ache.
I met a new kitty. And she is soft, and fluffy, and awesome. And now you can meet her! Say hello to Princess Adorabeezle Winterpop Von Schweet. Adora, for short.
That is her actual name. I didn’t have to make one up. Her human didn’t give her some boring name like “justin”. She is a princess and a cat and she has a name that is representative of her divine right as such. And she’s on a toilet.
For today’s blurble, I was hoping to have a fun bit of creative fiction for all of my friends and family to read. But I can’t find any. When I open my skull and dig through the grey stuff, and I sort through my thoughts. I venture way back behind the bits of high-school geometry and Simpson’s quotes, and I dig out that worn and weathered cardboard box from under the stair. But when I peel back the dog-eared flaps to see what weirdness my mind has lain within, all I find is a chipmunk. Or maybe it’s a ground squirrel. I haven’t asked. Or counted the stripes. (I think ground squirrels have more) Either way, just a cute rodent. And why is this fuzzy little vermin plaguing my subconsciousness? Because every morning, I go outside and water the flower pots on the front porch. And every morning there’s a hole dug in one of them. And the soil that should be there instead of the hole is a scattered pile of dirt on the ground (or all over whatever happens to be next to that particular pot). And, ok. He’s cute. Running around on the porch, picking up bits of bird seed, standing up in his back legs, and wiggling his little chip nose. And the cats love him. Of course they do. They’re at the window all day, lazily watching the birds at the feeder, but then when the little chipmunk (or ground squirrel) shows up, they get all chirpy and dance around. It’s pretty entertaining. For them, I mean. I’m totally not sitting here waiting for the cat party to begin, or anything. Ok, we’re all entertained. It’s better than daytime television. But this tiny little fuzzbutt is DIGGING UP THE DIANTHUS, DAMNIT!
So instead of a creative bit of prose to kick off your day, this morning you get a rant about my potted plants and the adorable rat that terrorizes them.
Good morning, my friends and family. I do apologize, the picture is a little dark, but it was nap-time and flash photography was strictly verboten. It is uncommon for them all to gather like this, even less so under sufficient lighting. I’ll take what I can get.
As many of you are well aware, it has been gross outside these last many days. The heat and humidity have taken a step or two past oppressive into the heart of unbearable. Well, now Canada is on fire again (or is it “still”?) and it is grosser. One might even say it is yucky. I would think that forest fires would smell better. Campfires smell nice. And like campfires, forests are made of wood. But no. It smells like a flaming dumpster outside right now. Not the metaphoric dumpster fire that is much of our current events. No, it smells like actual garbage set ablaze. Like a giant plastic bag full of disposable diapers and moldy fast-food containers, dipped in kerosene and lit from afar with a roman candle.
Super gross.
Well, I guess that means no yardwork today. It also means no open windows, which means no catio access. And there will be several cats who need consoling in this time of need. I better get a good armchair and ready my lap. I have my work cut out for me today.
Oh. And don’t forget, it’s Thursday. Take the garbage out. But do it quick. Maybe hold your breath.
This is Bebe. Or maybe it’s Bebé. I don’t know how fancy she is. She’s a funny looking cat. Usually she’s pretty cool to work with, but sometimes, something will get her going and then its just yap-yap-yap-yap-yap…
But as coworkers go, I could get a lot worse. She has a creepy habit of watching me eat, but she doesn’t have opposable thumbs so she can’t open the refrigerator and steal it. Thats one for the win column. Also, she has a cool stuffed raddish, and we play tug-of-war with it, and the boss can’t really get mad at me for goofing off because it’s his fault she’s here. Another win. Sure, she can’t answer the phone or type or collate or compose database query infrastructure. But I’ll take food security and playtime over job competence any day.
Happy Wednesday, everybody! Don’t forget, it’s National Ice-cream Day this Sunday. And that’s the kind of holiday you should totally start pregaming about four days out.
There are many things about modern English, both Their version and Ours, that are… well… odd. Sometimes, there are almost rational explanations; like why red onions and red cabbage are purple and not red (it’s because when English was young -what we call Old English- there were fewer words. Especially adjectives. The word ‘red’ referred to many different hues and shades of what we think of as red, from deep crimson to pastel pinks, even deep oranges and, yes, purples were all said to be “red”) Or, why we drive on a parkway, yet park on a driveway. (Not as old as Old, but still not new; the original usages of the two words held true to their lexiconic definition. A “driveway” was the final length of driving to reach a house or estate after leaving a named roadway, and could be a mile or more in length depending on the size of the property and the proximity of other occupied lots. As settlements and towns would sprout up and homes would grow closer together, more named roads were designated and that last bit of driving shortened to eventually become just a spit of pavement between the curb and garage door. Similarly, a “parkway” was a stretch alongside a major route or highway where one could park their carriage and allow the horses to rest. Eventually as roads grew, that space would just merge into being part of the street, but the name would hold and become a cartographic suffix; synonymous to “avenue”, “street”, or “lane”) (but not “boulevard”, that means something totally differnt).
But other times there is no reason, rational or otherwise. Such is the case with “four” and “forty”. In case you don’t see it, “forty” doesn’t have a “u”. But “four” does. (You see it now? You’ll never unsee it.) And the wordologists don’t have an explanation beyond, “eh, people just stopped spelling it that way”. Really? The extra letter was a just a fad? A vocabularian whim? Yep. That’s all. You see, both “four” and “forty” derive from the really really old English, actually before the real Old English. And the spelling of words before Old English (the first five centuries of the commen era) and Old English itself (the next five centuries) depended an awful lot on phonetics (a word that didn’t exist until the 19th century). And since that whole part of Europe, was heavily mingled as a result of nomadic tribes like the Jutes and Saxons, and some of the more invasive type peoples, like the Anglan and the Saxons, and eventually they all kinda became Norman (or Saxon), well… what it comes down to is, everybody had an accent. And if you don’t really have a written language, and every town talks just a little bit funny compared to the next one, once some friar or monk decides to start writing things down, the words end up spelled based on those locational variations. So by the time “English” gets to 10th century, you’ve got “fawdy”, “fawrdy”, “farthy”, “fawrthery”, and about thirty other spellings for “forty”. By the end of the middle ages, it was down to a dozen, most of them closely paralleling their single digit brethren “four” (which had many of it’s own spellings). But it was somewhere during that five centuries, those medieval years, “fourty” just disappeared from written vernacular. Both “for” and “four” (among a couple others) were still being used to convey the number following three but before five. And it wouldn’t be until almost the 16th century before “for” turned All Preposition, leaving “four” in sole charge of numerical duties. But “fourty” was gone.
No one knows why. The word-nerds at Oxford and Webster might have theories, but they can’t say for sure. The 1500s is too early to blame Canada. The aliens had finished their work in Wiltshire almost three thousand years prior. And communism was a just a red herring. So we don’t even have a decent scapegoat.
And that’s why writing out “fourteen” bothers me. Because its not “four” or “forty” and I can never remember if it gets the forgotten “u” or not. But this is the naming convention I have chosen. And so, once, about two weeks into this project, and then every hundredth Haiku thereafter, I will force myself to contend with this conundrum. I will suffer through it. For you. My countless friends and family. Countless, I say. Although it is probably only about fawerth-teen.
(Sidenote: I feel like I may have addressed some if this previously. I have had parts and parcels of this conversation in my head more times than I can count (way more than fawrteen), and I don’t remember if I have blurbled about it before. (Yes, this whole thought process occupies the grey mush between my ears almost frequently) So my most sincerest of apologies if this seems like a repeat to some of you. If it is a repeat, and you remember the first iteration, I also thank you for paying attention.)
Good morning friends and family. Please join me in saying good morning to Admiral Whisker Wiggles. I’m not sure if that is actually his name. Considering I just made it up, it is probably not. But since I don’t take notes when I meet my friends’ cats, his name is now Admiral Whisker Wiggles.
I overslept. No time for proper blurbleage. Sorry folks. Moose out front should’a told you.
I suspect ulterior motives. These two can’t even play nice with each other. If either one were twenty pounds lighter, the other would probably eat them. I’m not saying they’re fat, but actually, yeah. I am. These two are a couple of fat-assed cats. The front window isn’t a wildlife special on the Discovery Channel. They’re watching a cooking show on Food Network. Not that I can blame them. I mean, if there were pints of icecream running around on my front porch, I’d have my pudgy face pressed up against the glass too. If rabbits were giant Cadbury cream eggs hopping around, shitting M&Ms all over my back yard, I’d also be trying to sneak out the back door every time it slid open. Let’s be honest, we all thought Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs sounded like a hella good time.
Happy Sunday, people. Enjoy it. We’re headed back to the salt mines in the morning.
A new fury feline friend for most of you, say hello to Jejuninesses Goyangi. Or just “June” for short. They are Soggy Sox the Third’s three-quarters cousin once removed on their mother’s side.
I will follow June’s example as I prepare for another summer backyard bash, and spend most of my today napping. I will be Stealth Napping™, however, as I am sure there are others who prefer I “do something” and even insist it be something “productive” throughout the day. These people are silly, and should not be taken seriously.
The festivities calendared for this afternoon won’t be all bad. There is a strong rumor cake and ice-cream will be available. Granted, the inclusion of such delicacies will of course decrease the average annum per guest. But even I can suffer through the overt presence of too many children if I get cake and ice-cream. And besides, if the event becomes to arduous, I can always go inside and reorganize the host’s kitchen utensils in a manner that is neither intuitive or helpful.
Jejuninesses appreciates your attention, but they would like you to leave them alone jow so they can nap some more.
I’ll see some of you this afternoon. Thank you all very much for letting me nap. Unless you’re the one who didn’t. Then PTHHHBBBTTT to you.
Good morning, friends and family. We’ve made to another Thursday.
Well, this started on Thursday. I fell asleep in the chair while writing. It still is Thursday, but it’s well past post time. So again, the not-so-daily Haiku will be less daily. Sorry.
But that does give me another opportunity for blurberitizing. We’ll have to see if my brain finds some weirdness for you all before 9am tomorrow…
So far, that answer is no. Instead of writing, or being otherwise productive, or even just napping in a comfy chair with a cat on my lap, I decided to get a root canal. Well, technically I didn’t decide to, at least not today. The appointment has been on the calendar for weeks. And thanks to modern technology, my calendar yells at me when I have stuff on it I’m supposed to remember. This means my morning was filled with the screeching whine of dental drills and the smell of carbonizing bone. Maybe I’ll get some decent pain meds and then I can sleep for 14 hours. And there is no need to worry. Yes, I will schedule this to be posted before I drift off to a chemically induced lala land. Probably.
I Haikued yesterday, but never posted it. I didn’t even write a blurble. I would like to apologize to Mr Figgs, of course. He was looking forward to this Haiku, and he didn’t even complain when 9am came and went without a glimpse of it. He’s such a good boy.
And to all my devoted fans; I am sorry I let you down, you both deserve better.
I know you must be disappointed, maybe even angry. Luckily, I have indemnified myself against recourse here with that adverbial qualifier in my title. That’s right; “almost” means I can skip days without repercussion. At least not legal repercussion. Feline repercussion is possible. The cats get a little persnickity when I miss a day. Last time I did, someone barfed in my shoe. I’m pretty sure it was a cat.
But today I have Haikued! Well, technically I Haikued this yesterday. But I’m posting it today, and all of this blurbling was today, and I get credit for that. So between yesterday and now I totally meet the unwritten requirements for “almost”. And Mr Figgs is happy to be a part of your morning scroll.
Happy Wednesday, everyone. Don’t forget to water the hanging baskets. And check your shoes for cat yarf.
Almost Daily Cat Haiku 