Tag Archives: cats

Post card art, lousy dreams and cats

Posted on June 2, 2014 by | 15 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.  Jeanne’s about to zoom away on her morning bicycle ride, trying to find something long sleeved to block something just this side of the morning chill.    She says she had a lousy dream last night, dreamed Leonard Cohen died.  Bummer.

I recall dreaming Al Jolson died sometime a few years ago, but the fact he’d been dead several decades already took the edge off it.  Not a good dream, but better than when he actually did it.  I was in grammar school at the time and it’s the first time someone I really liked died, I think.  He had just come back from a USO tour visiting troops in Korea and went kerplunk.  Lousier than dreaming about it.

Anyway, in spite of myself I’ve been allowing my mind to wander into Jeanne’s Library job postcard art project.  http://librarymailart.wordpress.com/

Trying to think of something that could be forced down the throat of the post office as a post card and sent over there to be forced down their thoats disguised as art.  I’m considering gluing a 78 rpm record to a 33 rpm LP, a 45 rpm single, and a CD and putting address and stamps on the whole shebang.  Might do it yet if I can find the 78 and 33.

But I wanted to sneak around and tell you about cats, mostly.  That cat documentary at the top got me thinking about Hydrox and might have given me a dream about Niaid last night, or maybe she was just saying hi.  A lot better than dreaming about Al Jolson or Leonard Cohen.

Hydrox, by the way, is hanging in there, and I’m including him in my gratitude affirmations numerous times every day.  Been spending portions of almost every night outdoors doing what cats do.

And I’m about to toodle off to physical therapy to do what old human guys do when they’re hanging in there day to day, including themselves in their own gratitude affirmations numerous times every day.

Old Jules

 

 

15 Comments

Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Netflix, Mahjong, computer chess and good books

Posted on May 11, 2014 by | 12 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

For the past while my physical prowess has been challenged enough to force me to find alternatives to just reading and meditating, while Jeanne’s pointed out my brain might be failing me from lack of oxygen.  So, she introduced me to Mahjong online to exercise my brain cells.  Which she has no confidence will help.

http://www.freegames.ws/games/boardgames/mahjong/freemahjong.htm

But I’ve been enjoying it.  Online Mahjong makes for a middling good way to pass some time so long as you make it clear you’re not going to put up with any BS from it.  Just hitting the reset button when it tries to throw near-impossible tiles onto that right side and top will keep it towing the line.

Similarly, computerized chess will throw a lot of BS at you, but there’s no easy way of escaping it.  Conceding the games early, immediately after it takes your queen, does cut down of the time wasted, but even that finds a traction point eventually.

And all work and no play leads me to movies.  A place I haven’t been in decades.  Jeanne’s son, Andrew, subscribes to Netflix and allows me to use unlimited streaming video [cheeze I love that phrase] access to their movies.

Watched out movies I haven’t seen except as a kid or teenager, watched movies I loved as a young adult, movies filmed in times a lot different from these. And sated myself out.  Huk, starring George Mongomery during the early 1950s is an example.  Movie about a ‘native’ Filipino uprising after WWII against the US plantation owners.  If we allow the moviemakers to tell us whom to root for we’ll be cheering for the plantation owners every time a little brown brother gets himself shot.

What I’ve learned is there are one hell of a lot of independently made low-budget movies out there capable of providing a type of entertainment I don’t believe movies and television have ever before quite managed.  Maybe the funniest I’ve seen yet was an independent titled, “A Fork in the Road“.    I’d never have had the pleasure of it if I’d not been blessed by a failing vehicle.

Another hilarious one was “Unidentified“.  And a number of Russian ones, Pakistani, Chinese and Korean made movies have offered themselves up for my admiration and piddling around waiting to die or whatever it is I’m doing.

As for good reading material, I’m getting more of it than I can absorb.  Jeanne’s library jobs are fine that way.  Catching up on Terry Pratchett novels, a nice history, Quantrill at Lawrence, The Untold Story, by Paul R. Peterson, One Summer, America 1927, by Bill Bryson,  Prescriptions for Herbal Healing, by Phyllis A Balch, CNC, and Trials of the Diaspora – A History of Anti-Semitism in England, by Anthony Julius.

To name the ones I’m in the process of reading right now.

Saw Harry and Tonto with Art Carney a couple of weeks ago on Netflix.  Reminded me of how differently I viewed it when I saw it sometime in the early 1980s.  And I resonated far too much with it, Hydrox and myself, to watch it through without dropping a few tears.

Hydrox is hanging in there day by day, for those interested.  Who will outlive whom is up for grabs.

Old Jules

 

 

12 Comments

Posted in 2014, Adventure, America, Animals

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hobo Hiltons for the Homeless while it’s still Kansas, Toto

Posted on April 26, 2014 by | 10 comments
As you see in the photo the nearby dumpster provides easy diving as well as convenient disposal of garbage accumulations for community volunteers policing the area. Note also the 'donation' bin located middle right. Nearby residents are thereby able to voluntarily dispose of items of their own choosing rather than having things stolen willy-nilly from their vehicles and homes. A pad located at the donation bin informs residents of the high-rise of who is contributing, and who is not carrying part of the load voluntarily.

As you see in the photo the nearby dumpster provides easy diving as well as convenient disposal of garbage accumulations for community volunteers policing the area. Note also the ‘donation’ bin located middle right. Nearby residents are thereby able to voluntarily dispose of items of their own choosing rather than having things stolen willy-nilly from their vehicles and homes. A pad located at the donation bin informs residents of the high-rise of who is contributing, and who is not carrying part of the load voluntarily.

Couple of things here.  First, a followup:  Hobo Hilton highs for homeless

Opaque windows on all four sides at all levels to allow both privacy and lights are only one of the imaginary, unique, compassionate features.

Opaque windows on all four sides at all levels to allow both privacy and lights are only one of the imaginary, unique, compassionate features.

Riding by one of these the other evening with Jeanne the inside was actually lit.  Couldn’t tell whether there were any homeless in there, but it was clear I’m correct about what these things are all about.  Despite the skepticism communicated in secret smiles every time I tell someone what they are.

Good they’ve got those opaque windows so those hobos can have some privacy doing whatever it is they’re doing in there all lit up at night.  Comforting to know.  I’d love to see the inside of one, find out which floor the bathroom’s on, whether they’ve got a basement in case of tornado threats.

Nice little parking area there for shopping carts, but it’s vacant in this pic.

Okay, then there’s the other thing.

Had to take Mr. Hydrox to the vet last week.  First time he’s visited a physician this century.  Because of the fact he couldn’t pee.  Cost ‘way up there pushing the borderline of $100, but I got him pissing again, got some green pills to give him in hopes they’ll kill whatever germs were corrupting his urinary tract making little grains of sandlike abrasive to foul his works.

For a while there I thought I was going to outlive the last damned feline I have a contract with.  That would feel truly weird.  Free at last, Great God Almighty Free at Last sort of thing.

Old Jules

10 Comments

Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

MIA – Permanent Mouse Patrol – Niaid

Posted on December 15, 2013 by | 8 comments
Missing a couple of days now. Hopefully she's just on an extended adventure, but she's got Hydrox and me missing her a lot. Last time I saw her, night-before-last I was noticing she was losing a lot of weight, skin and bones under all that fur. But she rested on my chest purring and demanding affection an hour-or-so during the night, ate heartily, drank a lot of water. Not a bad final approach to the active runway out of here. Jack

Missing a couple of days now. Hopefully she’s just on an extended adventure, but she’s got Hydrox and me missing her a lot. Last time I saw her, night-before-last I was noticing she was losing a lot of weight, skin and bones under all that fur. But she rested on my chest purring and demanding affection an hour-or-so during the night, ate heartily, drank a lot of water.
Not a bad final approach to the active runway out of here. Jack

The Cat in the Wood – Archibald MacLeish

The cat in the wood cried farewell cried farewell
Farther and farther away and the leaves
Covered her over with the sound of the leaves
And the sound of the wood O my love O my love
Farther and farther away and the sound
Of leaves overhead when I call to you
Leaves on the ground.

Socorro, NM, 1996 - 1997 On loan from Mel to provide company for Hydrox, her litter-mate. Beginning the long road home.

Socorro, NM, 1996 – 1997 On loan from Mel to provide company for Hydrox, her litter-mate. Beginning the long road home.

Naiad sunset placitas

8 Comments

Posted in 2013, Animals, Poetry

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hunkered down for the duration

Posted on December 8, 2013 by | 6 comments
Hunkered into a 1947 US military goose-down sleeping bag, checking the blood oxygen occasionally probably is about as good a way as any to reach Nirvana.

Hunkered into a 1947 US military goose-down sleeping bag, checking the blood oxygen occasionally probably is about as good a way as any to reach Nirvana.

Hi readers:

The coincidence coordinators decided last week that it’s still early times for figuring out what the Veterans Administration Medical Drama Department has in store.  Spang shut down their offices mid-week, filled up their voice mail boxes to overflowing before I developed the good sense to bow to the inevitable.

The cats appear to be indifferent to the challenges.  Whatever the hell it was caused me to decide I needed to sign up to see a VA medical person will have to get in line behind an ice-melt.  Evidently it had nothing at all to do with blood oxygen, anyway.

The cats are laughing their asses off at me about the whole thing.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Animals

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

No heaven on earth. No utopias. Just more people

Posted on October 26, 2013 by | 8 comments
Finding stereotypes capable of holding up under close scrutiny is necessary for humans, but generally goes unrefined.

Finding stereotypes capable of holding up under close scrutiny is necessary for humans, but generally goes unrefined.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I spent a while bouncing around RV full timers forum-type discussion board-type places lately.  Curious about whether any stereotype applies.  What I found was not a single good, solid stereotype a person could hammer down to perfection, but rather a number of herds of them.

Not much of this sort of thing out there among the modern nomad population. Whether they're van dwellers or motor homesters, clean lines, shiny paintjobs and glitter are major attractions. If it ain't eye candy it belongs in a different universe.

Not much of this sort of thing out there among the modern nomad population. Whether they’re van dwellers or motor homesters, clean lines, shiny paintjobs and glitter are major attractions. If it ain’t eye candy it belongs in a different universe.

Fields of peas pretty much running with other peas, cornfields sticking with their corny neighbors, and everyone seemingly well fed.  A few farmers within each stereotype weeding and watering.

I was especially interested in Slab City and what the people who stay there winters have to say to one another.  I thought because it’s as near anarchy as a person gets in the US, it might tell some worthy things about us as a place viewing itself as a free people, thinkers, individualists.

There’s some of that on the surface.  Everyone saying to one another, you have to take whatever comes in Slab City.  Everyone celebrating and patting themselves on the backs for their rugged individualism.

But in fact there’s an undercurrent a lot less worthy of self-praise among them.  An undercurrent of bullying and intimidation hidden in the “gotta take it as it comes” platitudes.

Turns out “take it as it comes” means, “take me as I come” and don’t even think about me taking you as you come.  If you try I’ll probably slit your tires.  Or shoot your cats.

It manifests itself subtly in the matter of cats.  Seems over the past few years women visiting the slabs have had their cats killed by dogs, or shot by dog lovers.  Always women.  How about them apples?

For folks who don’t have much interest nor love for cats and don’t have any desire at all in going on crusades, sacrificing the soothing rewards of rugged individualist wildass self-image community, it just flows down like Jack Daniels Black Label.  Everything bad hiding inside “taking it as it comes” harmony.

I’m figuring it would be a place I’d have to go to war if I landed there.  Can’t see myself sitting still for having my tires cut, knowing someone else who got his tires cut, me having a firm idea who did it.  And most especially knowing who some cat-shooting human was, or cat-killing dog-running-loose owner.

Sometimes wars can happen without anyone having to go looking for, drive so damned far out of the way.  I hope I don’t have anymore wars left ahead of me this lifetime, but if I do I ain’t going to drive 1000 miles to find them.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I wonder if we oldsters are different

Posted on October 8, 2013 by | 16 comments

Hi readers.

The representative democracy elected government useless eaters and the various space aliens running things know younger people are nothing but a bunch of sheep trapped in career paths, credit ratings and compulsive consumerism.  They know most of them have never stepped far outside the boundaries of control-created behavior and never will.  They know their heads are loaded with frenzied propaganda-induced rabidity of opinion safely within the fences.

But what those useless eaters in the White House, Congress, and all the societal traps of career paths have never been is old, been-there-done-that on most things, and trapped in promises made by useless eaters of the past.  Promises that if we handed over pieces of our incomes for half-century, they’d set it aside, nurture it, and feed it back to us when we got too old to make a living.  One month at a time, every month.

Come rain, shine, four horsemen of the whatchallit, apocalypse, Chinese invasion of toasters, utopian government sawbones free-for-alls, Drug Wars, supporting our Freedom Fighters against their Terrorists, whatever.

We oldsters have broken enough promises in our lives to recognize what a broken promise looks like.  And a lot more of us than anyone might imagine don’t have a lot to lose.  Whole different animal from those on the under-side of 65 circuits around Old Sol.

Some of us also have a mean-streak we’ve gone to a lot of trouble to subdue during our lives.  And some of us probably figure when it comes time to get off the pavement going through the fence is as good as going over it.

I say this because of the workings of my own, personal mind.  And that doesn’t assume the way my mind works necessarily rhymes with the workings of the minds of others in my situation.

For myself, I’ve got three cats I’ve got a contract to feed as long as I’m alive to do it.  It’s a contract I hold dear, as important to me as anything in my reality.  Those cats are going to eat one way or another, so long as anyone in the United States has a plate of food in front of him.  So long as I have the ability to make it happen, by any means whatsoever.

The promises made back when I was feeding the US government pieces of my income and trusting them to set them aside were written into law, and those laws haven’t changed.  But when the US government jumps the tracks and becomes a legion of lawbreakers and the laws they break influence whether my cats eat, all bets are off. 

The government can prove by prima faci evidence they didn’t mean it when they made their laws.  But they can’t do it surgically, selectively.  If the laws don’t apply to them, they don’t apply to anyone.  Not just the laws they picked to break, but all the laws on the books.

But hell, that’s just one old guy saying it.  What the hell do I know?

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Government, Politics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Old Sol’s gender change, fly paper goo in cat fur and Other Matters

Posted on October 4, 2013 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.  Things are really good here.

I think Old Sol might have done his sex change, finally.  That CME he caughed up September 30, reached earth October 2 and produced rare red aurora theater at both poles of earth, and lots of places in-between.

 
Listen to radar echoes from satellites and meteors, live on listener-supported Space Weather Radio.  
Spaceweather Radio is on the air

JUNO SPACECRAFT TO FLY BY EARTH: Here’s some news you might not hear from NASA because, like much of the US government, the space agency is closed. NASA’s Juno spacecraft will slingshot past Earth on October 9th for a velocity boost en route to Jupiter. At closest approach the spacecraft will be only 347 miles from Earth as it gains an extra 16,000 mph for the long journey ahead. Originally, the Juno mission team was planning to activate Juno’s instruments and practice gathering data during the flyby. Will that still happen? Stay tuned for updates.

RED AURORAS: On October 2nd, a CME hit Earth’s magnetic field, sparking a G2-class geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers on both ends of the Earth saw auroras; many of the lights were rare shades of red. Minoru Yoneto photographed this example from Queenstown, New Zealand:

“This is how the sky looked 11 hours after the CME impact,” says Yoneto, who used a Canon EOS 6D digital camera to record the reds.

Auroras are usually green, and sometimes purple, but seldom do sky watchers see this much red. Red auroras occur some 300 to 500 km above Earth’s surface and are not yet fully understood. Some researchers believe the red lights are linked to a large influx of electrons. When low-energy electrons recombine with oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere, red photons are emitted. At present, space weather forecasters cannot predict when this will occur.

During the storm, even more red auroras were observed over the United States in places like Kansas, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, the flypaper goo Hydrox got into his fur seems to be neutralized by the wheat flour I worked into his coat, so I think I’ll be able to brush the clogs out without too much difficulty.

Other stuff’s going fairly well, also.  I’m finding a strange new enthusiasm, a budding new patriotism growing in my psyche now that I recognize and accept the fact the US Congress and presidency are occupied by human flesh-eating space aliens.

I'd just been too out of touch to look closely at them.

I’d just been too out of touch to look closely at them.

My previous indifference about government and politics was the result of not having understood what they were about. 

Knowing what they're doing is rational and scientific helps a lot.

Knowing what they’re doing is rational and scientific helps a lot.

The cost of so much secrecy.  But once I understood they were selectively breeding us to make better food animals I’m finally able to get behind the program.  Knowing the key positions of government, finance, multi-national corporations and banks are all filled with space aliens doing things that actually make sense is comforting.

Since they're all the same and filling both parties there's no point registering to vote. But I'd still like to do something to show my support.

Since they’re all the same and filling both parties there’s no point registering to vote. But I’d still like to do something to show my support.

Gives my extinct patriotic instincts a new lease on life.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in Adventure

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Time to lighten up a bit – Communist hell on the Zuni Reservation

Posted on August 28, 2013 by | 4 comments

I wrote this after a weekend spent with a once-lady-friend who spent her career as a high school librarian on the Navajo and Zuni Reservations.

zuniland1a

Cataclysmic Doggerel
 
 
A schoolmarmish lady in Zuni
Had canines subversive and loony;
Her Communist felines
Made neighborhood beelines
With doctrines both outworn and puny.
 
The KGB cat was a lean
And speckled-nosed beauty serene
In appearance alone
For her countenance shown
Multi-faceted plots as she preened.
 
Her Weathercat history was tops:
She sprayed on dozens of cops
With a Commie aroma
But joined Sertoma
Cavorting with phonies and fops.
 
The ringleader hound was a red
And curly haired rascal it’s said
Whose Trotskyish leanings
And Maoish gleanings 
Were pondered curled up on the bed.
 
Princess Redfeather, they tells
Of this curly red bitch of the cells,
Forsook her fine lineage
To sip of the vintage
of Lenin, and Gulags and hells.
 
The worst of the felines, Bearboy:
Striped and cross-eyed and coy;
Politically weak, 
Had claws that could tweak
Bourgeois carpet, and bedspread, with joy.

The Uncle-Tom dog of the hut
Was Ernie, the gray-bearded mutt; 
Dog-tired, and dogmatic,
He thought,”Problematic:
dog-eared dialectic and glut.”
 
The Uncle-Tom dog she called Ernie
Began as a dog-pound attorney
Commuted from gassing
He pondered in passing
Discretion’s demand for a journey.
 
A calico hound lying dormant,
Most likely a police informant:
A capitalist clown
Took his food lying down
Resisting the commie allurement.
 
The Stalinish kittenish spies
Spread foment and torment and lies
To Indian curs
And mutts that were hers
And War-Gods high up on the rise.
 
Princess and Ernie and, Spot,
And Chester, the narc-dog; the lot:
For half a piaster
Would bring a disaster 
To Zuni, once called Camelot

shalako pot

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2000's, Native American, Native Americans, New Mexico, NM, Poetry, Politics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The abomination of cross-species sex

Posted on August 22, 2013 by | 1 comment

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

The cats were a mite disturbed when they heard me talking on the phone to someone describing mule jacks and how human beings go about arranging mules.   A jackass has feelings

Hydrox:  That’s disgusting!  Don’t they have laws to keep people from doing those kinds of things?

Me:  Um.  No.

Niaid:  Yuk!  Tricking some poor donkey into screwing a horse?  And that isn’t against the law?

Me:  I don’t think you’re seeing the big picture here.  They want mules.  Not much use for a donkey, but mules can be handy.  They’re not doing it for fun, nor just as some kind of perverted turn-on.

Tabby:  Yeah, you SAY that.  But I’ll bet there are guys up in the hayloft watching and kicking off their jollies.  It doesn’t make sense any other way.

Me:  No no no.  You aren’t getting what I’m saying.  Those people aren’t interested in the erotic side of donkey/horse intercourse.  They’re after persuading the male donkey, the jackass, to get the lady horse pregnant.  Nobody’s filming it to put on a website for the gratification of deranged people.

Hydrox:  Do they do that with CATs?  Are people out there making cats think they’re dogs and making them YUK do THAT? [Shudder]

Me:  Hmmm. Well, probably if they are it’s only in the sanctity of a science lab somewhere.  No harm intended.  Just science guys scrambling things, throwing things into test tubes to see what happens.

Niaid:  That is absolutely incredible.  What is wrong with you humans?  Do you suppose the humane society people know that’s going on?

Me:  Maybe.  Some of them.  As a rule humane society people are fairly single minded, though.  Don’t pay a lot of attention to what’s going on around them if it doesn’t involve arguing over which way of killing things is best.

Hydrox:  I swear, every day I live I get a new surprise about human beings.  You creatures are so wrapped up in yourselves you can’t see your own noses.

Me:  Yeah, that’s mostly true I guess.  But at least it’s only human beings on the porn websites I’d imagine.  At least people aren’t getting their jollies off about the donkeys and mares.  And there IS a field called animal husbandry, so I suppose some decent people at least force the jackass to marry the mare to make it less objectionable.  Animal preachers to do weddings, perform marriages and whatnot.  Keep it from being so perverted.

Old Jules

1 Comment

Posted in 2013, America, Animals

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,