About Dogs and Cats and their Buddies.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

WHO is Waldo hiding from? He's hiding from Odlaw. Waldo's walking stick is a magical gift from Wizard Whitebeard that allows him to travel through space and time. He mainly uses it for vacations, but once Odlaw found out, he started chasing him to get that stick for himself so he can get into Fort Knox and steal all the gold. Waldo kept on hiding until he got lost. Along the way, he also lost his cellphone. So you know, he is REALLY lost. 😒🤨😟

THERE may be cases where cats accept a pet bird as just another member of the family, but these are rare. The most likely scenario is that your bird and your cat will learn to accept each other, assuming that the cat's hunting instinct does not take over. Maybe you can start getting them acquainted by introducing them as friends on Facebook, then teach them how to dance and/or sing together on TikTok? That’ll work, I reckon. 🐈📲🐦

DO cats and dogs like tacos? No! Tacos are made of corn meal, fat, salt and sometimes hot spices, too. There is nothing in those that is good for a cat to eat. The cat in the photo is talkin’ in metaphors, sort of. She’s saying quit the drama and let’s go get some chalupa. Uhh chalupa is still not good for cats and dogs? Whatever. 🐈🌮🐕

SAYS Mikel Maria Delgado, PhD, a Sacramento animal behaviorist and a cat: “A Christmas tree has a lot of interesting smells. It's probably the most interesting thing that they can climb in the house, because not enough people provide their cat climbing structures.” Fizz and Ching have ample places and buildings to climb here in the house so they don’t mess the Christmas tree here. In fact, Fizz guards it from possible interpolating bugs. And Ching loves selfies in front of it. 🎄🐈🎄

UNIQUE names for young people are common these days. Fizz says “As American culture has become more individualistic, parents have favored giving children names that help them stand out.” Trudat again, Fizz! Examples of unique baby names for 2023: Elio, Eos, Glow, Halo, Helios, Mux, Ochre, Oriana, Orla, Shine, Sunday, Suvi. Others: Meow, Woofy, Tweeta, Freebyrd, De’Hashtag, Tangina, Galapagos (nickname Gally), Namaste (or Namy), and Solstice (or Solsy). 👶👶👶

HIBERNATION is a way for many creatures – from butterflies to bats – to survive cold winters without having to forage for food or migrate to somewhere warmer. They turn down their metabolisms to save energy. Hibernation in hot climates is called aestivation. Get that? Aestivation. How do they eat in those hibernation/aestivation months? Well, there are thingies like DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, Goldbelly, and many other franchise restaurants that deliver food. Duh. 🐇🦝🐿

CATS happily coexist with a dog if they are given time to get to know each other. They generally will learn to love each other. Trudat. They’d play and nap in one bed, my bed. Just like Arrow, Ching and Fizz. BFFs. Sometimes Arrow gets jealous but she’s okay. In fact Arrow even offered to share her password with the kitten sisters. But Fizz refused nicely, saying “Arrow, you don’t share passwords. That is your privacy. No need. I can hack into your Facebook page, anyways.” 🐈🥰🐕

SAYS Mikel Maria Delgado, PhD, a Sacramento animal behaviorist and a cat: “A Christmas tree has a lot of interesting smells. It's probably the most interesting thing that they can climb in the house, because not enough people provide their cat climbing structures.” Fizz and Ching have ample places and buildings to climb here in the house so they don’t mess the Christmas tree here. In fact, Fizz guards it from possible interpolating bugs. And Ching loves selfies in front of it. 🎄🐈🎄

A RECENT national study, published in USA Today, found that third through eighth grade students were more than four months behind academically. The most likely fixes aren't getting enough traction. Because adults confuse the young. Drive children to depression and loss of learning esteem. Pronouns, hair style, gender IDs are more “relevant” than whatever. So yes today’s youth believe Alexander Hamilton was a hip-hop artist. 🧏‍♀️🎧🧏

FOR cats, being up high provides a sense of security. It gives them a better vantage point to see what's going on down there with hoomans. Your cat may see “predators” in the form of other cats they aren't getting along with, dogs, and visitors who look like armadillos. Of course, that is according to humans. Humans love to see cats in “cat trees” more than cats themselves do. Cats simply do whatever because they can. Fizz: “We are ninja shinobis. We just do it. Like McJordan.” 🐈🌳🐈‍⬛

ON the subject of the Orlando shooting. Religion, atheism, conspiracy theory, and the anger in humanity.

Previously posted on my Facebook page. Or written years ago, unedited/not updated.

[ ] DO we have to list killers as per believers in a god vis a vis atheists? Is there a basis of comparison between the Virginia Tech shooter with Idi Amin? Or a Tim McVeigh with Ted Bundy. Charles Manson and maybe Pol Pot? The evil in their head is individual darkness. The glaring parallel is—they kill people for reasons that's personally theirs. The human mind is unpredictable. Alfred Nobel invented the dynamite for a reason not to kill and maybe Adam Lanza got weird when mom and dad divorced and then mom spent more time in the shooting range.

 

       Did these guys read the Bible? Or maybe Mother Teresa would have poisoned her Calcutta village the same way as Jim Jones did in Guyana. Both read the Bible profusely. Or a Muslim imam who mass feeds people in towns battered by typhoons would have put cyanide in the food after reading a chapter in the Quran? People kill. They could be a loner kid who listens to Pink Floyd over and over or one who idolizes Che Guevara. They got sick reasons and sick minds. Many times they don't even have a reason. They simply feel the insistence and compulsion to kill. 

       I don't favor pointing at a certain collective belief system, religious or ideological as the guilty triggers, because that would also indict and wrongly judge those other peaceful believers. There is so much evil in this world. Yes. But let us not lump them as one collective humanity. It is offensive. It is not solving or minimizing hatred at all. In fact it is fueling it. What happened, all these mass killings, aren't the kind of wrongdoing that a peace-loving Muslim or Christian would like to be compared with or aligned with. ☮️☮️☮️

[ ] CONSPIRACY theory? As in governments plot mass killings to push laws? This is way off left field, I must say.  Why don't we look at the culture itself? Facts. The gravitation to polar extremes in present day America as shown by behaviors in regards to the coming presidential election shows that Americans are upset about practically all levels of institutions and structures. You don't have to be a devout Muslim or a redneck or an Occupy radical to get angry these days. Historically, the incidence of mass murders in America in the last ten or 20 years is unprecedented. 

       THAT had to be looked at. It is not religion because the two largest traditional religions, Islam and Christianity, have always been a part of America. But the huge discrepancy between rich and poor has never been this wide. The increase of queues to CVS is alarming than those who seek peace in church. And if I believe that some government machineries are behind these, then I am up for doomsday. I don't want to look at the world and society like that. ☮️☮️☮️

[ ] RELIGION and ATHEISM. I am continually weirded out by people who categorically judge Christians by what some from their flock say. It is not fair. It's like do all Muslims mow down people like what terrorists do? That religion is the sole cause of gruesome killings in this world? That atheism (and/or paganism) is the answer to global peace? How ignorant some people could be! Do they know that serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is an atheist? And Jim Jones who poisoned 909 people in Guyana in 1978 was actually an atheist? And those leaders that we love to hate: Kim Jong-Il, Benito Mussolini, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin never believed in God or religion? And the most evil of them all, Adolf Hitler did not believe in organized religion? 

       One other dude (who was on my FB) who hides behind a Hindu name maintains that pagans never had war? Read up History 101, please! Why can't people grow up--and start widening their minds rather than continually closing them? Putting blame on religion or people's culture for the evils in this world is one of the most profound forms of ignorance and hatred. We will never have a real semblance of real peace in this world if some people live this kind of narrow-mindedness all their lives. I will say that over and over and over again. ☮️☮️☮️

[ ] I SAY, no matter how angry a person is, let him get it out of his system--then compromise and negotiate. Maybe he/she has a point. Maybe the channeling was the problem. Maybe it's a question of an apt device to show/share truths. But if we immediately stereotype or judge a person "abusive" or "rude" or worse, mentally deranged and the only cure is a shrink and prescription--I believe that, we are undermining our human ability to heal and understand.   

      The filmmaker Sam Peckinpah said, "The whole underside of our society has always been violence and still is. Everybody seems to think that man is a noble savage. But he's only an animal. A meat-eating, talking animal. Recognize it. He also has grace and love and beauty." But unlike most animals, humans possess rational minds and compassionate hearts. If we are able to channel that aggression in art or music or literature, or even farm work or sports, that anger could be stopped from evolving to physical violence. ☮️☮️☮️

About Dogs and Cats and their Buddies. And some little jokes.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

DOGS watch our facial expressions, posture, and body movements. They listen to the tone of our voice. They combine all of these observations to determine our meaning. They collate all these, plus our DNA, then submit them to the boss cat for analysis. Dogs and cats are preparing for a feared future battle against AIs. Uh huh. 🐕🚶🧎‍♀️

NOT many know the exact definitions of words such as zeitgeist, cerise, euonym, succedaneum, or pococurante. Ask your cat or koolcat. They know. 😺😸😼

MORE recently, the American Federation of Astrologers put the number of Americans who read their horoscope every day as high as 70 million, about 23 percent of the population. As for me, I just ask Fizz The Wiz per my day’s life. Done. 🐱😺🙀

HIGH maintenance pets. Some dog breeds require daily grooming sessions, frequent baths or regular visits to a professional groomer to keep their coat in tip-top shape. Takes up time, energy and funds. If you have been spoiling your dog (only) with Ziwi Peak Air-Dried and your cat British Banquet grain-free, + iPhone upgrades each time, don’t complain. 🐕👑🐈

DOG experts (who are actually cats) say if you don’t get along well with your pet and you give them the name of a disliked person, it is considered rude but it'd be hilarious! Named your cat Trump or your dog Biden? If they're someone you like and you adore the pet, it might get a little weird. But weird is good, too. I don’t find it weird that I named my cat Ching. Ching is my mom’s nickname. If you say you don’t like that name, I will have to unfriend and block you. You dig? 🐈😊🐕

ARE some people paid for working out in the gym? My friend Lula pays her two teen-age daughters to work out in a gym, at least two hours a day each. Cellphones are left at home. Kristi and Coco are actually very proud. They tell friends: “We got a job 2 hours max a day but minimum pay, $7.25 for an hour. Sometimes we request an extra hour as overtime. Hey, it’s a job, right?” Friends go, “Awesome!” 🏋️‍♀️🤸‍♂️💵

THE Top 5 most aggressive dog breeds are chow chow, akita, pitbull terrier, cane corso, and doberman pinschers. President Biden’s dog Major is an example of a German Shepherd that gets pissed when he hears nonstop political chatter. He’ll bite! Hound dog Arrow The Good Doog is aggressive as well but “aggressive excited.” Not “aggressive ready to bite.” Once she comes near you, be cool as you introduce yourself, she’s a sweet puppy. Just don’t get political on her, too. Dig? 🐕🐩🐕‍🦺

MILLENNIALS are those born from 1981 to 1996, pretty much my own kids. Gen Z, from 1997 to 2012. Called “digital natives,” the generation to grow up with the internet as a part of daily life. Cats though don’t fall in those age brackets, apparently. They are Highlanders. They know everything, anything. Musical genre, and such. They just fake it that they don’t know because all they wanna play or sing are Bee Gees. 🐱🎧🐱

FRENCH FRIES. During World War I, American soldiers stationed in Belgium discovered these tasty treats. But because most people in the southern part of Belgium speak French, they ended up calling these little slices of heaven “French” fries. Yup. Now, you may google why it is Buffalo Wings, when it is not buffalo. And yes Fortune Cookie wasn’t invented in China. A cat invented it as part of the feline’s many shenanigans. 🍟🍟🍟

INDOOR cat. The cat, commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae. Felidae. Recent advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of the cat occurred in the Near East around 7500 BC. Actually, Fizz The Wiz sent me this info. 🐈🏠🐈‍⬛

About Dogs and Cats and their Buddies. And some little jokes.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

A DOG may bark to express how they're feeling, for example, when they're excited, frustrated, bored or scared. If a dog feels threatened, they may bark to tell somebody to stay away or to leave. Other times, dogs may bark because they want something in particular, such as their favorite toy. And also because they are dogs. Otherwise, they’d be texting or IM’ng you what they’re thinking. Like if they are anti Trump or pro Trump. 🐈🙂🐕

“PETS or cats and dogs have the ability to help strengthen relationships,” says Michael Hamilton, a veterinary orthopaedic. “They help us to be more patient, caring and loving towards one another. The unconditional love you receive from a dog or cat is extremely rewarding.” So next time you check Tinder out, invite your dog and cat to sit with you for their opinion as you surf through profiles. (Mr Hamilton is actually a cat so I concur with his professional findings.) 🐕😉🐈

DESENSITIZED, made less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of cruelty or suffering by overexposure to such images. That’s what happens to us humanity who spend our 24/7 sitting with gadgets or screens. The dog or cat wakes us up from stupor–to remind us it’s time to walk, food bowls are empty, and litter box has to be cleaned. Sometimes we get shocked to reality upon knowing the dog buried a bear arm in the yard or the cat dragged a dead python into the kitchen sink. 😐😑😴

SNIFFING is just something all dogs do to get the lay of the land, mark their regular routes in the neighborhood, and sniff out familiar scents. Scent sniffing also helps them understand if something, or some new dog, is in their area. Arrow is different. She sniffs and scrutinizes spots for DNA samples and all that shit. If she finds something strange, like hints of hostile interpolators, she reports to Fizz at forensics in the house for further study. Ching types these findings on her laptop. 🐕👃🐕

CATS have both a short-term and a long-term memory, so not only do they think, but they also remember. While that doesn't tell us exactly what they think about all day, it does tell us that they are likely to have relatively complex thoughts and feelings about things. Yup, really complex, these personages koolcats. For example, Fizz googles a lot of info after watching a bird or fish video on YouTube, or I bet she snuck into my Facebook page while I was asleep. 🐱💻🐱

WHY do dogs chase cars? Natural evolution: They simply have the instinct to chase, and a quick-moving car appears just like their prey. Training your dog to stay immobile or by your side can help so that chasing cars becomes a thing of the past. Or your cat can teach your dog the ninja art of ignore-it, quit the drama. Fizz told me that Arrow barks and sometimes chases cars as a theatrical ploy for silly attention. 🐕🚘🐕‍🦺

LOTS of reasons why cats love boxes. Main one is because they're confined, enclosed spaces. Cats are ambush predators and finding confined places where they can hide, hunt prey and feel safe and warm is an instinctive behavior. Snug cardboard boxes fit the bill perfectly. Like ninjas. Cats are also into siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding with their fighting skills in scratch-face martial arts, including tiger’s claw ninjutsu. 🐱🎁🦊

DOGS can recognize us, and do look forward to seeing us each day! As for cats? A similar study out of the University of Tokyo confirmed that our favorite felines can distinguish their owner's voice or face, but they don't necessarily react. They’d be like, “So you’re home, okay. What do I care? But if you have the time, please clean our litter box.” 🐈🙃🐕

SLOW NEWS DAY, a time when media organizations publish trivial stories due to the lack of more substantial topics. I stopped watching news on TV for years now. Sometimes I just ask Fizz what’s up on Fox, CNN and MSNBC. She’d usually say: “Anti Trump, pro Trump, but more anti China.” So I simply go back to Facebook. 📺📰📺

WHY do cats sleep on different beds? Cats like to regularly switch between different sleeping locations to protect themselves from fleas and other parasites, so it's best to provide them with a few different beds situated around the house. Ching and Fizz have a number of beds or cushions in the house and a dozen in our bedroom. I simply squeeze my body somewhere in there, especially that Arrow already owns my bed. 🐱🛌🐱

RECOMMENDED. Music. “Rubber Soul” by The Beatles.

“Rubber Soul,” the 1965 album by The Beatles. This LP earned highly favorable critical response as well as huge commercial success, topping sales charts in Britain and the United States for several weeks. But that wasn’t a big surprise. This is the Beatles. And this is the Fab Four growing up. Indeed. 

       The album title derives from the colloquialism "plastic soul" and was the Beatles' way of admitting to lack of authenticity compared to the African-American soul artists they admired, so says Wiki. After “A Hard Day's Night” in 1964, it was the second Beatles LP to contain only original material.

       And so John, Paul, George, and Ringo started thinking, pondering, ruminating. What ensued: Sharp maturity in their lyricism, more spark and shimmer on guitar tones + sitar, harmonium, fuzz bass and definitely alluring instrumentation and arrangement. Pop, soul, folk, East Indian dalliances. This effort is more art than product. The earnest, depth and improvisational melodicism that carried onto “Revolver” (1966) and “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967). 

       My standout songs are John Lennon handiwork, though of course credited as Lennon/McCartney: “In My Life,” “Norwegian Wood,” and “It's Only Love.” But then, don’t you forget George Harrison’s “Think for Yourself” and Paul McCartney’s “Michelle” will always be for anybody’s Michelle. 🎼🎹🎼

HOW IT WAS.

Compiled from my previous Facebook posts. 

When was the last time you climbed trees? I bet you won’t even do it to rescue your cat. You’d call 9-11 for the Fire Department, I am sure. My childhood was about climbing trees. Pick some mangoes, catch combat spiders (yuck!) fetch my tied-up kite, just climbed trees for no reason. I was like Li’l Boy Tarzan. Those accentuate/d the wild abandon of early youth. Freedom. These days, children “climb trees” only via VRs, while “surfing” the net, or watching YouTube. 🌳🌴🌳

Me and my brothers would gather in one room to watch “The A-Team” and “Wok with Yan” when there’s no basketball on TV, 1980s. Remember Mr. T as B.A. Baracus? The harshest cuss word then on television was “You fool!” And “Wok with Yan,” a Chinese/Canadian cuisine cooking show with Stephen Yan. Recall these words on his apron? Wok & Roll, Wokking My Baby Back Home, Wok Around the Clock, Wok the Heck, Wok Goes up Must Come Down. LOL! 📺🤣📺

The “banga” or water dispenser that is made of clay. I bet there are more of these in the barrio? Not many houses in rural villages of my youth had running/tap water. So peeps would heat/boil water and then stock `em up in “banga.” Rainwater was usually saved, flowed from the roof to bamboo tubes into giant drums–for washing dishes, watering plants, and laundry. Rice was also cooked via clay pots in the outdoor kitchen clay “oven,” fired up by wood. Life then. Alive. 🧺📞📻

Typewriter. In 1575 in Italy, Francesco Rampazetto invented the “scrittura tattile,” a machine to impress letters in papers. Improvements ensued through the years. The first typewriter to be commercially successful was patented in 1868 by Americans led by Christopher Latham Sholes. Ah! Typewriter days. Writing was less physically “complicated.” Internet technology has a lot of advantages but it also ushered “justified” complexities that are not needed. 📺☎️📸

I was born into a culture of walking. In grade school in a mountain/mining town, I walked 4 miles to/from school. Me and grandpa Severino used to walk to the open market, almost everyday, while he taught me how to read. Billboards, store fronts, jeepney and bus sign boards. Hence, when I was living in New York City, walking 20 blocks (!) to the subway wasn’t so big deal. These days for years now, my walking ritual is set every afternoon, with the babedawg. 🚶🚶‍♂️🚶

Smoked fish. Foods have been smoked by humans throughout history. Originally this was done as preservative. In more recent times, fish is readily preserved by refrigeration and freezing. AI may even do it, ha! In the Philippines, most popular smoked fish is “tinapa,” which is often made from blackfin scad or “galunggong” and milkfish or “bangus.” A relative in the province used to smoke fish in his house, as business. The delicious aroma stayed in my mind. 🐠🇵🇭🐟

Remember how we used to engage in conversation, or discuss and debate, easy banter or intense jousts? Barbershop, cafes and diners, backyard barbecues and porch tea. College days? Steps of Arts/Sciences building and school canteen. Luneta Park in Manila, Washington Square Park, Pritchard Park. And then the Internet was born; Social Media followed. Less face to face interaction, sadly. Suddenly we forgot how to talk as grownups or communicate as humans. 🗣👥🫂

When the family lived in a mining/mountain town in the Philippines, me and friends would go up the hills and pick ripe guavas during summer. We’d climb trees or simply reach and pull them up from tinier trees. Guavas were abundant up there. Culinary pleasure. Medicinal wonders. The fruit is used for “sinigang” broth/stew, turned into jam, and other food delights. The leaves, when boiled, washes bacteria off wounds or a warm bath with it eases up fever etcetera. 🫒⛰🫒

A kid delivering newspapers in the morning was an image that inspired me as a boy. My grandma always reminded me of the wisdom of toil at an early age. My first “paid” work was in a printing press folding newsprints off the giant Webb/Heidelberg machine. I was 10. I spent my salary on books and LP records. I was a professional beat reporter at age 13. So proud of that. Times have changed. Parents of a “working child” go to DSS reprimand. Child abuse? 👦📰💵

Filing stuff. During typewriter days, I used to maintain my own filing system at home. Cut-out newspaper/magazine articles, neatly-catalogued photographs, some in binders. In these internet days, we “file” stuff in hard drives, thumb drives, and iCloud. Yet if you ask me what is more secured? Uh huh? I have 7 laptops, majical cellphone, dozens of thumb-drives, google docs, blogs, Yahoo and Gmail inboxes. Safe? Nope. So bring me back to the 1980s! 📰🗄📰

Photos: 123RF. SEARCA.

THOUGHTS in The Morning.

I READ. Read read read. And jot down notes. In New York subway, airport lounge, or Greyhound coach—I read. In the bathroom, I read. In a Vegas bingo social, I read. When I was little, and I read news or heard it on radio or dad told me this and that, I’d go read more to recheck if those are BS or not. I am still that “kid.” The only way to learn, relearn, and unlearn is to keep on reading. 📰📚📰

IN the past, I used to shrug off talks of “emotional support animal” as prescribed by mental health professionals. Those were the years when I used to walk rich people’s dogs in West Central Park in New York City as backup income to writing/editing. I didn’t realize how valuable those dogs were to their “mom and dad.” Until I co-existed myself with dogs and a cat. Without them, I don’t know. No pills, no meds, no therapy. But no Arrow and Cyd? I don’t know. 🐕💓🐈

I AM an old dude. I had hospital "adventures" as well. Wear and tear to a hyper spirit. But I have never felt healthier since a 2000 surgery in New York. I was offered a choice: Medication or surgery. Surgery! After the knife "gig," I moved to the mountains, cooked food, worried less, cushioned the drama with love poetry each night. Those are my "meds." The most body irritation I get in the last 4 years is pollen allergy, that's it. Did I just make myself clear? 🦐🦋🐙

PINK it! Decades ago, it was Yellow. And so Pink! floods the Philippines these days as the opposition gears up for May 2022 national election. New prez! As I told a friend per my wicked pragmatism, election is election. Most often, it is a popularity game or contest of numbers. But I’d like to read the program platform vis a vis current pressing issues. In politics, I don’t care about faces, parties, and colors. Though I obviously dig the color Pink. Uh huh. 🐙🦑🦐

DAMP earth of new birthing. Falling leaves offer a bed of reflection. Seasons in the heart, the evolution of the spirit. Until we age, with thousands worth of mileage of experience aching on our back as reminder, we don’t ruminate nature like this. Environmental activism isn’t about political narcissism. It is all about appreciation of life itself. In ruins, we see lessons; in blooming, we see hope. And then we take care of ourselves as one community. 🦋🍁🐓

AS I take babedawgs Arrow and Riley do their morning bathroom ritual in the backyard, Fall time’s wilted dryness remind me of coming Winter froze. But this giant taro-like plants are still alive. Plus a few flowers. Yet seasons, nature’s seasons do influence how “seasons within us,” mental/emotional state, ebb and flow—especially in these “isolated” days. Tough mostly. But then as long as doggies like Arrow stays hyper-active, ruffling my days no end, life stays alive and well. ?✍️👀

IMPLOSION, the phantom danger that scares me more than the virus. Humanity’s mental state. Good, memory of the past—good or bad—offers some light because we got basis for comparison how to live amidst the scourge. A vinyl and old book purchase at Goodwill is joy. Greens and flowers rest to give way to froze but the Goddess stays to keep earth alive. White and blonde right now (LOL!) but no added meaning to that. That’s what I saw and bought at Goodwill Outlet. It looks good, too! ?✍️👀

THE coming froze. Autumn decay to more winter of our discontent? I hope not. The yard gives way to falling leaves, zip line’s frolic mutes, yellowjackets have left, and I plucked the last flowers of summertime color. I try to capture nature’s color on my art studies and a few canvasses and sketchbooks. Hoping these will light the dark, uncloud the haze. But then, drama! The Bee Gees and the babedawgs and koolcat always come to the rescue! ✍️👀✍️

WELL-meaning and dear friends ask, am I okay? Am I sad? Well, I am no superdude. I got drama as well. I drink a glass of wine and a shot of Jim Beam at night. Or two PBRs. My daily consumption limit. Then there’s sports TV, Netflix et al, lovable babedawgs and a koolcat. But my drama stays. No need to share TMIs. Boring. In Zimbabwe, vaccines aren’t so available. In Haiti right now? Google it! In Afghanistan, they hope for light amidst the dark. At least war is over. My personal drama? What drama? Wanna talk about paella? 

MY slumbertime dreams are episodes of relentless activity. Almost the reverse of my waking-hours reality of relative inertia. My dreams are mostly interfaces of my past life in the Philippines when mom was still alive and America, pre-Covid. Life in color albeit in usual dreamscape incoherence. So when I open my eyes finally, I feel mentally tired yet physically motivated. My life’s drama stays but a new set of energy ensues. For more written words, more colors on canvas. More healing. ?✍️👀

MOST of the time, I am already awake hours before I climb out of bed. Somehow, that ritual adapts with the dogs’ “morning” schedule, LOL! I usually spend an hour or two fiddling about and reading through my Homepage. I’d like to know what others are thinking. This morning, I also spent time on the front porch, sketching. Hips and breasts. ?✍️👀