The Fluffbucket Diaries

I was going to get snooty about how far the Washington Post had fallen, until I had to admit to myself that I actually clicked on the headline.

A "nice to have" little fantasy, smothered. And I'm fine with that.

Got email today that pretty much said I really didn’t need to throw my hat into the ring for a news job.

I was ambivalent about the opening – one of many for a new religious news service – which sounded interesting, but I suspected I would turn out to be (a) too old, (b) too far out of the business, and (c) insufficiently Catholic. But I applied anyway, finessing my resume for the first time in almost a decade and submitting it to one of those faceless HR gaping maws that likes to send out “thanks, but we’re moving forward with somebody we like way better than you” emails. HR systems – and HR entities in general, I firmly believe – take great delight in crushing dreams.

Thing is, this was less of a dream of mine and more of a “nice to have” kind of fantasy. Honestly, despite the sometimes grueling workload, I’m fine with the job I have. If I can finagle a way to survive in it until possibly retirement age, great, because I don’t want to deal with one of those faceless HR gaping maws ever again.

Besides, I was beginning to have second thoughts about this job app when I realized I would need to behave myself online and avoid speaking my mind here (on the off-chance the Catholic News Media Thought Police found my blog). I already demonstrate a fair amount of restraint online, but I also looked things over and realized that I would really miss feeling free to vent and opine freely – a capability I would have to forego if I returned to the news business.

So, I’m jumping back online with a surprisingly happy sense of relief. At least I can stop trying to clean up my Twitter feed and go back to praising the occasional Protestant theologian again.

What happens when we go to the local Daiso outlet and F insists on obtaining almost-matching cat humiliation devices.

Halo-halo: the frozen dessert of my people.

Hard to see the shaved ice buried underneath the ube ice cream and layered with cubes of coconut gel, jackfruit strips, condensed milk, beans, ube jam, and — much to my delight — corn. (My dad put creamed corn in it when I was growing up, and I have yet to find anybody else who does.)

F refused twice to try it. She seemed genuinely hurt when I kiddingly called her a communist for refusing. (Maybe it’s a generational thing.)

First day of school, high school freshman edition.

Been off all morning. Thinking about how I try not to cry every time I walk past the Target toy section and the My Little Pony and Disney Princess figurines she used to love.

Catching up on vacation pix. Spent a good chunk of last Thursday at the Minnesota science museum in St. Paul, which is as impressive as any of its counterparts in Chicago.

We’re staying near the Mall of America, but our favorite Twin Cities retail destination by far is Electric Fetus, Prince’s favorite hometown record shop.

Abe said, “Where do you want this killin' done?” God said, “Out on Highway 61”

Fair question.

An elegy for Mister Happy

Winslow Gwynn Garcia Buxton, perhaps the only dog in northern Illinois named after two San Diego sports hall of famers, died peacefully over the weekend. He was roughly 16 years old.

We brought Winslow home about a week after my firstborn dog, Weederman, died around the same age. The bouncy Bichon-Shih tzu mix went by Mister Happy at first, and seemed like a relatively low-maintenance puppy when we first got him – until we discovered on the way home that he got carsick easily and threw up on my Diet Coke, which was tucked into the car console.

Except for the carsickness and a dislike of thunderstorms, during which he would insist on sleeping in one’s armpit or atop one’s head overnight, he generally was an easygoing sort. And until recently, he never passed up an opportunity to mooch at the dinner table. He demonstrated his freeloading skills most notably maybe a year after he joined our household, when we discovered a pound of taco meat had disappeared one evening from our kitchen table. The bellowing moans deep in the night when he was let out in the yard to do his business made it clear which dog stole the heavily spiced pork, plastic container and all.

We’ll miss the mooching, the pilfering of stuffed toys from Frannie’s room, his running starts across the backyard to launch himself into flight over snowdrifts onto the deck. We’ll even miss his uncanny ability to slip through fencing out of the backyard, forcing us to retrieve him down the block or have a neighbor drop him off. We’ll miss all of it.

Winslow outlasted several other animals in our household – two dogs and two cats – during his long lifetime. He is survived by two cats, a neurotic greyhound mix, and three heartbroken humans.

Hoped to find a new anime to cheer me up on an awful day in Chicagoland. Not a good sign when the show begins with a quote by Nietszche.

Watching the last new episode of “Spy X Family” until October. Gonna be an even tougher wait for this than for Season 3 of “Ted Lasso.”

Got a Starbucks breakfast sandwich with “impossible” sausage. Because my day needed to be worse than it already is.

Researching cat cafes. Nice rule at a cafe in Indianapolis.

Nothing says “I am raising a geek” like dropping your kid off for a D&D campaign. Now having an iced chai down the street from the game store.

Just came across an ad online for so-called manscaping tools like a “groin trimmer.”

Happy Father’s Day weekend, everybody.

Me: I guess a cup costs an extra 10 bucks.

Frannie: What’s a cup?

Looks like work will continue through much of the summer at a miserably relentless pace. It’s going to be a challenge avoiding nights with 3 hours of sleep like last night; based on my foul mood for most of the day, though, I can’t afford to skimp on rest.

😬