WUFU3

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Lane's View - February 2021

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Books I'm Reading - February 2021

Books I'm Reading January 2021

wufu\ ‘woo-foo\ noun (esp Southern)(1988) n. 1: a name for addressing anyone or everyone in a group 2: either of you, 3: both of you, 4: any of you, 5: all of you When Claudia and I married, Whitney was seven years old. “Almost eight”, she would say. Like most children that age, her mom was the go-to person. Momma. Momma. Momma was the chorus and refrain. It was natural that this song continued when I came into her life. I was a recent addition, a David come lately, not the go to guy. One day in the middle of the Momma song, Claudia told Whitney, “You know, you can ask David things sometimes.” Whitney stood still and silent for a few moments, just processing this new information. I could see the idea turning over in her mind as she looked for the right mental folder to file it. Having found the right folder and filed it away, she said flatly, “OK, I will.” I thought that was the end of it. The end of the conversation and the end of the new idea. Even though I admired Claudia’s timely instruction, I had no expectation that it would stick. That’s when Whitney gave me one of her many surprises. The new idea had not only stuck and would be retrieved on some appropriate future moment, she was about to take the concept to a deeper level. She looked at both of us and asked with all the seriousness and philosophical insight of Plato, “So what do I say when you are both here and I don’t care who answers?” It was one of those moments when you are prone to say what first comes to your mind, because it is such a small routine question and should get a small routine answer. But then a bell goes off in your head and you hesitate a moment. In that moment there is a flash of recognition that this is no ordinary question, no ordinary moment. So, you swallow your shallow response and try to think of something profound to say. I said, “Wufu. If you don’t care who answers, you just say Wufu.” It wasn’t so profound, but it created a puzzled look on Whitney’s face when she heard the sound of the new word and she asked, “What does Wufu mean?” Having just assigned a new word with a meaning, I said with great confidence, “It means either of us or both of us.” That was the question she asked, so this answer must be the right meaning. She stood there again processing this third piece of new information. She turned it over in her mind, found the right mental folder, and filed it. She said, “OK.”, turned on her heels, and was off to do whatever it was that she had come to ask about. I didn’t invent Wufu by just pulling it out of the air. In the desperation of the moment of being challenged by a little girl almost eight, I pulled it from the memories of my own childhood. Our family was friends with the Weigel family, who were actually our distant relatives. Our grandfathers were cousins. I’ve never really known how to count cousins past first cousins. They weren’t my first cousins, but were they the second, third, or fourth? Their youngest of four boys was named Bill, but since his dad was also named Bill, everyone called him by his nickname, Wufu. Since I had moved away and hadn’t seen him in twenty years, I figured it was safe to use this word and give it a new meaning. Grown up now, he is probably finished with Wufu as a name anyway. The name worked for a small boy, but you couldn’t call your doctor Wufu and then take him very seriously. So, the stage was set for a new expression. All that was left was for it to be used two or three times and it would become institutionalized. First it would become a natural part of the family vocabulary and who knows, it could ultimately end up as six across in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. “A four-letter word for either, both, all, or any.” Or it could be added to the 2029 revised edition of Webster’s dictionary as “wufu\ ‘woo-foo\ noun (esp Southern)(1988) 1: a name for addressing anyone or everyone in a group 2: either of you, 3: both of you, 4: any of you, 5: all of you” Phase one surely took hold quickly. First it was Whitney digging into her mental files for her new behavior as she came into the room and asked Claudia and I, “Wufu, can I go to Erin’s house and play?” On another day Claudia would leave a note on the kitchen table. “Wufu – when you get home, take the chicken out of the freezer to thaw.” Whoever read the note first, took the chicken out. On another day I would leave a message on the answering machine, “Wufu – my meeting is later than I expected. Let’s eat dinner at seven.” When Whitney went to summer camp, her letters began with “Dear Wufu,” Wufu also became our designated secret code word that could be used if you were ever kidnapped and wanted the others to know the message was really from you. (I guess I shouldn’t have told you this. Now our cover is blown with the crooks.) Wufu even adapted itself to the advent of technology as we created an email group on our computers and named it Wufu. When it came time to designate a name for our website domain, Wufu was the obvious choice. Who could possibly already have that domain name? Surely no one but Michael Weigel. Actually, it was already taken by a Japanese technology company. They probably sell anything to anyone anywhere! So, I submitted WUFU1.com. It was already taken too. All of a sudden Wufu didn’t sound quite so unique. Had Michael incorporated himself? Since there were three of us in the Hazelwood version of Wufu, we went with Wufu3.com. That’s where you will find either of us, both of us, any of us, all of us, anything of ours, or everything of ours.

Overview and Index of Blogs These blogs come right out of my head which means the subjects are scattered. Hopefully you won't find most of them scatter brained. A lot of the blogs will relate to books I have written, whose topics are also scattered. Cookbooks, Animals, Lists, Love, Stepdads, and ...you get the picture. I am also a ghost writer for my Golden Retriever, Lane, who will post her blogs here too. She is our CCO, chief canine officer. I send her blogs because people usually read them before mine. Date Subject September 14, 2020 What's Wufu? September 14, 2020 Overview and Index of Blogs September 13, 2020 Release of Animals Who Own Us postponed February 6, 2021 Books I'm Reading - January 2021 Click To Paste Click To Paste Click To Paste