
Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not

Hello, all you hep cats. Today is Wednesday, September 29, 2021. A sluggish sunrise sifted apricot hues over the valley at 7:06 AM. Sunset will be at 6:56 PM. Clear skies triumph. Temperatures sank to 42 F overnight but have climbed into the fifties at this point. We expect a high of seventy or higher today.
On a side note, wouldn’t it be amusing and chaotic if the cultural climate, politics, and technology reflected the temperature? Thinking of the US, of course. That’s what I know. With the temperature in the 50s, I look out to see 1950 Chevies, Cadillacs, and Fords go by. People are dressed for the year. The net has gone down because it doesn’t exist. Neither does this computer. In fact, it won’t reach a temperature for me to have a laptop at hand. We’d reach the seventies today. Bellbottoms would abound.
I have a friend who uses the expression Hell’s bells quite often. This amuses me. I’d heard the expression often as a child by older adults, like Grandpa Paul. So I associate the expression to them. The friend who employs it isn’t as old as Grandpa — he would have been 130 years old at this point — and is only fifteen years older than me. But fifteen years older makes him eighty! You have to laugh at it, right? Anyway, in the context of thinking of him, I began using Hell’s bells to curse at some point of the day when something happened. Naturally, my mental music stream picked up on it and replied, “Playing ‘Hell’s Bells’ by AC/DC.” So now I have the song stuck in the stream. To be sure, it’s actually only the opening that’s stuck: my mind keep replying the song until the first chorus of “Hell’s bells” is sung. Then it starts again. Yes, I’m in a broken mental music stream loop. I keep hitting myself, hoping to jar it into normalcy. Ain’t working.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get vaccines and boosters. Here’s the song. Check out the video and how young AC/DC members look. Reflect on your own life and youth. Enjoy. Cheers
Floofveillance (floofinition) – An animal’s close watch kept over someone or something.
In use: “Although always respectful and well-behaved (unlike others she could name, like the cats), the German Shepherd maintained floofveillance on the grill as the steaks cooked.”

We call this stormy Tuesday but Monday’s just as bad. We also call it September 28, 2021. With dark, dramatic lighting, we call it, “The Final Tuesday”. It’s here for you, and it’s not about basketball.
Rained part of the night. Trailed off into a lazy gray sunrise at 7:04 AM. Sunset is due at 6:58 PM. Chilly. Had the heat come on this morning. Low was 42 F. Expect a high of 66 F. It is fall. Time for fall treats. Pumpkin pie.
A skunk fight interrupted our deep sleep. When I say a fight, t’weren’t any sounds associated with it. Just an intense smell. Like a dirty dozen pack of skunks entered the house and let loose on us. The air purifier was pressed into service. Fiful sleep returned after an hour plus, unusual for me, known as he-who-falls-asleep. An early telephone call interrupted it. I rolled out and into a lumbering run, wondering, “Who is it, what is it,” etc. Turned out to be the solar system installer. New inverter has arrived. Can he send his team over with it this afternoon?
I returned to bed to suck up more zzzs. But my thinking had conjured a Macklemore & Ryan song into my head. “Can’t Hold Us”. 2011. Spun up from these second-stanza lyrics:
Return of the Mack, get up!
What it is, what it does, what it is, what it isn’t.
Looking for a better way to get up out of bed
Instead of getting on the Internet and checking a new hit me.
Admittedly, I know these lyrics mostly because I’ve looked them up after querying myself, “What are they saying?” Macklemore and Lewis rap so fast. Common among rappers, though. It’s all about quick speech. Quick minds. I’m just too slow. Ray Dalton’s singing is a welcome break on the song for me.
It’s fascinating how you become adjusted to circumstances like smells. I’d been up for a few hours. Thought, oh, good, the skunk odor has dissipated. Then I went outside to experience the world. When I returned inside, the skunk’s smell lanced through me, fresh and sharp. Windows were opened. Furnace turned off. Purifier turned on.
Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed. Get the vax. Enjoy the music. Have more coffee. You know I am. Here’s the tune. Cheers

I call the first dream the 6¢ Dream. The other two were flash-dreams.
The 6¢ Dream
It’s called the 6¢ dream because I was looking — wait. I’ll begin at the start. It ends a little ghoulish.
I’m living with my in-laws. Two SIL, brother-in-law, MIL. My wife isn’t there. The house is a long building. Tall for a house. Off-white, with many narrow, vertical windows. Built in a straight line going up a small grade in the middle of a dirt road. The road’s dirt is ochre-colored.
After being presented with an outside shot of the house, like the opening of a sitcom, I find myself in the house. I’m looking at its floor plans. Each room is labeled. The room that I’m in is priced at 6¢. Others are priced at 3¢ and 4¢. I tell the others about my find. There’s a door going out the side toward the house’s rear. I decide I can build a little wing off that. I fumble about what I want there. Then, voilà, the wing is completed. I have a small conference room and an office where I can work. The result pleases me.
My BIL and I take a walk up the dirt road. The ochre soil becomes ankle deep. Soft as talc. We chat and laugh about it. I return to work.
Then he approaches all of us in the kitchen. Apparently rent is due. We’re supposed to be paying regularly on every room used. We didn’t know. Maybe it was presented to us and we forgot. I’m concerned about the new rooms I’ve added and what that will do to the rent. It’s not mentioned, though. The required payment is announced: my late father-in-law’s head.
I’m horrified but the others are matter-of-fact. Give it to him. They joke, he’s not using it any more. This shocks me. Per instructions, they toss my FIL’s head out. It looks nothing like him. Looks like an old, misshapen volleyball. It bounces around after landing, then rolls around, like it has its own will.
Dream end.
The Found Money
This dream came on the interstice between consciousness and sleeping. I was cleaning up. A pile of U.S. coins were on a credenza. Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. I’m sorting and stacking them when I look up and see a twenty-dollar bill folded behind a monitor. I exclaim, “There it is. I’ve been looking for that money. Thought I lost it.” Dream ends as I pick the twenty up and look at it.
The Mustang Crash Dream
I was outside between two buildings with other people. One was a tall red brick building. The other building — where I had been — was a shorter, white stucco and silver metal building with a glass-in lobby. I don’t know what I was doing in there. Don’t know any of the other people. We were milling, like we were on a break. The area was a cement walk bordered by grass and bushes. General, brief chatting was underway.
Sound draws attention. Sounds like an aircraft. Seconds later, we see a dark blue aircraft with yellow stripes flying around overhead. I identify it as a P51 Mustang. D Model. My second-favorite WW II aircraft. I call all that out to people. The aircraft is getting lower. We all realize, he’s going to crash. I realize more sharply, “He’s going to crash here.” As the aircraft crashes, I throw myself down and ball up, trying to minimize what happens to me, while others try to run.
There is no explosion. I get up. The others creep back.
The plane has crashed. Blue and yellow, it is a Mustang. Caught vertically in the space with the nose pointing toward the sky, the plane appears unscathed. The cockpit faces us. The canopy is gone. Someone else begins running toward it as they say, “We need to help the pilot.” I turn and shout to another, “Call 911.” In a bang-bang moment, we all realize that there’s no pilot in it. Must have ejected, we guess. We say, “We should go find him.” But when we turn to leave, we discover guards have arrived. Light blue uniform shirts. Dark pants. White helmets. Carrying rifles. We go to leave. They shake their heads. One says, “No one is leaving.”
I go into the building. Bunch of noisy teenagers are in one room. Looks like a smallish living room. They’re shouting, talking, and laughing in cliques. I try to yell to get their attention. They scarcely notice. I yell again, louder, “Hey.” Some impact. Third time, I form my hands into a megaphone. “Hey.” That gets almost all of their attention. A woman in charge of them says, “Everyone be quiet. Michael is trying to tell us something.”
With everyone looking at me, I announce, “An aircraft crashed outside. There are guards out there but I think someone should call 9-1-1. It’s a Mustang.”
Dream end. Took a lot longer to type it than to experience it.
Floofton’s Cradle (floofinition) – Group sleeping position animals use to conserve warmth and energy.
In use: “The kittens quickly refined the floofton’s cradle with the retriever’s help, curling up in one snug heap of slumbering fur.”

