Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Looking at the shopping list on the chalkboard, she said, “I know it’s my handwriting, but I don’t know what this says. It looks like chickpens.”
Walking by, without looking, he replied, “It’s chickpeas.”
“Oh, chickpeas.” She laughed. “That makes more sense than chickpens.” She laughed again. “Give me a break, I haven’t had my coffee.”
When they finally broke through to the other side and the dust cleared, they found a material world with many boulevards of broken dreams. No matter; it was Saturday, August 27, 2022. They had that going for them, if nothing else.
It’s overcast in my swath of the world. Though the day advanced with the sun cresting the eastern mountains at 6:31 AM, the sun’s warmth is remote and oblique. 18 C now, we expect 83 F to be the temperature’s peak. Night will take over at 7:53 this evening, when the sun ‘moves on’ as the world turns.
For music, The Neurons are plying the morning mental music stream with a song from Peter Gabriel. Named “Blood of Eden”, you might expect it to be an energetic, uplifting, hard rocker. Surprisingly, it’s not. (Yes, you correctly detected snark. Good for you. You must have already had coffee.) I’ve always been a Peter Gabiel fan. This 1983 song was another one which prompted me to listen carefully as my brain asked, “Wait, what’s he saying?” The Neurons restored the song to active presence in my mind after overhearing an older man and woman chatting over coffee. He said in response to her reply, “She said that she can’t afford the insurance.” And while my brain remained engaged on its task, The Neurons took up that line and hooked it up with the “Blood of Eden” lyric, “I cannot get insurance anymore. They don’t take credit, only gold.” That’s just how The Neurons play.
My coffee is at hand. I wasn’t always a coffee drinker. Didn’t start that until around fifth, sixth grade, while visiting a friend’s house. We had the same first name, Michael, although he was a Mike. People habitually said, here’s Michael and Mike, or M and M. Mike used to have coffee with a lot of sugar and cream. I only drank it this way a few times, always at his house. When our compasses took us in different directions, I quit drinking coffee and didn’t resume until I was twenty and in the military. Even then, I was only an occasional imbiber of the black brew, usually on midnight shifts. I became a regular drinker when I went off shifts and became the Training NCO. My boss would come in each morning and say, “Let’s go get coffee.” That’s where the habit really developed for me. That was at Kadena on Okinawa, after I’d been there a few years, so I was twenty-seven. My relationship with coffee blossomed. By the time I reached Germany a few years later, I was identified as a hard-core coffee drinker.
BTW, the coffee was bought at an Army & Air Force Exchange Services cafeteria upstairs from the command post where I worked. It cost ninety cents.
Stay positive and test negative. Take care of your family, community, tribe, and self. Here’s the music. Cheers
Tuesday has summoned you. How will you respond? Will you hide and cower or face power with power?
I don’t know. See me after I’ve had my coffee.
It’s the 23rd of August, 2022 Common Era. Headlines could be ripped from last year, except that the droughts are broader, wider, deeper. Old towns and war machines are being exposed where they were stopped. Electricity output is being cut because there isn’t enough water to run the generators.
Night surrendered today at 6:27 AM but don’t worry, cuz night will return after sunset at 8 PM. See how that works? All part of the Earth’s rotation while it revolves around the sun. I think I learned that in my early science years. A GOP lawmaker thinks it’s a good idea to cut science until after fifth grade. I would’ve still learned it, I think, though we didn’t have the web back then. Imagine what those children will learn, depending on the web. Hell, why stop there? Do children need to know math before fifth grade? Just tell them to ask their phones, right? In fact, do they need such geography gems as where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are? If they live beside them, they already know. Otherwise, why do they need to know that? No, just drop all of those classes until after fifth grade. Sounds like they don’t even need to go to school during that period. Let them stay home and learn from TV, right? Or maybe put them to work. Streets are dirty. Teach them how to use a broom and pick up litter.
Sorry. Early morning snark attack. The news sometimes brings that on. And I haven’t had my coffee, which contains caffeine, a stimulant, something that I learned in SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
Right now, it’s 20 C outside, a perfectly chill temperature under a cloudless blue sky awash in sunshine. Our high will kiss the low 90s — F, not C. Wow, can you imagine if it was 90 C out? You can if you take SCIENCE CLASSES.
Anyway…
Today’s theme selection was brought to me by Pacific Ocean waves. I thought of this song the other day, but The Neurons kept song blocking me, slipping other tunes into the morning mental music stream. The Neurons are quiet today — probably because they haven’t had their coffee yet, right? — so I can select whatever song I want. And I want “Waves” by Mr. Probz from 2014.
Here’s the music. The Neurons are clamoring for coffee, and I must abide. Stay positive, test negative, etc. Take care of yourself. Drop a dime. Keep in touch. Cheers
He walked down the street to a little bakery, bought coffee and brought it back to the vacation house. Climbing the steps to their room to give her coffee in bed, he sang, “Coffee man. Coffee man. He brings you coffee when no one can.”
She giggled like a happy child. “Coffee Man has always been my favorite superhero.”
He enjoyed a long, intimate drink of coffee. The brew — temperature, flavor, highlights, smell — was perfect, encouraging him to drink longer, and then, to close his eyes and indulge in another long drink.
It was a gorgeous cup of coffee, and almost made up for the years of harsh, hot coffee he’d drunk in military facilities around the world at life dark thirty in the morning.
The moment was here: time to write. There was so much to do with storylines, plot points, and character development, his thoughts were like a clowder of kittens chasing one another and wrestling while also playing with a litter of puppies. Organization was required. Discipline. Focus. Direction. Yes, yes, yes. And, yes.
But first, more coffee.
His first brush with his daily coffee was through the nose – smelling the ground roasted beans as they went into the filter, and then sucking in deep breaths of the cup after it was poured, a scent that pleasured the senses.
The door is thrown open, and there it is. Everyone walks in, looking and whispering in awed tones. Friday, revamped and new, was open to the public. Speculation about what to expect from this new Friday had been traveling mouth to ear for months. Now that it was here…well, first, they were excited. Then they were deflated.
Officially, Friday was July 29, 2022. “It’s just like yesterday,” one woman was heard to complain. “Hot and miserable. I waited all week for this?”
Sunrise came after six this morning, 6:01, and sunset will be at 8:34 PM.
I have “Cold As Ice” by Foreigner in the morning mental music stream. This 1977 song is a deliberate choice as I pursue a ‘mind over environment’ angle for handling the day.
Hope your weather is good, and your day’s experience is great. I know with so much going on that those hopes aren’t always achievable, but let’s make the effort to believe and try to improve our lives. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and vax as needed. Coffee? What, it’s 80 F outside right now. What are you waiting for? Pour.
Cheers
My wife and I lived in a small place in this dream. It was outside and had no walls or roof. Nor, I later learned, did it have a private bathroom.
As said, it was small, tiny, really. It was all about the kitchen, dining room, and living room — without walls, which I didn’t think odd at all. Guests arrived, including cousins. Among them was one a few years younger than me who passed away in 2002 from a heart attack. He was there and in good health and I was pleased to see him. I realized that the guests meant that I needed more kitchen space. Of critical concern was that I make a place for them to make coffee and sit and enjoy the coffee — and BTW, Christmas was on the way, according to my guests. Some began putting up colored electric lights and other decorations.
I set up what I thought would suit the guests, a small, squared off space with an elaborate coffee maker on the left, and a sitting area on the right. My deceased cousin complained about it IAW his nature. I deflected his complaints with good nature. His mother arrived and made observations and suggestions. As I began explanations about the arrangements and my logic, I cut myself off. “Wait. You’re right! That would be better.” I commenced making the change.
Finishing, I stepped away from our square, wall-free, roofless, ‘home’. Around us was a park with swing sets, seesaws, and slides in use by screaming, laughing, chattering children. After surveying them, I turned and spotted two huge bears lumbering by. Worrying about the children, I turned to warn them. They’d spotted the bears. Quieting, they’d climbed bleachers and were waiting for the bears to leave. The bears left without incident.
I went to use the restroom. In dreamstyle, I turned and stepped and was upstairs in a white building. This, I knew, was a stick and wood building three stories tall. I was on the third floor in a hall. A square antechamber was on my right. I faced white doors spread out in the hall and antechamber in an odd and haphazard fashion. Black numbers labeled the doors one to five. The bathrooms, I realized. As I went to select number five, I realized there was a sixth and shifted toward it. As I did, a young woman in loose black shirt and pants accosted me, explaining that the rooms were shared and she was scheduled to use one of them to give a massage and a bath to a client. She said, “You need to reserve the room for your use.” As she talked, she crossed to a wall and took a clipboard with a yellow shirt of paper on it. “We use this to reserve the rooms. I suggest you use it as well.”
I countered with another suggestion, which were cards by the doors, which indicated if they were in use or available.
Dream end.
Michael Seidel, writer 