A Shoe Dream with Alvin

I walked along a sandy path to get shoes. I had shoes on and was fully dressed in pants and a shirt. When I was walking, I discovered blue booties, like something worn at a crime scene. I put them on over my shoes, and then continued on to get shoes. This made total sense to me, that I had shoes but needed a different pair. When I got to the location, a window on the side of a light blue building with a glass front door, I was told that my shoes weren’t ready and that I needed to return a little later. I walked back to where I’d started but took of my blue booties. I’d been thinking about them and decided that they weren’t needed.

I encountered a woman after taking off my booties. With dark, curly hair, she reminded me of one of my younger sisters. She saw the booties in my hand so we chatted about the booties. She told me that she wears hers in her shoes, over her socks. I replied, my shoes wouldn’t fit it I wore the booties like that. Then I wondered about the booties’ purpose and whether I needed them at all.

I went back and got my next pair of shoes, which were military jump boots, all black and shiny. I was baffled about why I had them and why I thought I needed them. Setting them aside, I began looking for Alvin. Alvin was the man who was gave me my shoes. I’d seen him, a tall white man with short, dark hair. I told other that I encountered that I was going to play a joke on Alvin. They asked me who Alvin was. When I explained, they replied, “Oh, that’s Mister Simon.” I asked why they called him that and they said, “That’s his name.” I repeated the whole name, Alvin Simon, and wondered if we had part of it wrong.

That’s where it ended.

As an aside, a scene in a movie triggered recall of a dream where bees were flying in front of my face, teaching me by sending me information telepathically.

Sunday’s Theme Music

“Here comes the rain again, falling on my head like a memory.”

If today is Sunday, this must be December 12, 2021. The temperature is standing by 41 degrees F, right between the day’s respective highs and lows of 37 and 45. Sunshine grayed by heavy clouds slithered in at 7:30 AM. Sunset will be at 4:39 PM. Yes, it’s raining again, which we welcome. Snow is hopefully falling in the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas. We need that snow for the snowpack to build up so we can endure the summer. It’s our water source. One hundred inches of snow are projected in some higher mountain elevations, so there’s a chance we’ll get a respectable start on the snowpack.

It seems like a good library day. I have two books on hold — Harlem Shuffle and Fortune Favors the Dead — and I’m returning three — Find You First, Crossroads, and War of the Wolf. I admit that I didn’t finish Crossroads. Its style is just too busy and involved for me at this time, too contrary to what I’m writing. I’ve learned that a balance between what I’m writing and reading is best for progress.

I’ve had several resident songs in the morning mental music stream. Most were about rain or dreams. But one dream portion featured an old friend. He and I were stationed together at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa for four years. We were almost best friends while there, certainly constant companions, arriving and departing at the same time, and yet, we have never seen or spoken to one another since. He went to Omaha, Nebraska, and I went to South Carolina.

Music was one of the things that brought us together. We shared musical tastes. One song that was out at the time was “Come on, Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners (1982). It was an unusual song in many ways, but the song’s lyrics reminded my buddy of trying to pick up girls when he was in a local rock band in high school. Their band wasn’t very good and then he was drafted, and off to the war in southeast Asia.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when you can. Here’s the music but I can’t find my coffee. It seems it’s wandered away again. Cheers

Four Dreams

I awoke between these dreams and thought about them before returning to sleep. Probably remember them because it was slumber interruptus brought on by a nameless ginger boy (Papi – yeah, I named him) who, suffering from rainditis, wanted in and out of the house from four to seven AM.

The first dream was very sexy and erotic. I met several people at a bar, including a short woman with dark, short hair. She was wearing a purple shirt. I complimented her on it. When we began talking, we had an immediate connection. She revealed she was a schoolteacher. Eventually, while having drinks, we moved away from the others, and she proposed that we go have sex. I declined, explaining that I was married. She kept making suggestive remarks, touching me, stroking my face and arm, promising me that she’d be discreet, and no one would ever know. We kissed. I told her that was a mistake and left. I found my wife, who was out shopping. The woman walked by. She was with another man. My wife remarked that she looked familiar. I began telling her, I want you to know that she and I kissed. But my wife interrupted me while I was speaking, and I didn’t finish the confession. She continued shopping. The dream ended and I awoke. I thought about the dream, fell asleep, and began dreaming again.

I was in an art class in the second dream. I was the only student. The teacher was a young woman. Her shoulder-length black hair was glossy but then, watching her, I realized that the right half of her hair was dyed dark blue. Her hair curved up, becoming feathery. A white woman, she was wearing a purple top.

She was administering a test to me. I finished it very quickly. When she saw that I was finished, she came around to grade it. I told her that I probably hadn’t done very well, maybe a seventy or eighty, because I was preoccupied with trying to understand a dream that I’d had. I then woke up.

For the third dream, I was in a large farmhouse with many people. I knew some but many were strangers. Most were families staying there like me, temporarily, but it was a place where I used to live. In this dream, I was thinking about the first dream that I’d had and what it meant. Trying to find some privacy to think, I went into a bedroom. It turned out to be a suite and some other people were staying there. I started apologizing, only to realize that no one was in there except a black dog. I went back into the main part and began walking around, still thinking about the dream. Another guest asked me what was wrong. I didn’t want to tell about the dream, so I told her that I was having problems with a project. I’d created a film that was part stop-action, part live-action, and part art. I then started trying to explain this more, bringing out a video player and playing the work on a screen, and complaining that I couldn’t get it to work right. She thought it was a technical issue and contacted a woman to come and help. She said this was a technical expert who could fix anything. The expert turned out to be a short, stocky, dark-haired young woman. I explained my problem and she began working on it. We were interrupted when others came in with food. I awoke.

In the fourth dream, I was walking, wandering a city, trying to understand the first dream. The city was unusual, one with a series of elevated sidewalks connecting buildings. The sidewalks were high above railroad tracks, streets, and highways. The arrangement reminded me of M.C. Escher paintings. The walks were sometimes no wider than a steel girder, although the walks were always made of white concrete. I was walking randomly along them, often making ninety degree turns, with no idea where I was going, but not caring.

When I made one turn, I ended up walking into a crowd of girls. They were by a doorway. I veered around them to continue but realized that I was entering a private residence. Stopping, I said, “Oh my God, what am I doing? This isn’t my house. I have no right to enter.” The girls — probably five or six in number, all teenagers, and wearing shades of purple — were mostly indifferent or irritated by my presence, but one laughed about what I’d done and commiserated with my situation. She asked if I wanted something to eat. I replied, “No, but I’ll take a milkshake if there are any.” She gave me a vanilla shake. I drank it down, really enjoying it, then left.

I ended up at a small food stand in a large hall being run by a short, elderly man with a bushy black and gray mustache. Nothing else was there. Although I had consumed a milk shake earlier, I ordered a milkshake and a cheeseburger. He said, “These are really popular.” He handed me a shot glass and a small plate with a silver-dollar sized burger on it. I handed him a twenty and gazed at what he’d presented me. He returned two dollars in change, which I gave him as a tip, even as I thought, that’s a lot of money for this tiny meal.

Then I recalled reading about this milkshake and burger, that they’re supposed to be energy boosters that also elevated your thinking and intelligence. I downed the milkshake and swallowed the burger in one bite – it was that small. I discovered that I was at a theater; the burger and shake had cost so much because it included a theater ticket. I went in.

The stage was in the center of several elevated levels. I went up to the highest to find a seat. White tables and chairs lined the levels, which had a thin, metal handrail. The tables were occupied. I found one where an old friend was sitting with several empty chairs. I asked if I could sit there but he said, “No, I’m saving those for other people.” I sat with a laugh, telling him that I’d move when they came, which upset him.

A young woman passed. She was speaking with her mother. I noticed that she wore purple. She said that some old guy had interrupted their study session when he’d tried walking into her friend’s house. I realized that she was speaking about me and tried to eavesdrop. My old friend began talking, though, telling me that he was worried about his son. The OF looked the same as when I last saw him, almost forty years ago. He was telling me that his son was having problems, that he thought he might be suicidal. I listened, trying to offer supportive words. The OF invited me to go have something to eat with him. I accepted although I wasn’t hungry, because I’d just eaten. We went down to a restaurant. I ordered a milkshake.

The dream ended.

Friday’s Theme Music

Hi, Friheads. It’s 31 degrees F on this sunny Friday morning. Today’s date is December 10, 2021. The high will be 36 F. The burst of gold we call sunrise struck at 7:28 AM and the sun parade will cease at 4:39 this afternoon.

We’re calling it sunny but a flotilla of long, sketchy clouds are cruising the altitudes, pulling a foggy net behind them. Then the sun fires beams at the fog and zips it away. Looks like the weather might be variable today.

I don’t know why, but REO Speedwagon’s 1980 song, “Keep On Loving You”, inhabits the morning mental music stream. Bit mellow for this Friday AM. I was thinking that I needed something with a hard beat to stir my feet. I reflected on the lyrics for a while, looking for a connection. It came out just before our move to Okinawa on military assignment. I listened to the song quite a bit on the rock but I can’t connect dots between now and then. Something with the dreams? Can’t address that. Only remember two and half dreams from last night. Nothing in them relates to the song. Cats? Doesn’t seem to be. They’ve headed outside, into the sunshine, despite the cold air temp. Wife? Perhaps something on the subconscious level is there. Or maybe it’s a response to life. Feeling a little down and weary this AM. It’s a monthly thing, where the effort and tedium just sucks the joy out down to the dregs. Life dregs are like coffee dregs: cold, black, and bitter.

Well, stay positive! (Ha, ha.) Test negative, wear a mask as needed — have you been following the Omicron developments? — and get the jabs when you can. Reading this morning that Omicron might cause the pandemic of the vaxxed, and they’re suggesting that everyone needs a boost. Got boost? I do. Hope you do as well.

Here’s my coffee. Oh, sorry, you’re looking for the music. Here’s the music. Have a better one. Cheers

A Time Dream

First, one dream ended. All I remember of it was that Glenn Greenwald was mentioned. Then I discussed someone’s book. No details from that remain with me. In the end, I was trying to explain what I meant but couldn’t think of a specific word. I tried writing it on a white board and wrote in lower case letters in red, ‘threat’. Standing back, I said, “That’s not what I meant to write.”

But a new dreamisode began. I was studying with others. We were a small class, five, learning in an old farmhouse. The other students and I were talking and joking when we were supposed to be studying. I picked up the book to try again. The subject was macroeconomics and my interest in learning it was low.

The teacher, a young, short white man with a black beard, entered and asked if we were ready for our exam. Other students who were younger than us approached our farmhouse. My class watched them out the window. We discovered they’d taken the same course and had already finished the exam. Not only that, but they were ahead of us on lessons.

My classmates and I were dismayed. We were expected to read several chapters, amounting to hundreds of pages, in a few days and then pass an exam on it? I laughed. “I need more time,” I said to the instructor.

“How much time?” he asked.

I laughed again. “A few years.”

Dream end.

The Pigeon Dream

It was a dystopian setting. My wife and I were in a small gray econobox, trying to make our way home. Torrential rains reduced the area to a muddy swamp. Mudslides were prevalent. Confusion ruled and more rain was coming. How to get home, where do we go? These were the things we were addressing to one another when a pigeon appeared.

I don’t recall the exact details but we concluded that this pigeon was trying to tell us how to get home. We got the pigeon into our car, along with our cat, the ginger boy, Papi. I started driving. Every now and then, my wife would tell me that the pigeon is telling us to go a certain way, or I’d look at the pigeon and say, “Look, he’s telling us to go that way.”

We reached our home parking lot. Large vehicles blocked the way. Backing, pulling forward, wrenching the steering left and right, I managed to get around them and safely to our garage. We then all went into the house with our belongings, the cat, and the pigeon. We talked about the pigeon saving us. We didn’t think we’d made it without the pigeon. My wife went to feed the pigeon when it attacked her.

She tried fighting it off and couldn’t. I chased the pigeon away. My wife was shouting, “Get rid of it, get rid of it.” Papi the ginger cat went after the pigeon. I didn’t want the cat to get the pigeon.

The cat had chased the pigeon to the front door. While I didn’t want the cat to go out, I wanted the pigeon out. I partially opened the door but as the pigeon beat its wings and pecked at the cat and the cat tried getting the bird, the door closed. Then, someone, the pigeon hooked the door’s edge with its beak and pulled the door open. I caught the cat, the pigeon escaped, and I closed the door.

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mornin’, fellow fogheads. If you’re in my valley, you’re probably a foghead, that is one walking in fog. For it is Thursday, December 2, 2021, and it’s a languid foggy AM. Sunshine is trying to breach the fog wall. It did successfully do so in yesterday’s mid-afternoon. Kind of entrancing right now, with glimmers of sunlight eking through the fog’s western perimeter, above the pine and fir clad mountainside, and a train whistle blowing as a locomotive and its cargo stops traffic on its way north. Temperatures are rolling up through the low forties right now on their way to an expected high in the mid-fifties. All this stagnant, foggy air is expected to last until next week when a new Pacific storm slides in. These temperatures are higher than average, piling more worries up about the mountain snowpacks that feed our water supply throughout the year. Sunrise was at 7:21 AM. Sunset will occur at 4:40 PM. However, we’re in the mountains’ shadow, so it feels like the sun pulls down the night on us earlier than that.

Dreams are also foggy and, prosaic of what I remember of them. All that improbably leads to Boston playing “Peace of Mind” from 1977. I always like those lyrics that demand, “Take a look ahead,” followed by exhortations, “Look ahead,” repeated a few times. Regardless of my frequency of posting about the past or sharing memories, I’m a person who prefers to look ahead. It’s a good theme song as we begin closing down 2021 and start prepping for 2022.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you’re able. Carpe diem. I’ll start by carpe coffee. Here’s the music. It’s an interesting video of Boston doing the song live in 1979. RIFP, Brad Delp, who committed suicide in 2007, when he was 56. That’s home on vocals, giving his all.

Cheers

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Sunshine glittered off the trees and cracked through the windows at 7:19 AM on this November 30, 2021 morning. Two hours later, fog stole the light and cast shadows across hopes for a bright, sunny day. The temperature was 51 F; now it’s 45. The expected high is 62 so we’re expecting change to come.

Hello, fellow Earthfarers. Today is Tuesday, the final day of the eleventh month of the year. 2021 is drawing down. Yet, it will all go on with a new set of numbers and labels. Same day, different year.

I have Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” from 1980 occupying the morning mental music stream. This is directly dream related. As I noodled through recalling my dreams, one about change stood out. From that, I came to think of this song. I remember hearing it for the first while I was at home listening to an offbeat FM rock station in San Antonio, TX. That station played many tunes that didn’t find regular airplay on other stations. The song resonated with me, although I, a white male in America, have always had it pretty good. I looked up the lyrics later.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get some jabs. Here’s the song, a reflective tune for a fog-swathed morning. Wait…is that sunshine?

Not holding my breath. Just sipping my coffee. Cheers

The “I can” Dream

Had another parade of dreams. As I’m in buoyant spirits and have a busy day on top, not going into much except for one piece of one segment.

I was high on a rolling green hill. Clouds marred a perfect blue sky but the clouds also dropped a dash of nostalgia into the moment, as it reminded me of being a young boy in Pittsburgh, PA, in the 1960s. I was an adult in this dream, though, but not the adult I am now. I was somewhere south of my current age, but north of being a man. But I was young, slender, strong.

Standing on a hill, I began chanting and clapping, laughing as I did.

I can, you can, I can, we can.”

As I did this, others joined me. Of about my dream up, they climbed the hill, laughing, chanting, and clapping.

As it went, perspective changed, lifting to enable me to see myself in a crowd of people on a hillside chanting together.

Dream end.

A Blue Dream

To begin, I was in bed with another man. We’d been sleeping. Both of us were in our undershorts and nothing else. We were young and muscular. He was a little bigger than me. I went to get out of bed but he grabbed me and pulled me back. We began wrestling, with him trying to pin me down. I pushed him up and away while saying, “I’m stronger than I look. It’s time you learn that.”

I leaped out of bed and dashed into the dining room. A large square table was full of people already enjoying breakfast and chatting. My wife was seated at one corner so I went there. Something was on the floor. I bent and picked it up: her Fitbit with its silver mesh band. Beside it was something black: the Fitbit charger. I was annoyed to have to be picking up after her. Getting her attention, I said, “Were you doing something?”

“Yes.” She took the two items. “I was charging my Fitbit. I forgot. Thank you.”

Realizing that I was only in my undershorts — blue bikini briefs — I sprinted back to the bedroom to dress. This wasn’t the same room where I’d been sleeping, but the master bedroom, where my baggage and clothing were. Three young men were in there making the bed. The duvet was a deep blue and the bedroom suite was a beautiful dark wood set. China blue carpeting was on the floor.

One young man came to me and said, “We have bad news for you. We’re going to move this furniture out of here. It’s too beautiful to be in here. It needs to be put somewhere where it can be protected.”

I laughed. “It’s fine where it is, it’s safe.”

The man said, “No, it needs to be moved. It’s barely used and it’s going to get damaged.”

I answered, “It’s used more than you think. If you want something to do, there’s a place where you can go.” I leaned down and pointed out a window. “Oh, you can’t see it, but there’s a little amusement park down there. Oh, wait.” I remembered then that it had closed.

My wife came in. I told her that the young men wanted to move the bedroom furniture to protect it. They didn’t think it was being used. “It’s been used at least ten times this year,” I finished.

“Oh, more than that,” my wife answered.

I said, “Do you remember when your mother brought this bright blue duvet? That was so out of character for her. I was just telling these guys about the little amusement park over there but I remembered that it’s closed now.”

She said, “It’s not closed.”

“Yes, it is. Remember, it changed hands.”

“It went to the Fishers but it’s open.”

“It went to them but they closed it.”

She stuck her hand out. “Bet.”

I ignored her hand. We went outside, toward the mail box. Others came up. My wife got into a conversation. While they were talking, I looked down at my left leg and noticed there was a large pale C on my calf. I thought there had been something wrong with it. Bending down, I rubbed it and the C went away. I discovered that it’d just been something traced in dust on my laugh. I chuckled about that, pleased with the discovery.

Dream end.

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