The Overlooked Dream
A dream found me returning from a trip. As I arrived, I was informed that the performance reviews for a subordinate hadn’t been done for two years. His contract was for two years, and he’d been there for four, so he was threatening to leave, because he had not had a review.
I was pissed and stunned. That’s so unlike me, for one. I immediately started phoning the guy and looking for him while concurrently stalking the bureaucracy to find out why this oversight had taken place. I should have received notices that they were due if I’d somehow overlooked them, right? The company was uninterested in that; they just wanted it fixed.
The subordinate’s shop, a small brick and glass cubicle, was closed, with only night lines on inside. Meanwhile, in parallel, I’d been practicing my baseball for a big game. The news spread through the crowd that we’d won, 2-0, on a last inning home run. I believed that I might have been the one who hit the home run, although the logic behind my dream me completely escapes RL me. Highlights were being shown on television. I watched again and again. Was I the baserunner? No. Was I the one who hit a homer? No. Well, then, who was I? How was I involved? How was this possible.
Wait, wait, wait: dream self realized: I must not have been put into the game.
Big sadness then. But there was not time for that as I was still trying to fix the problem with the subordinate. Management, though, brought me forward to work on other problems, to help other departments and their heads. While I did those, no questions asked, I kept circling back to my issue. But night was coming on. More people were circulating through the crowded open-air work environment. I ended up lost in the crowd.
Dream end.
Finding A Way
I just finished reading Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson. It’s a novel worth the time to read, but it will consume some days. Dealing with the geopolitics and technology associated with climate change, especially the trifecta of increasing heat, rising oceans and seas, and increasingly violent and larger storms, Stephenson puts the details to work in the novel right from the beginning: a small jet can’t land in its destination of Houston because high temperatures bring on thinner air. There’s not enough lift to sustain the small jet.
Two other interesting aspects struck me in this huge book. One was a story related to London’s mayor and the 1953 flood. After the flood, engineers came up with a solution but were stopped from implementing any changes for twenty years as political infighting took over. By the time the solution was accepted and a consensus achieved to build it, the solution was already overcome by new problems because these things — climate change, rising waters, etc. — are not static, friends.
The second intriguing, amusing, and probably prescient aspect regarded how Americans responded to rising waters and more flooding: they raised their houses and began building them on stilts. That caused a boom in the house-raising/stilt industry. And sure, you can see that, right? People in their houses on stilts, looking out windows, safe, but surrounded by water. It’s one, the sort of approach people will take, adopting a limited, short-term idea that addresses only their personal issues. Two, it’s the sort of business idea that others will eagerly seize and press, making money while they can. Greed, you know.
That second point reminds me of anti-vaxxers and COVID-19. (BTW, the world has endured several more COVID pandemics between 19 and the book’s period.) They don’t trust the government; don’t trust the vax; don’t trust the medicines. Yet, that’s where most rush to be saved while their loved ones look on and damn the government for not doing more.
Meanwhile, wealthy people in the novel, like the billionaire character, raised his Tudor-style mansion and guest houses and outbuildings, and built a mesa out of clay, high above the flood waters, so they can keep living a safe, comfortable life.
Anyway, the book offers deep ideas on the world’s vectors from where we are to where we might be. It will make you think, or at least caused that in me. Cheers
Floofthrob
Floofthrob (floofinition) – An animal renowned for its attractiveness.
In use: “Whenever, wherever, someone saw Silver, her striking blue eyes and beautiful fur caused everyone to stop, stare, and exclaim over the floofthrob’s beauty.”
Revolflooftion
Revolflooftion (floofinition) – 1. The course of an animal following a regular pattern.
In use: “Whenever he went into his fenced backyard, Spunky completed several revolflooftions of the grounds, sniffing out the news about visitors and guests.”
2. A sudden, complete, radical change in how an animal behaves or eats.
In use: “After being a stoic monk for the first three days, the little rescued foster went through a revolflooftion, becoming a small food vacuum that needed replenished every three hours.”
3. An animal’s takeover of a household or group of animals, regardless of species.
In use: “Within a week of her arrival, Bonnie — now known as Queen B — had staged a revolflooftion and ruled the other animals with a velvet paw.”
Making Sense
We received the official report about what happened to our friend, who was killed last month.
Mike was at the Senior Center, loading supplies into the back of his Subaru for his Food & Friends delivery route when the accident took place. First stories had us believing that a young man in a large pickup came blasting down the short, narrow road. Mike’s car was not touched at all, so that story baffled us. Next, we heard that a senior male was driving down the road, saw Mike, meant to step on the brake but instead pressed the gas. That was closer to the truth.
The whole story was that a senior man was backing up his truck to pick up his Food & Friends supplies. He’d gone up on the curb and pulled forward to try again. Intent on staying off the curb, he didn’t see Mike until the last minute. When he did, he panicked and pressed the gas instead of the brake, trapping Mike between the two vehicles’ rear bumpers.
Mike’s legs were crushed, his femoral arteries and veins severed. He bled out in less than a minute. Even though we now have all the facts, we still struggle to make sense of his death.
