Category: miscellaneous

Burgers and Beer Dream

The dream found my wife and me on vacation at a seaside resort. Throngs of people enjoyed warm and sunny weather as a festival proceeded. Bands played and people sang. Many milled about, going from one spectacle to another.

We broke out of our small luxury place on the main boulevard and proceeded down the seaside promenade where the main events were taken place. Sunshine teased blue wavelets and gulls wheeled above. What struck me dumb was wherever I went, crowds so that I was never bothered by the numbers, never needed to wait in line, and was never stopped unless I wanted to be stopped.

We returned to our room because we needed to dress for dinner. Dinner plans were unsettled but we were meeting others. Our suite had a living room with large windows. Strangers were gathered there, along with an employee, a big bluff, graying hair white guy. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. We conversed about who we are and who we’d been. A dark-haired white woman with red lipstick wearing a dress that matched her lips sat in a blue accent chair listening. He and I ended up talking about cats as I discovered that he had a cat on a leash. I told him about a RL trap, neuter, and spay project I’d participated in during one duty assignment. Then I told everyone that they needed to leave because I needed to shower and change clothes. The woman in red stood up and kissed my cheek, thanking me for helping cats, and then she and everyone else left.

I went into the other room, showered and changed. When I came out, my wife and her sister were sitting on the sofa. They told me that they didn’t want to go out. They didn’t feel like dressing up and were worn out by the day. How ’bout if we called room service and just had burgers and beers with fries in the room. That worked for me.

Dream end.

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The Darkened Grapes Dream

This was a dream with a sharp real feeling, startling me into confusion when I found myself in my bed after awakening.

I received a small brown box in the mail. Opening it were two things. Don’t know what one was but the other was a large bunch of green grapes in a plastic baggy. Receiving those really pleased me as I’d order them. From that, I learned that my wife and I were vacationing and staying a small room and bath in some exotic location. The building was small and meandering and seemed to be constructed of thick clay. My dwelling was painted pink but the one beside it was yellow.

A knock came on the door and then a large American opened it. He explained that they were next door. They didn’t have a bathroom and were told they needed to use ours. Sure, I told him. He and his wife entered. While he used the bathroom, we chatted with the wife about the place, inviting them to go with us as we went around so that they can learn of places we enjoy.

I showed them my grapes in their baggy. Then I opened the baggy. The grapes all immediately blackened and shriveled. I thought they were raisins but feeling them found that they were soft and mushy. I left them alone because I didn’t want to damage them. We left, taking the bunch of darkened grapes with me.

We walked around small shops. Shopkeepers and local people wanted to touch the darkened grapes wherever we went. They seemed in awe of them. We finally arrived at the small restaurant where we wanted to eat. We’d eaten there before, including the previous year. It was at the owner’s behest that I’d ordered the grapes.

I showed him the darkened grapes and told him what happened. Delighted, he asked if he could hold them, which I permitted. Holding them aloft, he explained that those aren’t grapes, and that I was very lucky to have these because they are very rare and special. I asked him to tell me what they were if they weren’t grapes. As he was embarking on his explanation, I awoke.

Sitting up in the bed in the dark, I shifted left and right, looking for him and my grapes.

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A Complimentary Dream

I was working, just finishing a job. I don’t know any details of the work but it’d been administrative, computer stuff. My boss came over and said, “I just want to let you know that you’ve been doing really great work.” I liked, admired, and enjoyed him, so that really pleased me. Afterward, I went out with a few others. When I returned, I presented my boss with a gift of a bottle of red wine, which he happily accepted. Witnessing this, the company head loudly said, “You know, I like wine, too.” He repeated this a few times in a joshing way. We all laughed, and I told him that I got the message.

Leaving again, I entered my car and drove away. This was a car I once owned in RL, a black1993 Mazda RX-7. After driving some street roads, I entered the outskirts of a city where I picked up a friend to give him a ride.

He and I chatted away. Stopping at a traffic light, I looked over at the man in the car beside me. He was looking at me and my car. I immediately knew he was Korean, although I don’t know why that mattered.

Leaning over, he looked in my car’s open window. He complimented the car’s condition and took out a small brown cardboard box. Inside were two small white pieces. (Awakening, the pieces reminded me of the microwave pieces I’d used to fix it.) Saying, “I know these cars, and although yours is in excellent condition, you’ll need these parts to keep it going,” the man reached into the car and put the box into a small alcove in the dash that doesn’t exist in the real car.

The dream’s end found me in my little black RX-7 with my wife and the guy I was giving a ride. Three in that small sports car isn’t a pragmatic expectation but it worked in the dream. We were driving asses to elbows through city traffic under a cloudless sky. I was telling her about the Korean man and the parts he’d given me. Then I said to my wife, “Oh, damn, I forgot my new uniform.”

Dream end.

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Replacement Parts

My microwave went out again in November. Replacement switches were needed for the less than four-year-old microwave. The GE Profile model only cost us a little over $200 back when we bought it. A replacement is affordable but I gnash my teeth over being part of a throwaway world. We could live without a microwave, but I am addicted to its convenience. Yes, shame on me.

The first microwave my wife and I bought in the last century served us well for several years. We gave it to my MIL after we moved because she didn’t have one, and it served her until her death, almost forty years later. To be fair, this GE Profile microwave is the first microwave which ever failed for me. Congratulations, GE! It is shiny, sleek, and pretty, though and matches the other appliances, which appeals to my wife.

Also, buying a replacement is only about half the price. There is then the disposal cost for the old unit, shipping, and the installation cost of the new appliance. I believe I can do an installation but I’m a rookie and would rather have it professionally done.

The parts were ordered in November and received yesterday. Twenty minutes after the parts were in my hands, the machine was up and running anew. There were issues. I ordered the replacement part from RepairClinic. They followed up with a survey request about my experience.

Here it is.

  1. In dealing with you, I found you’re not there on weekends and evenings, only Mon-Fri, with limited hours, a throwback in this 24-7 shopping and shipping world of bots and emails, and surprising for a company selling goods online. Sweetly quaint and old-fashioned.
  2. You sent me the wrong part initially, replacing the microwave door microswitch holder with a muffler. As soon as I picked up that box, I knew it wasn’t the delicate plastic piece which I expected. That first package weighed ten pounds. The switch is less than a quarter of a pound.
  3. I contacted you as soon as wrong part was received, but, alas, Saturday, so no response was received until Monday. Your apology was straightforward with appropriate regret and you immediately ordered the correct part. It was sent out the next day, Tuesday.
  4. The replacement part was received the following Sunday. It was not actually an OEM replacement part. The screw placement holes on the new part were rotated 90 degrees from where they’re required, so the part can be placed and works in that regard, but it can’t be secured with screws. It troubled me that the part was different in that manner. This isn’t my first online replacement part experience. I did due diligence and your site said, yep, this is the part for your machine. It’s not. I used it anyway because of my microwave addiction but I have begun searching for the right part. I suspect that I won’t find it.
  5. Finally, not your fault, but the parts always took three days longer to reach me than announced with your shipping and tracking email. It’s always an amusing aspect of the modern ordering and shipping experience to see the original expected delivery day followed by an update showing it’ll be delivered the next day, and then a second update with a third date. As I wrote, not your fault but it did color my shopping experience with you.

Other than the things noted above, it was a great shopping and shipping experience. Cheers

I’ve marked my calendar and will see how long it is until the next failure.

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The Writing Moment

Waiting to fall asleep, he wrote throughout the night, scribbling in his mind, traversing back and forth over story lines. Now, daylight is here. Time to recall all that he mentally wrote and add it to the manuscript, carving and recurving the previous pieces to make this fit. Daylight has bleached out the night’s confidence that he knew what to do and how to do it.

Even the new book title that arrived as he fell asleep doesn’t seem as perfect as it did then.

But he begins working on it because that’s how it must be.

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A New Beginning Dream

Winds hissed and howled, moaned and whistled last night. Rain splattered against the night world. Our young cat, Papi, wanted out, back in quickly, back out – hey, let’s try the front – and back in, etc. The cat’s demand fractured my sleep. Some time was then spent on writing the end of the novel but sleep finally hit. With it came dreams.

My wife and I were younger looking but in our current life situation, otherwise known as retired people. We were at a new place. Many of the buildings were white and brand new. She and I walked about it like astonished tourists taking in world wonders. News came by spoons, this was a new city. Not huge but neither was it small, its focus was about solving world issues. The mix of ethnicities and sexes impressed me, convincing me that this was a united effort across many races and nations. Engineers, architects, artists, and military members were among the people we met and saw, along with farmers and ranchers, all identified to us by what we saw them doing or what was overheard mentioned. Then came congratulations to me because I was part of this, brought on to help organize it. Well, super, I was flattered as hell but doubtful that I belonged. Insistence that I did was pushed on me by multiple folks. Well, okay, I guess I belong.

Next, we were elsewhere, traveling before going to the new place. Part of that meant I was meeting with others. We met on a stage. They were going to exercise before the formal handoff meeting. Did we want to join?

I did, but my wife didn’t. She wandered off as our impromptu class stretched and warmed up, awaiting our instructor. My stretching astonished me. Balanced on one leg, I raised the other above my head with ease. Wow, was I impressed. I jumped up and down and found I needed to be careful or I would crack my skull on the ceiling. Somewhere within those actions, I decided to change and poof, was changed into form fitting light gray workout clothes with a white headband. The instructor arrived but too much time was passed. My wife arrived, informing me that we had to go on because we were meeting other people in another city.

Zip, we were in the new city at a semi-formal event. Senior military people were there in large numbers. The spouse and I experienced minor confusion about what was going on and why we were in attendance. Servers circulated with trays of drinks. We accepted wine and champagne. Sipping drinks, we milled, meeting others, getting introduced. One young colonel who was a bald black man mentioned the new city in conversation. I responded that we knew about it.

His eyes widened. “You know of it?” When I said yes, he questioned me in an easy manner, confirming that we spoke about the same place and that I really knew about it. I finished by telling him, “We’re going to live there. I’ve been asked to join the staff.”

A smile split his face. “Wow,” he said. “Congratulations.” He thrust his hand at me. I shook it, grinning. As I did, I looked left. A small white model of the new city was on display. My wife stood beside it. I thought, that’s pretty cool. That’s where we’re going, to a new city and a new beginning.

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

Someone asked him, “How are you doing?” “Good,” he answered with enthusiasm.

He didn’t know if his answer was true. He didn’t know how he felt. He thought how he ‘felt’ was a complicated question, and the truth about the answer slid along its own spectrum, shifting by the second, the minute, the day.

‘Good’ was probably a safe if reductive average.

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Monday’s Wandering Thought

He feels like he’s chasing time. Time is like a red laser dot, nominally a pointer, but often used to tease cats, and he’s the cat. He knows he can’t catch the time dot but he can’t stop his nature from trying.

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A String of Short Dreams

My Dad and I were together. Both younger than RL, we were out hanging out, talking and walking by a wide, busy road.

We ended up at string of used car lots. That pushed us into reminiscing about cars which we’d owned, Porsches, Mercedes, Cadillacs, Chevies, Corvettes, BMWs, and so on.

We came across a red C4 Corvette, a series produced in the 1980s and 90s. The car was on display, hood and doors open. Dad had a blue one of those, so he chatted about it. Somehow, he talked himself into buying it for my older sister, Debby, because he thought she would like it. Well, it was a car and a Vette, and in excellent condition, so she probably would, I agreed, though I didn’t think it a car she’d buy for herself, a grandmother with three children and seven grandchildren.

I met with Debby later and asked if she liked her car. She didn’t know what I was talking about. Thinking that I might be spilling a surprise, I tried not saying anything but finally confessed that I’d been with Dad when he bought her a red Corvette. Then I gave her giving some details about the car. She laughed as I spoke, asking, “A Corvette? Why did he do that?”

I told her, “I don’t know. It was a whim. He thought you’d like it.”

She just laughed.

Dream end.

The next dream found me in a house. The large and luxurious house was mine but not from my RL existence. My wife and I, younger than RL, were home when the power went out. I went downstairs to the garage to check the circuit breakers. As I entered the garage, the power came back on, so I went back up. Then I thought I heard a noise from the garage and went back downstairs. I found some doors open. At that point, the power went off again, but I heard the circuit breakers being thrown. Someone is messing with me, I decided, and called the police.

The police immediately arrived. Angry at that point, I told them what transpired and they looked around. Nothing was found and they left. I then installed an alarm. It immediately went off. I didn’t know if I’d installed it wrong or it was due to an intruder, so I went into the garage to investigate. Someone ran out through the back door when I walked in. I ran over but it was night, they were in black, and I couldn’t see them. Cursing them and muttering about security, I closed and locked the door.

A third dream found me worrying about cats. Outside, in a patchy lawn by an old house, I’d see a kitten and then go try to find it. Most were tabbies but there was also one black kitten. Sometimes I saw them and chased them around. Frustration and irritation joining hands and skipping through me, I said, “Screw this, I give up.” With that, I sat down on a block of white cement. I’d tried, I told myself.

As I sat there, the kittens emerged. Coming to me, they climbed my legs and settled in my lap. Then they looked up and meowed at me, which is where the dream terminated.

The final remembered dream had me at a relative’s house. They were people I didn’t know but some of my family was there. I was a young man in my early twenties, home on leave from the military.

More relatives who I didn’t know arrived. I went downstairs into a small family room. Newcomers followed me down. Male and female, they ranged in ages from around five to seventeen. I don’t know how many were there. Intensely curious about me, they peppered me with questions. Trying to distract and entertain them, I suggested we listen to music. I then showed them a stereo system. I told them, “This is my old system. I replaced it so I brought it here and installed it so that they could use it.” It was the actual system which I now own.

I played a song from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album, “Wish You Were Here”. The oldest male told me that they also had a stereo system there and showed it to me, located exactly opposite mine, and I hadn’t seen it. He then played an AC/DC song, “Highway to Hell”. As this played and we talked about music, I realized that there were four stereo systems in the room, which I thought was funny and amusing.

They were still asking me questions, like they were interviewing me. I sprawled out on a sofa and answered. One of the young girls asked if she could lay on me, then did so without me answering. I was uncomfortable with this, shifting my body away from her. She put her head on my chest and said, “I can hear your heartbeat.”

The dream ended.

Overall, it was a busy night of dreams.

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