The Friends Dream

This is not about the television series. This dream was about Mary & Bruce, names given to them for this dream. May worked for me. I met Bruce through others. He and I became good friends. He and Mary married.

Bruce has died in the dream. I just found out about it. He’s such a wonderful person, I’m completely shocked by his passing.

Mary has become a VIP. I want to see her to learn about Bruce’s death. In parallel, I’m told by another that Mary got him a good deal on a Jeep. I decide that I’d like to try to get a good deal when I see Mary to learn about Bruce’s death.

I call her office. There’s a little verbal altercation between me and her assistant. They don’t know who I am. Mary is a VIP with a heavy schedule. I’d like to see her. Mary comes on the line and tells me, “Of course I’ll see you, Sergeant Seidel,” just like we’re still in the service and she’s working for me. “I’ll make time.”

I go to her via a traveling montage. Arriving, I learn that Mary is struggling to get some photographs developed. I look for and find the photographs. They’re of her and Bruce and their children while on vacation. There’s also some photographs of symbols on walls. I understand that photographing them is forbidden. This is why the photos aren’t developing right. But I still believe I can fix them.

Mary and I met and walk along outside. She’s lovely as ever. Yes, she can get me a car discount, she tells me. We don’t really talk about Bruce’s death, just that he abruptly passed away. She misses him but she’s okay.

She has to return to work. I walk with her. We come across a man. He’s a VP who works for Mary. He’s tried to develop the photographs and couldn’t do it. I tell Mary that I want to try. She agrees. Tells me to take the photographs and see what I can do, but she wants them back. I agree. I’m wearing a leather jacket and slip them inside. Then I get on a motorcyle and ride away.

Dream end.

Refreshing Change of Dreams

Two other men and I were going on trips. Dressed in business suits with ties, we traveled to the airport in a limo. One would be going on with me while the third was going elsewhere.

We arrived, checked in, and was informed, “You’ve been upgraded to first class.”

Well, that was certainly a pleasant surprise. My friends and I inquired why. The agent didn’t know, so we travelers accepted the news and celebrated.

Then, I was notified that I’d won ten million dollars in a lottery.

Ten million! Wow. Well, it’d be less than that after taxes. Still, there was cause for celebration, right?

I didn’t remember entering a lottery. No matter. I made immediate arrangements to feed some children I’d read about. The man doing the paperwork with me was very snarky about it. I was cold and snarky back.

Then it was onto the plane. As I settled into my ultra-plush first-class seat, I dwelled in fantasies about what changes I could make to my life.

Dream end.

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mother, May I? Yes, you may.

Yes, it’s May 1, 2021, a Saturday, for official transcripts. 2021’s fifth month has leaped onto our backs, the preceding four months going by on express rails. Sunanigins began in Ashland at 0607 and will cease at 2010.

We were over on Oregon’s coast, admiring the Pacific Ocean, for the last several days. An enchanting host, the Pacific gurgled with bright sunshine and flirted with fog. I love hearing the waves booming over the rocks with great explosive thuds that send shivers through the earth. Amazing.

Back in Ashland, the weather service claims the the days have been sunny and in the eighties in Ashland. If so, the weather slipped us a change up. April showers are falling, though it’s May. I’m for it; give us more rain, please. We’ve already had reports of wildfires. Fire services scrambled and put them all out, but it does give the day an edge to read about this.

Musically, I’m humming the song, “Down Down” by Status Quo (1974). It’s a rockin’ song. Driven by that line, “You’ll be back to find your way, again, again, again, again” (don’t know how many times they say again there), I was thinking, okay, back to writing. You took three days off. Need to get back to it. That’s sort of a party trick for writers, to find your way back, again, again, again, again, etc. That’s why the song occupies my mind space this morning.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. That is all.

Friday’s Theme Music

Good afternoon. Today is Friday, 4/30/2021, the final day for April, 2021, in this reality. Your reality may vary. Today finds the sun clearing the horizon at 6:08 AM and hiding behind the other side at 8:09 PM, giving us a full fourteen hours of sunshine in southern Oregon.

Pacific Ocean sunrise, Gold Beach, Oregon, April 20, 2021

It’s a late entry. We’ve been ‘over’ on the Oregon coast. To reach it, we drive west across southwestern Oregon, dip south into some twisty motorways in northern California, and return north into Oregon, passing over mountains and through a Redwood forest.

We enjoyed a pleasant stay, in a hotel, our first overnight outing since the pandemic struck the U.S. hard in March, 2020. An entertaining interlude to the normal elasticity of our lives, it did find me thinking about changes as I walked the beach and discussed life with the crashing surf. Said thoughts prompted recall of a 1985 Foreigner song, “That Was Yesterday”.

That was yesterday
But today life goes on
No more hiding in yesterday
Because yesterday’s gone

h/t to Genius.com

Yes, life has gone on, but it still sometimes feels like it’s a surprise. It brings up thoughts of another song, “Where Have All the Good Times Gone”, by the Kinks. But I’ll stay with the more theatrical Foreigner tune, because it was the one that came up on the beach.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get that vax. Cheers

A Dream of Needs and Waiting

I dreamed I was with a gaggle of people, all clothed, all my age. Mixed races were represented. Males, females, and different sexual orientations were in evidence. We were outside, awaiting movement to somewhere. We were all in our twenties.

A doctor examined me and pronounced me healthy. That cheered me. I felt ready for my trip. It seemed like I’d been planning it for a long time. At last the day was here. I was in good spirits.

Little organization was evidenced. We were just a group waiting, though. How much organization is needed? You ate when desired, or took a bathroom break, if needed. Though we were outside, everything was available.

Then, during a pee break, I discovered blood in my urine. Upset, I went to the doctor and reported it. He immediately examined me and pronounced me healthy. Reassured, I returned to the queuing area and visited with others, chatting about where we were going. None of us were sure about the destiny or what we would find, but we were all sure that it was going to be better than where we’d been.

I took another pee break. More blood in my urine. Upset, I reported in for medical care. The doctor wasn’t in, I was told, but would be there soon. Go back and wait. I’ll be called when the doctor arrived.

I returned to the waiting area. Preoccupied with my medical problem and morose, I sat away from the rest. Time wore on. We became restless, wondering, what’s the hold up? Weren’t we supposed to be gone by now? As we waited, I heard another woman, Michelle, go up and ask for medical treatment for blood in her urine. I didn’t say anything to her but I was interested in her details. They told her that a doctor would be with her soon. She went back and spoke with her friends, all women. I edged closer but couldn’t hear their conversation.

Doctors came in. One was the American actor, Steven Weber. I thought, at last, treatment. But now, general info was made. There was a delay, etc. Be patient. We’ll be with you shortly.

Why couldn’t they just treat us now, I wondered. Tired of waiting, most people drifted away. I stayed where I was. They came in, calling for Michelle. I volunteered that she’d gone elsewhere. They didn’t seem to hear me so I repeated myself. They still didn’t seem to hear or notice me. Admin people talked among themselves. They needed to find Michelle because she had a medical problem. It might get worse. I have the same problem, I said. They told me to wait, a doctor will be with me soon.

The doctors had left while this was happening. Only I remained of the original group. I didn’t know where they’d gone. I was now in a building’s shade. People came down. One was a young boy. He had two fluffy ginger and white cats. One was a kitten. He kept telling everyone that his cat needed medical care. Others tried telling him to relax and calm down, care was coming, but he was adamant, he needed care for his cat right now.

I learned his name was Michael, which was my name. Another child with two cats, calicos, adult and kitten, came into the scene. This child was younger, perhaps six. He walked around telling everyone that his cats were going to pay his bills. The cat wanted to. He did it online. I thought the kid was a little disconnected from reality.

A woman in a black sweater and skirt came by. She was white, with short black hair. I realized as I watched her that it was Heather Graham, the actress. She poured a small cup of water with ice and lime in it and walked around. As she came by me, I thought she was going to throw it on me. I told her not to do that. She answered, “No, you look thirsty. I thought you needed a drink of water.”

The dream ended.

Airport & Parking Dream

Airports are another frequent feature in my dreams. I was in one again last night.

It was a lengthy dream. First, there was going to the airport. I was with my wife at that point and we just walked into the airport. Modern and friendly, the airport was as busy and hectic as a children’s playground. I met with a friend who sold us tickets. Business was slow, so he was also fishing and selling his catch. We laughed about that. Most interesting was that his fishing lines rose into the sky like he was controlling kites. We didn’t think anything of it.

After buying the tickets, I had time and busied myself shopping, eating, and walking around, classic time killing, airport style. While doing this, I saw a wonderful orb spider web. It was perfect. Just as I was about to comment on it, a woman ahead of me turned to it. Dressed in a red dress with red shoes and hat, this thin blonde woman walked into the spider web. As she did, I told her, “You’re walking into a spider web.”

She freaked when the web came across her face, and fell backwards. I was expecting that and easily caught her shoulders and kept her upright. While she expressed thanks, I helped her collect her purse, hat, and shoes. Yes, she’d lost her shoes. She joked, “I was scared right out of my shoes.” After helping her, I checked the spider web. It remained intact, which pleased me.

I encountered several friends. One was looking for me. She needed help with her math work for her college class. She showed me the problem. Hugely involved, it was supposed to be a formula for setting an item’s price. She was asking, “What should I do first?” I tried explaining math’s order of operations. She didn’t understand. Borrowing her textbook, I hunted for items in the book to help her, and then worked on the problem myself.

It took more time than I expected, and I didn’t solve it. Now I was two hours late and needed to rush. Going through the airport, I saw my friend again. Others near me wondered aloud what his lines were for. I explained to them that business was bad so he was augmenting his income by catching and selling fish. They didn’t believe me so I took them to him and verified it.

Then, really, I needed to go because I was late. But I couldn’t recall where I’d parked my car. Then, thinking I knew where I’d parked my car, I needed to figure a way to get there because it was far. I learned a shuttle was available to reach it. I purchased a ticket for the shuttle. It showed up after a few minutes. I put my things in the trunk and rode with the rest. At the other end, I got off, collected my stuff, and looked around. I knew right off that this wasn’t where my car was parked. I went to the man and told him. He said I needed to take a second shuttle from there, and to put my stuff back into the trunk. When I went to do so, that car had left without me. I was surprised and a little upset but immediately started working on another plan to reach my car. Looking around, I started figuring out where I was and then decided I could walk to my car.

That’s where the dream ended.

A Loaded Dream

This dream held so many elements. They happened in parallel but I broke them out to think about each nugget.

  1. I was preparing to travel and return home. I was visiting Mom and other my sisters in the east. Throughout, I was trying to determine what time I needed to leave. I was driving and flying. As I thought about when I was leaving, I thought in terms of minutes and had a stack of dimes. Each dime represented one minute. Did I have enough dimes? Stacking them, I had more than enough.
  2. My youngest sister (often referred to as my ‘littlest’ century, though she’s been alive for over half a century and have two sons in their teens) and her friend were missing. They’d gone on a walk. A storm was coming in and hours had gone by. As time passed and our worries increased, I tried calling her on her phone and sending her text messages. By the end, the messages were, “Call when you get this. We’re worried.”
  3. I’d bought land on top of cliffs. Located on the coast, growing ocean waves were pummeling it. I was thinking about building a seawall on top of it to protect it. I had a view out my window of the cliffs and the waves, which were about a half mile away.
  4. My car was located in a parking garage with others’ cars. At one point, heavy machinery came by and started tearing the parking structure down. Accosting the foreman, I said with some outrage, “My car is parked in that structure in a lower level, along with others.” The others had come out and were nodding and agreeing. The foreman mocked and laughed us while talking about how strong the structure was, that nothing would happen to our cars on the lower decks, but he stopped further activity and walked off looking concerned.
  5. Mom kept finding clothing and items left behind from other visits, such as a gray leather wallet, a black belt, and a pale gray sports coat. The coat was so pale, it was almost white. As I collected these things, I was trying to fit them into my luggage. Remembering the jacket, I decided that I would wear it on my travels home. The gray wallet was in excellent shape, but was empty. I knew it was mine, however, recalling when I bought it in Korea.
  6. A high school friend was present. He kept making suggestions about things to do. When he came up with something, he wrote it down and dated it so it’d be documented when he’d came up with the ideas, so he’d get credit. One of the ideas he’d come up with was building a sea wall on the cliff. I’d already come up with that idea, I explained to him, but it slide off like soft butter on a hotter knife. I started writing things down, too, backdating some of them, so I had proof that I’d thought of them first.
  7. As I packed, I kept trying to decide where to put things and what I wanted to have on me while traveling. While I did that, I found that I had three wallets. How’d I get three wallets? What should I do with them? Having three amused me but I wasn’t surprised.

A lot to think about with this one.

A Dream

Last night’s main feature on the dream stage was a lengthy one, like Boyhood length (two hours forty-five minutes). (So it felt in the dream.) Expressing several layers, I thought I’d touch on highlights.

I was traveling on a jet. I knew that because I was told at the beginning that we were leaving on a jet, but never saw the aircraft. It was big; I had a large suite with several bedrooms on it. That was at the end of a long hallway.

Toward the middle of the dream, a friend (B) visited from Alaska. She and I sat at a window drawing with pencils. When she finished, she handed me a detailed drawing of me. Her skill amazed me. “I drew this for you,” she said. After thanking her, I studied it a bit, then decided it could be improved. I commenced doing that in stages. I showed her and told her what I’d done. She answered, “It’s yours, so do what you want.” She went off to get a drink.

My cat, Rocky, drew my attention. As an explanatory note, Rocky passed away about sixteen years ago. He was the only survivor of a litter found in a hoarding situation when we lived in Germany.

Rocky was approaching a square hole in the carpeted floor. I worried about him, as a red creature had been spotted at that hole, threatening a child earlier in the dream.

Rocky went up to the hole and stopped. The red thing came out, as I’d feared. Rocky retreated. The thing went after him.

I jumped up to go help Rocky, but Rocky swatted the thing off a ledge, which knocked it out of the aircraft. “Smart kitty,” I said. He then went off exploring, and was looking over the edge, out of the aircraft. I told him to be careful.

Then I was busy with other things. One thing I noticed was that the suite door was open. I closed it. When I turned around, I saw Rocky disappear over the ledge. Rushing over, I called him. There was scratching at the door. I hurried over and opened it to Rocky. He strolled in, nonchalant as ever.

The dream continued. I’m leaping forward in it. The others, who were my wife’s family and traveling with us, had returned. Someone ordered a beer from room service. We were talking about what we were going to do that day. I had one of my old Blackberry phones. On a whim, I decided I wanted to call the voice mail from the past. I couldn’t remember the number but just told the phone, call voice mail. A woman started talking. Assuming it was voice mail, I pressed some buttons to stop that. The system asked me if I was certain I wanted to reset it. I pressed escape.

After starting over, I heard the same female voice talking. I put her on my speaker. Then I realized that it was a live call. I wasn’t certain if she was calling from the past or if I’d slipped into the past. She was telling me a conversation with one of our engineers. “We use BlackICE 2.2 to run our security. It’s just a basic installation. He thought we’d still be able to do it but we’d need a key to do it and needed to talk to you.”

BlackICE was a startup that I worked with around 2000. All of what she said aligned with my BlackICE role.

I told her, “No. It can’t be done. That was almost twenty years ago. BlackICE 2.2 would no longer work. It’s no longer a product, and the company has been bought by other companies. I’m afraid that you need to move on.”

The dream continued — it was long, believe me — but those on the highlights for me.

The State of Things

I was thinking about being on Okinawa in December, 1982. I’d arrived there after thinking about other Decembers, starting with here and now. I’ve been in Ashland for fifteen years, the longest period I’ve ever spent in one place. Fifteen Decembers in Ashland. That’s extending the current record. I’ve spent Decembers all over the place. Decembers in the 1950s were in Virginia, California, and Texas. I don’t really remember them, except for glimpses, as I was born in 1956. Family lore, and old Kodak glossy black and whites, tell me that this is where I was.

For the 1960s, I was in and around the Pittsburgh, PA, area — Wilkingsburg, Verona, Plum, Penn Hills, Monroeville. These are more sharply remembered. Then I left Mom to live with Dad, ending up in Ohio and West Virginia. Graduating high school in 1974, I joined the military. Decembers were spent in Texas and Mississippi; Ohio and the Philippines; West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Korea, and Texas. There’s split time, as I often started December in one place in that decade and ended it in another. The last December of the 1980s was spent in Texas, and then the next four were spent on Okinawa.

But I stopped at Okinawa, remembering people and events. I struggled with one event: was that 1982 or 1983? Well, I’d look it up. That’s what the net is for, right? Goofing, I just put in, “On this date 1982”. That search brought me in information on November 27, 1982. May, 1982, July, June. December? No. What the what? Thinking, maybe I’m crazy, and this isn’t December, I checked my computer’s date: it showed 12/9/2020. Okay, twelve is December, right? (Yes, my computer shows month, day, year. In the military, we always showed year, month, day. Took years of weaning to unlearn that.)

Blame it on the search engine. Had to be. I tried other search engines. Weirdly, they all came up with information about those dates but none sprang up with what happened on this date in 1982.

That’s the state of things. The computers don’t return what you want, but what others looked for, or maybe, trying to second-guess me, what they think I want. I kept flipping through search pages: April, August, October. One December result, for December 2nd, from Facebook, something about Michael Jackson.

Maybe my memory is doing things to my mind, but I recall being able to put in such a nebulous search and having today returned, along with happened on this date in history. Not any more, though. When I put in December 9, everything came up as I thought it should.

Yeah, just another rant about the way it used to be, innit? Or maybe I’m just imagining what I think I used to remember.

Monday’s Theme Music

“Faithfully” (1983) by Journey is floating on the mental music stream this morning.

They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family
Right down the line it’s been you and me
And lovin’ a music man ain’t always what it’s supposed to be
Oh, girl, you stand by me
I’m forever yours, faithfully

h/t to Genius.com

We were out on the road early this morning, hitting a local grocery store during the special ‘vulnerable’ hours, before the invulnerable and riffraff arrive with their dirty mitts. A gray morning, the song just came to me as we drove along the quiet streets.

A good power ballad, it’s been a pleasant traveling companion for many trips. I enjoy the video, and the differences in clothing, modern technology, and traveling visible from now. Look at the phones and televisions, the shoes and jeans. Beyond that, there’s the band’s hard work, sweat, and passion.

Hope you enjoy it. Cheers

Journey – Faithfully (Official Video) – YouTube

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑