Category: Uncategorized

The Good-bye Dream

I’d been thinking about J on and off during the past week, a typical melange of, “How long has it been?” blended with “I wonder what he’s up to?”

Easy math answered how long, coughing up thirty-four years. I choked on a “wow” response as tangent thoughts about his children’s ages and lives bounced through. Thirty-four years since I’d heard or seen him, thirty-four years since I’d heard anything about him.

These thoughts boiled into my dreams, bringing a visit from him in a dream last night.

I was in a steel, glass, and concrete complex. Dust motes surfed wind currents as people walked along the corridor. Hot, I squinted against sunshine through the windows. I thought, it’s winter outside, but it’s so hot an stuffy in here. Then I paused, looking ahead at an intersection.

His back was to me but I knew it was him. “J,” I said, increasing my stride. As he turned, I caught up, but we didn’t close the distance.

Always a smiling person, even when pissed off, he was smiling and much, much younger in my dream than when I knew him. “Where you been?” I said.

With the smile hanging on his face, he said, “It’s okay, I’ve moved on.” Giving me a wave and a shit-eating grin, he walked on down the corridor, leaving me behind.

Awakening, I wondered what that was all about, and whether this was a signal that he’d died. I searched for him through social media this morning, but he has a common name. Not the first time I’ve search for him, but it was the same results.

Not surprising. He didn’t trust computers as they were emerging. He didn’t really trust society and the government. Buying and stashing gold and silver coins in a safety deposit box, he planned to buy a large plot of land after he retired.

We’d always had good times together, and we’d work well as a team. A few years older than me, a survivor of the Vietnam war (although served in Thailand), I wish him well, whatever he’s doing, and wherever he is.

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Exfloofgent

Exfloofgent (floofinition) – a pet’s urgent or pressing request(s).

In use: “Although it was dark, as is usually the case at four in the morning during Pennsylvania’s winter, the cat began nudging her cheek and nibbling her nose in an exfloofgent to be fed.”

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The Miracle Focus

Cars can surprise me. The Miracle Focus did. Gather ’round, o’ peers of the ‘net, and let me share the short tale.

We have two cars. One car ‘belongs’ to my wife, with the connotations attached that this is the car that she primary drives, and that I slip behind the wheel once in a while. This is a 2003 Ford Focus that we bought new that year. It was replacing the Nissan 200 that was my wife’s car then. Rear-ended, they declared the Nissan totaled.

Saying the Focus is my wife’s car implies the other car, the 2015 Mazda CX-5, is my car. That’s not true. My car was a 1993 Mazda RX-7 R1. I traded it in on the CX-5 at her behest in 2014. The Focus was then going to be traded in on a new sports car for me.

She reneged on the deal.

All that is beside the point, and just lengthens the story without adding to the plot, as did this sentence. The Focus has 105,000 miles on it, not bad for a fifteen-year-old vehicle. My wife drives it around town.

I take care of the maintenance.

I don’t do a good job.

Trying to make up for that, I took the Focus to an Oil Stop to have it’s oil changed, its fluids checked, air put in the tires, and so on. I did that last year, too, actually in January of 2017. It was supposed to be returned for maintenance somewhere in May of 2017.

That didn’t happen.

The maintenance this year, August, 2018, was well-overdue. I wasn’t too worried because no warning lights had come on, and only twenty-five hundred miles had been added since the last oil change.

When I took it into the same Oil-Stop as last year, they wiped out the dipstick and showed it to me. “It’s a little overfull,” the tech said.

That was surprising. I didn’t add oil to the car. No one else had, either. Oil Stop was the last place where anyone had added oil. As is their custom, once they changed the oil filter and put new oil in last year, they’d showed the dipstick to me to prove it was full. Now, a year later, it was overfull.

I was impressed. This car not only wasn’t using oil, but was apparently creating it.

That’s why it’s the miracle Focus.

That, plus I think it’ll be a miracle if my wife ever really does let me get rid of it.

Not that I’m bitter or anything. That would be petty. I’m just saying…

You know.

 

 

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Floofography (2)

Floofography (2)  (floofinition) – knowing where your cat or dog housepet likes to sit or lie. (see also floofography)

In use: “He checked the floofography before turning off the lights, noting everyone’s position, confirming all were in and safe, but also lessening the chance that he might inadvertently step on on or trip over them.”

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A Rising Dream

When I awoke from this dream, I held the last scenes in my mind’s hands and thought, wow, that was empowering.

Only snippets of dream fragments come to mind now. I remember struggling and coping through a morass of frustration and weariness. I don’t know the specifics of that dream’s chapter, but then I started rising. I grew taller, bigger, and stronger. I knew and felt that in the dream. As I did, I took control, because up where I was, I could see how everything connected, and how the mechanics and leverage worked. Up there, I could tell others where to find answers or how to see things. I kept growing until I was a giant. Then I used my fingers to move and show things, and help others. The last piece was that I, as a giant, was showing a young girl where something fit. By that point, the world appeared to be an enormous periodic table to me and I told her, “Forty across, and eight down.” It was then I woke.

The dream wasn’t a great surprise. Just as I fall into dark airless abysses or find myself in caves or tunnels about every twenty-five or -six days, I find myself rising, too, feeling invincible and empowered. When the dark side comes down on me, I hunker down and endure. I’m grateful when the light side lifts me up, re-igniting my hopes and optimism.

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No Problem

Showered, shaved, and coiffed, the finishing touch was required, the SPF 50 UV A/B blocker that would allow him to enjoy the sunny day while he rode his bike down to have coffee (and maybe a doughnut) with his friends.

But it wasn’t in its proper location among his essential toilet vials and tubes. Probably because he’d put it away in the wrong place yesterday, silly git. Each drawer was opened, searched, and closed, and then again because it must be in one of those drawers and he was just overlooking it.

Or it was on the tray where he keeps his stuff on the counter, knocked over, perhaps, or out of sight behind something else – hard to believe, because that tube is orange and yellow and the rest on there are green, black, or white — except the Trader Joe’s moisturizing shave cream that he uses (which is also an orange tube) — but the little bastard of suntan stuff wasn’t there, where it should be. So he must have carried it off somewhere, yes, probably while feeding the dog, or playing with the dog, or something with the dog, or maybe — did he get interrupted while he was applying it yesterday? There’d been one day when he’d had a phone call — which day? Who’d called? Someone had called. What day had that been?

Christ, he couldn’t remember anything. Maybe, maybe it’d had happened – yesterday? But — maybe he hadn’t used the suntan lotion yesterday. Had he used the suntan lotion yesterday? He didn’t remember, he couldn’t remember. Well, assume that he’d been using it and had gotten interrupted or had carried it off absent-mindedly — because that’s never happened — and put it down in another room, like the utility room – right, because that’s where the dog is fed — or the laundry room – no — or the other bathroom — no — or kitchen – NO.

Christ, had he thrown it away? Maybe he’d thrown it away by accident. Or maybe he’d put it into the freezer or recycled it or — or — whatever the hell people did when they were getting old and losing their mind. Maybe he was getting that thing, what? What’s it called? Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s. Was this his Still Alice moment? Maybe this was the onset of dementia — or maybe —

He saw his husband in the office. “You haven’t seen my suntan lotion, have you?”

“Yes, I used it yesterday. I was in a hurry and needed some, but I was out, so I grabbed yours and took it with me, and I left it in the car.” His husband smiled. “I’m sorry.”

He smiled back. “No problem.” Going out to the car, he chuckled at all the things he’d thought while he’d been searching – overreacting – 

Stopping at the car, he paused in thought.

Why the hell was out he out here?

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Just A Warning

You should look at my photograph and memorize it. Then, if you’re ever out somewhere and see me in line, whether I’m in a car or on foot, DO NOT GET IN THE SAME LINE AS ME. My presence in the line guarantees that the people in the line ahead of me and the cashier will all slow down. Tiny issues will take place to stall the completion of their transactions while I’m in the line. Once I’m through, everything will be okay, but while I’m in the line, people will flash through the other lines so fast, your head will spin.

You’ve been warned.

8

Rain!

Busy editing, I was startled when another coffee shop regular said, “Hallelujah.”

I looked up. “What?”

“Hallelujah,” she said. “It’s raining.”

I turned and looked out the windows. She was right.

Seeing it, I rose and went outside. Oh, the smell, the sound. The last time we’d had rain here in Ashland was July 15. Lightning that day accompanied the rain, starting many of the fires that issue the smoke we’re dealing with.

Lori came out. We laughed at the smells, sound, and sight. Rain! “Hopefully, there won’t be lightning,” Lori said.

Yes, my thoughts, too.

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Floofeit

Floofeit (catfintion) – something given up because the cat or another household pet wants it.

In use: “He accepted that he would floofeit his office chair to the cat. Although he tried to race her in and claim the chair, she was quicker and smarter. Yes, he told himself, he was the human, and she was the pet. He could move her and claim the chair, but she looked so sweet.”

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In the Bar

I await my turn. I am polite. Patient looking. Outside. Inside my fortress of solitude, where everything is secret, I rant at the slowness. Prozac people in a Prozac ballet, taking orders, accepting money and plastic, making drinks and change, handing out libation. It’s a thick crowd, hungering for libation, awaiting our turns under a televised baseball game.

The man beside me on the stool looks at me and frowns. I smile at him but decide not to speak. He’s drinking a beer. Looks like beer in the glass, anyway.

He says, “It must be hard to a woman. Learn to walk in heels. Find bras that fit you. Have guys stare at you.”

I’m dumbfounded into silence.

He says, “Fitting a bra is difficult. Men don’t need to learn how clothes fit them, not like bras. Men don’t wear bras.”

I’m about to counter him but I don’t want to speak. Speaking will encourage him.

He says, “I guess some men do, men who are going through a transgender thing, becoming a woman, I guess they need to learn how to walk in heels and fit a bra, if they get boobs. I suppose they get boobs. That’s part of being a woman, right? They also need to wear pantyhose, I guess, which I think is revolting, encasing yourself, like you’re a sausage. Remember that Seinfeld episode when George’s father and Kramer create the mansiere? Man, that was funny.”

He takes a drink of his beer. The bartender looks at me and raises his chin and his eyebrows, expressing to me without words, you’re next, what do you want?

I order a beer. IPA.

The man beside me says, “What was I saying?”

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