The Flooded Car Dream

To begin, I found myself in a car that became trapped in a flood and incapacitated. That meant I wasn’t going to make my destination on schedule.

I wasn’t bothered. Getting out of the car — no idea of its make, model, or color — I waded out of flood waters. Two things began working in parallel: I started making arangements for a rental replacement and I worked on understanding my location. With the former, I learned in phone calls that a car was available but wouldn’t be there for several hours. In the matter of location, I found that I was close to my father’s house. I could visit him and his family while waiting for my rental car.

Their home is in the southwestern U.S. in the dream. In real life, Dad lives in Texas but in the dream, I was unclear if it was New Mexico, Arizona, or Texas. With dream magic swiftness, I arrived at Dad’s and was knocking on their door. A family member I didn’t recognize answered the door. They recognized me, introduced themselves in a vague way and let me in. Then I remembered them.

Then, it was visitor time. Cousins on my father’s side were living with him. Two of these cousins have already passed away in real life. The other point is that I’m 5’8″ in real life and the cousins are half a foot plus taller. My dream had these roles reversed. That surprised m and it came to a point that I realized, I’m tall, they’re looking up at me.

Food and drinks were offered and accepted. After I ate, my father’s current wife entered the cosy western room where a fireplace hosted blazing logs. I explained the situation to her and asked her about my father and seeing him. A little distracted, she told me Dad was there and he wanted to see me but he had to do some things first and it would be a little bit later.

My Dad’s wife’s daughter called from open French doors in the rear that there was an animal playing in the water. I moved there to see a young wild cat chasing something through the water. Almost simultaneously, I realized that night was falling, it was pouring rain, that the house was built by an arroyo, and that flash flooding was underway. On the next moment, I saw that there was a much larger wildcat — about the size of an adult cougar — in the water and figured it was mom, and another little one. Those three animals easily moved their powerful bodies through the raging muddy waters. Mom cat noticed us and that’s when the next pair of realizations bolted in: that back door was just feet from the raging waters, and three wild predatory animals were also just feet away. But the animals went on and we backed into the house and eventually closed the door.

More family members briefly visited but all had other things to go do. I ended up alone. I noticed that they had this small, rough shaped wooden table, about the size of a petite coffee table. A piece of art was worked into the table’s top. I thought I’d fix it up as a gift to them so I took it to a small shop I located on the property and cleaned the top until some western piece of cowboys with lassos in iron and style was revealed.

After polishing it up, I returned to the house. Dad’s wife met me. I showed her and others the table. They were really pleased. None had noticed the top. The piece was a family heirloom and they were told it was priceless but they didn’t know anything about the art.

My rental car had been delivered and I needed to leave. It was night and Dad hadn’t shown. I left and went to the car. Once I reached, I laughed: I was still carrying the table in one hand. Going back to the house, I saw several of them through the window. The lights were on inside. They looked right at me. I realized that they couldn’t see me because of the lights and reflections, so I just went in, showed them the table, joked about almost leaving with it, and then left again.

Boom! I still had the table. I realized this in a few steps and hastily rushed back in, set the table down, and left the house. The dream ended as I reversed the rental car, turned it around, and drove into the night.

February 21, 2025 0

January 28, 2025 0

December 1, 2024 0

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Stormrelief

Friday morning, November 22, 2024, and my first thought comes: it’s quiet.

Different around 11:30 last night. Sounded like B-52 formations taking off on full throttle out of Guam over our house as relentless wind bore down on us. Rain shattered the night with a Buddy Rich drum solo for a while afterward. Flash memories of being with Dad when tornadoes were roaring around us came up. Then came recall of being in typhoons with my wife in Japan.

Morning recon showed only the water barrell out of place. Glances up and down the street were given; trees and utility poles are intact and upright. Telephone and utility lines looped as expected. Cars remain parked, and roofs still grace houses. Looks like disaster was dodged. I hope other places are faring well but suspect tales of power outages, injuries, and death will come. Typically do when a bomb cyclone drops.

With the storm came warm temps. 49 F now, gray clouds and blue sky approach and retreat. Sunshine gives an uneven performance. We expect a 52 F high today.

This weather experience cajoled The Neurons into thinking of weather songs. “Oh, stormy, bring back the sunny days.” And, “It’s flooding down in Texas. All of the telephone lines are down.” And, “Here I am. Rock me like a hurricane.” Or, “Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.”

The Neurons eschew all that. The Pixies instead enter the morning mental music stream (Trademark buffeted) with “Stormy Weather”.

Having decided that my foot and ankle swelling was due in major part to my edema issues, I went on a green smoothie fast yesterday. Sodium intolerance and veinous insufficiency seem to be the bad actors behind my edema so I wanted to knock the sodium down a bit. I’m also wearing open-toe compression socks on both legs. Overall, the one-day treatment seems helpful. I was swollen by the day’s end but it didn’t seem like it was as bad as previous days. Slept with my legs up. The swelling dissipated, as it always does. It’s fluid moving from one place to another for me. Back on my normal diet today, although I’ll eat less and minimize my sodium intake. Sodium is everywhere, though, and difficult to escape.

As far as the actual surgery location and affected tendons, they seem to be doing well. Tenderness and sensitivity around the suture site is reduced. I hope to put a shoe on within a few more days.

Hope all of you out there are doing well. Coffee is being swallowed, working its magic through my cells. Here is the music. Cheers

November 22, 2024 0

A Wysocki Completed

Another jigsaw puzzle was completed last night. I worked this one alone. Started last Saturday night, I finished Thursday evening. It was fun and easy. I enjoy his stylized simplicity, how he minimally incorporates shadows and textures as lines. It’s such a contrast to my style was I was painting and drawing. Somewhat like my fiction writing, I always focus on the interplay of shadows and uncertainty. It reflects my personal philosophy that most life is part of a large band of gray confusion.

Apologies that my photo isn’t sharper and clearer. Those are pumpkins on a wagon above the hat store on the right, and white chickens in the road.

Many more Wysockis were available at the library of things. I’m passing this one on to a friend because I think he’ll enjoy it, and picking up another.

August 2, 2024 7

The Book Dream

This was a chaotic dream, almost fractured, with abrupt shifts. It began with me running around a city. It reminded me of downtown Pittsburgh, PA, at the point, because of all the on and off ramps and intertwining roads and multiple bridges. While cars were zooming around, I was on my feet, jumping and darting from place to place.

“I need a car,” I told myself. “A vehicle, so I can get going.” At this point, my dream was giving me a heroically backlit presentation of a younger me standing on a white cement onramp looking toward the city.

With dream insights, I knew I wanted/needed a car because I had to cover a lot of ground. I was looking for books, and books could be anywhere.

This set up a set of scenes of me finding a car, driving, getting out of the car, and looking and discovering a book. It seemed like I did that a bazillion times (yeah, that might be hyperbole). The cars were always different and were sometimes a car I’d drive in real life: a ’68 Camara, signal orange ’73 Porsche 914, white ’72 BMW 2002, and a 2013 white Prius. Not always, though.

Finally, I was in a house. Not recognized from RL. Looking across the carpeted floor, I spotted something underneath a sofa. “Is that a book?” I wondered.

Walking over there, I lifted one end of the sofa and confirmed, yes, that’s a book. With a beige cover, it seemed worn and old. With some disgust, I realized that they’d been using it to prop up the sofa because a leg was missing.

I put something else in its place and dusted the book off to examine it. That’s when I found that I’d written. “I thought so,” I exclaimed, and the dream ended.

May 25, 2024 0

And Drink Coffee

Inspirational Quote # 5012

I think get this. It’s about letting go of yourself, releasing your ego and doubts, and permitting what is to come to make its way without ‘you’ hindering it.

March 7, 2024 0

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeespective

Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, greets us with a bleakly ‘meh’ sky in Ashlandia. Rain has retreated to a background position, haunting the mountains, where it sometimes drops as snow; Grizzly Peak is now capped in white. It’s 46 F, though, and snow is not in our future. Might rain, later, though. Not going to get substantially warmer. Sunshine does look in on us once in a while but not long enough to post a significant presence.

The homefloofs continue serving their roles in a restricted position, with no outside activities permitted from dusk to dawn. It’s the cougar thing. Meanwhile, Tucker has been scheduled for a dental assessment after drooling this week. Problem teeth and gum infections associated with gingivostomatitis plagued him before his arrival at our place. We’ve had teeth removed and treated the problem by keeping him on a grain-free diet. But it seems to be blowing up on him again, poor guy.

I continue reading Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow in parallel to my fiction reading. I don’t recommend Maddow’s book; its revelations of deep racism in the US, with laws and attitudes toward segregation and how Blacks and others were treated inspiring Nazi Germany in their approach to the same in the 1930s, is fucking sickening. I was so damn naive. Maddow points out what the laws said, and then how they were applied and interpreted so that mistreatment and segregation continued. Several presidents even encouraged segregation and set laws into place that limited Black’s freedom and equality. Were I Black, I’d be one pissed off individual.

The Neurons have fed Joni Mitchell’s song, “Help Me” from 1974, into the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). Depending on my mood — sometimes it was too soft and schmaltzy for my mood — I’ve generally enjoyed this soft, jazzy tune and its reflections on falling in love with a man who doesn’t seem like a great choice for her. Yeah, I dig it; we often must make a choice that isn’t the greatest. That recognition in another matter being addressed in my head this morning, coupled with Joni Mitchell’s performance on the Grammy’s last week, is what probably inspired The Neurons to play the song.

Stay positive, remain strong, lean forward, and vote as if the future might depend on it. Here’s Joni with her song. There goes me with my coffee. Cheers.