Tag: change

Trees & Change Dream

The dream involved two pubs-café-coffee shops. Hard to say exactly what they were. Both were tiny places. One at the top of a parking lot, and the other at the parking lot’s bottom. The parking lot was rutted and in disarray, with a large sugar maple tree about midway down. The sugar maple tree is interesting to me because it reminds me of the one on my in-laws’ land when was younger.

I was younger in the dream but had my current panoply of friends. Among these were several friends who’ve passed away. They were drinking beer with me in the shop at the hill’s top. Well-lit, the place was elbow to asses with people, and we were squeezed in around a small table. In response to comments by one, I replied, “That proves that the other business is being set up to fail.”

A deceased friend answered, “You’re wrong.”

I began to argue back but checked up. “You know something.”

He nodded. “I know something.”

We finished our beers, rose, and walked out. Like that, I was walking into the parking lot the next morning. With me was my back pack with my computer. I was going to the place we’d frequented the previous night. On a whim, I decided to check the other place, which was the one we’d been discussing. Going down the hill, passing the sugar maple tree, I saw a large opening formed in the trunk by the roots. Inside was a large though muddy, comfortable space lit by a single white candle with a yellow flame. Thinking of how it reminded me of a hobbit’s place, I wondered who lit the candle, as no one else was there. It’d be a good place to shelter, in my mind, going on, leaving the candle lit.

The bottom shop was constructed from wood and painted gray. Ancient and splintered, the shop needed fresh paint. Large trees bracketed it on either side. Reaching the entrance required crossing a short but wide wooden bridge which matched the building.

Inside, I set up my computer and then met the owner. He spoke with me about my backpack, commenting that it looked heavy. I replied, it was dependent on what’s inside. When it’s just my computer, it’s less than twenty-five pounds but adding books added weight. He answered, “That makes sense.”

I told him that he needs to take care of his business. I met this as a warning, which I explained to him, based on what I’d seen and heard. I then left to go up to the other place. Almost immediately, I realized that I had my backpack but had forgotten my computer. Fortunately, a little girl who’d been in the shop chased me down with it. I thanked her and pressed on.

Back up the hill, I struggled to enter the shop. A large tree had grown close to their front door. Growing at an angle, the tree’s girth forced me to shift sideways to enter the business. All this surprised me, prompting comments to myself about not remembering the tree being like that. Getting in, I set up my computer and ordered coffee. People gathered around to ask me what I was doing. Writing, I explained. They began asking questions about what I was writing, prompting me to share and expand on what I was writing. Finding my coffee cup empty, I made to leave, but they insisted they wanted to hear more, and bought me another cup of coffee. This mug was much larger, which I joked about. As I took the first sip, I discovered that the shop was full with people waiting to hear me continue my story.

Dream end.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Spread the alarm. Monday has breached the walls. Save yerselves.

Dawn came in a bit before seven. Sunrise came after the way was cleared, arriving to clear blue skies at 7:42 this morning. The temperature has sprinted up to 45 degrees F and will go all the way to 62 F. The Cedar Creek fire is now in its third month but it’s 68% contained. We don’t smell the fire in our sector any longer but I’m sure others are still enduring it, and I feel for them. Sunset will be at 6:06 PM, so set your alarms. It’ll be October’s last.

We used to go trick or treating after dark when I was a child. In fact, that was one of Mom’s stipulations for when we could begin: “It’s not even dark yet.” These days, darkness is an enemy of the event. Most trick or treating is done in more controlled environments. Schools, stores, and malls have joined the Halloween proceedings. We didn’t buy any treats this year. We’ve bought in the past and generally ate it ourselves in the nights after the goblins and monsters’ cries have faded into November. So we don’t do that no more. Kind of miss it but also, c’est le vie.

After reading emails and the mail last night, The Neurons started playing “Money (That’s What I Want)” by The Flying Lizards (1979). Totally understandable. Almost every entity sending emails and missives in my direction are asking for money. Subscribe to this or that. Buy more of this. Get a new one of that, and replace that other. You need more! Donate to me — we need money to stay free. So, yeah, no surprise that Der Neurons brought up “Money (That’s What I Want)”. Les Neurons could have gone multiple directions with this. Could’ve just fired up Pink Floyd’s song, “Money.” “Money (That’s What I Want)” has been released as a Motown hit, a moneymaker by the Beatles, a cover by the Stones, and, of course, The Flying Lizards.

The Flying Lizards’ rendition is a twist against the others, throwing out a simple tune with a bald, straightforward delivery: “Give me money. That’s what I want.” They’re not truly singing it, just deadpan presenting it. That’s why it works so well for all these money requests that inundate my existence. Take Pfizer, for example. They were heroes, one of several, coming up with COVID-19 vaccines. Now they want money so shots will be over one hundred dollars each. Don’t worry, insurance will cover it. No insurance? Oh, no, that’s not good. But Prizer is a corporation. They exist to make money, right?

BTW, has anyone done a new cover of this song recently? Seems like it’s overdue.

Well, you know the routine. Holds even for Mondays, even on October’s final effort. Stay positive, test neggy, etc. Coffee is in the morning’s collection plate. I’m gonna help meself to some. That’s what I want.

Have a good one. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Yesterday had us in bee mode, going from event to event. Slowly today, with only one thing on schedule.

It’s Saturday. Claim you prize at the window if you guessed correctly. Don’t know what the prize is. You’ll need to talk to the director about that. It’s also Oct. 22, 2022, if you’re going for the perfecta.

Rain began last night at tennish, got serious about it around midnight, calmed itself down for part of the night, and then stormed back at five. Lot of rain sounds. Some wind joined in to move a few things. We’ve needed rain, so yea, and now need snow. Fortunately, snow is forecast for the area above 5,000 feet. We’re below two, so we shouldn’t need to deal. More rain is due from above today (I know, where else did I think it would come from?), with most forecasts proclaiming it’s going to rain from early afternoon to almost midnight.

It’s currently 45 F in our area. 10 to 11 degrees C is posted as expectations for our high. We have a plan to go to the Japanese Garden opening in Lithia Park. Two plus years in the making, they tore up some stuff and built a wall, so ambivalence is greeting the park’s appearance. They’re also talking about perhaps charging an entrance fee in the future, anathema to Ashland’s attitude toward parks. They’re supposed to be free recreation areas for the people, yo. We’ll see what happens when the future arrives.

Dawn had an underwhelming arrival, with clouds and rain dictating light and visibility. Sunrise came at 7:32 AM. On daylight’s other end — dare I say, its rear end? — sunset will be at 6:18.

We were at Empty Bowls last night, the fundraiser for feeding the homeless and struggling. My wife is part of the setup committee. We met with other friends there, catching up on news from the COVID era. Too much of it was about bad health. Three friends, not seen in a while, we learned had died. Another had a massive heart attack and was going in for triple bypass surgery on Monday. But there were also sunny faces sharing happy tales about how well they and their families were doing.

This is a transition day for me vis-à-vis clothing options. I’ve been in shorts in Oregon since spring, other than a few special events. Now it’s time to dig out jeans, long shirts and sweaters, and raincoats. That had me thinking about yesterday, which was a magnet for The Neurons. They came out with 30 Seconds to Mars and “From Yesterday”. It took me a while to put that together as I had the refrains about a map of the world on his face going on. In fact, I often incorrectly think that the 2007 song’s title is “Map of the World”. But as the song went through my head, the title was corrected.

The cats are also transitioning. Tucker was out, moving around the yard seeking solar patches, but Papi, the young feline, said, “Screw this,” and mostly stayed in the house. Of course, the night of rain arrived, and the situation reversed. Now, though, both cats are declared themselves indoor pets. Tucker slumbers on the desk left of my computer while ever a contrarian, Papi naps on the living room sofa.

Well, stay pos, test neg. I’m up for coffee and an orange cranberry scone. Can I get you anything? Here’s the music while you think about it. I couldn’t find the short version so here’s medium version. The actual song begins about halfway through.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Wandering Thought

He has the bug. It overtook him without warning and is as insistent and annoying as a mosquito visiting his ear canal. Acknowledging what must be done, he goes into his closet and begins pulling out clothes and trying them on. Yes, they’re his clothes, and not his wife’s – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just a point of order.

First to be tried on is the flight suit that he last wore over thirty years ago. Does not fit, he finds. Hell, it can’t ever be tugged over his shoulders without his spouse’s help. It’s surprising how much it’s shrunk since he last put it on. He keeps his Air Force service dress uniform out of nostalgia, even though it also shrank.

Business suits are next. He formerly wore a lot of them during his time in marketing but hasn’t put one on for almost twenty years. They have also shrunk. He makes a mental note to google why some closets make clothes shrink. Maybe it’s the way he’s storing them or something. Jeans, pants, and shirts are pulled out, tested, and put into neat piles. In an hour, he’s collected three towers of clothes which have shrunk. He’ll donate them to charities.

The shrinking worries him, though. Maybe he should move his other clothes somewhere else before they shrink.

Yes, maybe, he decides.

Maybe.

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Twofer Dreams

I had two memorable dreams last night.

The first came to me in red and black. It was all seen in silhouettes. As short and simple as its color palette, I was going for a run. Going less than twenty to thirty yards, I encountered a force field which wouldn’t let me go further. Annoyed, I turned and ran back the other way, past my house, only to be stopped by another force field. Three times this happened. At that point dream thinking burbled up, I’m not supposed to go further. I guess ‘they’ want me to stay home to get better. Wait, am I sick?

After awakening and pondering that one for a few dark minutes, I rolled back into sleep and to another dream. In this one, I wore a blue and white checked shirt with blue jeans. A teenager, I was visiting a girl, blonde, bubbly, friendly. I was attracted to her, so this was essentially the early days of courting to see if she had any interest in me.

She became friendly and flirtatious. We didn’t kiss or anything, but I went home pleased and then returned the next day. At the end of this visit, it was suggested that I stay the night there as a precaution against something going on that wasn’t clear. I wasn’t real comfortable with that but the girl and her Mom convinced me. Stripping down to my undies, I slept on their game room sofa. The game room was essential a finished basement. After spending the night, I dressed, thinking that I’d go back home now. But no, the girl had plans for the day. We stayed at her house but I only saw her off and on.

Now I was becoming concerned about her father. He’d been gone but was now back. I didn’t relish encountering him in the early morning, especially in clothes which I’d been wearing for several days while trying to get romantic with his daughter. Instead of leaving the game room, I stayed down there in hiding. By now I’d convinced myself that I needed to get home and was plotting how to sneak away.

Guests arrived. I eavesdropped, learning that they were neighboring women who were friends with the mother. It was mentioned in passing that I was staying there. I guessed that something had happened at my house and this was a ruse to keep me here. They all agreed that I was a ‘very nice boy, very smart and kind’, and that this was better for me. Wanting to know what was going on, I slipped out and headed home through a sunsplashed fall day where all the trees had already lost their leaves. The change of season was a surprise; I thought it was summer.

Dream end.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Sunshine skirts the trees and licks the sky into fresh blue shades. Familiars remind me that I’m home. People say, oh, you made it, as though the standing in lines and sitting in seats that frame commercial air travel in this era was a slog. The slog is behind the scenes, where they’re building and maintaining the machines and coordinating the actions. I’m just a passenger on that plane, just as I’m a passenger on starship Earth.

Sunrise in Ashland today came over us at 7:20 AM. Cool mountain air, measured at 54 F, put a shiver in my body. Gonna be 88 F, the weather wizards say. Smoky haze covered the valley from the Cedar Creek fire further west in the state. Not heavy smoke but enough for you to see it’s there, a reminder of the fire’s existence. Sunset, they tell me, will be 6:34 PM.

Being home is a comfort. Having my wife chatting about all she’s done and is doing and is to do brought me into the groove. Tucker and Papi did their feline duties, purring welcomes, permitting me to show my affections through liberal scratches of their ears, heads, and backs.

Traveling was the mix of fun, weariness, anticipation, and frustration that I’ve come to expect. Being in flight, taking off before sunrise and then having the sun chase us down over the Rocky Mountains delivered plenty of thought fodder. As you know, many sings exist about traveling, aircraft, flight, and sunrise. Plenty for The Neurons to say, oh, there’s a theme song and stick it in my mental music stream. But I found myself watching people, splitting time between clothes, shoes, body language, and faces. Out of watching faces, The Neurons pulled up “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” by Pearl Jam. A song released six million years ago or more, it tells of a woman struggling to remember another’s name, wishing to say hello, and failing. The Neurons were right to pick it up off of the organic reflections generated from my visit home, to places that were and now aren’t, and faces filling with aging’s shifts.

So here we are. Cats are fed, breakfast is eaten, coffee was brewed, its scent inhaled, its pleasant bitterness introduced to my tongue as another fresh experience. Stay pos and test neg, and do the vaccines needed to overcome and move on. I’m with you there.

Here’s the tune. Hope you can enjoy your Wednesday and build on it. Cheers

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Head In A Jar Dream

We had a head in a jar. Dream knowledge told me it was a clay jar yet it was sufficiently clear to see the head inside. Not completely clear, but filmy and gauzy, as though petroleum jelly was smeared over it.

The head was in a cloudy pale-green liquid, and was male, white, and venerated. Now, on a pedestal, in the middle of scrubland, one other man and I had it. The other man was tall, spare, and mostly silent. Older, but I couldn’t give an age. He seemed to lack interest in the head jar.

I, though, tried singing to it. I thought that if we sang to it, it would sing back. Though the head’s eyes would look at me, and it would blink, it wouldn’t sing back. The other man wouldn’t sing either. That didn’t affect my mood. I remained optimistic and energetic. I then started prattling other ideas to him about the head in the jar. Maybe we should take it to a market and sell it. We could get good money for it. Or we can set it up in a square and I’ll ask others to sing with me to see if we could get the head to sing. I spoke to the head, asking it, what do you want us to do?

A hunter, armed with a compound bow and arrows, dressed in woodland camouflage vest, hat, and pants, came along. I quietly watched him. He saw the head in a jar on a pedestal, but went on, looking for animals to shoot.

The army came along, as expected. This was an army of the people. They walked, but didn’t march, in orderly rank and file. Most wore ragged clothing. All ages, races, and sexes were in it. My older, silent friend and I joined them, and the head in the jar was given to someone to carry. I was leading one large group, but in an unofficial capacity. On a road, we were supposed to keep up with the other groups but were going too slowly. Impatiently, I urged them, “Come on, we must keep up.” We’d been warned not to get separated because that would leave us exposed and vulnerable to attack. I saw the group ahead pulling away. I walked faster, thinking that my example might prod the group to walk faster. No; they instead dawdled and began chatting about trivial ideas. Exasperation building, I walked faster, becoming separated from both groups. But being in the middle, I could see them both and thought, if something were to happen to one group, I could turn to the other group to help.

We came to broad creek running low in a sandy, rocky basin. As I went to the water to drink, my group caught up to me. One said, “We know that women like you.” As I laughed at them, he continued, “We’ve all seen the way they react to you.”

End of dream.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Mom has lived in many cities, states, houses, and apartments. He’s now in his mid-sixties. She’s almost ninety. There’s been many changes, but she still has the same salt and pepper shakers that they used when he was a little boy.

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The Mom Dream

First, I was with other men. I was younger than now but can’t say what my age was. We’d been inside doing some unspecified activity. Finishing, we headed to elevators and exits. I was with one guy. White and young, I estimate him at six foot five and two hundred fifty muscular pounds. His hair was short, brown salted with gray.

We spoke briefly about the thing we just finished, alluding to its recurring nature. I said, “You know, we meet all the time to do this. We should get together outside and do something.”

He replied, “I’d like that.”

Now I’m at my place. Some rednecks are trying to rob me. I’ve become aware of this. They’re armed. We’re outside. I’ve hidden weapons outside. I drift around under their eye until I’m by a hidden pistol. Grabbing it, I start firing. It’s a plastic pellet gun and sprays yellow balls all over the place. They pull up similar weapons and fire back. We run around like that.

Others arrive. I realize that with the others there, the rednecks aren’t going to do anything. I’m not sure how many rednecks are present. At least two, including one with a thick and glossy black beard who seems to be their leader. Other people mill and chat, wine and champagne glasses in their hands. A redneck or two constantly follows me about, keeping me under watch, but I slowly grasp that they’re not going to rob me. Still, they make me uncomfortable and I want to leave.

I go into the house. A few people are in there but I notice that no rednecks are present. Going to a window, I climb out and run down the street.

I pass through a large activity room. People are sitting at tables. I think at first that they’re playing bingo, but they’re not. I hear Mom’s voice on speaker. Mom is on stage, moderating something. She’s in her mid-forties, about forty years younger than now. I’m surprised that Mom is moderating this. I listen to her asking and answering questions. Sometimes she laughs, but she always has a smile, red lips around white teeth.

Going on, I reach a crowded bus complex and join the queue to get on a bus. It’s a bottleneck. People are trying to go several different directions. Noticing this, I step back and let people go by since my line isn’t moving. Others see what I did and do the same. The bottleneck is cleared up, freeing me to enter the bus. It’s a huge one, like something companies use for tours or cross-country travel.

The bus starts up and begins moving. We’re driving down a steep hill. I’m in the back of the bus and Mom is driving the bus! I think, Mom is amazing, when did she learn to drive a bus? Someone back by me calls her name and then asked, “Did you ever figure out the GPS problem?”

Mom, laughing and steering, braking the bus at the hill’s bottom to turn, replies, “Yes. There’s a funy story there. Let me tell you.”

Just as Mom always used to do, except she never drove a bus. This is where the dream stopped.

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