Tag: Dad

Wednesday’s Theme Music

No snow! Again. It’s like days in a row. The weather at last feels like an Ashlandia spring. We’ll pop up to 80 F today. Low in the bottom 40s. Sunrise quarter past six. Sunset after eight in the evening. This is what Daddy likes.

It’s April 26, 2023. Sad news that ispace lost contact with Hakuto-R. Latest theory they’ve put out is it unexpectedly accelerated and crashed on the moon while attempting its approach. Back to the drawing boards.

I’ve always been a proponent of exploring space and trying to reach other planets. Curiosity of what’s out there drives me. I know, many argue that we’re already screwing up Earth and have demonstrated ourselves to be poor caretakers of our home planet, so why should we ‘be allowed’ to go somewhere else. Also, space exploration is a little pricy. Cost more than my annual coffee budget. And we have so many problems in our society, unintended consequences of systems, practices, laws and technology. So much we have here we need to fix.

But I’m an optimist. I hope that going to space more will lift our spirits and encourage us to change. I know, I know but space travel and exploration opens possibilities, and fires hope and optimism. Of course my background is white male. American, sure of food and shelter. I know in an intellectual way that it’s way different for others in ways that I struggle to fully imagine and comprehend. I try. I try to empathize and sympathize and help. And I want for others to have at least the levels of comfort, security, access to equity, and opportunities that I’ve experienced.

Had a plethora of dreams again. Some involved Dad and painting. I’ll explore that more, I think.

Thoughts of space impelled Les Neurons to fire up “Rocket Man” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin 1972. Found a lovely video of John in concert with the song in 1972. Just fifty plus years ago, hey?

Stay pos and don’t let your fuse burn out. I’ve got some coffee if you need it. Maybe we can pass the cup.

Here’s the music. Enjoy. Cheers

5

Three Dream Shorts

Three dreams recalled from last night.

Bottle of whiskey.

The stone-lined path.

Wanted.

Bottle of whiskey. I was with dreams friends — folks known in a dream but not in RL. My dream wife was with me, and we were visiting in one of their homes. It was the collection point, for we were going out to dinner and then have some drinks and fun somewhere. It was a small group, just six or seven people, and the place where we met was a tidy but small, modern apartment.

We were sitting around a table with a white cloth covering it. The host entered. Opening a package, he said, “I got this in the mail today. It’s a prize I won.” He unboxed a crystal bottle of whiskey.

All were impressed. He poured his each a tumbler of his prize for us to sample. I drank mine and thought was amazing. So smooth, and slightly sweet. He offered more, which I accepted. Then, time to go. We walked down to a restaurant with my buddy taking his prize whiskey along. When he reached the restaurant, he poured other fluid into his whiskey bottle, appalling me. I wanted no more after that. Then, the, the bottle changed, with the bottle’s bottom growing rounder, until it would no longer stand upright, but tipped over. After the bottle was straightened three times, it fell over and broke.

The end.

The stone-lined path. I was out with my father, who was with others. I saw him and decided I wanted to avoid him. I could do this because we were outside, under an Interstate bridge. Huge pylons were holding it up. I kept hiding behind them.

Dad was busy doing something. Curiosity bettering me, I craned out to see. He had made a three-foot wide path in the dirt. Now he was lining it with rocks which he found. Seeing me, he called out, “Come help me, Michael. You’ll be good at this.” I went and began helping him lay the stones. While I was doing that, he took me and held me close to him. I felt embarrassed. He said, “I know that you avoid me but I want you to know how much I love you and how proud you make me feel.”

Dream end.

Wanted.

My wife and I were living in a small and cluttered apartment. We delivered a disagreement about how things should be arranged, so I said, I’m going to live in another place.

I left and went down a broad staircase, looking for another place. Women began approaching me, appealing to me to have sex. Some became very aggressive, shoving themselves against me, grabbing me, or passionately trying to kiss me. I kept telling them, “No, this is not going to happen.” They would give up and others would show up.

I went back up to my apartment with my wife. She was happily going about, doing something, dressed in her sweat clothes. I remained irritated with her and asked why she was acting as she was. She didn’t answer, so I left in exasperation. Another woman, in a white sundress with auburn curls highlighted blonde, told me that she wanted to take my clothes off and suggested with go back to her place. I told her, “No. Just leave me alone.”

Dream end

0

Five Dreams, A Few Thoughts

Five dreams are remembered this morning. Takes a while to process them. I usually do this in bed, eyes closed, pulling out their sequences. What normally happens is that I have a dream and wake up with it in mind, process it, and return to sleep. Then I dream again and repeat the process. Later, I sit and freehand the dreams. Sometimes, when the dreams become larger, more involved and remembered, I type them up. And sometimes I post that result, usually without any insights I acquired, just presenting the raw dream. In this instance, because there were five sharply remembered dreams, I just wanted to share intriguing aspects of two.

I was with my father. It was Christmas. His third wife was there, too. I’d brought twelve gifts meant for my cousins. Several of those cousins are dead. I knew that in the dream. When I showed Dad what I’d bought for who, I actually said, “Even though he died,” when I introduced their gifts. Dad laughed at that and I responded, “They’re dead but they still deserve a gift.”

Gifts included beer, pastries, pasta, and books. I explained to Dad when describing the gifts, showing them to him, why I selected each present. Dad seemed particularly surprised by the beer, which was a German Pilsner with a flippy top, which were common in Germany when I lived there.

What happened next is that I went off for a bit, returning to find that Dad gave away several of the presents to the people because he forgot buy them. So instead of a gift for my cousin, Jeff, for example, Dad gave it to his nephew, Jeff. That left me speechless. In Dad’s usual style, he laughed off my protests and explained that he just said it was from both of us so what difference does it make? The people received the gift, which is the intent of the gift being bought.

I didn’t fully buy into Dad’s position but decided yes, the person getting the gift was most important, so why be an asshole about it?

He later asked me if I had other gifts to give people, because he didn’t buy gifts for others but he thought he should receive a gift. I laughed at him, mocking his lack of preparation and planning, but took him to a white chest freezer and began pulling things out. He asked me why I put them into the freezer. I answered, “Ask your wife. She gets it.”

The other dream had a segment involving a vase. I was in a dim warehouse sort of building, metal, with high, dull lights. Items were stacked on shelves, creating a labyrinth, and lots of shadowy places.

White and tall, with flowers and dragons painted on it, the vase had several cutouts. I noticed the vase and remarked on its beauty. When I did that, one of vase’s cutouts yawned wider and issued a black cloud. I jumped back, pushing the others with me back to avoid it. We discussed, “What is that?” Several, including me, believed it to be poison. We wanted to get out of there fast but there was only one narrow path out. The vase was up on a shelf at head level along the path.

We needed to pass the vase to leave, we found, because we found every other way blocked. Two attempts were made to race past the vase but it moved each time, growing larger and growling at us. Finding a hammer, I attempted to attack it. The vase counter attacked, growling more and growing larger again, issuing more scary black gas. The vase’s cutouts now had teeth.

Someone said, “You have to get rid of that vase.”

“I know,” I answered. Swinging the hammer, I knocked the vase onto the floor. It rolled toward us in a rush. I hurdled it, but it was trapping others. I rushed the vase. It spun around me. Jumping back, I dropped the hammer. Teeth bared and roaring, the vase charged me. Dodging it, I pulled a shelf partially over, stopping it from getting me. I spotted an old black, portable television on a shelf. Grabbing the television, I lifted it over my head and slammed it down on the vase. The television and vase both broke. Enough of the television remained for me to hit it again with the television.

The vase pieces were trying to come back together. Someone threw the hammer to me. It bounced on the cement floor. I seized it and hit the larger pieces of the vase. The vase hissed out wisps of the black cloud. I started kicking its pieces around, shouting at the others to run past it and escape. After the last of them had gotten past, I picked up the largest piece of vase, threw it across the warehouse, turned and ran.

0

A Dad Dream

I was at some wildly busy location, flitting between meeting people, attending parties, eating foods — especially desserts — and working on some new business.

I’d arrived there via a large, black and shiny car provided by my father. The car was luxurious, expensive, and impressive. After hunting for a parking space, I double-parked on the street because I was late. Promising myself to come back soon to move the car because I might be blocking another in, I rushed into the complex. Piles of food were on tables, and I was urged to eat. I did eat some finger food, and a small bit of dessert, just to be nice, I told them, all of us laughing. The food was fantastic, so I had a little more and then went on to meet with others.

I encountered Dad. He was involved in some new business venture. To support his business plan, he’d developed a table of projected aggregate growth and had me look it over. I did, then went to meet with his potential backers.

The backers’ side, people who were going to fund Dad’s business, included my mentor. The mentor — never actually seen in the dream but heard from via others — had worked up numbers for Dad’s new business, too. The numbers between the two camps were grossly different. The two sides used me as an intermediary to bridge the differences. I mostly dealt with Dad, telling him again and again that my mentor thought Dad’s numbers were overly optimistic. We argued the venture’s fine points. I wanted to see his business plan but piqued, he refused to show me. He wouldn’t even tell me what the business was about, annoying me.

I went back to the mentor and spoke to an assistant, explaining Dad’s logic, defending it, really, and then asked to see their plans and projections. They wouldn’t let me have them and sent me back to Dad.

I returned to my car to move it, but there still wasn’t anywhere else to put it. I needed to leave it there, which worried me, but another person, a stranger to me, assured me it was fine and not to worry about it. I put the car out of mind.

I went back to Dad. He and my mentor were going to meet later. Dad told me to check into my room, clean up and rest so that I could join them later.

I went outside to a huge round bricked plaza. Great crowds of people prowled and socialized there because some convention was going on. Finding the front desk, I was given my room key. It was round, with concentric wheels of numbers on it. Each wheel of numbers told me where I was to go to find my room, starting with the outer wheel. The numbers were all in gold but used different fonts. As I looked at the wheel, a smiling man sitting in a chair, holding a drink, legs crossed, told me that the outer wheel’s numbers referred to the stairs to use. He then explained in an aside to a woman sitting beside him that the keys often confused newcomers.

But I knew how to use the key and told him. The outer gold letters were 4-2. I went off and found the stairs labeled 4-2. Before I went up to my room, though, Dad came and gave me his business plan to look over. Sitting down, I discovered that he’d hugely scaled it down from what he’d told me. It seemed like a completely different idea from what he’d explained, too. This had to do with some kind of ice cream confectionary shop that served other food with the ice cream. They were going to start with twenty shops in seven locations.

The changes dismayed me. I warned him that competition already existed doing what he proposed, and that his plan wasn’t as unique or revolutionary as he seemed to think. He was unfazed because the mentor had told him it was a good idea, and they were going to proceed. I was summoned to go eat, so I left it at that and went to find my table.

Dream end.

4

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.

0

Monday’s Theme Music

High white cirrus brush strokes marble the pale blue sky. Monday, November 11, 2022, begins with sunshine and 33 degrees F in my foot of the valley. Although autumn fashion still imbues most neighborhood, eau de winter fills the air. It’ll be 54 F today, and mostly sunny. Sunshine crept in at 7:08 this morning like a cat sneaking in through the pet door. The day’s final rays will grace us at 4:45 PM.

We’re planning our soups. Soups in winter is a household favorite. Post Thanksgiving, we’ll resume a soup a week. I listed my favorites. Top of the list is harvest soup, which is all roasted veggies with mushroom broth. Second is chicken white chili. Tortellini soup comes next. Black bean veggie chili fills the fourth slot followed by lentil in fifth. Nothing like soup and warm bread on cold days to fill you, and these are all healthy and filling. Their simmering fragrances are a lovely bonus.

Musically, The Neurons were influenced by another’s post. Jill shared a song by Mike +the Mechanics, “In the Living Years”. It traditionally makes me pause to consider my relationship with Dad. Not the best, nor the worse, but a damaged one and a fount for personal frustration. He and I try but there’s just too much piss in the snow to completed the connections. I’m from his first marraige but he has children and stepchildren from a few other marriages. Dad was in the military and finally living in the continental US when I was a teenager. Another one of Mom’s marriages was imploding so I took refuge with Dad. He married again in my high school senior year. I became an adult and was gone. You see how it is. He just celebrated his 90th birthday last month.

That song prompted memories of other M +tM songs. The Neurons began playing “Taken In” from their 1985 album. I had it on CD and played it while driving across the southeastern U.S. I did that a lot in that life era. While stationed at Shaw AFB in South Carolina, I deployed on temporary duty to Florida, Somalia, Egypt, and places in Europe. I’d drive to stateside places, but before deploying, I’d sometimes take my wife and cats up north to stay with her family, as I’d be gone a while, four to eight weeks. So there were the trips there and back to taker her home, and there and back to pick her up. I put 54,000 miles on the car in eighteen months. Besides music, I’d listen to books on cassette tapes from the library. They weren’t yet on CD in our base library. It was an interesting time of transition.

“Taken In” is a mellow song and was ideal as a vehicle to help past the day speeding down the highways. I’d never seen the video before, but I love the period touches — the phones, the clothing, the cars. Hope you enjoy the video and music.

Here we go. Got coffee and a plain blueberry bagel. A cat monitors my progress on my left. The other sleeps in another room, where sunshine slices in past the slats on the blinds, generating a cozy ambiance. Stay positive, test negative. Cheers

2

Bewildering Red, White, and Blue Dream

I was staying in a two-story place with many other relatives. A diverse group, among the others were my father, two nephews, a sister-in-law, and one nephew’s wife and children. We were staying in the building temporarily. It impressed by being old and mundane, cheaply furnished with things which might have been procured at the curb on trash day or from secondhand stores and estate sales. It would only be for a few days. We understood and accepted its limitations.

One thing that did stand out was the owners’ use of red, white, and blue bunting and decorations. Much of it was worn and torn, and some of it was stained and moldy.So much of it in some many places, it was a great distraction. Especially, we noted to one another, since it’s not any sort of holiday that would call for decorations like that. It seemed like they wore their patriotism on their sleeves and by doing so much of it, they demeaned it. But it was their place, so WTH?

My nephew’s wife decided on another course. Without telling us, she and her daughters took much of the bunting down on the second floor because it annoyed them. I didn’t approve and told her so. Her husband, my nephew, defended her in his loud voice, joking about the whole thing. Dad agreed with me, it shouldn’t have been done, but shrugged it off, refusing to involve himself.

Everyone except Dad and I took off. A fuller understanding of the dwelling emerged. It was like a shoebox stood on one end. All the walls were white, except one upstairs, which was pink. The upper floor had a loft so you could look over and see about half of the bottom floor and the front entrance. No furniture was in that space. That floor was covered by a thin, worn, and soiled harvest-gold carpet with an extremely short pile, almost like indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Someone came to the door and then stepped in. Looking over the loft’s railing, I saw that it was a local police officer dressed in a black uniform. He said he was investigating vandalism. Going down and speaking with him, I realized that the owners had reported removing the second-floor bunting as vandalism. I told the officer what’d happened. While doing that, I indicated one wall to our left. Although white and broad, red, white, and blue ribbons covered the wall. These ribbons were like a blue ribbon given out as an award. There must have been thousands.

The officer considered everything and then said it didn’t sound like something he should be dealing with and left. I went back up and told Dad about this. As I did, the others returned. I repeated the story about what’d happened.

The others again prepared for an outing, and Dad and I again remained behind. Someone knocked on the front door, and then a state trooper entered. Looking up at me, he told me he was there to investigate reported vandalism. I laughed at this. Going down to talk with him, I discovered the ribbons gone from the first-floor wall, revealing a well-used and large corkboard. I asked the officer about the report, laughing as he explained that he was looking for missing ribbons, and then told him about the red, white, and blue ribbons which had covered the wall. The rest returned while the officer was there. Dad came down and told the officer that we’d pay for the missing bunting and ribbons. The officer replied, “No, the people wanted prosecution.”

The trooper decided it wasn’t his problem. He’d make the report and it would be forwarded to DA for further action.

Dream end.

0

A Traveling Dream

I was a young man, with my extended family. Cousins, including three deceased members, were there, along with aunts and uncles, and my parents (who, in RL, divorced when I was young).

We were ‘getting ready to go’. Where we were heading wasn’t properly defined. We’d had a reunion party the night before. The next day found the place trashed. Cans of beer and beer kegs were in the bathrooms. I was walking around, trying to make sense of things. We had two buildings divided by a parking lot where we were staying. Each of those buildings had a large game room with several bathrooms off of them. But beer was everywhere, mostly domestic brands like Schlitz, Miller’s, Stroh’s, and Buds, drinks from my childhood. I was laughing at that beer selection, questioning them, “Couldn’t we have done better?” They accused me of being a snob. We laughed about it all.

But the chaos annoyed me. We were due to leave soon. No one seemed ready, and they didn’t seem to care. Two vehicles were there for our travels. Both were sort of RVs. One was black and the other was red. Polished and shiny, they looked like wingless jets with wheels. People were filling them up with things they were taking. Checking it out, I proclaimed, “You’re trying to take too much. We’re not going to have any room for people.”

I went down into a game room to use the bathroom and encountered my father. He was in a jovial mood. I told him that I wanted to use a bathroom and was going to move the beer out of there so I could and asked if he would help. He just laughed and opened a beer. I said, “You’re having a beer now? But we’re getting ready to go.”

I became a little annoyed then and went back to the red and black RVs. An aunt came out, chastising everyone that we need to get a move on. I told her, “I know, I’ve been trying to get them organized.” Cousins started piling into the vehicles. I asked, “Who’s driving?” Aunt P answered, “You are.” I replied, “But I don’t even know where I’m going.”

She said, “Of course you do. You always know.”

Dream end.

0

The Sandwich Shop Dream

A phone was ringing. It was a late hour, but I thought it was Dad calling. I couldn’t get to the phone. I had my backpack on with my laptop and was heading for work.

I was in an airport, walking with others, none recognized from RL. We were gathered into a white side room to pick up our paychecks. They hadn’t been delivered on time to the regular place, and this was where we’d been sent to get them. We milled through with many others, then realized there were lines. People working with us weren’t in a line, so we formed one. We met with a rep, a tanned white male with a tired face. He was a friend of sorts but also upper management. He told us our paychecks were coming, that there’d been some issue, yada, yada, and the checks would be here later today.

‘Later today’ came. We returned to the room. Far fewer people were present. In fact, it was really only my group. The management friend never showed up. Neither did our checks. Disappointed, we left.

I got in line to have a sandwich made at a Subway shop. I’d been there many times before and the staff and I knew one another. The lines were long and so was the wait. When it was finally my turn, I ordered a sub sandwich only to be told that it was after five o’clock.

I looked at the clock; they were right, it was now a few minutes after five. I protested, because I’d been in line before five, and appealed to their sense of right. I appealed the time, too, arguing that it was just a few minutes after five, what difference could a few minutes make? And, I was a regular.

They would not make me a sandwich but offered me something else for free. I thought I’d get something for my wife, so, mollified, I started ordering. After a few minutes, the guy behind the counter said, “That’s just another sandwich.”

I realized that he was right. I started apologizing and held up a large quantity of paper money. I said, “I can pay for it.”

The counterman took all the sandwich ingredients and wordlessly slid them onto the floor in front of me. He then took all the money from my hand and drop it on top of the food on the floor. I protested again, “I forgot, I didn’t realize.” Then, seeing the futility of that effort, I picked up my money and rushed off into the airport to catch my flight. As I went, I kept telling myself, “I really forgot. I really did.”

Dream end

0

The Book Sales Dream

I was a young man, collecting and selling information on other people and on events. It started with two young women bemoaning the inability to learn something. I told them that I could do it. Then I did.

When I went around collecting information, it ended up taking the form of a thick hardback book. I showed them the book and then told them I’d sell it to the highest bidder. They were taken back — they’re the ones who suggested the information was needed, according to them — and thought I should just give them the book. I disagreed and said that wasn’t going to happen.

Rain started falling. I decided I needed a safe hideout. I found one side of a wooden crate leaning against a hillside. Pulling it aside, I saw a hole. I crawled through and found myself in a small living space. It was where I’d been living, I realized.

It stopped raining, so I left, taking my book with me. I went around, showing others and generating interest in it. People began offering me money. I wasn’t ready to sell.

My father appeared on the scene, telling me that I had to go to court. I wasn’t bothered by that, I would go to court and win. Dad was walking through a creek at that point. The water was low, just covering his feet, but muddy. The original two women were with him. I was back in a military uniform, following Dad. Note that in RL, he’d had a twenty-year career in the military, then I’d done the same.

I realized that I didn’t have a military hat, that I was outside and ‘uncovered’. That’s against reg and disturbed me. I asked Dad if he had a cap I could wear. He didn’t hear me, and I repeated the question several times before he said, “No,” and then told me that I didn’t need one.

Rain began falling anew. The two women started looking for cover and saw the opening to my place because I’d left my protective cover off. I didn’t want them to go in there. They were going enter but decided that it was too small. I then changed my mind and invite them in. I went in first, and then invited them in and showed them how large my space was. They agreed and then made me an offer on the book of data. It was a very large offer and made me grin in delight.

Dream end

0

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