Tag: family

The Adulting Dream

I felt like the sole adult in this dream, hence the title. I seemed to be visiting Mom’s home, at least, at first. It’s not like any house that she lived in. She was there, however, along with sisters, wife, and many others.

The first act found me looking around Mom’s home with dismay. She always kept a clean and organized house; this place, although big, didn’t fit that description. As others were talking, I stared at something in an upper corner of the room. It appeared to be a giant cobweb. I called that to Mom’s attention. When she went to clean it, she discovered that it was an old Halloween decoration that she’d put up. She thought it so pretty, she left it up there.

The family, including me, dispersed to do other things. I remained dissatisfied about the state of the house, and walked around looking for impressions to vet my conclusion. It seemed like people weren’t paying attention to it. Crossing into the dining room, I discovered the floor was soaking wet. So was the furniture. In fact, water was splashing on the floor through the open window. I gathered that the sprinkler had been turned out with a window left open, and that the sprinkler had been left running.

I fetched Mom to show her what was going on, telling her to walk into the room so that she could see for herself. When she exclaimed about the floor being wet, I showed her the open window and the sprinkler. Then I told her that this was what I meant by people not paying attention to details, not thinking.

That ended act one. The next act began in the same location, but with new features, people, and furniture. Young adults were being prepped for a test. I had an impression that I was a visiting uncle. I barely knew these four young people. They were experiencing trouble with some of the test prep. Every once in a while, though, they’d break out singing the Queen song, “Somebody to Love”. They did a good job of it, too. But singing that song was disrupting their test prep.

Moving in, I stopped the singing and reminded everyone that they were preparing for a test. Then I pulled out one of the books and put it on a table. The table was one of many, a square made for one person. But the four nieces and nephews pulled up chairs and sat around this one table as I explained what the problem was about and how to solve it. They picked it up quickly and then began studying in earnest. I made the suggestion that since the test was open book, they have the book opened to that particular page, ready. That thought that was a great idea.

I then backed away and observed to one of their parents, “They do know that they need to be at separate desks, don’t they, and have separate books?” After he confirmed that was true, I suggested that they go ahead and set up like that. They did that. I walked to the door to leave. As I did, one nephew began singing “Somebody to Love” again. As the others took up the song, I interrupted and reminded them that they needed to get ready for the test. Then I left.

Outside the place, I passed a small, pale yellow school. About a dozen teenage girls were in front of it, complaining that they were bored and had nothing to do. They seemed about the ages of my nieces and nephews, back getting ready for the test. These two groups should come together, I thought. They’d be good for one another.

I returned to the test area, intent on telling them that. As I came in, one nephew began singing, “Somebody to Love”.

Dream end.

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On Some Days

  1. On some days, I want to get away by myself to scream at the world. Yesterday was such a day. Stepped into the shower and screamed in silence. Was somewhat cathartic.
  2. I was driving along unlined streets in a residential neighborhood yesterday. Cars were parked along the side but there’s more than enough room for two cars to pass. Yet, so many drivers could not manage that. Driver age, sex, vehicle size…none of it seemed to explain it. People just couldn’t manage it. I thought it was because of the lack of lines. What tended to happen was that folks in one direction would stop so that folks proceeding in the other direction could drive straight down the middle. Young, old, male, female, all exhibited problems with it. “Just move over,” I’d tell them through the windshield. “Just use your side of the street. Honestly, it’s not that hard.” I should be more considerate of others but…on some days…it’s harder.
  3. Contemplating a favorite shirt’s fate. Like everything else, there is a season, turn, turn, etc. Bought this shirt back in 1999. Have photographic evidence of that, for there I am, wearing it in a dated photo. Nothing special, button down collar, long-sleeved, cotton, faded blue stripes on egg shell white. It’s been with me in two states, four houses, five companies, and ten cats (sigh.) (The cats were three to five at a time…) Probably paid about twenty-five dollars for the shirt. Can’t recall that, although I do recall that I bought it on sale at Macy’s. Good jeans shirt. Have gotten some compliments while wearing it, but mostly I like its style and comfort. It’s been gently descending the hill for years, evidenced mostly through armpit stains. I’ve washed those out with a lemon juice and baking soda process a couple times. Now, though…the collar is frayed. It looks like it’s time for the shirt to finally move on. I guess, properly, I’m moving on from the shirt.
  4. I feel like a prisoner sometimes. (Such an exaggeration, right?) I hate throwing things away, but it’s inculcated into my nature and our society. Besides the shirt, there’s now an electric kettle. Probably purchased ten years ago, the spring which helps the lid release and open no longer functions. Can it be fixed? Maybe…if I can find the right spring.
  5. I contemplate the conundrum. Savings are acquired by mass production. Costs are kept down by underpaying people and going to the margin on design and materials. Paying more can gain you more…maybe. You really can’t be sure. But after a few years, when the device or clothing fails, what do you do with it? Where does it goes? The recycling gig seems to be filling up and failing. That’s always been the fallback: recycle or repurpose. I have containers full of used shirts now relegated to being rags out in the garage.
  6. Dad was going to get a new stent this past week. His wife called. He’s eighty-eight. A COPD sufferer, he’d gone into the hospital on Monday to have his meds adjusted for his COPD. Suffering from edema resulting in a swollen left leg and foot, he was kept for observations and a stress test, and given diuretics. The stress test never happened; he was wheezing too much on that day, Wed. He was released on Thursday with plans to have the stress test done in the future. Meanwhile, he and his wife got the COVID-19 vaccination on Friday, which was paramount for them.
  7. I spent an hour on the phone chatting with Dad. He was in a talkative mood and opened up about his youth, something unusual for him. Mom and Dad divorced when I was about ten. He was in the military and oft stationed overseas, so I lived with him for about seven years total, including my final three years of high school. It was just him and me for two of those years. He worked, and I went to school, cleaned, and cooked. We didn’t see much of one another.
  8. Dad revealed that he met Mom in Sioux City, Iowa, when he was stationed there. (She’s from Turin, Iowa, and he’s from Pittsburgh, PA.) This was back in 1952. He was a radioman and she was a seventeen-year-old telephone switchboard operator. Too young to for her to marry in Iowa, they went to Luverne, Minnesota. There he discovered that while she was older enough (fifteen was the age for females there), he wasn’t old enough at twenty; he had to be twenty-one. Naturally, Dad managed to procure a letter with his father’s signature verifying that he was twenty-one. But no, wait. They told him that he had to have his mother’s signature. “Well, Mom is dead,” Dad replied. Then he called his father and said, “Can you tell these people that Mom passed?” That was done but he got grief for it from his parents for years.
  9. Joe Biden has been POTUS for a month and has yet to go golfing. By this point in his term, one month, Con Don had golfed six times. Donald Trump’s aides don’t want to admit the President is golfing – CNN Politics
  10. Enough whining and complaining for now. Got my coffee. Caspa, Uno Dos, and Billy await. They’re just meeting Spag and the recos for the first time. Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.
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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.

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So the Thoughts

So the thoughts go, ah, another cousin has died. He was seventy-three. Positive for COVID-19, kidney failure was his cause of death.

The thoughts continue, when did I see him last? What happened to him in the interim?

The thoughts drift…did he marry and have children? Who are they and where do they live?

The thoughts roll on to other uncles and aunts and their children, and their children’s children.

Two other cousins passed away in 2020. Hadn’t seen one in two decades. Almost six had passed since I’d seen the other. They and I were small children. Also passing was an aunt, not seen since I was two or three.

In a modern age of connection and travel, it’s startling to recognize how many of my family members I know about, and how little I know about them.

Two related stories are there to be told. One is of a cousin fourteen years younger. He was friends with my sister via FB. (My sister has a different father than me and last name and she’s since married a few times.) He reached out to her: “Hey, how come my mom’s maiden name and your brother’s last name are the same?” He was too young to remember me, and didn’t know about our connection.

Another friend request came in last year. Mom’s older brother had a son who know lives north of me by a few hours. Can we be friends? A few years older, he and I have a lot in common. On one FB exchange today, we discovered that we attended the same Joe Cocker concern a few years ago. From our description of where we were sitting, we were within yards of one another.

It’s a large world and a small world, a world tangled with connections and distance. I began trying to untangle some of it today.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Called Mom yesterday to exchange holiday greetings. She lives in a suburb east of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania where they’re more or less snowed in. Four to six inches were on the ground and the snow was still falling. The roads had been plowed and salted, and appeared outside her window. But snow still fell and temperatures were low. Those are treacherous conditions. If you don’t need to go out, you don’t.

So she and her fiancée spent Christmas at home alone. They seemed fine with that. Stocked with plenty of food, they know how to entertain themselves and one another. She conveyed to me the news that the governor had announced that Allegheny county, where she resides, had received the Pfizer COVID-19. Residents seventy years old plus would be the first vaccinated. Mom is awaiting word on the schedule and details.

Conversation ended up including food — of course (Mom and my sisters love holiday meal planning, and endless discussions, texts, and emails ensue to make it all happen — which it didn’t, this COVID year) — relatives, and then music. Mom relayed to me that her two favorite songs are “Blue Christmas” covered by Elvis Presley (1957) and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey (1994). “Blue Christmas” has been around a while. In cassette days, one sister always bought her a new cassette for the holiday. Mom would pop it into her Walkman and wear it out as she listened and went about activities.

The Carey song stuck in my head. So, thanks to Mom, your after-Christmas theme music is “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Whenever I think of this song, it’s lifted from the movie, Love Actually (2003). Enjoy the music, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vaccine. Happy holiday!

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Family Lore

I woke up thinking about Mom and being snowed in. I’d already sent her a quick, kidding message about having enough food on hand. It’s an ongoing joke that Mom always has a great deal of food on hand — especially desserts and treats. Besides, my three sisters and four adult grandchildren live in the area. They’re always checking in on her to ensure she has food. Mom’s boyfriend lives with her. His family also checks in on them. Food won’t be an issue.

Mom enjoys telling stories, and being snowed in reminded me of one. A retired nurse, she was a recurring baby-sitter for my grandniece, Amy. Once, when Amy was six (she’s graduating from college next year), Mom was driving her through a slippery Pittsburgh snowstorm on one of the back roads around Penn Hills and Monroeville. As the car began spinning and swerving, Amy shouted, “Grandma, don’t kill us!”

The car ended up off road, but a young man witnessed it and got her out in short order. However, the sentence, “Grandma, don’t kill us!” is enshrined in family lore.

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Let It Snow

Mom was born and raised in a little town called Turin, Iowa. Dad was in the military, stationed not far away when they met. When he went overseas on assignment, Mom took the children and moved in with her in-laws in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Whenever she talks about those times, it’s with delighted and happy wistfulness. Dad and Mom divorced but Mom says she never fell out of love with his family. It must be true; after we’d moved around the country while Dad was in the military, she returned to Pittsburgh and grew her roots over sixty years ago.

I’ve asked her, “Why Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?” Now, her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are all there, and so she’ll remain. But back then, why?

…she loves the people of Pittsburgh, its hills, bridges, and history, the change of seasons, and summer thunderstorms. More than anything, she loves it when it snows there. When big snowstorms strike, she turns on the heat, opens the curtains and watches the snow.

Back when I was a child in her household, I’d charge outside to play in the snow. Hours later, I’d return. Everything would be stripped off in the basement to be hung up to dry or tossed in the dryer. Hot soup with cheese sandwiches or hot chocolate with marshmallows would inevitably follow, depending on the hour.

I’m thinking of this today because she sent me a video via FB. It’s Frank Sinatra singing, “Let It Snow”. I laughed immediately; I’d seen the weather forecast for Pittsburgh and saw the forecasts for snow, and thought, that’ll make Mom happy.

She always claims we have a psychic connection. Here’s the video. I know all the words. Mom played it back when I was growing up in Pittsburgh whenever the snow began to fall. Listening to it and thinking of her, I just need to smile.

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Such Screwy Dreams

My dreams left me laughing and shaking my head. One involved food and family; the second was about military and ID (again) (but with changes).

In the first, my stepfather was there. ‘He and I didn’t get along’ is a loaded understatement. He was a large part of the unhappiest part of my life.

I knew that history in my dream, and even wondered, what’s he doing here. But I tried making nice, and he was being nice. My wife was there (she’d never met him), along with a couple of my sisters, and my mother.

First, weirdly, we — my wife and I — set up a television connection with the net to watch porn. Really. The plan wasn’t mine in the dream, and left me scratching my head, but I did as told. Then, lo, my stepfather and family sat down and turned on that porn. They were all laughing, asking, what’s that?

It was a flat screen TV. Distracting them, I spun it around so they couldn’t see the screw. Then I ran to the bedroom. Lifting the bedskirt, I located switches to change what they could see on the television. Then I dashed back, and turned the television back to them.

As they watched television, my wife and I prepared food for ourselves in the other room. I was having a Philly cheese steak sandwich; she was having a veggie version.

We went outside to eat. The food was on a plate. The house was on a busy corner. Some people passing asked if they could have a sandwich, offering to pay for it. My wife said, “Yes,” while I was like, “What? Don’t we need permits?” She was certain that we didn’t. Well, my wife and I started making and selling the sandwiches. Sales were great. We were happy, and sold them until we ran out of supplies.

The dream ended as my wife laughed, counted cash, and joked about doing it again.

The next dream took on a military spin. We wife and I were in temporary quarters, leaving a base. I think we may have been leaving the military. Well, we’re in bed when the door bangs open. Two guys walk in. I leap out of bed and rush across the room to confront them. I’m not big; they’re a good six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. But this is the military and I’m a senior NCO, and that’s the power I’m using. I brace them, telling them that this is my room and they have no business being there. They’re disagreeing, saying the rules changed. I haven’t heard about changes, so I don’t give a shit, you know?

But I tell my wife what they told me, that there’s been unspecified changes that shifts our roles. Then I go out to learn more. After a few minutes, I return and tell her, I’ve confirmed what I was told, that it’s changed. Sitting down, we discuss the changes and agree that they were overdue, but that they don’t really matter, because we were done, suggesting we were giving up our military ID cards.

Then we leave with our baggage, and the dream ends.

In both dreams, I notice that it’s about changes. In the first, my relationship with my stepfather changed. Then my wife and I were making food for ourselves, but changed and started making and selling food. In the military dream, of course, there were changes that seem to reference the structure and our roles.

Then again, my dreams are often about change these days.

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The Lost Dream

My wife and I, with some friends and cousins, were in a temporary place. Cats were accompanying us.

It wasn’t a great place. An older building, it had a bug issue. Its brown rug was a little worn. Fresh paint would be welcomed on the walls.

Temporary, old, but comfortable, we were grateful for the shelter. Part of our gratefulness and acceptance was that we knew a change was due. We just needed to endure for a short period.

The cats were busy playing and eating. My wife went off somewhere. I took up residence with the cats in another suite of rooms. Why? These things weren’t explained. I was watching television and trying to kill an insect that bugged me. (Yeah, sorry for that pun.) I worried that the insect, something with many legs and a pincer was a threat to the cats. That’s what prompted me to attempt to kill it. But I was trying to kill it gently.

That didn’t work. The thing got away, going under a piece of furniture and disappearing. Meanwhile, I had a huge television turned on and kept surfing through offerings. My wife and cousins returned. A disjointed conversation ensued. I understood it (I think) in the dream but it’s hazy now. The essence of it was that we were in the wrong place and needed to go to the right place. We divvied up tasks. I took the television, carrying it to the next place, with a promise to return for the cats.

I knew the way, yet took a wrong turn and became lost. I was supposed to be able to go from the wrong place to the right place without going outside, but I’d ended up outside.

A light, early evening rain was falling. Trees and bushes overhanging the walkways gave some shelter but water was gushing over gutters and out of drain spouts. Protecting the television, I navigated the paths, yet couldn’t find my way.

Discovering an open door, I slipped into there, thinking that I had to return to the inside. I was in a garage. Trying another door, I entered a dining room. A family was seated at the table eating dinner. I apologized to them, explaining that I was just cutting through to return to the inside.

Amenable to my use of their house as a shortcut, they barely paused in their meal except to reassure one another that it was alright. Leaving their house, I found myself in familiar hallways and knew where to go, and that everything would be okay.

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A Year of Change

That smell of wet, burnt wood from a large fire bristles in my memories.

1971. I was fourteen. Dad had just returned from an overseas military assignment and took me in, a refugee from an unhappy time with Mom and her husband then. We lived in Dayton, Ohio, first in an apartment, and then in Wright-Patterson AFB base housing, in a place called Page Manor. We lived there from the beginning of July to the end of August. Then, an opportunity came up. He retired from the military to start a new chapter to his life.

He and I moved to West Virginia and he began his new job. Housing was limited so Dad bought a mobile home. A space was found for it in a trailer park. School started. A month later, the trailer burned up. Days were spent trying to recover what we could from the trailer. I carried a smoky odor around my clothes for months.

Dad’s co-worker let us crash at their place, but it was crowded, and the co-worker had a young wife and a new baby. Goaded by her disenchantment to be rid of us — nothing personal, and I understand it — we found a new place to live within a month.

Coincidentally, that was the same time that I met the girl who would become the woman who would become my wife. We married in 1975, less than four years after meeting. We’ve been together since then, although we’ve had separations and struggles. Amazing to think that I’ve known her since 1971 and have been married to her since 1975. It seems like a lot longer… Bet it seems even longer to her.

It’s all sharp in the head, strong in the memories, that period, a time of destruction, change, and beginning. I can’t say that I don’t look back; I’m always looking back, then turning around and looking forward, re-establishing where I’m at, and moving on.

Or trying to.

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