The Long Dream

My wife and I were staying in a white apartment building, in a spacious ground-floor unit.

Located on flat land, seven stories tall, the building was part of a busy area, full of energetic people and planning. Part of this was about the traffic going on with the broad street in front of the house. Other changes involved landscaping.

I had a sort of control where I could receive and send information. As I passed information on, someone in charge approached and asked how I was doing that. I showed them my control, a black rectangle similar to a television remote control. I demonstrated how I pointed it at things, pressed a button, and learned from doing that. I could then point it to someone, press a button, and share that information with that person.

In response to questions, I clarified that, yes, I could do simultaneous information collection and broadcast it to multiple people at the same time. But I also showed him that the remote was old and damaged; several buttons were weak or loose. I sometimes had to hold them in longer before the desired effects took place.

I hinted that I would really appreciate a new one, and they implied they might be able to help.

In another part of my dream, I had five cats. All were cats who previously lived with me and passed away. They were just hanging around the apartment, being cats.

Then a strange cat entered the front door. Resembling a small gray lion, it came in and then paused when it saw our cats.

One of our cats ran right up and attacked it. Our cat and the lion cat wrestled for a few seconds and then our cat pulled away and stretched. “Oh, he’s only playing,” we realized.

We then watched as the other cats interacted. One of our cats attacked one of the others, throwing them down. But then all the fighting stopped and the cats just settled down and washed.

It was then time for my wife and I to leave to go somewhere. As we left our apartment, I saw that the building’s rear landscaping was torn up. All the grass and plants had been removed.

That surprised me and my wife. We talked about it and then another approached and assured us that these plans had been in place for a long time. My wife and I chatted further, admitting, we must have missed the notice.

Dream end

Saturday’s Theme Music –

Ashland, Oregon – Saturday, April 11, 2026.

Another rainy day for the valley. Thunderstorms struck again yesterday but it was just a fifteen-minute visit. We’re seeing 54 F now and anticipate 58 as the high…

Nothing from Mom…more of the usual about Trump. Many headlines about the historic spaceflight. So many seem so hungry for it, like they needed some good news.

I read Paul Krugman’s post about the labor news. He speculates that we may have achieved a zero growth state. Since people aren’t immigrating into the country, there’s not more demand for jobs.

Makes you wonder. If population is flat and either sated with their purchases or too poor and working too hard to buy them because high gas, food, and healthcare prices are taxing their finances, who will buy new goods and services?

I was proud and pleased by how Boise, Idaho, responded to a ban on pride flags. Narrow-minded Idaho legislators specified what flags are allowed in their quest to limit freedom of speech and expression. They were particularly incensed that Boise had flown a gay pride flag for over ten years. Oh, the horror.

That couldn’t stand, so they passed a law against it, enforced with hefty fines.

Boise responded beautifully, by wrapping poles with gay pride flags.

On to a quiet day for me. Today’s music came from Papi walking around the room this morning. All of a sudden, he whirled and looked back.

I turned and looked as he stared, alert. The two of us went down the hall together. I don’t know what he saw or heard. After a moment of standing in the bedroom, Papi gave his face a little wash, turned and left, resuming his previous activity.

That was all enough for The Neurons to pull up some lyrics from the Oasis song, “D’you Know What I Mean?” and slot the song into the morning mental music stream.

Lyrics:

Step off the train all alone at dawn
Back into the hole where I was born
The sun in the sky never raised an eye to me
The blood on the trax and must be mine
The fool on the hill and I feel fine
Don’t look back cos you know what you might see

Look into the wall of my mind’s eye
I think I know, but I don’t know why
The questions are the answers you might need
Coming in a mess going out in style
I ain’t good-looking but I’m someone’s child
No-one can give me the air that’s mine to breathe

Yeah, don’t look back because you know what you might see…

Hope your day is filled with powerful energy that takes you in the right direction.

Cheers

The Net’s Take: This Week with Trump

Humor, facts, truth, history, reminders…and Melania.

History

The Art of the Deal

Pretty bad people…

Behold, TACO’s Arch

Ah, memories…

USA…not first for Trump…

Internetus Interruptus

Our Internet connection was down this weekend. Started Saturday and dragged through Sunday.

We use Ashland Home Net. Owned by the city, we want to support our city. The service has been reliable. Like everything, though, there can sometimes be outages.

The net went down Saturday afternoon. We gave it time to come back up. Didn’t. So — reboot system. Still no connectivity.

I called our service provider and left a message. It’s a small organization and they don’t have someone in the office at night and on weekends. But they check their messages and get back to you.

They did get back to us on Sunday. We were out. I had my cell phone with me. “Private number” it said. I ignored it. Later, I listened to the message, which was Ashland Home Net telling me that they couldn’t find a record of our account.

*grumble grumble*

When we were home after our Easter festivities with friends, I pulled our records to call Ashland Home Net and give them our account number. The folder had notes from previous issues and fixes. This included one from 2023: “Netgear router inadvertently reset (button on side — beware).” I had the Netgear instruction pamphlet attached to the folder.

Aha.

I pulled out the pamphlet, followed the instructions, and got us back online.

I also called Ashland Home Net and gave them our account number, just to close that loop. And they called back, apologized for not being able to find us, baffled by that side of it, confirming that we were online again and weren’t experiencing any more interruptus.

Normal online life resumed.

Exfloofutive Order

Exfloofutive Order (floofinition) – Directive issued by an animal, particularly a housepet, that manages how circumstances or a situation are expected to be handled. Origins: 1904. Although many Exfloofutive Orders pre-existed, the first recorded Exfloofutve Order was written and numbered under the heading, “Care and Feeding of Animals in the Urban Household”, establishing by Exfloofutive Order by Mittens that, “…all animals dwelling with humans in Dayton, Ohio, will be given proper care and shelter, including meals, treats, brushing, bedding, and water.”

In Use: “Charlie issues a single woof each day at dinner, which became known as Charlie’s Exfloofutive Dinner Order.”

In Use: “Before going on vacation, Natalie regarded a list titled “Exfloofutive Orders”, which delineated how and what her cats, dogs, and fish would be treated and fed, along with where — because some of them were very floofticular.”

Saturday’s Theme Music

Ashland, Oregon — April 4, 2026.

Sunshine graces the valley again. 52 F, blues skies, spring. High in the upper 70s projected for our afternoon.

Yardwork and house chores are in my future. Looking forward to being out there and getting things done.

War continues in Iran. The quiet news cycle is about Trump thinking about more cabinet replacements as the war flounders in Iran. Two aircraft were shot down. We’re not sure why the A10 went down — yet — but the F15E Strike Eagle was shot down. Speculation swirls about what type of system took down the Eagle.

Personnelente had a comment on it in “The Price of Folly”: “Iran has shot down several US aircraft: at a minimum an A-10, and two F-15s. Russia is supplying advanced anti aircraft weapons to Iran even as Cadet Bone Spurs lowers sanctions on Russia and backs off helping Ukraine.”

Yes, Trump has baffled us by lowering sanctions on Russia, who supplies Iran with military equipment and advice, along with intelligence support. You gotta wonder…

Papi inspired The Neurons for today’s morning mental music stream. He’d come in from the sunshine and approached for…something. Papi isn’t really a communicator. But when I mentioned treats, he came to rest with an expectant gaze. As I got his treat, I sang out, “Gimme gimme good eating,” playing on a rock song from my youth. That’s Crazy Elephant with “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'” from 1969.

Hope your day is full of good things for you. My future sees coffee.

Cheers

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑