A Meeting & A Wedding Dream

Dreamed I was at a fancy business dinner. Large, round white tables set across a ballroom, bar in the corner. I’d just arrived and set up was underway. Two of my previous bosses were there. The fete was due to begin in an hour or so.

Participants, including me, had been asked to create some entertainment. I’d created a word jumble. Then my former boss said, “And please provide an answer sheet.”

Uh oh. I hadn’t created that. I went to get the notebook where I’d made it, knowing that I used one of those black and white lab notebooks that I always favored. I’d thrown it away because the notebook was full. I went to a gray, wheeled, large garbage cans sitting there and began going through the trash. People asked me to explain. I reluctantly did, with a grin, and was met with sympathy.

One unfamiliar elderly woman came by and said, “I know what you’re going through. I’ve done that.”

Shrugging, I replied, “If I can’t find it, I’ll just have to solve the jumble.”

Dad was there, putting silverware on tables. He said, “Maybe you used one of these notebooks, Michael.”

I knew I hadn’t because the ones he showed me weren’t the right kind. But I said, “Good idea, I’ll check.” And made a show of checking a few.

That dream segment ended. Another began.

I went to a counter crowded with product and was a little confused. My wife was there, along with several others, including a man behind a counter. I learned they were talking about my hair! Some products had been ordered and had arrived.

I had my own things to do/try for my hair, here and back home, so I was a little puzzled and annoyed. My wife said, “Everyone wants you to look pretty for the wedding.” I think I dimly knew a sister was getting married but didn’t know who.

The man wanted me to try the products. I wanted him to back off but didn’t say anything. I suggested, “Let me brush my hair so we can see what it looks like first.”

I didn’t have a brush, mirror, or comb, so I used my hands, and then asked my wife, “How does this look?”

She hemmed and hawed, not able to decide, which vexed me.

Dream end.

Sunday’s Theme Music

Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 1, 2026. It’s raining and foggy in Ashland, with temperatures tottering around 50 degrees F. Not a shred of sunshine out there, and a high of 57 is expected. Spring is muscling in.

It’s a day of questioning for me, starting with what’s going on with Mom to what’s going on in the world and the nation.

I learned yesterday that another sister — our youngest — had been going to visit Mom, taking her things, etc. The youngest has been designated as our contact with Mom because she has the best relationship of everyone living nearby. I reached out to her to see how Mom was doing.

The youngest related that when she arrived, Mom was playing bingo with five or six others at a table and apparently laughing and having fun. Mom told the youngest that she’d gone to church, which she enjoyed, and seemed pretty content and happy.

After wheeling Mom back to Mom’s room, the youngest found clothes all over Mom’s area. Mom complained she didn’t have hangers. Sis pointed out that they’re in the closet, and told her, you need to look, and helped Mom tidy.

Then, though, today, Mom asked the youngest to bring her cookies — “Anything but chocolate chip.” Oatmeal raisin cookies were brought, which made Mom mad. She then gave my sister ‘mean faces’ and quit speaking with her. The youngest rolled Mom to the dining room so she could eat, and then left.

The youngest sister also related that Mom’s roomie is 95 years old with congestive heart failure and two ‘bad shoulders’. She had a hospice aid visiting. My sister suggested that maybe we should get Mom a hospice aid. That took me back, because there’s nothing indicated to me at this point that Mom is ready for hospice.

It’s just as troubling and confusing elsewhere in the world. Trump ordered the U.S. to attack Iran, a joint operation with Israel, “Operation Epic Fury”. While Iran’s supreme leader was killed, Iran retaliated. Americans were killed and injured. More critically, is this the opening that will explode the area into another war? Trump and his advisors seem to think in terms of gunship diplomacy and regime change.

Trump — the peace president, a self-made assertion that has Orwell laughing in his grave — said that the attack was to protect Americans. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” Trump said in prerecorded remarks posted on White House social media accounts early Saturday morning.”

Back in 2011, Trump said President Obama would start a war with Iran. “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and he’s ineffective.”

Who is weak and ineffective now, Trump?

Protests in Baghdad broke out, with “Death to Israel, death to America,” being shouted. This smacks of the 1970s and 1980s, so it sickens me that we seem to be going into another war spiral. I hope to hell that’s not true.

As I sat with that information, news arrived of a mass shooting in Austin, Texas. Next came updated information about deaths in Iran where 85 are reported killed: “The majority of the dead are schoolgirls aged between seven and 12 years old, according to the regime-controlled news outlets Tasnim and Fars.”

Senseless killing, once again. I expect anger and hatred in Iran to rise in response. This is exactly where we were before, using violence and killing to win hearts and minds. It did not work then; I don’t expect it to work now.

BTW, remember when Trump vowed no more wars when he campaigned? Guess that promise meant as much as Mexico paying for the wall and lower food and energy prices.

The song in my morning mental music stream came when I first looked out the windows, before reading any news. “Rainy Night in Georgia” came out in 1970. The Neurons put it in there when I thought, “Another rainy day in Ashland.” I didn’t remember who performed the song and looked it up to learn it was Brook Benton.

I call again for peace and grace to find its way to us, and maybe it will someday. Right now, it feels less likely than it did last week. But things will change. It’s really just question of how and why.

Cheers

The Morning eMail

My wife heaved a sigh. She’d just come into the home office with her tea and settled down on her computer to check her email.

“My NYTimes is again in my junk folder, along with Ashland News,” she announced. “Two pieces of junk mail are in my inbox.”

“It’s probably the AI that’s supposed to be so helpful,” I answer. She laughs.

Complaints about her emails have been going all week. She uses Hotmail, which is now Outlook. Or maybe it’s the other way. Whatever you call it, she’s displeased with its performance. Every day, she has to check to see where her trusted emails have gone and delete the spam that now hits her inbox. As a product, the Hotmail/Outlook app seems to be going backwards.

It’s not consistent, either. It first started with her saying last Monday, “I didn’t get my NYTimes newsletter.” Then she said, “I found it in my junk mail.” That continued for several days before it went back to her inbox. That’s when Ashland News went to junk mail.

“I don’t understand,” my wife said. “Why is it doing this?”

A search of the net suggests many ways to try to fix this problem. None of them mentioned why the problem began. I decided to use AI to see what it said. ChatGPT blamed new adaptive AI which Microsoft introduced last year.

I passed that on to my wife, who laughed. “Great. AI is screwing up my email. What a perfect metaphor.”

I laughed, too. “I don’t know how much I trust of what one AI says about the other. It’s like wondering, what does your wife think of your girlfriend?”

Saturday’s Theme Music

Ashland, Oregon – Saturday, February 28, 2026. An uninspiring flat gray tam caps the valley. We’ve reached February’s end and we’re cruising toward spring with 60 F as our high, up from the present 46. Rain is expected.

Our snowbank is at 41% of normal as they label our winter a snow drought. Fingers crossed that nature isn’t finished with the area’s snow deliveries or it’ll be a dry summer — unless that season changes and becomes wet.

Sis reports Mom has a roommate and is not happy. Her new roomie ‘poops on the toilet seat’ and then uses Mom’s wipes to clean up. Apparently, Mom had been settling in and considered herself happy until the roomie arrived.

Sis’s car was rearended yesterday. Nobody was hurt, the damage was mild, and the other driver took full responsibility. But the accident dinged sis’s mood. However, a bouquet of flowers was delivered to her as a four-year anniversary thank you, lifting her spirits again.

My wife and I both seem over our colds at last. Just mild coughing, thin and unproductive, struck this morning. My respiratory system seems clear and my breathing is well.

Looking at the news, I was pleased that the Senate again denied the SAVE Act to pass. The law was aimed to burden voters to provide identification, making it harder to vote. Trump and his allies suggest that it’s to stop voter fraud. Studies have actually shown that there is little voter fraud in national U.S. elections.

Trump and Israel ordered more strikes against Iran, killing more than 80 people. These attacks were part of a campaign to pressure Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program. That’s interesting, as Trump claimed attacks he ordered last summer obliterated Iran’s nuclear program.

Last in the news arena, the hypocrisy levels of justice hit new highs this week. Hillary Clinton testified about her ‘relationship’ with Jeffrey Epstein: don’t know him, never met him. Nor is there evidence to the contrary. Melania Trump was photographed with Epstein. Her name appears in emails, an address-book entry, and a 2002 message to Ghislaine Maxwell, along with third-party claims and materials such as photographs and third‑party claims. She has yet to be called to testify.

As usual with these shows, little concerns were expressed about the Epstein files victims.

With this as my backdrop, The Neurons dropped “Thin Lizzy” into the morning mental music stream with “Don’t Believe A Word”. Offering a nice bluesy tone, the song plays with the idea of what’s said to produce results, suggesting, that’s why what’s said can’t be trusted.

Lyrics h/t AZLyrics.com

Don’t believe me if I tell you
That I wrote this song for you
There just might be
Some other silly pretty girl
I’m singing to

Don’t believe a word
For words are so easily spoken
And your heart is just like that promise
Made to be broken

I hope you believe me when I say, I wish you have a joyous and safe, comfortable day. I raise my coffee to you and your prospects.

Cheers

Friday’s Theme Music

Ashland, Oregon – Friday, February 27, 2026. Fifty degrees F outside, the sun is burning away some final blue and gray tendrils, delivering a summer blue sky. Today’s highs are expected to be kicking the upper sixties. I appreciate that weather for today, and the chance it gives us to be outside, in sunshine and fresh air. Plants are blooming and blossoming out there. The march toward spring seems to have begun.

The Mom front continues to be quiet. It’s a question of is this ‘no news is good news’, or the calm before the storm?

Not binary, it could be both. We want Mom to be as safe and comfortable as possible as her days wind down, but she’s fought us. She wants her independence and the home where she lived for the last thirty years plus. We all have tried hard. There’s not blame to spread so much as understanding of the multiple variables and facets.

So many news stories to read today. The news overall continues to trigger worries and growls. One story ends with me shaking my head.

Melania Trump chairing a UN Security Council meeting. I don’t know how symbolic this is, or cynic that I am, just more White House distractions from other events.

The meeting is about “Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict.” But how many children have been detained by Homeland Security via ICE and the Border Patrol? Before we go off to tell others what need to be done, why hasn’t — or why isn’t — Melania Trump doing more for children being detained and held in detention centers in the United States? If she was really concerned about children, wouldn’t she be front and center for taking care of them, rather than making a documentary about moving into the White House?

It’s another one of those places for me where the administration expresses concerns but then takes actions which seem completely contrary to their stated concerns. It’s like how Trump tells us he’s for freedom but then attacks others for criticizing him or making fun of him and demands they’re fired. Or how he thinks he knows more than history and economic experts about tariffs being the best way forward. There’s a body of incoherency about Trump and his processes that make me doubt and question every damn thing he does or says.

The Neurons supplied the morning mental music stream with “Over the Hills and Far Away” by Led Zeppelin. They got suckered in my thinking about what I know. The song contains the lyrics, “Many times I’ve lied, and many times I’ve listened. Many times I’ve wondered, how much there is to know.”

I hope you weather, your day, and your life all go well for you and your family. I’m going to start with a cup of coffee and build from there, reading more news, going on.

Cheers

A Snow Dream

I dreamed I was in part of a square complex where the center was an open court. I was on the fourth or fifth level looking out. There was a balcony that looked over the inner courtyard. Heavy snow was falling. I discovered when I went out on the balcony, a small box existed. In it at one point were my keys. In another time, there was a folded note. I unfolded it and read it but don’t remember what it says. I remember complaining (I think to myself) that a mistake was being made, that those messages weren’t going to get through because of the snow, but also the location. You’d need to know to look there.

The snow itself amazed me. It was so thick, covering everything in layers. I don’t remember the snow actually falling, just building up, white and pure.

On Mom

If I come and visit

Will you know my face

Will you talk to me

Like your son

Or lace your words with hate

Will your texts ever change

From anger and demands

Will you stand and hug me

As you kiss my head

Can we sit and laugh

Remembering what we ate

Playing games of Tripoli

Hoping for a good hand

Or will you stare

Not speaking

Leaving me

In silence

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