Tag: Mom

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sunsy

Another spring day of entangled weather. Descending clouds obscure the western ridges’ face with rain threats. Sunlight powers through in the east and attempts to buck the temperatures up. Wind sometimes gambols like a newborn foal.

Temperatures rose to 50 F from 38 F but have now slipped back to 48 F. 55 F is as how as we expect thermometers to climb around most of Ashlandia.

Today is April 7, 2024.

Papi, my lean, lanky ginger floof, played nine solid innings of Let me in/let me out. Do you know this game? This is when a house floof makes noises to rouse their servants to let them in and out of the house. It’s scored by how many times they can make it happen and how fast it happens.

I think Papi scored a perfect score. There was some swearing involved, as he didn’t even take a seventh inning stretch. Bored, hungry, restless, frustrated, lonely, disappointed in the weather…I think it was all of these things. Started at 5:30 AM and went on past 9:30.

Mom continues recovering from her appendicitis. Late update was that the appendix had ruptured ‘some time ago’. Gangrene had set in. She was lucky, the medical folks declared.

I was surprised. Several years ago, they mentioned she’d perforated her appendix and had gangrene but then backed off and claimed something else. I was always dubious of that shift. As for surviving, ‘survivor’ is one of many words I’d immediately apply to her. ‘Tough’ is another.

Staying with family medical situations, my aunt just had her colon removed. Well, all but an inch, is the claim passed to me. My father’s sister, she and Mom are the same age and have been friends since they were nineteen. They’ve been through a lot together and remain friends even through Mom and Dad divorced back in the early 1960s.

My aunt has been intermittently battling colon cancer for a while. She was declared clean on a January follow-up. But she went back in March because “something didn’t feel right”. At that visit, they declared she had a mass as large as a cat. That description had me visualizing a cat curled up, sleeping in her colon. Like Mom, my aunt is tough, survived the surgery despite a bad heart, and will be discharged, wearing a bag, in a few days.

Texting with sisters, thinking about Mom and my aunt, I wasn’t overly surprised when The Neurons introduced “Those Were the Days” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark setting). I’m remembering the Mary Hopkins version from 1968. I seemed to have heard it a great deal in my youth but I don’t think I’ve heard it in years. It’s amusing that The Neurons pulled it up out of memory.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue. I’m on my second cup of coffee, and the day is moving on, with or without my involvement.

Here’s the music. Cheers

0

First Thing

The first thing he learned after his mother’s death was that he’d been born a cat.

Patrick had no one to complain about this to. It was just him and her cooling body. None of the others had come. Children, grands, exes like spouses, employees, girlfriends, boyfriends, other friends; all ignored her warning. Wasn’t even a cat. He knew the old boy, a big, luxuriously long-haired ginger with cougar eyes, had passed in December. Chester. Twenty-two years old. Not bad for a cat. Mom called Patrick and told him that Chester had been her best lover.

Patrick — he accepted Pat, but he preferred Patrick, but he wasn’t going to be an asshole about it — couldn’t tell you why he’d come. Just a feeling, he professed. A feeling like he needed to. That he should. So he told his beer group. He, like the no-shows at his mothers, knew how adeptly his mother could toss the bullshit, as her father often said to his grandson. “Watch your mother. Marcia loves drama and doesn’t mind expending lots of bull to get it. She loves being the center of the spotlight and pulls it to her by any means needed to gain it again.”

While the old boy spoke, spittle flicking off his lips and tongue, smoke crowding the sky from his pipe, Patrick was wondering, who is Marcia? Never asked the old man, though. Not before the old man died. Asked him often later, after he was dead, Patrick decrying to himself, why didn’t you ask him then and there? Was something that kept him awake at night whenever he pondered his victories and failures. But in his defense, young Patrick was enjoying the contact high being achieved from the staunch quantity of personally-grown marijuana the old man tamped into his pipe.*

And then there the flicks of spittle, flying past him like Patrick was in a spaceship navigating through an asteroid belt in a movie. A crunch seemed eminent. Patrick feared the crunch. He always waited for crunchtime.

But returning to Mom’s death. Vivid memory of that day. March. Blue skies after a mean winter, one with cloud-crushing sunlight and record snow levels.* Was going to be seventy degrees that day. Patrick had wondered, do I dare wear shorts? A study of his naked legs in the mirror didn’t lean him either way. On the one hand, his legs were so pale. Whiter than ghosts. Whiter than a snowman. Pale as a cloud-obscured moon.

The once muscular limbs were also now terribly skinny. Once upon a life, his shapely, muscular legs garnered compliments. But those powerful calves and thighs had shriveled. Reminded him of old sticks found in the yard after a windstorm. ‘Cept they were white.

Also. Were shorts appropriate to wear if his mother was dying? He had to remind himself, that’s what he was dressing for. Each day always had its own main event, even if the main event was as small and routine as going to the coffee shop for a frap to drink while completing word games.

On the other hand, why the fuck should he care what people thought about his legs? Screw them.

Then came the drive, forty minutes into the country south of Medford. Almost to California.

Then, the arrival. He’d put that off by stopping off in Jacksonville for coffee. Maybe a pastry. Doughnut. Or pie. Instead, he had a cheeseburger, fries, and a beer — IPA, actually, if you need specifics. Patrick felt addicted to specifics. The IPA was 451. Named for the area code. Locally brewed. Delicious. Went well with a burger and fries, illicit food which he should not be eating, if he listened to his doctor.

The 451 IPA tasted so good, he had two, watching people as they came and went, checking his phone, waiting for someone he knew to come in.

When he finally arrived at the immaculate old home set back from the road, he knew no one else was present. No cars were in the driveway under the huge pines. Patrick thought about turning around and leaving. That’s what a sane person would do. Well, no one had ever accused him of being sane. Besides, he had to pee. And he was already here. He didn’t need to stay long. Just go in, verify Mom wasn’t dying, and take his leave.

The porch creaked under Patrick’s steps. The broad oak door with its chiseled stain-glass windows was wide open.

He went in. Stopped in the tiled entry. Looked. Listened. He felt like an owl. A watching owl.

Everything gave signs of being freshly dusted, vacuumed, swept, polished. Nothing was out of place. That was Mom. No matter what house it was, this one or the — well, that didn’t matter. Mom’s houses were always immaculate. Cleaning was her hobby. Only thing ever out of place in Mom’s house were people. Especially her children and family. And reality.

Edging forward, Patrick muttered, “I have a bad feeling about this.” His voice felt out of place.

A shudder shook his shoulders. He stopped after two steps. “Mom?”

He said it soft and listened for responses, peering into the living room, down the halls toward the kitchen and sunroom. No sounds of life.

That struck him as fucking ominous. In hesitant explanation to his beer group later, he explained, “I felt like the house was resisting me. I really wanted to run, except that I was a grown adult, a seventy-year-old man. Psychologically, I shouldn’t be running out of a house like a frightened child.”

“Also, your knees probaby couldn’t take running,” a smart ass in the beer group put in with a grin.

Patrick nodded. “That, too.”

“Shit,” he muttered, softly, so Mom wouldn’t hear. God forbid he upset her by swearing. That might kill her. He chuckled but stopped. Chuckling didn’t feel right.

He looked up the dark carpeted stairs. If she was dying, she was probably in bed. That made sense. Then again, he was talking about his Mom. Marcia, Carrie, Joyce, Brenda, Priscilla, Judy, Catherine, Deborah. The woman loved changing her name. Changed it like others might by a new car.* Never explained why. She’d been Carrie was Patrick was born and Brenda when he graduated high school and started college. No telling what name she’d die with.

The wind soughed through the trees like they were impatient with his dithering. He’d need to go up the steps.

“Patrick?” he heard. “Come up. I’m in my bedroom.”

Permission given by her, the house relented and let him in. Still, the going up the steps felt like a walk to an electric chair.

She was in her huge four poster bed. The thing was big as a cruise ship. Her room was perfect. Spotless China blue carpet. Looked new.

Mom was propped up on fresh white pillow cases. Flower-covered duvet and white sheets were arranged around her.

“I knew you would come, Patrick.” Mom looked beautiful. Blond beehive, soft make-up, red lips. Not a wrinkle, crease, or sag anywhere. One hundred one years old, she didn’t seem like a day over fifty. She looked like a 1960s movie star. Didn’t appear to be courting death. She looked a lot better than him. He looked closer to death than her.

“You look good, Mom,” he said. She puckered up and raised her arms. He dutifully delivered a mosquito kiss and speculative hug.

“There, Patrick,” she said, pointing as he stepped away.

“What?”

She pointed more insistently. “The book. On the dresser.”

“The brown one?”

“Tan. Yes. That’s my document.”

“Okay. Want me to bring it to you?”

“I do not. It’s your’s.”

“Okay. And what is your document?” Patrick picked it up.

The fucker was thick. He’d brought it to the beer group. It sat in the table’s middle, surrouded by pitchers of IPA and amber beer. They all stared at it. Four inches thick. Tan. Didn’t even look touched. “Pick it up. Feel for yourself.”

Back at Mom’s, she answered, “This is my life. This is the truth.”

Patrick opened it. “The truth of what?”

She didn’t answer. He looked up. She was still. Open green eyes regarded the ceiling. “Mom?”

“No,” she answered, and sighed.

He knew the death sound. Had heard it from a brother and sister, grandmother, grandfather, ex-wife and son, and a couple dogs.

“She was dead,” he told the beer group. “I didn’t know what to do. Well, I knew, but I wasn’t ready to do it. I was surprised, shocked, really. She’d really done it, she’d really died. I really felt like she’d live forever. I needed some time to deal with that. So I went over and sat down in her recliner by the window. I looked at her a while, and then out the window, listening to the wind. After some time, it struck me that I heard nothing else. No birds, no other cars, nothing but the wind in the trees. It was a little eerie, a little disturbing.

“And then, the beer caught up with me. I had to pee. I went to her bathroom but I wasn’t going to use it. Mom never wanted us to use her bathroom.”

“Why?” someone asked.

“I don’t know.” Patrick shrugged. “Because she was a strange person, I guess. There was another on the same floor, so I went to it. I took her document with me. Getting into the bathroom, I realized that I needed to do more than pee. So I sat on the commode and opened Mom’s book.”

He paused, lips parted, looking in toward memory of the moment. “It was weird. Crazy. I didn’t open it to the first page. I opened it a few pages in. That’s where I read, ‘Mother gave birth to five today. I named one Patrick.’ And then, a few lines down, was a second entry. ‘Patrick turned today. Martha died.'”

Patrick swallowed. “It was dated the same date as my birthday.”

Everyone moved, releasing tension, picking up beers, drinking. Some hissed, “Wow,” and “Holy shit.” Patrick let the moment passed.

“That’s not the thing I really wanted to tell you.” Leaning his arms on the table, he looked around at his friends. “That was a week again. Last night, I had an itch. When I scratched it, it felt like a lump. Then it felt like something more. I checked it out in the mirror today and then used a camera to take a photo. It’s furry. About an inch long, right above my asshole.”

“A tail,” the group’s smart ass exclaimed.

Patrick solemnly nodded and set his phone down on the table. “I have photos.”

***

*An admirer of his mother’s father, Patrick tried emulating him by taking up the pipe like the old man smoked. He found that he disliked putting things in his mouth. Ended up not smoking anything. No pipe, cigarette, cigar, joint. Nothing. Also learned that not putting things in his mouth disappointed several lovers. Oh, well. That was their problem.

*Patrick later learned that the record snow that he remembered from the year his mother died actually happened two years before his death. Memory. What’re you gonna do?

*Although, funny, she still had the same car, a pink Cadillac Eldorado convertible that she had when he left for Vietnam.

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Just Remembered

I’m often visited by earworms. It’s a chronic thing. Songs from across my lifetime drop by in the part of my head where music memories reside, the mental music stream. This often happens in the morning, giving that realm the name, morning mental music stream.

These songs don’t just drop in and depart. They’re normally on a tour that lasts several days. Well, I recently shared a song as my day’s theme music, “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode. After dressing, heading out the door for the coffee shop this morning, I was singing it aloud as it played in the MMMS when I suddenly remembered Mom singing it to me once during a visit home, Mom, with her Doris Day voice.

Oh, that made me laugh. The song came out in 1989. I lived in Germany then, so I think it was when I came back to America in 1991 and visited her that the singing took place. I don’t know how she knew the song, but suspected it was through her daughters or grandchildren.

What a memory.

6

The Publishing Dream

Note: this is about a nocturnal dream about being published, and not a RL goal.

It was a pleasant fall day. Walking among a bustling crowd, my wife and I met with my mother and stepfather (SF). All of us were much younger than RL by a margin of several decades, and my stepfather has been dead for a decade.

We were going to watch a soccer game and have a meal. As we met, we came up on a large box. Cast iron, it was painted with black enamel, and contained hundreds of post office lock boxes. SF said, “By the way, Mike, you received some mail at my address.” He made a vague gesture toward the black box.

“I did?” I was surprised beyond words. Receiving mail at his address seemed as implausible as a demon army invading.

“Yes, two, I think,” SF answered.

“Can I have them?”

“Yeah you can have them.”

But SF was going on. Mom had already gone on. They didn’t want to miss the game’s start and were impatient. I asked my SF for his mailbox combo. He didn’t answer and kept going.

But I saw a key. I assumed that what I’d received was too large for his lockbox, so they’d put it in a larger one and gave my SF the key for it. Seizing the key, I went and opened a larger lockbox and withdrew a large yellow envelope with my name on it. Tearing it open, I learned it was an acceptance letter from a publisher. They’d accepted my submission, “Beyond the Lines”, and wanted to publish it, and were offering me a contract for three more.

The offer letter also said that I needed to respond by the deadline. The deadline was today. Fortunately, they included a link to type in to accept the agreement electronically.

I was tremendously excited. I’d forgottent that I’d submitted anything. I didn’t understand how my SF’s address was mixed up with it. Naturally, I didn’t want to go on to a soccer game. I wanted to go and celebrate. But my wife pointed out that I’d made committments, so we continued to the game.

Dream end.

The dream surprised me. My stepfather and I did not get along. He was a major reason for moving away from Mom in my mid-teens. He is the father of my two youngest sisters, and I love them dearly, but I have no love for him and had not seen him in decades before he died.

Also, we never went to a soccer game. He showed no interest in soccer. I showed little myself, for that matter. And he never met my wife.

So, I take hope and insight from the dream that publishing help will come from unexpected means and directions. I remain an optimist.

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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

I’m beginning a new DYI. Our GE Profile dishwasher stopped delivering the desired efficacy. Six years old, though, very old in modern appliance age, I guess it’s showing its age. Troubleshooting was done last night and I think I’ve identified the problem. Repair plans are in place for later today. Since the dishes were still dirty after three washings, my wife and removed the dishes. She washed them, then we dried and put them away.

I remembered when Mom bought her first dishwasher. A white portable unit with a faux blonde wood top. This was in the late sixties when we lived on Laurie Drive in Penn Hills, PA. Purchased from Sears, I think it was a Kenmore but I’m not pos.

The dishwasher was on wheels. She parked it over beside the backdoor where its top was useful for storing napkin holders and the salt and pepper shaker, along with pens and a notepad for the phone. Cherry red, the phone had been updated to a pushbutton device. Hung on the wall separating the kitchen and dining room, the phone had an extra long cord which let Mom cradle it against her ear as she cleaned, cooked, or sat at the dining room table or in the living room.

Her new dishwasher really pleased Mom. She employed it every night after dinner. Eventually life forced her to move, several times as it turned out as fortunes waxed and waned. Eventually the dishwasher was sold. She lamented its absence and when she finally bought a house for herself a decade later, my sisters and I came together and bought her a new portable dishwasher. Eventually, my brothers-in-law, both in construction, renovated her house for her, including the kitchen, and the dishwasher was installed under the sink, where it remains.

As I remembered all this and talked with my wife, she pointed out that her Mom never had a dishwasher. Always did it by hand. We often ‘did the dishes’ as it’s phrased when we were visiting.

Funny thing about dishwasher one and two. Neither gave her any problems through all those years, even though that second one has now been in service for almost thirty years.

Different times, friends, different times.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Mom was always home, the location which held his heart. Though she moved several times since he left home when he was fifteen and ended up living with his father, just returned from military service in Germany.

Keeping up with Mom was a challenge. New locations, new husbands, boyfriends, new jobs. She went back to school, got her GED. It’d been her secret that she hadn’t graduated high school. Then, nursing school, and the nursing profession, which she loved. By then she was in her late forties. She finally gained the independence sought, and bought a home for herself.

Keeping up for many years was cards, letters, phone calls. He only heard from her on holidays and birthdays. He initiated all else. Then email became popular. Now it’s text messages. Through it all she was the same but changed.

As was he.

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Another Dead Person Dream

Last night’s dream had a special guest, a stepfather who died years after Mom divorced him. He’s father to two of my sisters. An addicted gambler, he lived in a room in a church, given to him with a small stipend for being the church caretaker, in the years before his death, forced to go there after the factory where he worked on a baking assembly line was shut down.

I always felt sorry for him and said so to my half-sisters, his daughters. One snapped, “I love him but he was very stupid and made bad decisions. He never learned from anything that he did.”

Hearing her say that shocked me, although it had been my opinion of him. All that is background to the dream, along with the note that I’ve had about six dreams featuring dead people in 2023. This is George’s first appearance.

To the dream.

I was visiting Mom at her house. She and I and everyone present were decades younger than RL. George, the deceased stepfather, was there, planning to go on a trip. His presence surprised me; I knew he was dead and I knew that he and Mom were divorced, but there he was.

‘There’ was a half-finished house. I couldn’t fully grasp what was done, as it wasn’t consistent in the dream. George mostly emerged from the bathroom and was in the kitchen when I encountered him. One oddity about the unfinished house was that the yard outside of it was covered in white carpeting. Sometimes a part of the yard was set up as a room, carpet on the floor, trees around it.

My two little sisters, George’s daughters, were there, young teenagers. George didn’t like me and was showing it. I was making comments to Mom. When I did, George would correct me. He’s right, I would realize, astonished. I was wrong and he was right.

I poured myself a glass of red wine and drank it, repeating that two more times. When I checked the bottle, it was still full. I chortled to myself, I’m going to keep this bottle, and took it with me.

George emerged from the bathroom. I tried being polite with him, asking, where are you going? How long will you be away? He gave me mean looks, refusing to answer, walking up the stairs to the kitchen. which didn’t have any walls.

Going outside with my bottle of wine, I met my youngest sister by a table. A single glass was on top of the table. As I spoke with her about George’s surprising intelligence, I poured wine into the glass. I completely missed the glass! Red wine made a huge stain on the white carpet.

Horror struck me. Oh, my god, what was I going to do? My sister was anxious about it, too. We threw glances back at the house and warned one another, Mom better not find out.

I went back to the house. George was about to leave. I told him to have a good journey and to stay safe. He departed without replying.

2

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Tuesday’s note has been plucked, time for us to get up and f —

Yes, it’s Tuesday, January 17, 2023, for those scoring at home. Sunrise here was a minute later and the setting part will be a minute or two later. Slow change is taking place. It’s not really change, of course, except if you look at it with a very narrow aperture. That’s how I view many things taking place in the world today. They’re not really changes, they’re shift back to what they were, following an old orbit of thought. But the orbit will keep going and then we’ll again see the orbit’s other side.

Of course, it’s not exactly the same today as it was last year at this time of year. Nor is it the same as ten or a hundred years ago, despite what it seems. Small, but permanent shifts are found by studying the underlying details affecting the planet’s orbit. In the case of Earth’s days, we know its rotation is slowing. We know the average temperature is climbing, oxygen levels are dropping, and we know these temperature and oxygen results are being affected by human activity. We know days will become longer with the slower rotation and hotter with the slowing rotation. We know the sun is slowly cooling. We know our orbit is decaying and days will grow hotter as we edge toward the sun. We know that methane gases and diminishing glaciers will affect these outcomes. And some of us apparently know that the Earth is flat, and we’re kept from knowing the full truth about it by evil forces who don’t want us to know the truth for their own gain.

We also know that today is 3 degrees Celsius at the mo’, but it’ll climb to 48 degrees Fahrenheit here in Ashlandia. Sunshine has kicked into a satisfactory blaze. Actually, we know that the sun blazes along the same way all the time but clouds, axis tilts, weather pressure, and the Earth’s orbit defines our daily experience. We chose to express it along traditional lines that keep us at the center.

Conversing with Mom remains concerning. She prefers texting over talking on the phone. Her responses are about her many medical problems — heart, lungs, back, eyes, teeth, digestion, balance — upcoming appointments, and what is hurting where and what’s been tried and failed. Tres depressing to continue witnessing her decline and her fight against it. She wants to be there for her grandchildren, but her quality of life continues sliding down a hill, and it’s getting steeper.

After reading of more political contentions, more shootings and deaths, more murders and protests, The Neurons dialed up Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ 1978 cover of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding” in the morning mental music stream. I enjoy his vocal style for this, but the song also display a pop sound from an earlier era. It’s upbeat tempo is a pleasant salve for rising depression and frustration.

Hope you have a grand day and you make it your way, and I’m not talking about McDonald’s, either. Stay positive. Yes, I dropped the negative test aspect of my daily encouragement to me and you. You’ll probably test negative one of these days but if you the right luck and medical assistance, there’s a hopeful chance you’ll emerged with your health intact.

Okay, I need coffee. Here’s Elvis and the band. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

A colorless, empty sky drips on us. Friday, 12/30/2022 — 30/12/2022, if you will — has come in from the wild.

Three songs share the rotation in the morning mental music stream. I don’t know if the dream caused it, but they were regurgitated out of memory when I started thinking about the dream. Mom and two of my sisters featured in the dream about crosswalk safety and clogged sinks.

But, first, daylight commenced at 7:39 when light slowly gained influence behind the cloud lid over the valley. Rain was falling and the furnace’s warm air passed against me like a friendly animal waiting for attention. Daylight’s end is expected at 4:48 PM. We’re sitting at 42 F and the day has a lofty goal of 46 F in mind. Between light, rain, and temperature — and my activities of reading, writing, cleaning, plus the usual bio needs for human and felines — it’s a narrowly defined day. Getting ready for the big 2022 send-off. What do you think, will 2023 be a better year? I think another average year is in store. With averages, it’s different for each of us, innit?

Led Zeppelin kicked off its residence in the morning mental music stream with “Whole Lotta Love” from good old 1969. It wasn’t long as the dream elements arose for inspection that Gerry Rafferty began “Baker Street”, a song he released in 1978. The musical trio was completed with Loggins and Messina, “Your Mama Don’t Dance”, 1972. An interesting grouping of sounds, artists, and years. Don’t know the connection to the dream. Maybe one isn’t there. Perhaps Les Neurons just said, “Boy, I really like this song.” Or maybe something embedded in the environment, noted by the senses, ordered, “Play this song.”

Well, Rafferty with “Baker Street” is playing loudest and most frequently, so that’ll be the day’s theme music. “Light in your head and dead on your feet, well another crazy day,” and so on.

Stay positive if you can — I know it can be hard and varies for each of us — and test negative, if you can. Got any New Year’s Eve plans? I do, starting a cuppa coffee, a little flavor of normalcy for another rainy winter day. Cheers

2

A Weird Car Trip Dream

Friends and I were awakening from sleep in a darkly cluttered place. Three or four others were there, including one friend from RL forty years ago. The others were dream friends but not anyone from this RL. As the sun rose, an old stage, perhaps once part of a high school but now outside, gained substance.

We talked about news while sitting up, rubbing sleep out of our faces, and stretching. One was complaining that people didn’t understand the news and headlines. Someone suggested that we should do plays where we would just read headlines and stories and then explain them. Sounded good to me. Someone else said that we needed to clean the area up but I asked why because the stage with its clutter and junk seemed like a meta statement about our world. As this conversation went on, the sun rose, daylight came up, papers were dropped off on the stage and people became walking past. We’d been rolling up our sleeping bags, putting other shirts on, and making coffee. Now one guy picked up a newspaper and started reading it aloud. People going past stopped to listen.

I went down steps, out the back, and met my cousin. He and I went off to collect our clothing, which was somewhere else, because we needed to get ready to go. He kept talking about what he was going to wear and asking my opinion of his ideas, but I wasn’t deeply invested in that and didn’t respond much. Reaching a building, we went upstairs and found our open suitcases. This wasn’t the clothes we wanted; that was at Mom’s house, my cousin thought, suggesting that we go there. I told my wife where we were going. She decided to come with us.

We entered a large white vehicle with a thick black stripe down each side. The inside was flat and wide, with a thin, gray carpet on the floor. Windows were on every side, giving great visibility. Some gray folding chairs were set up in it in the front, but we would need more. I set up some chairs that I found, dubbing one in the second row by the window as ‘mine’. Two people were already seated in the front row, where three chairs were set up. One of those was my SIL, who was waiting to leave as well, which startled me. For some reason, I didn’t expect her there.

My cousin had disappeared, and so had my wife. I went out to Mom’s home and found the clothes which I wanted, and put on a green shirt to wear while I traveled. Going back outside I saw cars pulling up and parking on the lush green lawn. “They’re not going to like that,” I told others several times, talking about the people who lived in this housing area. “They’re proud of their lawn. They should move their cars before they’re found.”

Everyone ignored me. I found my cousin back inside Mom’s house. Mom was talking to him as he complained that his clothes weren’t there. I looked and discovered that the suitcase holding his clothes had been emptied. I told him that he would just need to go in what he was wearing, which really upset him.

I returned to the white car. Nobody had set up any more chairs. The driver was present, adjusting his folding chair as a seat, along with my SIL, who was still in her seat. My wife was in the seat which I’d designated for myself. I complained about that with her; she ignored me. Exasperated, I set up another chair behind my SIL. I asked her where she was going, and she answered, “The same place as you.”

I responded, “I’m going back to school.”

She answered, “So am I.”

The car rocked with movement. Going to a window and looking out, I discovered that the car was tall and much larger than expected. We seemed to be twenty feet off the ground. I didn’t know how that was possible.

Dreams ends as the car moves forward with me looking out the window and others talking behind me.

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