The Naha Dream

Another dream from last night found my wife and I arriving on an island – not deserted but civilized, part of a nation.

We were younger, in our thirties. Don’t know why we were there, but we were returning.

After disembarking from a red and white ferry, we found our car, got in, and began driving home. Leaving the port parking area, we were behind a small, old, Army-green bus. I knew that the driver – a man about my age – had been on the same boat as me, along with a group of quiet, sullen children.

Both of us drove over and parked at a little office to get cleared to go. I arrived there, went in, got my paper and got clearance.

Back in my car with my wife, we prepared to go on. Watching that slow-moving old green bus, I said, “Oh, no, don’t get in front of us.”

He did, pulling slowly onto the narrow, paved road. The road had a few potholes and high berms where the shoulders had crumbled and the dirt washed away. The green bus belched dark smoke.

I figured I was in for a long, slow trip behind that bus. My wife and I talked about the bus. But the bus pulled over to the right. Getting out of the bus, the driver waved us down.

He asked, “Do you know how to get to Naha?”

“Naha?” My wife and I were surprised, taken aback.

He continued on his own, explaining, “I’m going to go fishing there.”

I thought, fishing at Naha? “Yes,” my wife and I answered, talking at the same time. I took the lead. “Keep going on this road. There’s a intersection where you go right. There’s a brown sign that says ‘Naha’ on.”

“Is it a big sign?” he asked.

I laughed. “No, it’s one of those little military signs.” He looked military so I guessed he would understand that. “It’s brown but it’s by itself. You won’t miss it.”

He walked away and my wife and I drove on. “Fishing at Naha?” we said back and forth, wondering, is he taking the children to go fishing at Naha? We could think of better places to go but that was his business.

Dream end

The Port Dream

This was a dream about port, the fortified wine drink. A very expensive bottle of port had turned up missing from its crate. The owners were the U.S. government. CIA, I think. I didn’t know who took it but I quickly realized where it was. The bottle had been sent to offer samples to people at a function. I met with the agent, a blond, white male, clean shaved, tousled hair, average height, casual clothes, and relayed what I’d learned. He told me it was critical to recover that bottle. I told him that I would get it back.

A strange car journey in a Ford Thunderbird convertible (a 1965, I think, which was what my father owned) followed, a circuitous route that embraced old steel girder bridges over ravines and rivers, a bumpy, dusty lane, a winding country highway, and a modern American Interstate. I always knew where I was going but detours kept coming up. Fair weather and certainty kept me calm, though.

I arrived at the function, where a gathering of women was about to open the bottle to sample it. I intervened, telling them they’d been sent the wrong bottle and producing another bottle for their benefit. The agent arrived to take the bottle from me. We then agreed we would go to the river. A few others joined us enroute, including a female acquaintance of mine, a young white woman with a round face and a short, black bob. The agent told me to open the bottle. That confused the woman. She protested that it was supposed to be a protected bottle, according to her understanding. I replied, that was a different time. Circumstances had shifted and we were approved to open the bottle to sample it.

I turned to the agent for confirmation. After talking about it with me and thinking more, he agreed with me. We opened the bottle and poured small portions into fine, small glasses. Toasting, we drank.

Dream end.

Daydream

Things that are dark in flavor appeal to me. I like dark meat, dark chocolate, dark red wine and port, and dark beers like port and stout. I try – and often fail – to keep an open path to my taste buds. That means sampling offerings that don’t appeal to me based on familiarity and comfort. But I’m such a creature of ruts and routines that varying my choices becomes a challenging exercise.

Daydream is part of that.

Daydream is a Noble Coffee dark blend. As dark as an Italian roast in appearance, it’s not as sharp and bitter as an Italian or a French roast. Its flavor is smooth and fresh to my taste buds, toying me with mild nuttiness.

I do try others at Noble. Each day, they offer a blended dark and a unique, single origin that’s a lighter roast. True to form, the light roasts are revealed as winy and bitter to me. Some, though, have a terrific grapefruit juiciness, a taste that my taste buds like to have in IPAs, red blends, and Pinot Noirs.

Ultimately, it’s a world of choices out there, a distant shout from those early days at work, sipping Maxwell House re-heated in the microwave.

Got my brew, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

Floofhafen

Floofhafen (floofinition) – A port animals use to travel between dimensions, often in conjunciton with a floofexchange.

In use: “Michael didn’t know it, but there was a floofhafen in his backyard. One moment, a bear family is trundling through it, but as soon as he was back with his camera, in, like, fifteen seconds, the bears were completely gone.”

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