Tag: rain

The Gun Dream

This dream played out in three parts last night. Wasn’t much of me in it; I played a frustrated bystander.

I was with one of my younger sisters. We were milling, killing time waiting for something to go on. Details about that aspect were spare.

In walks a young man. Swarthy, with a cushion of dark, curly hair and a skinny, ripped body. Wears a tight maroon shirt and black pants. I barely know him but take it he’s a young man interested in one of my other sisters. He’s not very talkative. Chatter is going on around us but I’m a magnet on him. Studying his moves. Because something is off. I’m keen to know what.

I notice that as he shifts, he has an automatic handgun. He’s trying to hide it. I think he’s going to do something stupid with that weapon. Then he goes off.

Awakened for a cat matter, I reflect on the dream. It’s not out of my usual book of dreams. I lack clues about what it means.

The dream’s second act starts with me and the guy and my sister. I think the guy’s name is Paul. I try to talk to him. He’s truculent. We’re taking refuge in a garage that’s been converted into a bedsit sort of situation. The small space’s walls are cinder blocks painted white. Flourescent tubes give us stark lighting.

My sister is resting. I’ve covered her with a blanket but I’m watching Paul. Food is available, along with an old microwave. I offer to prepare something for everyone, talking to them about what’s available and what they might want. Paul is pretty furtive. I notice he has a black ski mask. Slipping it on, he leaves.

Figuring that Paul is off to rob someone, I’m angry. I rush out to chase him down and tell him not to do it. The door opens to an alleyway lined with a fence and thick with junk, like barrels, broken wooden pallets, and cast-off tires. It’s raining. The late afternoon light is anemic. Unable to see Paul, I return inside and put something into the microwave.

Another cat break is endured. During that time, I see that Paul resembles my sister’s father. She’s my half-sister, I should clarify, with a different father. I wonder about that as I tuck back into bed and fall back into sleep’s grasp.

Segment three has Paul returning. It’s much darker in the garage, and I don’t see him well but come to see that he’s still wearing a black ski mask. “What did you do?” I ask him several times, to no responses.

Someone pounds on the door. Adjusting his balaclava, Paul goes to the door. Aiming the gun at head level, he jerks it open. I wonder, police? Some other criminals? I hear speaing but can’t understand it.

That is where the dream ends.

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Frieda’s Theme Music

The week’s days have puddled together in a limpid pool of memory. I organize a flock of Neurons into enough intelligence to figure out that it’s Frieda. Part of the process is done using the Fitbit on my wrist. It tells me that it’s March 28, 2025. By going backward through the week’s blizzard of news and activities, I reach my conclusion.

Alexa tells me that it’s rainy in Ashland, forty rainy seven degrees with a high of fifty rainy two expected, and a chance of showers. Sunlight boils through my windows, mocking that weather forecast, further confusing my coffeeless Neurons. The weather likes teasing me, mystiying me about how to dress and challenging me to reconsider my plans. I think it’s mean of the weather but I don’t voice that thought. That would just make the weather mad.

A mystery has the household in a tizzy. My wife announced, “I found one of those little microfiber cloths for glass in a package when I was cleaning. I thought I’d put it in the office by my chair so I can clean off my glasses. I must clean them five times a day.”

I’m half listening, half reading, so I deploy supportive husband speak. “Good idea.”

“But it’s gone. I can’t find it.”

I remembered seeing it, too. We talk about our memories of seeing the cloth, when and where, like it’s a wake. We search the area where it was last seen, the laundry room counter used as the cat food service station. Nope, not there. Nor on the floor or behind the dryer. Things fall behind the dryer. I want to install a shelf across that space. I proposed that solution the year we moved into the house in 2006. I suggested it again last night. “Let me think about it,” my wife replies in throughful wife speak, the response first given in 2006. I mentally shrug. If the cloth is behind the dryer, I’m not getting it.

A cursory flashlight search behind the dryer shows nothing. We walk around, combing through other potential places, wondering, where did it go? It’ll turn up someday, we finally decide, quitting. Then a new mystery will start: how did it get there?

PINO Trusk’s number one component, Donald J. Trump, has inspired The Neurons again today. Thinking about how he’s wrecking the world through his prejudice and ignorance, Der Neurons cranked up the 1978 song, “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult, in the morning mental music stream. The latest trigger about my irritation with the mango beast came from Trump targeting ‘improper ideology’ at the Smithsonian Institution. Avoiding laws, debate, popular opinion, etc., he’s using his favorite tool of destruction, an executive order.

Weirdly, Trump’s prejudice against the Federal government’s role in places like the Smithsonian Institution can be traced directly back to the Smithsonian Institutions origins in 1836.

Conservatives and champions of states’ rights, such as John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, argued the federal government did not have the right to establish a national institution, conduct scientific research, or promote knowledge. Federalists and northerners, led by the learned and well-traveled John Quincy Adams, maintained that it was in the nation’s best interest in many ways. Happily, they won out.

As many, including me, note about Trump, the Trusk Regime, Project 2025, and MAGAts, their idea of progress is by going back to the 1800s.

The Neurons created an alternate version of first lines, featuring Trumpzilla and what he’s doing. Did this while making breakfast, so, yes, as little thought as you can imagine was actually engaged.

With a golfer’s grimace and a terrible sound, he pulls the United States government down.

Helpless people around the nation curse his name as he looks in on them.

He picks up a club and throws it back down as he leaves the course and heads for lunch again.

Oh no, they say he’s got to go, go, go Trumpzilla.

If you’re familiar with the song, I naturally had to address the closing lyrics as well.

History shows again and again
How politics points up the folly of man
Trumpzilla!

Okay, off I go. Coffee and I met a match in each other once again. Hope your day brings you some good cheer and satisfaction. Cheers

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Goldilocks

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite type of weather?
View all responses

I’ve become a sunshine person. It wasn’t always like this. When I was young, I’d go out in weather that had others questioning my sanity. As I grabbed coats, shoes, whatever was needed, people would eye me with aghast expressions. “You’re going out in that?”

“Sure,” I’d answer, “it’s just a little rain.” Even if was a monsoon. Rain, snow, sleet, wind, nothing kept me in. Not even thunder and lightning. “Just going for a walk.”

I loved pitting myself against the elements. Felt like a hero out of a 19th century novel, just a rugged individual surviving against the elements. I thought myself quite heroic. Especially when I knew there was somewhere safe, warm, and secure to retreat to when I had my fill of being heroic.

Different these days. “Where’s the sun?” I ask. I search all of the sky, even though I know where it’s supposed to be. I know where east is. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I know those directions. Still, I sweep the sky in search of the sun, in case it got off its leash.

I don’t usually get an answer to my question about the sun’s location. Others always think it rhetorical. Probably because everyone knows where the sun is going. Not like it’s a wandering cat.

I used to be more indifferent to the sun. Now, I’m very picky. I don’t want it too bright, too hot, or too much. I have become Goldilocks sampling the three bears’ stuff.

I like a good warm sunshine. Not enough for sweat these days. Used to be — but you know. I don’t want to sweat. I want to be warm, with enough sunshine that wearing sunglasses make sense. Not that it really matters to me: I’m almost always wearing sunglasses outside. Sometimes I wear them inside.

“Why don’t you take off your sunglasses?” my wife will say. “You’re inside now.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look ridiculous.”

I shrug. I’m used to that.

5

Thirstda’s Theme Music

Bold sunshine lured my eyes open. It’s summer, this hoople head’s addled neurons suggested.

It’s not summer. This is Thirstda, March 20, 2025. We’re stepping into spring’s threshold. I went onto the back patio with Papi the ginger blade, aka Butter Butt. The Butt did a little springish frolocking. “I agree,” I said. “It feels like a cold spring morning.” Daffs have pushed their yellow heads out. It’s 37 F but feels like 51 F, and is expected to climb to 45 plus F. Clouds have already hustled in, least we get too optimistic about the blue sky and sunshine. The weather ‘they’ couch their forecast with rain warnings. Not bad for Ashlandia’s first day of spring in 2025.

The addled Neurons have snuck a 2014 John Mellencamp song into the morning mental music stream. It’s a bit cynical. “Lawless Times” rails against the lack of trust that had begun emerging twenty years ago, the latest in many cycles of distrust – the trust in banks, business, goverment, trust in ourselves and one another, were all going down in flames, and here we are. It takes a certain amount of vetting to reach a point where you trust someone. Even though, you keep an eye on them. They might Schumer you.

The song started because I was in a Walmart the day before yesterday. My wife was looking for a kitchen item. Walmart was supposed to have it. I don’t think I’ve been in a Walmart in over a year. It’s not one of my regular shopping stops. Talk about a police state. Cameras everywhere. Signs at the end of every aisle reminding you that cameras are watching. And so many items were physically locked behind glass doors or in cages. Like all camping gear. Cosmetics. Vacuum cleaners. Is this the common American experience now? And that’s when “Lawless Times” first fired up. Walmart sure as hell doesn’t trust its customers. Of course, I do not trust PINO Trusk and his regime. I don’t trust the Roberts Court. I don’t trust the GOTP. I especially don’t trust Elon Reeve Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. I sure as hell don’t trust JD Vance and Tommy Tuberville, MTG and Lauren Boebert.

Well, I don’t trust myself
I don’t trust you
Don’t get too sick
It’ll be the end of you
Don’t expect a helping hand
If you fall down
And if you want to steal this song
It can be easily loaded down
My, my, my
These are lawless times
My, my, my
These are lawless times
So you might ask yourself
Hey, what can I do?
I can’t trust the future
What’s been promised to you
Learn the rules hard and fast
Take care of yourself
And keep your eyes open
On everybody else

h/t Genius.com

Too much truth in that song but it has a catchy rhythm. You might end up, as I do, singing it to yourself as you go through your day.

I’ve invited coffee in again and it’s lit a small flame under The Neurons. Hope you day starts with promise and ends with satisfaction. Let’s rock it. Cheers

2

The Flooded Car Dream

To begin, I found myself in a car that became trapped in a flood and incapacitated. That meant I wasn’t going to make my destination on schedule.

I wasn’t bothered. Getting out of the car — no idea of its make, model, or color — I waded out of flood waters. Two things began working in parallel: I started making arangements for a rental replacement and I worked on understanding my location. With the former, I learned in phone calls that a car was available but wouldn’t be there for several hours. In the matter of location, I found that I was close to my father’s house. I could visit him and his family while waiting for my rental car.

Their home is in the southwestern U.S. in the dream. In real life, Dad lives in Texas but in the dream, I was unclear if it was New Mexico, Arizona, or Texas. With dream magic swiftness, I arrived at Dad’s and was knocking on their door. A family member I didn’t recognize answered the door. They recognized me, introduced themselves in a vague way and let me in. Then I remembered them.

Then, it was visitor time. Cousins on my father’s side were living with him. Two of these cousins have already passed away in real life. The other point is that I’m 5’8″ in real life and the cousins are half a foot plus taller. My dream had these roles reversed. That surprised m and it came to a point that I realized, I’m tall, they’re looking up at me.

Food and drinks were offered and accepted. After I ate, my father’s current wife entered the cosy western room where a fireplace hosted blazing logs. I explained the situation to her and asked her about my father and seeing him. A little distracted, she told me Dad was there and he wanted to see me but he had to do some things first and it would be a little bit later.

My Dad’s wife’s daughter called from open French doors in the rear that there was an animal playing in the water. I moved there to see a young wild cat chasing something through the water. Almost simultaneously, I realized that night was falling, it was pouring rain, that the house was built by an arroyo, and that flash flooding was underway. On the next moment, I saw that there was a much larger wildcat — about the size of an adult cougar — in the water and figured it was mom, and another little one. Those three animals easily moved their powerful bodies through the raging muddy waters. Mom cat noticed us and that’s when the next pair of realizations bolted in: that back door was just feet from the raging waters, and three wild predatory animals were also just feet away. But the animals went on and we backed into the house and eventually closed the door.

More family members briefly visited but all had other things to go do. I ended up alone. I noticed that they had this small, rough shaped wooden table, about the size of a petite coffee table. A piece of art was worked into the table’s top. I thought I’d fix it up as a gift to them so I took it to a small shop I located on the property and cleaned the top until some western piece of cowboys with lassos in iron and style was revealed.

After polishing it up, I returned to the house. Dad’s wife met me. I showed her and others the table. They were really pleased. None had noticed the top. The piece was a family heirloom and they were told it was priceless but they didn’t know anything about the art.

My rental car had been delivered and I needed to leave. It was night and Dad hadn’t shown. I left and went to the car. Once I reached, I laughed: I was still carrying the table in one hand. Going back to the house, I saw several of them through the window. The lights were on inside. They looked right at me. I realized that they couldn’t see me because of the lights and reflections, so I just went in, showed them the table, joked about almost leaving with it, and then left again.

Boom! I still had the table. I realized this in a few steps and hastily rushed back in, set the table down, and left the house. The dream ended as I reversed the rental car, turned it around, and drove into the night.

0

Wenzda’s Theme Music

This Wenzda, February 19, 2025, is being rinsed off. Yes, it’s 43 F and rain is falling. Papi the ginger blade, aka Meep, Butter Butt and Butter Booger, has chosen to ensconce himself on the living room sofa, not far from the fireplace’s steady warmth. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) remains under the weather and is staying on a bed under the influence of antibiotics. He’s showing a slow but steady recovery. Fingers and toes remain interwoven, as in crossing.

I’m running late due to tending the cat but also because today’s lymphedema massage therapy appointment is at high noon. So I’m ’bout to bust out the door. I bathed with a wash cloth and then did my self-massaging and moisturing, but then washed my hair. A hope is lit that I’ll be done with the thick wraps today. That’s because I’ve shown steady improvement, and the swelling has drastically declined. My efforts certaintly contributed but she added some thicker padding at several locations, and I noticed a dramatic impact from that. Although the wraps only remain on my lower right limb and foot, I can’t properly bathe while working them. I’m aching for a solid, warm shower, you know?

The Neurons have a weird song playing in my head. Not a weird song, sorry; it’s an excellent song, emblamatic of an era and attitude. But why today? That is the question. The song in question plowing my morning mental music stream is “Super Bad” from 1970 by James Brown. Nothing to do with dreams, cats, weather, food, coffee, or news. So what the heck, right?

Love all the different dance moves of the period the young dancer employs.

Quick reminder. Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, is a planned day of boycott. Hope you’ll participate. We are. The more the merrier. While it’s targeted on corporations which rolled back DEI policies under PINO Trusk’s encouragement, like Amazon, Target, Best Buy, PBS, NPR, Coca Cola, Pepsico, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and more. Costco is one of the few major corporations which stood firm against DEI changes. Share the news. Make it real. It begins at 00:01 AM on Feb 28th and ends at 11:59 PM.

I approached coffee with an offer and it accepted, so I’m blissfully in a cup. Hope your day delivers for you. Time to funk out. Cheers

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Frieda’s Theme Music

The weather warmed, delivered rain, and the massed, pile snow is dwindling.

Good mornin’, afternoon, or evening, wherever you are. Today is Frieda, February 14, 2025. Valentine’s Day, so here’s to that if you’re into that commercialized celebration. 37 F air holds us in its palms. White clouds overlay the valley, piles of graying white towels fresh the laundry, waiting to be folded. No breaks are permitted for blue sky, no cracks for sunshine. Rain has fallen and probably will again within a few hours. Our air will warm to the low forties, upper thirties, ‘they’ tell us.

PINO Trusk established a new commission. MAHA: Make America Healthy Again. They’ll be working under the ideas that that vaccines which so effectively curtained the effects of a number of diseases didn’t work. Trump, who gorges on McDonald’s food, wants MAHA to look at food and water, this by an administration which is on a run to gut the EPA and the clean air and water standards. Irony laughed so hard when it heard this news, it peed its pants and farted.

MAHA will stand alongside PINO Trusk’s other initiatives, MADA: Make America Dumb Again; MASA: Make America Sexist Again; MAWA: Make America White Again; MARA: Make America Racist Again; and MAPA: Make Americans Poor Again. The rinions — right-wing minions — will eat it up.

In honor of what our nation is enduring under PINO Trusk’s lawless guidance, The Neurons have dragged out an old Black Sabbath offering. After dusting off the 1972 song, they have “Changes” orbiting my morning mental music stream. It’s an odd BS composition, as it’s slow and reflective, with no guitars and drums. “What?” You exclaim. “And this is Black Sabbath, you say? The group who gave us “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, “War Pigs”, “Paranoid”, “Iron Man” and “Snow Blind”?” Indeedio, it is.

Coffee ambushed me in the kitchen. Next thing I knew, had a cup in my hand, breathing in its heady fumes, testing it on my tongue with tentative sips. Hope your day goes through some changes for the better. Let’s rock. Cheers

0

Thurzda’s Theme Music

A stiff wind was rockin’ us last night in Ashlandia. As night came on shift, I watched our outside temperature drop to 34 F and then rise to 37 F. Rain fell and the temperature kept sneaking up outside as the wind barked at the moving branchs and howled at the sky. It’s not 41 F. ‘They’ have notified us that 51 F is possible as a high. The wind has skipped into a more mellow mood, sunshine has found a place in the sky, and all seems momentarily well on this day, Thurzda, Feb. 13, 2025.

Snow remains out there in force but its presence is shrinking. Bushes and trees continue their recovery. Fallen branches and trees around the city are being collected, cut up, moved away. If a bit more snow can melt off the piles lining the roads, we’re almost be back to normal.

Many are commenting on the bizarro Oval Office presentation by PINO Trusk. The elected half sat in a chair doing nothing and little vacuous. The other paced and made claims about finding and eliminating fraud. He made wild claims but stayed with the GOTP M.O. of offering no evidence or facts to back the claims. Looked like a Banana Republic Production to me. Paul Krugman did a nice take down of it in a post titled, Elon Musk Is Faking It.

Bet you saw the news that the GOTP wants to raise the debt ceiling for PINO Trusk. One reason given for the need for more debt is that ICE is running low on funds. Wow, who would’ve predicted that, right? Well, just ’bout anybody with the wits to realize the enormous costs involved with Trusk’s deportation plans. As seen on TV, the GOTP and their Project 2025 planners are purty damn witless, in addition to being lawless.

The Neurons jumped back to 1974 to find a tune to honor PINO Trusk. With all of his claims, he’s done nothing provable in quest of slaying fraud, as he claims; he’s only made us more vulnerable as a nation, broke laws and undermined justice, broke promises made to his MAGAts (see inflation and the cost of eggs), and sowed disorder and chaos on a national scale.

Stevie Wonder was found to have provided a song for the times. He called it, “You Haven’t Done Nothin'”.

We are amazed but not amused
By all the things you say that you’ll do
Though much concerned but not involved
With decisions that are made by you

But we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
“You haven’t done nothing”!

It’s not too cool to be ridiculed
But you brought this upon yourself
The world is tired of pacifiers
We want the truth and nothing else

And we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
“You haven’t done nothing”!

h/t to AZLyrics.com

I chugged some coffee earlier and I’m pretty well ready to go. Hope you have the plum-est of days imaginable, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. Let’s go get it. Cheers

4

Frieda’s Theme Music

And on the last day of January of 2025, rain fell on Ashlandia.

Yes, it’s Frieda, January 31, 2025, and rain is peppering Ashlandia. 41 F outside, ‘they’ inform us that it’ll edge close to 50 F before day surrenders to night. Visibility is limited by low, white clouds. Can’t look across the valley to see what’s happening there, or further up the southern range, to see if this precipitation has cast its lot with snow anywhere.

I’m happy with the rain, but not all in the household share the pleasure. Papi has traveled in and out in search of better weather. My wife said that at one point, she opened the door for him to come back in, but he acted like he wanted her to come outside. “I think he was saying, it’s raining, come out here and change the weather,” she related.

Alas, we don’t have the weather change app yet so we couldn’t help him. That forces him to go out and in and forces us to open and close doors for his travels. It’s become stale after ten rounds. We might be starkers by mid-afternoon.

Spending of starkers — no, I’m not going into politics yet. Too damn early to burst my spirit with tales from the dark side. I will say that I read that one Trump supporter, a Muslim, approves of Trump’s first days of activity. I’m waiting for the other shoe on that FAFO situation to drop. Like that man who wholly supported Trump’s actions until they came and took his wife away. Then, suddenly, he is crying, woe is me, and personally begging Trump himself to not take his wife away. They just don’t get it, do they? Trump and his minions care for no one but themselves. For that matter, Trump only cares about Trump. And he’ll lie in a breath without a thought. He’ll also speak without a thought, too, as he keeps proving. On further evidence, Trump supporters are like Trump in many ways, unaffected by these policies until it hits them, thinking only of themselves until it hits them, blissfully oblivious to what they say and do until it comes back and bites them in the ass.

The Neurons have brought up a 1993 Billy Joel tune. “The River of Dreams” is playing in the morning mental music stream. It has a sort of Gospel/spiritual flavor infusing it. The Neurons offered it to the stream after I’d gotten up in the middle of the night. Yes, a cat was involved. After taking care of the cat need, I had several needs, involving trips to the kitchen and the bathroom. I hadn’t turned on any lights, but we have several recessed night lights installed. Anyway, I also wandered to the window to check on the rain. That’s when the song came in. Joel sings, “In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep.” Seemed kinda apt at the time, in The Neurons’ opinion. Yes, although there are millions of them, the usually speak with one collective opinion.

Coffee is making its way through my systems, delivering whatever help it can. Time to fly. Hope your day is up to your hopes and aspirations wherever you might travel or whatever you do.* Here we go. Cheers

*Certain restrictions may apply.

1

Twosda’s Theme Music

This is Twosda, January 28, 2025. Sunshine has won another Ashlandia winter morning. It’s been served with a lavish side of blue sky and a big bowl of stagnant air. Temperature is 34 and will probably achieve something in the low 50s F, ‘they’ tell me. That’s where it went yesterday. They keep telling us cold weather is on the way but it’s remained generally the same for a few weeks. Still no snow, and no sign of any arriving soon. Nor have we had rain in a while. The Southern Oregon University graphics paint the scene.

I went into the stagnant air late yesterday afternoon to do a few quickies: collect mail, put out the trash and recycle, pet Papi as he rolled around on the driveway. The air had a funky smell. It reminded me of the odor that came with pouring starter fluid on charcoal briquets and lighting them. Don’t know if you’re familiar with that scent. I know it well from childhood. Not a good smell to have no matter where you walk outside. I don’t think it’s healthy, you know?

Trump and the GOTP continue their grand destruction tour. He thinks bullying Colombia with tariffs demonstrate how ‘tough’ the U.S. is. He’s such a sad joke leading a sad party. It’s terrible that ignorance et al has empowered him. Well, the FAFO hits will just keep stacking. Overreach, followed by a tipping point and a crash will bring the party to a calamitous halt. Tragically, given his obstinate nature and his circle of sycophants, the signs will be missed until it’s a HFM. That’s those morons’ proven history in this century.

In dreamland, I am now embarked on this weird erotic dream series. I seem to have one every other night for the past two weeks. My dreams often go into cycles. The normal cycles focus on driving cars, making discoveries, surviving disasters, or being reassured. I also cycle into periods of dreams that seem like adventure movies. I often wonder about the conditions which trigger these different cycles. I have a sketchy grasp on some but the bigger picture eludes me.

Der Neurons have brought music by the Offspring into the morning mental music stream. The 1997 song is called “Gone Away”. A box of thoughts kicked the song out of the mental dust and into the MMMS. Thoughts about going away, combined with thoughts of checks and powers going away, with a tincture of reflections about about who have passed, and there you have it.

Coffee made some overtures to me, and I accepted. Now we’re sitting together, enjoying a hot cuppa. Hope you have a strong day and a satisfying life. Here’s the music. Cheers

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