Tag: secrets

The Parents Dream

I dreamed of my mother and father last night. Both are still alive. They ceased being a couple by 1961. Both have gone on to several other marriages and long-term relationships.

I’m not surprised that I dreamed about them. It’s Memorial Day weekend. Mom loves the holidays. If little else often worked out right, the holidays usually did. The food was sensational. Mom’s speciaities above everything else is fried chicken and potato salad. These foods figured prominently in the warm weather holidays of Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day. These were always large family affairs featuring picnics or cook-outs.

On the flip side, I only recall one Christmas with Dad. None of the rest. He and I get along pretty well. That’s not the issue. The issue was once he was away, I had to chose between Mom and Dad, and Mom had better food.

Back to the dream. In it, I was an adult. My two sisters who shared Mom and Dad as their biological parents were present, along with Mom and Dad. I was an adult, and Mom and Dad were the standard parents familiar to me from when I was eighteen to when I was sixty. Then they changed, bodies breaking down, in the old people they now are, restricted in their activities, dealing with medical issues, like, all the time.

But in the dream, we five were together as adults. Something had happened, some disaster, that forced us together. The dream didn’t give that info. So Mom and my sisters were moving into the place that I had shared with Dad in the dream, but not in real life. This was a small, wood-paneled dump. Tiny, cramped kitchen with dim lights. Old white refrigerator. Microwave on a fake wood stand. Tiny formica gray and silver table with four chairs. One of the ‘old-fashioned’ answering machines with microtapes.

And there were notes. This was part of some complex, which had a pool and a clubhouse. Dad had a stack of notes. This was familiar to me in the dream but not anything he’d ever done in real life. It was his handwriting, though. These were codes and bank account numbers, phone numbers for different people and organizations. I’d glanced through them on arrival.

In the dream, Mom, walking around in a fake fur coat, said, “Jim, we need the access code. Can you give it to us?”

I took some digs at Mom. I’d seen her snooping; Mom was always and forever a secret, furtive snoop, a trait which my oldest sister developed. After that dream, I saw that connection very clearly. Mom used to do things in secret and tell us children, “Don’t tell anyone.”

So, in the dream, I chuckled and asked Mom, “You didn’t find it when you were snooping around.”

Mom issued the standard warning with her eyes and mouth that said, ‘Quiet, don’t talk about that.’ Dad was his typical tight-lipped and silent individual, dismayed by what transpired around him.

I went on to Mom, “Oh, come on, Mom. We all know how you snoop and I say you doing it while Dad was in the other room.” Then I went on to Dad, “What’s the code, Dad? Is it 03? I saw that written down over there. I also saw 258. Is it one of them?”

Dad eventually revealed the code, which I don’t remember. That’s when the dream fades out on me. But it opened my eyes about my parents as I reviewed the dream later.

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The Writing Moment

Back at home with individuals not driven to write, the conversations awaken my muses. They gather to watch people, and think about their lives and times. A common concept about pain, end of life, children dealing with Mom and each other, begins evolving.

Aspects emerge. Donuts being thrown against the side of the house one frozen December Sunday. Children running away and returning. Marriages and divorces. Many marriages and divorces. Enduring secrets. Diseases that strike and tear our family apart and bring us back together.

The first stories I remember hearing about Mom was when she was fourteen. She lived in Turin, Iowa. Small town. V-E and V-J were just a few years before. The children habitually walked the streets over to watch television through a window. The window belonged to the hardware store, which was also a cafe. It had the town’s only TV, as television was then so new. The hardware store/cafe also had the town’s only phone. If a call came in for a resident, the owner’s son ran to fetch them.

Then there is Mom’s tale about the Sunday chicken. Her mother was leaving and warned Mom and her older brother, “Don’t you get this house dirty while I’m gone.” They heard the iron in their mother’s voice and the threat it carried.

But they were siblings and started teasing each other. It escalated until Mom grabbed the roasted chicken and threw it at her brother. He ducked. The chicken slammed into the wall. They watched it slide down, fixing the wall with a greasy trail. Looking at one another, they knew Mom was going to beat them.

Yes, there’s stuff to be told, as there is in many families.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: bouncy

It’s 39 F outside in Ashlandia, where the skies are cloudy all day. Clouds smudged with dark shadows collide above, smothering sunshine, undermining warm temperatures, and dribbling and spittin’ on us. It’s Thursday, November’s final day of 2023, i.e., the 30th. Tomorrow, we take it to December, and December brings it to us. It’s getting darker and colder as the day slides into afternoon, like fall is ready to surrender to winter.

I’ve been reading many news articles, ranging from straightforward local news to updates on various trials and political issues, elections, war, disasters, science, and technology. Many of these things are wearying as so much of it has been written about with little changing; I await endings just to give me a break. I suppose I could take a break from it all but I appear to edge toward being obsessive compulsive about some of it.

The most exciting news to me was a story in the NYT about six planets orbiting in resonance around a star 100 light years away. Twelve telescopes were used to observe this and put it all together. Scientists say that such orbits in a solar system takes place “1% of 1%” of the time. They believe that when planets form and the solar systems begin, this resonance happens but then events take place to disrupt the orbits. Finding a solar system like this provides them an opportunity to study how the orbits change, a sensational learning opportunity.

For theme music today, The Neurons have installed OneRepublic with “Secrets” (2009) in the morning mental music stream (Trademark treacherous). This all comes down to the manifest insincerity I read about in so many news articles about complex issues. It’s a large catalyst to the weariness coming down on me. I mean, it’s one thing to read about issues but quite enough to gag through loads of insincerity presented in the articles. See, a line in the song goes “I’m sick of all the insincere”. That’s where the connection comes up.

Let’s take Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, ex-college football coach. He seems to live in Florida, according to records.

“As of last month, Tommy Tuberville did not own a single square foot of property in Alabama after selling parcels in Macon and Tallapoosa counties for $1.4 million, according to a Washington Post report published Thursday.

“And while a spokesman for Alabama’s senior senator maintained to the Post that Tuberville’s primary residence is an Auburn house owned by his wife and son, campaign finance documents and property records suggest Tuberville’s main home is in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, the paper reported.“

“The sale of the Alabama properties were notarized by a Santa Rosa Beach resident, which the Post reported suggested the senator was in Florida when the transaction went through on July 14.

“The report went on to say that Tuberville’s wife, Suzanne Tuberville, is a licensed real estate agent in Florida and has worked for a Santa Rosa Beach real estate firm since the start of the year. She does not have an Alabama real estate license, according to the Post.”

h/t AL.com, emphasis mine

Senator and Mrs. Tuberville sound like fine Alabama citizens, perfect reps of their people, even if they don’t seem to live among their people, don’t they? (Yes, that could have been snark.)

It bothers me even if his constituents aren’t concerned because it strikes me as counter to the ideal of a representative democracy and the founders’ vision about what they were trying to create in their idea of a government by and for the people. It’s another ethics lapse for Tommy T in my mind, but then I’m predisposed against him.

Some of my reasoning against him is that he’s holding up military promotions, basically having a hissy fit and behaving as a terrorist to coerce change on the military while undermining the US military’s strength and stability. That’s particularly galling becaue he claims he’s a great supporter of the military. Of course, he’s never served, because the military isn’t that important to him. (Yes, I definitely detect snark there.)

Tuberville so supports the military that he founded the Tommy Tuberville Foundation “to recognize and support organizations and causes that connect with the beliefs and values of the Tuberville family: assisting our military and veterans; awareness, education and prevention of health issues, particularly among women and children; and, education and community initiatives.”

“Through its first five years, the foundation raised $289,599 but spent just $51,658 on charitable causes, tax records showed.[56] This rate of 18% is less than the 65% that the Better Business Bureau says ethical charities should spend on their causes.[57] In 2020, the Associated Press called the Tuberville Foundation “a questionable charity that raises money but gives very little away”.[58] Foundation officials said the tax filings did not reflect volunteer labor and donated materials used to refurbish veterans’ homes.[59]

“In 2020, The New York Times reported that Tuberville campaign and foundation officials “produced internal records for 2018 that showed nearly $20,000 was raised for a temporary project to provide a retreat for veterans. But the records raised bookkeeping questions, since they showed more than $61,000 of 2018 revenue, roughly twice what the charity reported to the I.R.S. that year”.[60]

In 2021, the Washington Post reported, the foundation “reported it had $74,101 in revenue and spent just 12 percent of that, or $9,000, while $32,000 went to administrative costs (including nearly $12,400 to pay off a truck the charity purchased in 2018 for $27,369)”.[61] By the end of 2021, the foundation’s website had gone defunct.[62]

“In July 2023, a spokesperson for Tuberville said that the foundation had been under audit and had paused its activities, but that Tuberville was reforming it.[61]“

h/t to Wikipedia.org, emphasis mine.

Do you get how I mean that reading about Tuberville reeks with insincerity that fills me with nausea?

Anyway, have a better day, stay positive, be strong, and lean forward. Coffee has been slurped up on my end, and I’m ready to sit inside and take on the cold rain.

Here’s the video. Cheers

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Vivid Dreams Again

I binged vivid dreams again last night. The most striking one found me as an alien. I didn’t look like one; I looked human as I do now, though younger.

Living among humans, I’d been hired by a secret government agency to infiltrate a group of five women and get close to them. My employers thought the women were the aliens. The five were gorgeous women, I guess in their thirties, intelligent and educated. The five didn’t know that I knew all of them. Each thought that I was having a relationship with them. I quickly became intimate with three of them. The other two held me off a bit, moving more cautiously. I was comfortable with that because I knew those two didn’t need to be intimate to spill their secrets. They just needed to trust me, and they did.

The whole time, I knew they were humans, and not aliens, but I yielded to the agency’s desires to find intelligence on them because this allowed me insight into the government’s analysis and planning.

Then, recovering one of my alien powers, I duplicated myself so that I could be with all five women simultaneously. To further my endeavor, I also created a dup of me that met with my bosses. I had one mind shared among the six so I could gather greater understanding. I treated the whole thing as a lark.

Then, dream pivot, I was called out from those locations. I was being given a prize, a high honor to recognize my great contributions. I didn’t know what they were talking about but being the devious mutt that I was, I was eager to accept these accolades. Five of my six beings had to be re-integrated into one, as easily done as walking through a door.

The worst part of it was that reintegrating into one made me appear about five years younger than before. As people saw me and remarked in astounded tones about my youthful appearance, I laughed it off and told them it came from easy living.

Dream end.

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The Secret Magazines Dream

I was in my mid-forties. My wife and I had decided to clean out and organize a home office space. It seemed to be a semi-detached garage. The cinder-brick walls were pale yellow, a broken concrete and dirt floor was underfoot, and there were several large windows.

We’d lived in this place for a while, but several new people had moved in, and we were becoming acquainted with other neighbors. The office had a very large bathroom, also painted yellow, with a single naked bulb hanging down in the middle. I was in there with six neighbors, all men, with the door shut, discussing people we knew in common. One very tall man — I came up to his chest — said, “Hey, do you know Hylton?” I gleefully replied, “I know Hylton, really tall guy, right?”

I asked everyone if they would leave the bathroom, questioning why we were all in there. After that, I returned to the office. The office had a pale-yellow desk and matching file cabinets and printer stand. They could have been painted from the same can of paint as the walls. I began emptying all the drawers. I was hurrying because I’d hidden Playboy Magazines from my wife in some of the drawers. I didn’t want her to find them. After emptying the drawers, I frantically raced around, trying to find a new place to hide them. What to do! What to do! I could hear her talking in the other room.

She came in. I shoved the magazines into a box and shoved it under the desk. She said, “Oh, you’ve already emptied all the drawers. Good. Let’s go through everything and decide what to keep and throw away.”

I said, “I already did that. We just need to put things away. I can do that by myself. You can go do other things.”

But she disagreed, insistently she was staying there.

A man arrived in the garage next to the office. White, in his mid-forties, he had curly coal-black hair with a matching thick beard and was wearing a blue ball cap and matching overalls. I know this because I could see him over like a sort of divider. I asked, “Who are you?”

My wife said, “This is so and so. I hired him to help us clean and organize.”

I replied, “I have this handled. We don’t need any help.”

But she ignored me, going into the garage area with the man to talk about what he could do to help.

Okay, she was out the room. I resumed my attempt to hide my magazines. There were only four, so I thought it shouldn’t be hard. Then I thought, I haven’t looked at these in years, why do I want to keep them? I also questioned, why should I have to hide them from her? But I knew the reason was that she hated Playboy because of how it sexualized and objectified women.

I quit trying to hide them. My wife entered, saw the magazines, and threw a fit. I told her I was throwing them away, but she ranted about me having them and hiding them. Shrugging that off, I went outside to check on the cats. I had two young ones and wanted to ensure they were okay. I heard a dog barking. Looking over a hedge down into the neighbor’s yard, I saw a large German Shepherd running around. Well, I needed to keep the cats in, then!

I decided to cross the street to get my mail. The street was just a narrow dirt lane but my mailbox was on the other side. A middle-aged white woman was coming down the street on a blue bicycle. I waited for her to go by, but she just drew up and stopped right before reaching me. I was incredulous; she was blocking traffic, but seemed totally indifferent. After a moment, she shifted her bike to go to the mailboxes, the same ones where I was going. A large gray truck was waiting for her to go by, and several other people were waiting, too. But she just did what she wanted, oblivious to what was going on around her. Indignant, I crossed the street to the mailbox. As I reached the other side, she pedaled away.

Dream end.

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A Dream of Secrets

Began with my wife and I establishing a home in a new location. Part of a community, seemed to be part of an apartment complex or condo. Outside, but up in the condo (that’s what I’ll go with) (and yes, it was both things – I was inside and outside at once), I set up reaffirming our place’s boundaries. This involved setting up green wooden railings on decks. Just trying to ensure that we were living up to our agreement. There were also storage units. Did we want those? someone asked my wife, who asked me. Yes, we did, I answered. She relayed that back.

Then we were inside. She was going off on some activity. I was working. A journalist. For some reason, it was important to keep my identity and work secret, along with my marriage. My wife and I were living together as husband and wife, but it was important others didn’t know that. Don’t know why. Other women approached, observing me. Wanted to know who I am. What I was doing. I kept responses to a minimum. They peeked into my home, attempting to see more. Fortunately, they didn’t see my wife’s clothing and items. She was worried about that, but we were safe. She kept coming and going.

Meanwhile, I’m writing. Outside the place, I see others reading my previous material. I’m afraid they’ll realize it’s me. Can’t have that. One person, a male, worries me most. Younger, he seems overly interested in me. I attempt to avoid him.

People are discussing my work. They don’t know it’s my work. Then they want to know what I’m doing. What am I working on? Can’t avoid them seeing that I’m writing, so I tell them that I am writing and revising. I downplay what it is. They’re insistent and prying. I finally tell them, I’m writing and revising. This is who I am.

Dream ends.

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