Tag: thinking

A Dream Hodgepodge

This dream had quite a jumbled collection.

It starts with me returning. I was off to the military; now I was back. People had been staying in my place while I was away, but that was done with my permission. Things were a little out of hand because they’d treated it like a party crib. I had a stern conversation with them; yes, they were welcome to stay there. Sure, it was okay to have people over, but they’d start trashing things, and that wasn’t appreciated. They were very understanding in return.

Then I was tidying. I had shelves of old electronics, mostly stereos, cassette and 8-track tape players, CD players, and VHS players. The dust on some were thick. As I resettled back into life, I exclaimed to myself, “Man, I have a lot of gear here. How the hell did I get it all?”

A young boy came up. He didn’t pay any attention to me. He seemed to be looking for something so I asked, “What’s up?”

The boy answered, “I’m looking for a music player for my friend. He wants one for his bicycle.”

I said, “I think I can help him.” I pulled out a small black box and dusted it off. “This has a radio and tape player. It’s small and he can mount it on his handlebars.” I looked more closely at the black box. “It also has record player on it so I don’t know if he would want it.”

“That’s okay,” the boy said. Taking it, he went away.

In a weird dream shift, my place was both outside and inside. I worried about my cats. I had two, and they were a plush gray with golden eyes. Both were young. I looked around for them. They were busy investigating things just outside and playing. When I called their names, they hastened to me, which mitigated my worries.

Then, I worried about my schedule. I needed to call and find out where and when I needed to be for work. Going through my cluttered place, I picked up the phone and dialed 633 while going to my desk to find what the final four numbers were. A woman answered the phone, “Operator intersect.”

I laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t expect that,” I said. “What’s an operator intersect?”

The operator explained, “The call is diverted to the operator whenever the call is not completed but the line is open in case someone has an emergency but can’t finish dialing.”

I answered, “Sorry, I just don’t know where I’m calling. My bad.”

Next, I thought, oh, I should call Mom. So I did. Answering before a ring finished, she said, “About time.” No hello or anything else.

Irritation jumped through me. “Wait, are you pissed because I didn’t immediately call you when I got home? Is that what’s going on here?” She did not answer. I said, “You’re being childish. I’m going to count down from five. If you don’t start talking before I’m done with the countdown, I’m hanging up. Understand?”

No answer.

I began the countdown. When I said, “Three,” I went on, “Oh, forget this. This is stupid. You’re an adult, Mom, and you’re behaving like a child.”

Then I hung up on my mother.

Dream end.

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Saturda’s Wandering Thoughts

An elderly woman asked for my help at the coffee shop yesterday. She’s another coffee shop regular. I’ve seen her here for several years. By observing and eavesdropping, I knew where she lived, what she drove, her previous occupation, her standard order, and her name.

She’s named Sandy. As I helped her, she said, “I was an elementary school teacher.”

I replied, “What a coincidence! I used to go to elementary school.”

She laughed.

I’m thinking of Sandy today because I’m reflecting on Mom. Mom is 89; Sandy is 82. I’ve witnessed Mom’s decline over the past decade. I’ve seen Sandy declining over the past two years. She used to have no problem walking. Always a diminutive person, she seems smaller, thinner, and weaker, and struggles to stand, sit, and walk. Terrible to see.

It affects me because I’m also seeing such a decline happening in my wife. It’s surreal because I’ve had many more medical emergencies and don’t attend to my health as my wife does. I generally bounce back from whatever I endured. Yes, my bounce is not as high these days, and it takes more bounces to get back to close to what I was. My wife, though, is slowing and weakening. She often loses her balance. Her diet and activities are becoming so limited.

All of this reminds me of how impermanent things are. This is true of products, societies, our bodies, our existence. Ground Penetrating Radar finds forgotten settlements. We come across photographs of relatives we never knew about. Genetics and genealogy can fill in blanks about who your ancestors were but it’s typically in broad terms. Names, places, occupations, mostly.

It all finally roosts in me as a reminder to not take things for granted, whether it’s success, health, family, or your government. Nothing really lasts forever. Worse, the ending can come without much warning. As in so many other matters, it’s something which I learned before, and then forgot.

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Saturda’s Theme Music

Saturda, June 7, 2025, has fallen upon us splay-legged with sunshine and muggy with clouds. 84 is Ashlandia’s rough temperature, depending on where you stand. It’s cooler by the creek in the park in the old trees’ shade. Today’s high will be in the low 90s, beginning a string of days with highs in the 90s. Looks like summer is doing a temperature check preparatory to taking the stage.

My wife remarked today, “How long will it be until some U.S. citizen will challenge a masked ICE gunman and get shot?” She thinks we’re due for another Kent State moment, when Ohio National Guard killed four demonstrators in the early 1970s. I agree with her point. Any time we have armed people being pressured by resistance, the chance for violence goes up. Wonder what oddsmakers are saying about it? I hope my wife’s fortune telling is wrong.

Today’s song come about from broodling — that is, brooding and noodling — about another novel underway. Sipping the first dark brown hot fluid this morning, I thought, “You gotta find a way for what you want to say.” I answered myself, “Yes, but do you know what you want to say?”

Bored with the exchange, The Neurons unleashed Oasis and their 1994 song, “Supersonic”, into the morning mental music stream. I recognized that they did it because there is a line which goes something like my thoughts. I didn’t do much more thinking about it at that point because Papi was urgently wrapping himself around my legs while purring like an old VW Beetle. I fed him and then he and I hit the backyard sunshine to take the day’s measure for a few minutes.

Stay safe and have the most solid day you can develop. Me, I’m in for more writing, more yardwork, more reading. It’s a rough life but it’s where I landed. Cheers

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He Who’s Like God

My name is Michael. It’s supposed to mean ‘he who’s like God’ in Hebrew. I don’t know how I got the name. Mom blamed Dad; Dad blamed Mom.

I’m mixed about it as a name. Overall, it’s a good name but there’s just so many of us out there.

I’ve used different names at different times for different reasons. Just the other day, I used a different name when I was talking to my wife. I was on a DIY project to fix the oven. As a dedicated Budgeteer, I’m not a noted handyman. But man, I sure do try. So, as my wife was going out the door, I told her, “I vow that this oven will be fixed upon your return, or my name’s not Patrick J. Carpenter.” My name is not Patrick J. Carpenter, of course. That’s the humor of it. I hope.

As a stumbling novelist, I often consider adopting a different name. There are many writers out there known as Michael Seidel. Many are successful and popular. Some are German. There’s also a weather man named Mike Seidel. I think he might be retired. Either way, all those other Michael Seidels cast a shadow over this Michael Seidel. I since speculated, maybe I’ll seek publication as Taylor Sands. Except I looked up Taylor Sands, and that’s a porn star.

Back in the think tank, I changed Sands to Rush. Taylor Rush is a successful doctor. Other options were chased, like Taylor Chase, and rejected after research. For instance, there are 90+ profiles for Taylor Chase in LinkedIn. I finally came up with Taylor Booking.

Taylor Booking, novelist. That might work.

12

Frida’s Wandering Thoughts

Out walking on break today, a Honda Civic passed.

1983, and silver, I saw. As sis had.

Sis’s Honda suffered from cancer rust. This one was in good shape. A Sarah Lawrence College decal was on the back window.

I was taken back. I’ve never been to Sarah Lawrence College, but it’s been in pop culture in sufficient settings that I knew it’s located in New York city. How did that car with that decal end up almost all the way across the nation, in Ashland, Oregon?

I wondered about the car’s history. Was it a gift to a student freshman attending Sarah Lawrence College? Conversely, maybe they bought it for themselves after graduating and beginning a new job. Maybe, though, the car was located here, and a Sarah Lawrence grad bought the car and put their alma mater on the window.

So many questions. When I returned to the coffee shop, I did a distance check between here and Sara Lawrence College: 2901 miles via I80. Take note, though: there’s a lot of construction enroute between here and there, and toll roads. But traffic is light. It’ll take just under 42 hours if you drive straight there.

I wonder if the car would make it. I imagined it returning to its home, like salmon returning to their spawning waters. Then it all veered along science fiction lines and became a tale about cars gaining intelligence and becoming homesick for their first owners, and then seeking them out.

Guess I’ll call it “Tires & Wheels”. That’s the name of the two main characters: a red and white 1985 Chevy K10 pickup called Tires and a 1983 silver Honda Civic named Wheels.

You know what? I think it’s a love story as much as an adventure.

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Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

The headline is startling.

Urgent manhunt for former Arkansas police chief imprisoned for rape, murder It’s a gritty tale, thick with drama and hyperbole.

As law officers search Arkansas’ rugged Ozark Mountains for a former police chief and convicted killer who escaped prison this weekend, the sister of one of his victims is on edge.

Grant Hardin, the former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape and became known as the “Devil in the Ozarks.”

I’m surprised that he’s on the run. Trump just pardoned another convicted sheriff. His own DOJ was behind the prosecution and sentencing for former sheriff Scott Jenkins. Jenkins was found guilty and sentenced for bribery. But Scott Jenkins is a Trump supporter. Naturally, Trump pardoned him.

I figure that Grant Hardin should turn himself in, declare himself a massive Trump supporter, and ask for a Trump pardon. All he’d need to do is make a few speeches about how Biden was behind his prosecution and wax about how brilliant Trump is, and how the mango one is the greatest president ever, and a Trump pardon would surely be forthcoming. The violence shouldn’t matter. Trump is not that far removed from accusations of rape, and he eagerly pardoned all the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, even though people were killed through their violence. I figure another pardon for another convicted rapist and killer is fitting for Trump, the ‘law and order’ president.

It’s the kind of nation we’ve become.

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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.

3

Wenzda’s Theme Music

Sunshine and blue skies are beckoning me out in Ashlandia today. Supposed to be 78 F today, but it’s gonna have to climb from its current 52 F. Feels like the local weather has it in it to do so, though.

This is Wenzda, May 21, 2025. May is splitting past me faster than forked lightening. I’m astonished by its speed. They tell me that time goes faster for you as you age. If I reach 80, I’m be blinking away in the morning and getting ready for bed at the same time. Maybe it’ll just feel like it is.

I’m in a very good mood today. Don’t know what nutrition and hormones and factors out of my dream network and thinking network brought me to this zenith of eagerness and satisfaction. It’s a periodic thing, though. I wrote almost the same words not a few months ago. How the world seems like it’s getting thrown into the garbage disposal and the water is on and the switch is about to be thrown, taking many good things down the drain and into the past. I hear of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and I just want to puke with disgust and anger, yet here I am, with high spirits and happiness. Probably a high from editing myself. Reading the novel again to fix what’s wrong, I’m happy and pleased. I wrote what I like to read, and I’m enjoying it. Just like that, it’s all about me. Really is a surreal existence.

Today’s music is a ZZ Top cover. Isaac Hayes and Dave Porter wrote it. Sam and Dave recorded and released it. Then along came ZZ Top with their version of “I Thank You.” I do like ZZ’s version best; it just better suits my sensibilities. Why the song has settled into my morning mental music stream is only The Neurons to know. I’ve been reading about recent research on dreams and how they’re made. I was interested because I dream a lot. They speculate now that it’s a network working together using many more functions than originally guessed, and not housed in one specific place, like the hippocampi. Reading that, I wondered if some similar network worked to produce the songs that land in my morning mental music stream.

Going to the music, I’ll give you Sam and Dave and ZZ Top’s offerings, because we all don’t have the same musical tastebuds. Both are terrific.

Coffee is lifting me higher. I’m ready for another day, at least for the moment. Hope you have a great one. Here we go.

Cheers

1

Twosda’s Theme Music

This is Twosda, May 20, 2025. Weather here is more of the same. 53 F now, with moderate to light clouds rolling through, going up to 70 F today. No rain expected, but it’s breezy. Sunshine has lifted us to 64 F. Papi is out there, asnooze is his favorite shelter, hidden from casual scrutiny but sufficiently exposed that he can enjoy the weather.

Mom’s tale from Pittsburgh is unsettling. Today she didn’t get out of bed. She told my sister she couldn’t walk due to her sciatica. Sis, being a physical therapist, provided Mom with exercises to alleviate the sciatica. Mom was doing them when sis left.

One, so glad that sister is there, that she’s strong and intelligent. She of the three sisters in the area has been doing the heavy lifting with Mom. She’s not the oldest or youngest child. And she bridles at many of the things she endured while she grew up. But she’s stood up again and again to take care of Mom. She’s also married to a man who is in construction. Thanks to him, things have been organized and accomplished fast. I’m so grateful to both.

Mom told sis today that Mom thinks she needs a wheelchair. My heart fell like a sinkhole when I read that text. Mom was pretty athletic and loved to dance, and loved her independence. It’s all eroding from her. Her house isn’t conducive to a wheelchair, either.

Fortunately, a little serendepity paid off. My BIL’s customer had just offered him an almost new wheelchair. As soon as Mom said that, sis texted her husband. Two hours later, Mom had a wheelchair. Mom declared it perfect.

All the fallen trees at Mom’s have been cut up, collected, piled up and offered to the world free of charge. People have been driving over and picking it up. Sis was behind that, too.

Here’s photos from Mom’s house in Pittsburgh, PA, May 19, 2025. Top set are after the wood has been cut and picked up. The windstorm was April 29, 2025.

Today’s song is Trump inspired. “Behind Blue Eyes” is a 1971 release by The Who. The Neurons brought it up as I read things that Trump said and did. I was thinking, “What is going on in that head of his?” I don’t think anyone knows. One example came via MSN and the Irish Star today.

Donald Trump dementia fears as ‘brain misfires’ in worrying Oval Office announcement

As Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that they were financing a $175 billion project to build a missile defense system, the U.S. President’s word choices sparked new dementia fears.

After announcing the plan to build a $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’ to press in the White House’s Oval Office on Thursday, Trump directed everyone to look at the portraits around his desk. He named the first two Presidents no problem, but then began to stutter when he got to Monroe.

After announcing the plan to build a $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’ to press in the White House’s Oval Office on Thursday, Trump directed everyone to look at the portraits around his desk. He named the first two Presidents no problem, but then began to stutter when he got to Monroe.

This is just one recent example from what happened in public. What’s going on in private?

I think it’s a mess privately. As the Trump Regime loves to project, and their early reaction to news of President Biden’s cancer was to quickly propose, “Was there a coverup,” I think there’s a big coverup going on in the Trump White House.

Here’s the opening verse and first chorus.

[Verse 1]
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man, to be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No one knows what it’s like
To be hated, to be fated
To telling only lies

[Chorus]
But my dreams, they aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance that’s never free

h/t to Genius.com

These lyrics seem to perfectly capture Trump: he seems fated to telling only lies.

Well, writing is done, coffee is done, lunch is over. Time to change clothes and get out there and do something in the yard. Don’t yet know what. Have a satisfying Twosda. Cheers

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