Tag: time

Saturday’s Theme Music

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Sunshine and blue skies. Presently on the mid side of 60 F, up from 52 F overnight, we’ll be hunting the mid 80s before the sun skirmishes with the falling night and carries us into a new day.

It’s June and Saturday, June 3, 2023, for more exactitude. The cats are loving this weather, right? Mostly out there sleeping in part shade, part sun. Seeing them out there, and I drift through memories. Tucker has always been a little strange about doors. He goes to the linen door, coat closet door, garage door, pantry door. A drawn out merow is issued. His meowing is either very loud or barely a whisper. No midpoint for him. When it’s a loud meow, he draws out the sounds and employs several syllables.

I ask, “What? You want into the <insert location here>?”

Head nod (yes, by him), mumbling mew sounds, a head tilt at the door in question, his look shooting from it to me, back to it, conveying his desire.

Head shake (yes, by me). “Okay, buddy.” Sigh. Door is opened. He heads in for investigation, sometimes dwelling in wherever for fifteen to twenty minutes. He’s old now, a long-furred black and white stray who chose to stay with us, showing up with matted fur and bad teeth almost ten years ago, I think. Need to check the histories to know with certitude. Point is, these demands have been incorporated in his behavior since his first year with us.

The Neurons planted “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” into the morning mental music stream. 1966 Yardbirds song. Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page on lead guitars, I thought this song was so cool when I first heard it, one of those radio offerings that had me jumping for the radio and reaching for the volume knob. Never heard it much on the radio in the years since. Don’t know when I last listened to it. But this morning, walking out of dream sleep and into the other room to begin standard morning practices, the first lines broke out of memory and into conscious thought.

Meeting people on my way
Seemingly I’ve known one day
Familiarity of things
That my dreaming always brings

Happenings ten years time ago
Situations we really know
But the knowing is in the mind
Sinking deep into the well of time

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Wasn’t long after that before The Neurons delivered the song to a loop in my head. I think it’s a related-to-writing thing. I obsess over time, reality, and questions of what we know vs what happened vs what we think we know is one that in my novel writing. Memory is a mischief maker and history is written by the winners and then revised, leaving many of us floundering about it all. So here we be.

Stay pos. Coffee drinking has commenced. Big old cup is a quarter down already. Goes well with a cool summer morning on the patio, sunshine blazing down, cats washing in the green grass, jay yelling at us all from different perches as he surveys the yard and lands on chairs and trees. Could be a good day, you know?

Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

She entered the coffee shop, stopping by the door to peruse her phone. She resembled his younger sister so much that he studied her in depth, thinking of the similarities. Then, he realized, he wasn’t thinking of his sister as she now was, mother to two teenagers, but she’d been, fresh faced out of high school, so young and pretty.

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The Cheating Dream

What a dream, I’m telling you. Began with my wife and I on a spiritual pilgrimage. We stopped at a small place that seemed to be built inside a cave. They were studying odd phenomena. Included were a series of three holes in the cave’s walls. The holes were square. They didn’t know how they got there. People studied them to see if they were changing or static. My wife suggested I should study them because she thought me good at analyzing things. At the group’s insistence, I gave it a shot.

The holes were very dusty. When I looked into them, I could see that they slanted down and to the left. They seemed to have a flap door on the right side which could cover them. That was part of the controversy. Discussions were revolving whether those flap had always been there, and if the holes were now dustier than they used to be.

I’d glanced at each of the holes when I approached them, then went to the first one on the left. The group provided me sketches which the group had made, so I could look for differences. The first two were examined and no changes were seen. But I immediately saw changes on the third hole, on the right. I pointed it out in excitement, asking a member of the group if he saw the change. This hole was also lit from below. I was intensely interested in climbing into the hole and going down into it, but was also afraid of what was there. I kept leaning in, listening while watching for differences.

My wife had been behind me to my left while this was going on. Now she said, “I’m going to look around. Remember that we need to make a decision before 8:30, and then we’ll go.” Then she walked off.

I kept studying the hole. Suddenly I realized that it was 3 AM. Time had flown past. I was alone. I asked, “Where is my wife?” I walked around looking for her, complaining to myself but aloud, “We were supposed to make a decision hours ago, and leave. Where did she go?”

Opening a door, I discovered my wife in bed with a young white man with short blonde hair. He was very skinny, no one I know from real life.

When the door opened, they separated. Realizing it was me, the man was whimpering and trying to get out of bed and run.

He fell onto the floor. I stormed across the room and grabbed him by his head. He screamed and started crying. A small, round, white table was beside the bed. I prepared to slam his head against the table.

I stopped myself as I bent to do it. He was part of this but what would hurting or killing him do? I paused, thinking about that.

My wife grabbed my arm. “Michael, stop. Please don’t hurt him.”

I turned my head toward her and snapped, “Don’t touch me.”

She pulled her head away and stepped back. I let go of the man and turned toward her. “You did this,” I said. “You started this.”

Dream end.

It took me over an hour to go back to sleep.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Feels like Marpril today. No wind, light spring showers and robust sunshine making nice. 50 degrees F in sight with eyes toward 65 F.

It’s Monday, Marpil 13, 2023, 3.4/13/2023. Sunrise took over at 7:26 AM and the sun’s rule will continue in Ashlandia until 7:15 PM. Snow still caps the mountains and ridges, so you have a developing spring portrait set against a snowy black and white background.

The spring ahead hour change is a little drain on my morning buoyancy. Yes, I do enjoy a little bounce before my coffee. Ain’t big, but it’s there. It comes from the sunshine streaming in when I get up. Now, we’ve set the time forward and the sunshine ain’t there, and there goes my bounce to eagerly take on the day. Back to the roll out trudge for a few days.

I’m one of those who come down against the time change. I don’t think much is saved. I’ve seen studies which vet that. Is it worth it for what it does to so many people’s individual energy banks and lives?

Thinking about time drove The Neurons to deliver a plethora of songs about time. I asked Bing’s fancy new search engine how many songs about time have been written. It replied, “I’m not sure. One source cites more than twenty-seven. Another says there’s been thirty.” Damn, I think I could brainstorm thirty before my coffee.

Anyway, I moved away from the usual and favorites. Those are the ones heard in childhood, so they have staying power, or the ones which came at a special moment in life. Instead, I just rolled some in my head. Finally, good old Kevn came through.

No, Kevin isn’t a performer or a brain cell’s name, or search engine. Kevin is a friend. we spent time together in the mid to late nineties. He was a Darius Rucker, Hootie & the Blowfish fan. Thanks to him and a camping trip with him (Laguna Seca, for the vintage cars), I know the song, “Time” by H&tB from 1993. Good sing, I think. It is one of those songs, which, while listening to it, we asked one another, “What is he singing?”

Stay pos and enjoy your day. Carpes diem, yo. I’m carpes some coffee. Here’s the Blowfish. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thought

He feels like he’s chasing time. Time is like a red laser dot, nominally a pointer, but often used to tease cats, and he’s the cat. He knows he can’t catch the time dot but he can’t stop his nature from trying.

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A Shambolic Dream

Arriving somewhere outside, I was met by a man I knew. I’d worked with him at a startup after my military career. Now he was dressed as a light colonel. Greeting me and my wife, he said, thumb over shoulder to indicate direction, “Come on over here and join us. We’re going to review your records.”

So first, I acted like that was completely and totally normal. I said to my wife, “Oh, I guess I’m in the military.” She agreed and went off to do something while I went through my review.

Several problems immediately presented. One, no uniform. Two, haircut out of regs. So was the mustache. Three, I needed to get my records.

My records were to have been pulled and sent over for the review. I was directed over to an area where a table was set up like it was in a record store, but this was all outside under a sunny early autumn day. People were milling, going through the sectioned records, searching for their records. Someone offered to help me. As I went through them, I found my records and so announced. But wait; those weren’t my records. The first and last names were correct, but the middle name was wrong. On, no, they’d sent over the wrong records.

As I swore a bit about what had happened, I noticed another table to the left. It wasn’t set up in the same way. I stepped over to it and there were my records.

I rushed them over to the large card table where the review was being conducted. I knew several of those folks from both military and civilian careers. As I came up, I heard one chief master sergeant say, “But that’s how he aways is.” Others agreed.

I was mortified. Were they speaking of me? What did they mean?

They reviewed others’ records. When it came to be my turn, I joked with them and then explained that I was just back, I’d been visiting with my mother, who’d been very sick. They seemed disinterested. They looked through my records and commented on my haircut and lack of uniform. I told them that I was trying to get it together. One said, “Didn’t you come back from being with your mother a few weeks ago?” When I answered yes, he continued, “Then shouldn’t you have it together by now?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Let me go get my haircut. My wife was just telling me that I needed to get one. And my uniform is in my locker. I’ll get it and put it on.”

I went off, with my wife joining me. We were mumbling to one another about the situation. She had my clothes, having gotten them out of my locker. Great, but they were horribly wrinkled. Where could I iron them or have them pressed? There was no time, no time.

Then, some young airman dressed in a black pseudo-NAZI military uniform insulted my wife. Overhearing it, I was furious. Confronting him, I wanted to hit him but instead warned him that I was taking action against him. Laughing, he told me, “Fuck you.” That pissed me off further. Another person attempted to defend him as the first guy stood there laughing. I told both that I was busting their asses before my wife pulled me away.

Stepping out of the locker area, I put on the wrinkled pants. Others, including the board members, turned and watched. I then tugged on the shirt only to realize that the shirt and pants were from two different uniform combinations and didn’t match. I thought, oh my God, now I’m screwed.

The guy who greeted me at the dream’s beginning came up. He said, “Don’t worry about any of this. We’re cutting you a break.” As I responded with astonished relief, he went on, “They reported that they found a spell on you, a curse. We’ve lifted that, but since you were under it up to this point, we thought we’d give you a pass.”

The dream ended as I was absorbing this.

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