Tag: travel

Saturday’s Wandering Thought

He’s planning a trip and reviewing hotels.

One rated a prospective place “10/10 – Excellent”. But their comments made him wonder:

“The room was good and bed was super comfortable however there were areas needing a little updating . Looked like there had been a roof leak in the bathroom over the shower area and the exhaust fan in the bathroom sounded like it was dying. Also the lighting in the bathroom was not very bright . The breakfast in the morning was good. Overall I’d say it was ok.”

Head shake. ‘Okay’ is far away from ‘Excellent’ is his mind.

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

He wondered and worried, would hotel rooms begin emulating air travel pricing, monetizing everything? He wondered if there would be a day when he reserved a room but that doesn’t mean he has a room – just like buying an economy airline ticket or even rental cars (see Seinfeld for more). He can imagine going online to rent a room and being offered upgrades. Ten more dollars for both a bed and chair in the room on top of what you’re paying for a preferred floor and location, size, and view. Twenty-five more for pillows, sheets, and blankets. Go for the Deluxe Room Plus – it includes complimentary coffee and a television, just fifty dollars more.

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A Dream About Loss

There were twelve of us. We were taking a two-day class. The was the second day. The class was being held in a business annex in an airport. As part of the class, we’d been writing a paper about what we learned. Everyone else was leaving. I was still writing my paper.

I was distracted because I was hungry and I was getting ready to go home. I’d been away for a while. Knowing I was the only one remaining in the class, the instructor began packing up and turning off lights. Other instructors, teaching other classes, came in to have an end of week celebration before they headed out.

I needed to check in for my flight so I sought the instructor to ask permission to send it in later. Not finding him, I packed my laptop and gear and rushed out.

The airport was hectic and unfamiliar. I was struggling to find my way. I briefly set my briefcase with my laptop in it. In a flash, someone picked it up and walked off with it. I was shocked, horrified, sick to my stomach. I tried finding that person so I could get my bag back, especially my laptop. I’ve had a laptop for decades. They help define who I am. Also, I realized, I wouldn’t finish the paper. My notes and the text book were in the bag. So was my plane ticket and wallet!

Distraught, I went back to the classroom. About a dozen instructors were milling in there. My instructor was in the back. I tried speaking but couldn’t. One male instructor noticed me and told the others, saying, “He’s upset. He has something to say.”

They fell quiet to hear me. He encouraged me to speak. I began but started losing it. Reining in emotions, I began again, telling them what had happened. They expressed sympathy and concern. Meanwhile, I bent and saw my briefcase sitting on the floor beside me. Picking it up, I discovered everything I thought was stolen was in it.

I was floored. I’d been carrying that thing around. I’d looked in it before. I was certain everything was gone, yet, I’d had it all along.

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A Weird Car Trip Dream

Friends and I were awakening from sleep in a darkly cluttered place. Three or four others were there, including one friend from RL forty years ago. The others were dream friends but not anyone from this RL. As the sun rose, an old stage, perhaps once part of a high school but now outside, gained substance.

We talked about news while sitting up, rubbing sleep out of our faces, and stretching. One was complaining that people didn’t understand the news and headlines. Someone suggested that we should do plays where we would just read headlines and stories and then explain them. Sounded good to me. Someone else said that we needed to clean the area up but I asked why because the stage with its clutter and junk seemed like a meta statement about our world. As this conversation went on, the sun rose, daylight came up, papers were dropped off on the stage and people became walking past. We’d been rolling up our sleeping bags, putting other shirts on, and making coffee. Now one guy picked up a newspaper and started reading it aloud. People going past stopped to listen.

I went down steps, out the back, and met my cousin. He and I went off to collect our clothing, which was somewhere else, because we needed to get ready to go. He kept talking about what he was going to wear and asking my opinion of his ideas, but I wasn’t deeply invested in that and didn’t respond much. Reaching a building, we went upstairs and found our open suitcases. This wasn’t the clothes we wanted; that was at Mom’s house, my cousin thought, suggesting that we go there. I told my wife where we were going. She decided to come with us.

We entered a large white vehicle with a thick black stripe down each side. The inside was flat and wide, with a thin, gray carpet on the floor. Windows were on every side, giving great visibility. Some gray folding chairs were set up in it in the front, but we would need more. I set up some chairs that I found, dubbing one in the second row by the window as ‘mine’. Two people were already seated in the front row, where three chairs were set up. One of those was my SIL, who was waiting to leave as well, which startled me. For some reason, I didn’t expect her there.

My cousin had disappeared, and so had my wife. I went out to Mom’s home and found the clothes which I wanted, and put on a green shirt to wear while I traveled. Going back outside I saw cars pulling up and parking on the lush green lawn. “They’re not going to like that,” I told others several times, talking about the people who lived in this housing area. “They’re proud of their lawn. They should move their cars before they’re found.”

Everyone ignored me. I found my cousin back inside Mom’s house. Mom was talking to him as he complained that his clothes weren’t there. I looked and discovered that the suitcase holding his clothes had been emptied. I told him that he would just need to go in what he was wearing, which really upset him.

I returned to the white car. Nobody had set up any more chairs. The driver was present, adjusting his folding chair as a seat, along with my SIL, who was still in her seat. My wife was in the seat which I’d designated for myself. I complained about that with her; she ignored me. Exasperated, I set up another chair behind my SIL. I asked her where she was going, and she answered, “The same place as you.”

I responded, “I’m going back to school.”

She answered, “So am I.”

The car rocked with movement. Going to a window and looking out, I discovered that the car was tall and much larger than expected. We seemed to be twenty feet off the ground. I didn’t know how that was possible.

Dreams ends as the car moves forward with me looking out the window and others talking behind me.

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The Space Snake Dream

I was brought on to help create a new vehicle for people to travel. As I walked with the team, talking outside, I saw a small red and yellow snake. Ideas lit up my mind. I sketched out a plan for us to develop a design based on a snake. Objections quicky rose. Growing more excited, I explained how we would use small segments, giving the snake great flexibility. Each segment would be a living, working or storage compartment, etc. Our travel snake would be able to turn in multiple ways.

They told me it was supposed to be for space. I got more excited, telling them that we can develop multiple small segments, just like the other segments, which would be used for propulsion. They could be interspersed along the snake’s body.

While I was telling these things, the snake was being built. Without a short while, I saw it fly over some brown mountains and land nearby. I skipped through the sky to it. The snake’s segments were much larger than I’d suggested and its overall length blew away my expectations. Someone said, it’s getting ready to go.

By that point the sun was setting. The cloudless sky had grown deep indigo and purple. A few stars and satellites populated the zenith. Looking up, I watched the white snake, people visible in windows lit with a soft yellow-tinted light, climb into space on a blue flame.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Early dark thirty. Far before the sun’s scheduled arrival after seven. I’m waiting for my sister to pick me up and convey me to the airport. I’m always depending on my family and their kindness. She is one of the best.

It’s Tuesday, October, 11, 2022, exactly, without planning, one month since my arrival in Pittsburgh. Mom was in the hospital when I arrived, fighting COVID as it attacked her heart, lungs, and everything else it could lash out at. Nurses told my sisters it was very possible that Mom may not survive. It was one of the worst COVID cases they’d seen since the pandemic’s start for that hospital staff. Besides COVID and fluid in her heart and lungs, her appendix had a perforation and was pouring poisonous material into her body. Her pacemaker was only functioning at 20%. Things looked ugly.

She fought back and came out of it. Now she’s home, recovering, rehabbing, and I’m going home. She is struggling with bouncing blood pressure with a diastolic dropping below 100 too often. She’s on meds to promote good blood flow, keep her blood pressure at a healthy level by lowering it because of what she endured in the hospital, when it was skyrocketing. Now they’re backing those meds off, readjusting them, but her blood pressure is erratic. That’s a concern.

Other than that, she’s recovering her strength and balance, eating well, and so on.

My work here isn’t done but life dictates other needs, so, here I go, back across the country, back home.

It’s a travel day, in the car for thirty minutes, airport for two hours, aircraft for five plus, another hour in another airport, another two hours in a second aircraft, then in a car to reach home, an eleven-hour trip. That’s much better than the pioneers, and not as hazardous.

I feel like a little bit of a basketcase dealing with Mom as I hear her tell me one thing and bend her words so it doesn’t seem as bad when she’s dealing with her medicos and my sisters. Irritating as hell to be honest; makes me feel like an unreliable witness. But alas, these things are not within my control, so I let them go like the air from my lungs.

However, The Neurons jumped all over those feelings, dumping “Basketcase” by Green Day into the morning mental music stream (trademark pending – not really, but it feels like it should be added). So here we go.

My ride is here. Stay pos and test neg. I’ll try to do the same. Here we go. I’ll have coffee at the airport, thanks. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

The sun was shifting into position in the eastern sky. Gray sky emerged from the darkness as the stars shied away. We jumped into the car and headed north and then east. Our coast time was over. Shame, too. Thursday had been warm. Calm winds heralded dawn at 5:45 AM. This morning’s thermometer proclaimed 58 C was we left the hotel. They forecast 68 F as Yachat’s high. But come 9 AM, we were at PDX, dropping off friends and then heading west for our next destination.

Today is Friday, 7/15/22. Happy birthday, little sister. She’s two years younger than me, mother of two adult men, grandmother to two sweet and lovely girls.

We’re in Beaverton, outside of Portland. It’s 74 F now and will reach 83 F.

“She’s the One” by Bruce Springsteen, 1975, was found in my morning mental music stream. The Neurons put it there after someone made an innocent comment about another person being ‘the one’. Yeah. Okay, at least I get the connection, unlike some of the opaque selections they issue me. Hope you like it.

Well, stay positive, test negative, and so on. I’ve already had my coffee. Might do with another one in a little while, as that drive disrupted my normal daily flow. We’ll see.

Cheers

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The Expensive Tickets Dream

I was in a room decorated with furniture and hangings in which purples and reds dominated. I don’t recall seeing windows but the small room with dark wooden walls was cluttered, with a low ceiling. As the dream progressed, it seemed more like a loft.

I was working on some sort of rectangular woven hanging which was shades of purple, attempting to straighten it and neatly fold it over a wooden rod, when I heard people below. As I leaned over the heavy wooden railing, I saw people coming up the narrow wooden steps. They were shouting but it was a language which I didn’t understand. Still, I shouted back at them, “No, you can’t come up here, it’s time to go.” I then met them on the steps, waving my arms and repeating what I’d said before.

I went down and outside onto a crowded and busy plaza awash in sunshine. My wife was with me. A young man in a white shirt provided me tickets for our flights. We hadn’t paid for the flights. I saw his shirt cuff as he handed us the tickets. “Playboy Style” and “Cotton” was embroidered in white thread on his white shirt’s cuffs. I thought, these tickets are going to be expensive. I then asked, but he didn’t answer. As he went away, I opened the little sheaf of papers he’d provided and saw the ticket prices. They amounted to $4,000. I said, “No, these tickets are too much.” My wife replied, “We can afford it,” to which I answered, “We can afford it, but do we want to pay that?”

Dream end

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A Ragtag Dream

I was staying in a disheveled sort of place, a ramshackle series of hotels connected to a large, decrepit aircraft hangar. The hangar was white; the hotels were pale green and light pink. A number of friends and my wife were there. We seemed like refugees trying to pull it together and move on.

Activities were taking place in all of the hangar. One person with us was S, a short, energetic woman who’d been an office manager where I’d worked. S and I met up by an aircraft in the hangar. The jet was something like a 737. We planned to take it to leave. But before we could board, S said, “We need to have all the rivets sealed.” She had a rag and some stuff. Showing them to me, she went on, “A little of this needs to be rubbed on each one.”

Looking up at the aircraft, I answered, “We would need to start at the top and work our way down, section by section.”

S said, “It needs to be done in about an hour. Can you organize people and get this done?”

I replied, “Sure, okay.”

She thanked me. We parted.

After we walked away, I thought, we don’t need to do that. That’s overkill. I’ll talk to S about that.

I kept going. I saw some other friends just arriving. They had some clothes. I recognized the clothes as some stuff I’d left behind. They were returning them to me.

But we didn’t meet up. I needed to get back to my room to get my wife ready to go. As I wend through people across the hangar to my hotel section, I saw another pile of my clothes on the cement floor and scooped them up to wear, then went to the room.

My wife was still in bed. I roused her. Our room was small and cramped, with a bed and a tiny bathroom. She was confused about what was to happen. I went about, explaining it to her while packing. She climbed out of bed; she was wearing gray pajamas. As she started moving and looking for clothes, she went into the bathroom. In there, I saw a huge cobweb with a dead mosquito eater hanging in it. I pointed it out to her, saying, “That’s been here the whole time that we’ve been here.”

She agreed, then as she moved around it, we saw other, larger ones.

We exited the bathroom. She said, “I need to think.” She took out four small gray rectangles from a bag, then set them on the floor, spacing them about four feet from one another. I didn’t know what she was doing.

Bending to the first one, she pressed a button on it. Music began playing. She repeated this with the next two. I recognized the music with each. She began dancing and singing to the music coming from the third. It was an old pop song by Abba, “Dancing Queen”. Then she moved to the fourth and pressed its button. She stopped dancing and singing, listening. I realized that it was playing “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen and sang along with it. She seemed unable to hear the music and stood listening.

Dream end.

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An Instruction Dream

This dream featured Mila Kunis and included my SIL, along with a cost of fifty more strangers.

I was sitting in a terminal. Don’t know what means of transportation, only that I was on a journey and waiting to start the next leg. Beside me, one empty seat removed, is Mila Kunis. She’s on the same trip. She is talking about where she’s been and where she’s going, answering questions for people. I’m listening but not paying deep attention to her.

We’ve been given a package. Included in that package is a small, tattered book. Small, about 1/2 inch thick, four inches by three inches. Black or dark blue or green. The cover color might be different for other people in the group. I’ve seen some with red, brown, and tan, but I’m not certain that they have the same book. I’ve opened my book. The pages are very thin. There are symbols inside. The symbols look like hieroglyphics in faded black ink. Bird, eyes, pyramids. I begin working my way through the symbols because I think they’re important to learn. I’m soon starting to read other material and interpret it by using the symbols.

My SIL comes up. We’re surprised and pleased to see one another. She’s traveling, too. We’re going to the same place. Asked me what I’m doing with the book. She’s noticed it but I’m the only one in the group with it open. I explain what I’m doing and what I’ve learned so far. She tells me that’s a great idea, that she wants to do that, too, can I help her get started? I agree, and I start reading things to her, explaining the symbols and their relationships. Mila Kunis joins us to learn, too.

We’re all then called to move to another section. When I go there, I realize that I’ve seen the new place. They’re part of the symbols. I realize, too, that for us to move forward as planned, we need as a group to be arranged differently. I mention these things to SIL and Mila. SIL calls that out to the travel leader. The leader doesn’t know about it but he believes me. He wants me to arrange everyone as they should be.

I give instructions. Everyone has a chair. They need to be in one straight line at a specific place. I tell them to do this. When we finish, another group arrives and then ‘takes off’. The group I’m in wants to know why they went first. I explain, “Because their line was straight. We’re not aligned.” I’m looking along the line of chairs. It’s a tiled floor. With the tile pattern, it’s very easy to see that we’re not aligned.

I explain that to everyone. “Look at where you’re sitting. Look at the line on the tile. We need to be in a straight line. You should all be aligned on the same line of tile.” I walk along, repeating this, pointing it out to people, encouraging them to move and fix the line. They finish doing that. We’re ready to take off.

I turn to wait. I’m the only one standing but that, it seems from my reading, is right. While I’m waiting, I resume studying the book.

Dream end.

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