Tag: traveling

Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: mixed

It’s Monday, July 31, 2023. Yes, this time it really is Monday. Yesterday had me thinking Sunday was Monday. I have it screwed on right.

So, it’s a mixed mood. We’re on the beach, renting a house in Gold Beach with friends. That’s our back porch view from 8 AM. Not bad. Clear weather, about 60 degrees F, full sunshine, the whole shebang.

Here to relax with others. But I miss my writing and routines. I’m required to socialize, and I’m awkward at doing so. Especially when solitude and silence are scarce. My wife is sympathetic — she does know me after over years of being together from middle teens to now — but t’ain’t anything to be done about it. Things collide.

Interesting tense moment during the drive yesterday. Was on a two-lane highway, third car in line, carving up the mountains between southern Oregon and Nor Cal at a speed varying from 55 to 65 MPH. heading for the coast. Rounding a corner, I saw a woman starting to cross the road. I then saw her stepping back. A truck in the other lane was stopped to turn. I looked back up in time to see the two cars ahead of me slam on their brakes. Shouting, “Jesus Christ,” because I knew I couldn’t stop in time, I veered into the other lane and flattened the brake pedal against the floor. As I wrestled with the steering to keep the car straight, the car slewed about, tires chirping, chassis shuddering, traction control and antilock kicking in. We stopped and no one was hit. While I appreciated that the first car’s driver was being polite, stopping on a highway around a blind corner where the speed limit is 65 might not be sensible. Afterward, my wife and I agreed, we didn’t need any coffee for the day.

Der Neurons chose today’s music based on another moment from yesterday. Last night, I went upstairs to bed. I was last and it was late. I didn’t want to turn on lights and disturb anyone, so I went up in the complete darkness. Man, was it black and lightless. Going slowly, feeling with my feet as I climbed, I experienced a weird sensation that the black ahead of me was solid. What a trip.

Anyway, thinking about it, Les Neurons punched up “On the Dark Side” by Eddie and the Cruisers, aka, John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band for the morning mental music stream (trademark explored).

Now I’m off to trek the beach for a while before the sea breeze cranks up too high. Stay pos, be strong, and live the day. No coffee for me, thanks; already had two cups.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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A Driving Dream

My wife, SIL, and I needed to take a trip. I procured a car for us, paying cash for it. It just happens that it looked just like the 1968 Camaro RS I owned in RL in 1975, complete with stripes and black vinyl top, a fun, reliable, and sporty car. In the dream, I didn’t know that it was like my Camaro of my youth because we were youths.

I don’t know why we were traveling by car, other than going from point A to B. Tucker, a current RL cat, was traveling with us. My SIL and I took turns driving, although I did most of it. At one point while I was driving, I suddenly couldn’t control the speed. I was telling them that in the car as I tried braking, kicking the accelerator, and then trying to take the car, an automatic, out of gear, attempting to put it into neutral. When I couldn’t move the center console shifter, I concluded, “I think we’ve lost the transmission.”

I managed to get the car stopped. We got out to talk and stretch our legs. My wife was inattentive and left the car door open. Tucker immediately leaped out. I caught him and then scolded her for leaving the door open and letting Tucker out. She dismissed me and what had happened, which irked me. We decided to go on. I thought for a moment that she was going to drive, which I didn’t want for some reason. I then drove again.

We arrived at a hotel and in a dream blink, we were checked in and up in our room. I think it was in Chicago. It was a large, lavish suite, which included a butler of sorts who was also pressing us to eat or drink, telling us each time, “It’s free.” I didn’t think it was free, but included in the room. At one point, we discussed going out to dinner. The butler started making suggestions about where to go. My SIL was reading about our room during the conversation and asked, “Do you know what floor we’re on?” As my wife replied, “No,” SIL said, “We’re on the 668th floor.”

I went over to the huge windows and looked out. Seeing how high we were, I gasped. “Wow. Why are we so high?”

Dream end.

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Broken-down Cars Dream

Let’s begin in the middle. As the dream seemed to do.

My wife and I were out somewhere. Broken down. Limited view of the setting, like, not important, but seemed like thin scrub brush, black asphalt road, and dry. Vehicle was a black sports car. Could have been a Jaguar XK-E or a Mazda RX-7. Its identity fluttered and shifted, always black, a sleek sports car, but different makes each time I looked at it.

Another man, in a faded yellow short sleeve short and torn blue jeans, was there, trying to go somewhere else. Seemed homeless, with little going for him.

Also present was a young woman, also with a broken-down vehicle, a sixties era white Volkswagen Beetle.

We needed parts and tools to fix the cars. I could get mine running. Plans were formed and tried. We couldn’t get all four people into my car. Should someone be left behind? Maybe her Beetle could fit into my car.

The VW’s body was removed. They tried fitting it in. Sort of got it in there but the consensus rose, that’s not going to work. We had to get it back out but it was wedged in tight. I told them, “Stand back. I got this.” I reached into the car, picked it up, and pulled it out using leverage. “Impressive,” everyone said. The woman said, “You’re really strong.” My wife said, “He’s always been weirdly strong.”

I decided, “This is what we’ll do. Leave the VW here. Get in my car. Go to the nearest town. Get the tools and parts needed, fix my car, then I’ll return and fix the other.” I finished, telling the woman, “You’ll go back with me to your car.” Everyone accepted the plan. I got into my car’s driver seat. Wife got into the passenger side. The car had a hatch. The other two got in there. We left the hatch open and drive the twenty something miles to town.

First, we met a group of other people. They needed help, rides, money, etc., to get elsewhere. For some reason, they thought my wife and I were there to help them. That surprised us, but we agreed we would.

Next, we decided we needed clothes, shirts and pants, and entered a crowded discount store. I found an orange pullover with green trim. After putting it on, my wife came up in a new shirt. “I went with a sports team on my shirt,” she said. “Looks like you went with something else.”

The others needing help were white haired, elderly, thin or thick, men and women. They followed me around. After raising the hood and fiddling, I announced that I’d fixed my car. Now the woman and I would go get her Volkswagen. The woman said that she would sell it after it was fixed and buy a larger vehicle. She and I got into my car and zipped away. Seconds later in dream time, I was back in town when she drove her VW in.

Dream end.

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A Traveling Dream

The beginning was chaotic. My wife and I were younger people. She had a girlfriend staying with us, no one knew from RL. We also had a small brown puppy on a red leash, a very smart dog.

She and her friend were trying to start a business. As I wasn’t involved, the details are scant to me. I was busy fixing things around the house, working in bathroom pipes around the sink and tub, then dashing over to work on the computer, helping my wife and her friend with their computer and the printer. All the time, the puppy follows me around and I talk to you. My wife will sometimes say, “Oh, no, where is the puppy,” because the puppy isn’t where she left him. “Relax,” I answer, “he’s right here beside me.”

Wife makes a tentative decision. Someone is interested in their business but they have to go meet them, which is a five-hour drive away. Will I take her? We jockey back and forth in the conversation, we me explaining that I don’t want to stay overnight because we have the puppy and there are things I must do, followed up by asking her, are you staying the night? How long will you be there?

She’s anxious with excitement, indecisive and scattered, frustrating me. I finally force the issue: I’ll drive you up and then return tonight. I’ll be driving ten hours. A neighbor comes and takes the puppy.

Then we’re in a car on a highway. I’m driving. I’m in the right-hand land of this divided highway, behind a car. The car is slowing. There’s a motorcycle in the left-hand lane but they’re several hundred yards back. I want to change lanes but the car in front of me is suddenly slowing. Checking my driver-side mirror, I discover that the motorcycle has caught up. I accelerate a little, create space, and change lanes.

That lane is now also slowing by a tremendous amount. What’s going on? I wonder, trying to see what’s ahead. First, we’re no longer on concrete; we’re on a soft dirt path. There are construction signs. The road is being worked on. Everyone, including us, is on foot, following one another like we’re cars.

We’re slowing. Ahead is a vertical pipe. We must climb up that. I’m carrying all of my wife’s luggage plus some long, heavy metal thing. I realize that I’d need to climb without using my hands. My wife and her friend anxiously watch, waiting for my decision about what I’ll do.

I realize, nobody else is carrying anything. They left it in their vehicle. Why didn’t we do that? I intuit that the construction people will transport the cars up to the other end of the pipe. This infuriates me; why do we need to leave our car at all? Why can’t they just transport the cars with us in it?

“Come on,” I tell the others. “We’re going back to the car.” I figure that there must be another way.

We’re back in the car. I drive fast in the opposite direction. There’s a detour sign on my left. I turn the car that way even though my wife wants to stop and think it over. We’re suddenly at our destination. “I knew it,” I crow, pleased.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

They call it snowy Thursday. Early afternoon yesterday, sitting at the coffee shop. 41 F out. Rain falls, turning to snow as it drops. Temperature loses its grip, slipping to 39 F. Snow begins sticking. Within an hour, we had an inch. Two and a half inches before the snow stopped two hours later. By then, it was 36 F.

Yes, it was a very wet snow. As temperatures tumbled for us to the upper twenties last night, visions of slippery roads and sidewalks filled conversations and emails. But this morning, it was wet but not slick. Snow had iced but was rapidly retreating. 34 F now, snow clouds rule the air. We’ll see how that goes. None of us were expecting yesterday’s snow.

It’s Thursday, January 19, 2023. Winter snow finally came to Ashlandia’s valley.

Sun influence came over the peaks and ridges 7:36-ish this morning. Sun’s retreat from the valley will be about 5:08 PM. A 40 degree F high temperature is expected.

I have Simply Red with “Holding Back the Years” from 1985 swirling around the morning mental music stream. A mellow song, I can’t trace its origins in today’s head, but I blame dreams. I also blame The Neurons. They can’t be trusted. I will say that when I was driving long distances in 1985, as I was frequently required to do, I didn’t like it when “Holding Back the Years” came on the radio. Out on the road on assignment, away from family for a week to months, the song was just a downer.

Speaking of downers, time for me to down a cup of coffee. Stay positive and do what you need to be healthy. Merry Christmas. Just thought I’d get an early start on that season. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Sunshine skirts the trees and licks the sky into fresh blue shades. Familiars remind me that I’m home. People say, oh, you made it, as though the standing in lines and sitting in seats that frame commercial air travel in this era was a slog. The slog is behind the scenes, where they’re building and maintaining the machines and coordinating the actions. I’m just a passenger on that plane, just as I’m a passenger on starship Earth.

Sunrise in Ashland today came over us at 7:20 AM. Cool mountain air, measured at 54 F, put a shiver in my body. Gonna be 88 F, the weather wizards say. Smoky haze covered the valley from the Cedar Creek fire further west in the state. Not heavy smoke but enough for you to see it’s there, a reminder of the fire’s existence. Sunset, they tell me, will be 6:34 PM.

Being home is a comfort. Having my wife chatting about all she’s done and is doing and is to do brought me into the groove. Tucker and Papi did their feline duties, purring welcomes, permitting me to show my affections through liberal scratches of their ears, heads, and backs.

Traveling was the mix of fun, weariness, anticipation, and frustration that I’ve come to expect. Being in flight, taking off before sunrise and then having the sun chase us down over the Rocky Mountains delivered plenty of thought fodder. As you know, many sings exist about traveling, aircraft, flight, and sunrise. Plenty for The Neurons to say, oh, there’s a theme song and stick it in my mental music stream. But I found myself watching people, splitting time between clothes, shoes, body language, and faces. Out of watching faces, The Neurons pulled up “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” by Pearl Jam. A song released six million years ago or more, it tells of a woman struggling to remember another’s name, wishing to say hello, and failing. The Neurons were right to pick it up off of the organic reflections generated from my visit home, to places that were and now aren’t, and faces filling with aging’s shifts.

So here we are. Cats are fed, breakfast is eaten, coffee was brewed, its scent inhaled, its pleasant bitterness introduced to my tongue as another fresh experience. Stay pos and test neg, and do the vaccines needed to overcome and move on. I’m with you there.

Here’s the tune. Hope you can enjoy your Wednesday and build on it. Cheers

5

Monday’s Wandering Thought

He read the news article about a man stealing from people during an overnight flight. One woman had 10,000 USD and 13,000 Argentinian pesos stolen from her. He and his wife were shocked that she’d be carrying that much currency and that someone was able to steal it from her. As his wife said, “If I had that much on me on an aircraft, I wouldn’t be sleeping, and I’d probably be sitting on my purse.”

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A Traveling Dream

I’d met some people on the road. We were going in the same direction, so we traveled together. I was about my current age, it seemed. It was a dark night. We were in a car that felt and seemed like a Jeep but I was sitting the back and another person sat behind me. This was a woman. The ride was rough and we bounced around a great deal.

I seemed to know the woman behind me slightly more than the rest. She said, “You seem like you’re very stressed.”

Laughing, I replied, “That’s an optical illusion.”

Saying, “Let me give you a massage,” she began massaging my shoulders and neck.

It felt so good. After a minute, I told her that. She leaned forward, pressing herself against my back, comforting me. Warmth flowed from her into me. I leaned back into it and turned my head. I wanted to kiss her but stopped myself.

Then she and I were walking together in an airport. She said something about her flight being changed. I reminisced about how I used to travel so frequently, I was often upgraded and never bumped because my travels were a priority. She said, “I bet your travels used to be a high priority, especially the ones in the military.” I shrugged that off because I couldn’t say that was true. Priority was always a complicated matrix in those days.

I was looking at our clothes. Very tall and my age, she was dressed in a light grey suit. I was in a charcoal gray suit. It was an unusual style, almost pseudo-military, and very wrinkled. I said something about needing to upgrade my suit or at least iron it.

We reached the gates. My flight was already boarding, so we hugged and said good-bye. The agent took my ticket and waved me in.

Dream end

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A Traveling Dream

I was a young man, with my extended family. Cousins, including three deceased members, were there, along with aunts and uncles, and my parents (who, in RL, divorced when I was young).

We were ‘getting ready to go’. Where we were heading wasn’t properly defined. We’d had a reunion party the night before. The next day found the place trashed. Cans of beer and beer kegs were in the bathrooms. I was walking around, trying to make sense of things. We had two buildings divided by a parking lot where we were staying. Each of those buildings had a large game room with several bathrooms off of them. But beer was everywhere, mostly domestic brands like Schlitz, Miller’s, Stroh’s, and Buds, drinks from my childhood. I was laughing at that beer selection, questioning them, “Couldn’t we have done better?” They accused me of being a snob. We laughed about it all.

But the chaos annoyed me. We were due to leave soon. No one seemed ready, and they didn’t seem to care. Two vehicles were there for our travels. Both were sort of RVs. One was black and the other was red. Polished and shiny, they looked like wingless jets with wheels. People were filling them up with things they were taking. Checking it out, I proclaimed, “You’re trying to take too much. We’re not going to have any room for people.”

I went down into a game room to use the bathroom and encountered my father. He was in a jovial mood. I told him that I wanted to use a bathroom and was going to move the beer out of there so I could and asked if he would help. He just laughed and opened a beer. I said, “You’re having a beer now? But we’re getting ready to go.”

I became a little annoyed then and went back to the red and black RVs. An aunt came out, chastising everyone that we need to get a move on. I told her, “I know, I’ve been trying to get them organized.” Cousins started piling into the vehicles. I asked, “Who’s driving?” Aunt P answered, “You are.” I replied, “But I don’t even know where I’m going.”

She said, “Of course you do. You always know.”

Dream end.

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