C’mon… Really?

I had an afternoon and evening of absorbing all the coronavirus news, and once I settled into the recliner and started catching up on The Bone Collector… *poof* … the power goes out. 😠🕯️ I grab the phone to check the outage map – and there were only 10 houses affected. Across the street is on, up the street where the lawn decoration people live was on… with their St Patrick’s Day lights all lit up… 😏 Could it really be just a few houses on my little block? (It wouldn’t surprise me… for whatever reason, this has happened before.)

I got up, put my shoes on, and walked out back (in the newly fallen snow, mind you… after summer-like weather just yesterday 🤷🏻‍♂️) to see if it was really just ten houses, and right as I did – the AEP truck pulled up to the pole about 50 yards away from me, shined a light on it for about fifteen seconds, and then they left. 😐 Not sure where they went, but the power remained off for about two hours before it came back on.

When I came back in from investigating, I discovered that the beast had stolen my seat. 🤔 It was getting a bit chilly in the house, so I’m guessing it was partly due to my butt having warmed up the chair… but yeah, she was there and wasn’t going to move. 😏🤷🏻‍♂️

You might have to click the little icon on the bottom right to resize this to fit your screen. But yeah, she plopped her ass down in my seat and obviously had no intention of giving it up. 😸 Of course I wasn’t going to forcefully evict her, so I ended up sitting on the floor and listening to this Dale Jr / Michael Waltrip podcast that I’ve been putting off for a while now. It’s over two hours long, and I’m still only about 3/4 of the way through it, but man… they’ve got some amazing conversations goin’ on. 😊

Interesting evening, for sure.

Youth: Wasted On The Young

Lemme tell ya… 😏 once I write something, I swear it’s like I’ve invoked the spirits to deliver exactly the opposite. Talking about the awesome weather a few days ago? How I was feeling pretty darn good? 😅 So of course that meant today the sun rose over a crunchy, icy, snow covered everything. (I know. I was there.) It was pretty, but it’s just that I didn’t catch any forecasts – because I somehow managed to invert my days and nights again, and I’ve ended up feeling a bit off due to it. 🤔 Or I felt a bit off and that messed up my sleep. Meh… nothing serious, it’s just frustrating (convenience-wise) when I slip from the humans’ schedule.

I think it’s gonna sort itself out tonight though. Woke up before noon yesterday, ended up staying awake all night, then all of today… and now the sun has set, and I think I still have enough oomph to stay up for at least a few more hours. Sounds like a recipe for a good night’s sleep, no? 🤷🏻‍♂️🙂🤞🏻

Maven has been trying to help… by not helping. 🙄😄 She sticks to me like glue if she senses that my energy is off, so any time I’d try to sleep – whether kicked back in the recliner, on the floor by the heater, or hiding under the covers in bed… as soon as I’d almost nod off, she’d deftly plop down somewhere inconvenient or just directly on me. 😿🤨 Can’t be mad though… her intentions are good. 😺

So bear with me if I go radio silent for another day or two, or if you’re not able to get me on the phone or via messages. Just getting everything back on track so I can continue this slightly-good streak. 😎 Monthly WC doc appointment is coming up on Monday though, which is always followed by the lengthy, fun approval process (or not) at the pharmacy. 😐 (I’ll push that to the back of my thoughts for the weekend.) Plus, for after my appointment, I’m gonna make my version of tuna fish sammiches for me and Dad (even though nothing can top Mom’s vacation sammiches 😌) so that visit will also help to take my mind off of any BS for the duration.

I shall return.

Vivid Nightmare Tale

Didn’t fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning last night, and I’m not sure if it was something that I saw the day before or something that I had subconsciously heard on the TV while I was sleeping, but I ended up having some awful (but amazing) vivid nightmares. 😯 At least they were situation based, rather than having anything to do with a specific friend or family member.

I’ve always had a knack for returning to the same fictional locations in my dreams, even over decades of time, as well as being able to “pick up where I left off” if I happen to wake up in the middle of a particularly interesting or intense dream. 🤷🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️ There are even a couple of fictional “characters” that have persisted over the years, albeit only on rare occasions. 😕🙂 It’s no “lucid dreaming” but I’ll definitely take it, compared to nothing but random, fleeting dreams which can never be returned to.

Last night’s dream, split by about ten minutes of waking up and settling back in, featured two different plane crashes. 😳 (And like I’ve acknowledged before, I know that hearing about other folks’ dreams isn’t always the most entertaining thing, but alas…) The first plane crash was one that I witnessed in the evening from our old house on Shepherd Hill. 😌 I actually had my phone set up in my bedroom window, to record a time-lapse video of the setting sun, but accidentally captured a small aircraft making some abrupt movements a couple of miles away – before crashing into the hills and trees. 😧 … 🛩️🌲🌳🌳🌲🌳🔥

There was distinct black smoke coming from the crash site, but the sun had set by this point, and a layer of fog had moved in, so rescue / recovery vehicles and aircraft seemed to be having a hard time locating the wreckage. 🤨🔭 I not only knew where it went down, but also had a recording of the event, so after a while of watching them struggle from a distance I decided that I needed to get into my car and go help out.

That’s when I woke up, but with the first part of that dream being so vivid (I’m leaving out many of the detailed details) I was hoping that I’d get back to sleep quickly and be able to pick up where I left off. 🥱🤞🏻

Back in the dream, I was already in my car (which was my 1979 Olds Delta 88) and driving up an increasingly narrow road on an increasingly steep mountain. 😬😣 But before I had even driven that far, I heard the sound of spooling jet engines above me – and I looked up to see a rescue oriented 747-200 about 2000 feet above, struggling to climb and avoid a similarly marked rescue blimp that was directly in its path. 😯✈️

The jet didn’t have the power to execute the climb and turn, so while it was able to avoid the blimp – it went into a stall and began to fall from the sky. 😬 I immediately stopped in my tracks, since it looked like the plane might graze the face of the mountain but wouldn’t necessarily hit me. Of course that didn’t end up being the case, and as the 747 fell parallel to the vertical face of the mountain, the belly of the plane banged into my car – knocking it off of the road and sending it falling thousands of feet towards a big lake below.

My car, along with many others from the road above, somehow fell relatively softly into the lake… while the plane crashed hard into the mountain on its way down, which meant there was a constant “rain” of debris endangering all of the surviving people in their cars. 😳☂️ Most of the cars ended up floating, and many people were getting out and trying to swim to shore, but they were inevitably hit by falling wings, engines, landing gear, etc. 😣🤕 The lake was also partially on fire due to the jet fuel, so saying that it was a chaotic scene would be a huge understatement.

But in the chaos, my car and several others floated together, so we used a bunch of bungee cables to connect them all and “fling” them with enough momentum to reach land. 🏝️ The dream fizzled out there, once we were all safe, but it was such a vivid dream that I can still remember the detail of everyone’s faces, the vertigo from the heights, the smell of burning kerosene and plastic plane seats, the shortness of breath while trying to not drown, the pinch of my hand under the tightening bungees, the way it went from unbearably noisy to silent except for the sound of the water… just all of it. 😃😌

Not what most people would consider a fun dream by any stretch of the imagination, but it was one that I was still glad to have had. Almost like the way that you can’t wait to see the weekend’s popular blockbuster action movie. 😎🤷🏻‍♂️😏 Because that’s what it felt like… like an extended scene from some awesome movie. Unfortunately, as it often happens (especially once things really go off the rails), it never really went back to the original “small plane crash” plot, nor did it provide any resolution to any of the rest… but hey, teamwork helped me and quite a few others survive quite the adventure. 🤓🤜🏻🤛🏻😄

(I know… I should save this shit for the dream blog. I mean that’s the whole point of it being there… 🙄🤦🏻‍♂️😏 )

Addendum

Speaking of going to a different school in junior high… I’m not sure why this popped into my head, as it’s something I haven’t thought of for decades probably, but all the talk about vintage computers apparently sparked another hidden memory.

While the school in general did have several C64 computers, mostly in the library, I was also part of a small selection of students that were chosen for what they called “Computer Lab” … a small room full of Apple II computers. 🙄🤷🏻‍♂️😏 I just remember how awful they seemed compared to the Commodore computers… with The Oregon Trail running on both for comparison. 😅 No contest.

Their computer lab with all the Apple computers also served as a room for a typing class later in the afternoon, but I knew that after we left the room was empty – and only the teacher would be in there doing whatever it was that she did with her free time. 😏 Everyone else in the class had basically zero computer experience, although they were the smarter kids in my grade. 🤓 Me, at least I had poked around on my own VIC-20 at home, and then the C64s in the library… so… I had learned a little bit of BASIC. 😎

I actually helped some of the other kids in the class at times, so it wasn’t odd that I’d be away from my own computer and messing with someone else’s, and that made me realize that I could pull off a pretty good prank. For a nerd, anyway… 🙄🤷🏻‍♂️😏 I mean, we were learning to code, so…

You could turn off the monitors while leaving the actual computers on, so… and unfortunately I don’t remember the exact details about this… but somehow I was able to go around to each Apple II in the room and quickly type in a program. There were probably only a dozen computers, and they were situated against three walls of this small square room, just so you can mentally picture it…

But I was able to bang out this little BASIC program on each of the computers right before class ended, as we were all finishing up and supposed to be getting ready to go to our next class. Apple computers only had an annoying beep generator in them, but that was perfect for my prank. 🤡 I think it wasn’t even more than four lines… telling the computer to wait a certain amount of time, ten minutes in this case, and then start rapidly beeping until someone stopped the program. 😁

(I mean, this is a demo created in 2015 and listen how bad even it is… heh)

It’s so weird though… because I’m sure that it worked… which meant that ten minutes after we left, one computer would start beeping – and then in about 10 seconds the next one, and the one after that in ten more seconds… until all of the computers were either beeping all at once or the teacher would be tracking around the room, killing the programs as they started. 😋 But it’s strange because the next day – even though I anticipated getting in some kind of trouble – the teacher didn’t even mention it, didn’t change anything about what we did… it was just strange. 🤔🤷🏻‍♂️

Well played, teacher… 😏 pretend like I didn’t just school you with my junior high BASIC programming knowledge and I’ll pretend like I didn’t do it. 😄 Hell, maybe she was impressed. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’m pretty sure she knew who did it though… none of those other shlubs had any idea of what they were doing yet. 😁

Well, I’ve Got The Extra Hour

Body’s tired and feeling a little beat up, but my brain isn’t ready to go to sleep I guess. It’s a little after 2am on Sunday morning… 🤔 Oh, wait a minute… 😅 no it’s not. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Just looked down at my phone to see the exact time – and hooray for “fall back” tonight, eh? Still being awake at 1am doesn’t feel nearly as bad as still being awake at 2am. 😏 Heh… it’s just that typical thing that happens after vacation. In this case the vacation came to me, but you know what I mean – you get the nice distraction from reality for a while, then when vacation is over and things have to go back to normal, it just takes a little while to adjust. 😟

It’s silly, but because I don’t generally do a heck of a lot with my time… I mean, when it comes to going out and doing things… so when Gen was here, even if I wasn’t necessarily part of all of the plans for the day, I still felt like I was “doing something” with my day. 🙂 It’s just been a while since I’ve had to coordinate a few of my days with anyone else, whether that coordinating involved me doing something or involved me avoiding it instead. 😅 Granted, my lack of “doing stuff” is usually because I’m either hurting or wanting to avoid hurting… but with the right company, I don’t mind it quite as much for a couple of days. But yeah, Sunday… Monday… 🤔 they’ll probably be a couple of “nothing” days so I can regenerate from the visit and get my thoughts back on track when it comes to the stuff I want or need to do. 🤷🏻‍♂️

On Friday she woke up early to do something with friends in Logan, but then once she got back here we went out and picked up Bri and Bryson to go in town for a bit. Stopped off at Walmart, and as we were all checking out (and this happens more than you’d think) the cashier lady mistook me for Bryson’s dad. 😁 I was standing behind the cart, entertaining him so he wouldn’t fuss until we left, but when I moved to the front of the line to pay for my stuff – he started crying… and cashier lady said “Aww, see he wants his daddy.” 😏 I just played along, joking that she was right and that Bryson wasn’t a mama’s boy. It actually caught me off guard this time though, ‘cuz I wasn’t shaved, and I’m pretty sure I was lookin’ my actual age… 😊 but it’s still amusing.

That evening Gen made plans to meet with Toni, Matt, and Anna for dinner, but I just didn’t have the oomph for it… and that was before I found out Wendi and her Matt were there as well. 😯 I kinda felt bad for dipping out, but I just didn’t have that couple hours of “social” in me that late. (I did appreciate her bringing a cheeseburger and fries home for me right before midnight though.) Despite needing to get up stupid early the next day, she wasn’t sleepy yet due to all the socializing so we squeezed in another episode of Doctor Who before she hit the sack. 🤓📺👱🏻‍♀️ That made four episodes since she got here – which should be enough to either hook her, or to know that it’s not her kinda thing. 😏 I always try to convert people.

Saturday morning… she was up and out shortly after the crack of dawn, on her way to some horseback riding near Moonville with a friend, and not only did I not wake up when she left – but I didn’t even fully wake up until noon. 😐 There’s a chatty cat that comes to visit (outside) and tries to play on my emotions as it’s getting colder around here, so I agreed with her suggestion of making a little “kitty house” out of a big ol’ Rubbermaid tub from the basement – so that was my mini-project for the afternoon. Time was starting to get tight though, so rather than fussing with the mailboxes or the bags of gravel, we decided to go out and visit Dad for a bit before it started to get dark. 🙂 OutsideKitty had vanished by then though, but that’s good… gives me a little more time to finish up the tub and find some suitable soft stuff to use as the base for when I put it out on the back porch for him. 😺🙄

Dad seemed like he felt better today. Like half the people I know though, he’s been fighting a shitty cough and “bleh” feeling, but it’s either starting to get better or our visit was just a nice distraction from thinking about it. 😁 Unfortunately we couldn’t stay there too long, ‘cuz I had to get Genesee up to Columbus (to Chad and Shannon’s place) and try to get back home before it was dark dark. 😳 Sounds like an “old person thing” but I just prefer to not drive at night with these “backup pair of a backup pair” glasses that I’m currently stuck with. 😕 I can cheat during the daytime with my Rx shades that are one prescription “more current” at least.

But yeah, as quickly as she arrived, she’s now up there and will be heading home in a few hours. 😟 (So glad that Chad can help with getting her to the airport at 4am today. Oy.) She was busy nearly the entire time she was in town, not including the house downtime for watching Doctor Who, looking at old pics/vids, etc… but I definitely envy the way she was able to tackle her self-imposed schedule. 😊 I suppose it’s easier when it’s stuff that a person actually wants to do… but she can wake up and be out the door, ready to go, in minutes – while I need an hour just to wake up enough to decide that I’m about ready to wake up. 😋 (Actually, it’s more about letting the morning meds kick in, so I can at least partially function like a human being…) But it was nice to see that even with the limited time here, she still managed to do most of the stuff that she planned.

Today’s Version

While I used up most of my oomph yesterday, goofy here sure is full of it today. 😼 For some reason she loves the smell of hair product. Turns her into a weirdo. If she’s hyper enough, she’ll even attack your head. 😅

Discourse

With the Kavanaugh / Ford hearings taking up all of the oxygen today, even places like Facebook are lit up with related activity. Most of my friends think about things in the same way that I do, but there are some who don’t… and it’s weird to interact with those folks when they’re all fired up about their opinion of the matter in front of the court. One friend even made a post proclaiming her support of one “side” and then said she wasn’t going to be on FB for a while, to get away from it all. Great idea. Post your opinion, even though you’re tired of the discussion, and then expect people to not reply.

People, even grown ass people of my age, seem to have forgotten how to discuss a topic, or even debate a topic, without getting their rage on and feeling personally insulted, requiring them to spew anger back into the conversation as if someone stepped on their cat. Normally these are reasonable folks, but now “they feel” or “can tell” that this person or that person is lying. Or this person or that person is faking it when they cry. And that’s fine… you can go with your feeling about something… but it doesn’t do me much good to try and point out things that are based in fact, because their feelings trump (no pun intended) any facts that they don’t agree with.

Since when is it a thing that your political beliefs define you? Not define… but since when do they make up who you are, so much so that when your beliefs are challenged that you feel like you are being challenged? It’s so weird… I just wanna discuss it, find out why people think the way they do, see if they’ll acknowledge why I do… heh… nope… that kind of discussion doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

And I don’t push it, since it’s not something at the center of my soul that I’ve got to force everyone around me to believe in as well… so I just kinda back away and watch them smile and feel comfortable again as they settle back in to their echo chamber of comments. Nothing is better than a thread full of people who do absolutely nothing to challenge your beliefs. 😏