The Difference

It's truly amazing the difference that twenty-four hours can bring.

Yesterday .... with the arrival of the much-ballyhooed atmospheric river number three passing through, dark sky, it felt and looked like nighttime at 3pm, rain falling steadily with no break in the previous twelve hours, combined with self-imposed anxiety felt for two days over a doctor visit I was enroute to .....

The day before that .... a wild windstorm blowing through and widespread power outages.

Today .... beautiful day, sun's out, people walking in the park, doctor doesn't want to see me again for a year.

Suddenly, while the sun was still shining, a few raindrops materialized, felt the collective disappointment in the air and ceased immediately. 

Always watching the sky. It felt like they rose from obscurity.

Preview of Heaven

Is this a little preview of heaven?

When shopping for socks, I usually buy the ones that say for size six to twelve and a half ..... or whatever the range is that ends in twelve and a half.

Because that's all they ever have.

I wear size 13 shoe.

Today I found socks for 'size 12-16' ..... and my feet are suddenly loving me.   

I may have to go back and purchase all they have. 

For once I was prepared. I saw what was up ahead in the grass. A potential photo op!!!

Starlings caught as they rose from the field. (Edited with a black and white filter employed.) I only wish that the timing could have been minus the passing truck trailer in the background. The photo is still a keeper.

Last week, I saw that a local art gallery was holding a sale of local young artists, with all works priced at $100. I spotted two or three paintings in the posted photos that sparked my interest. I figured it was a one-day sale. I walked in this afternoon, and the sale was ongoing. I purchased this one titled, 'The Moon.' The gallery attendant was like: "Ahhhh. I find that one both disturbing and pleasing." I have to say that I agree. I had just spent 5-10 minutes looking at it and turning away. So why my attention was initially drawn .... and kept returning to it, I'm not sure. I fear that it's the 'disturbing' aspect.

Peaceful Easy Feeling

Awake at 1:30am ......

For the second consecutive evening I've had a dream that I did something at work that didn't live up to expectations and pissed off another person.

The first, an old supervisor that I haven't seen for 10-15 years, because in the dream I didn't respond to his request as quickly as had been wished for.

The second, a current co-worker/mechanic because I broke a piece of equipment and he wasn't buying my explanation why it happened.

And even though these are just dreams, the feelings of letting someone down, linger with me for a good while after I awake.

So, to assist in calming down, I go and look at my vinyl record collection.

You would be amazed at how viewing the spines of records, shelved orderly, with the artist's name, the album title and the record label catalog number brings this peaceful effect (or 'Peaceful Easy Feeling') over my mind.

It always seems to help. 

One of those Murphy's Law things that always seems to apply to my life ....

If I grab a t-shirt and just slip it on without looking, the chances are that 97% of the time, it will be slipped on backwards. 😄 That's the case whether I go with initial instincts or reverse instincts. 

Flashback Dream

Just awake from a dream.

Not my usual, out of the twilight zone / outer limits type of dream that makes little sense.

Instead a flashback dream from younger years.

Preface it with the fact that I used to work parttime with the city in primarily youth recreation programs.

In the summer months we would offer two-week sports camps, four two-week sessions.

I would lead / teach mostly basketball but did an occasional soccer and baseball camp.

I did this for 15-20 years with different program offerings for each yearly season, finally leaving amid rumors of programs ending due to city budget cuts .... and partially because I was tired of working nights at my fulltime job, getting off work and rushing .... often across town for 2-4 hours of being bright and peppy when all I really wanted to do was sleep. But I also had concerns about being relevant any longer as I was entering middle age .... my fifties.  

I wasn't sure when I walked away for the last time, if it was actually the last time and these days those last few weeks and how it all ended seems like a blurred time of my life.

Mostly it felt like it was just time to walk away.

In the dream, after all the years away, I received a phone call from my program director in those end years asking if I could be an emergency fill-in for an indoor soccer camp .... and I was needed ASAP which turned out to be five minutes.

How I acquired and donned the red and navy-blue staff colors and was transported across town in less than five minutes wasn't addressed in the dream.

Eight, eight-year-olds in a gym about ten yards in width, all apparently in their first soccer experience.

(Basketball is what I grew up with and knew. Soccer was mostly new to me also. I'd often adapt old basketball drills for use as soccer drills., especially after watching a friend play once and realizing that  the three-man patterns that soccer forwards would execute to get an attempt at goal was very similar to what happens in a basketball game.)

So here I suddenly found myself in this dream, in this bandbox of a gym with eight short attention span kids and their parents, one that eventually stepped forward to help, and after all the years of retirement, attempting to teach basic soccer skills. 

In my dream world, the usual weird dream .... or at least what I remember from it upon awakening ..... is just a few minutes (or seconds even) in length.  

This return to youth soccer dream felt like it was every minute of a two-hour camp session in length.  

And in the dream, I felt the constant sense of panic and anxiety that often accompanies not being prepared.

And the uncertainty of wondering if I was a one-day fill-in or if I needed to return the next day ..... and the even bigger question of .... do I need to gather and stuff all this soccer gear in my car because I don't have keys to lock it up in a storage room.

So hopefully the dream doesn't resume tonight with day two of a two-week camp. 

Because I'm not possessing that sort of extreme saintly patience any longer., 

And hopefully if it does resume it's in a basketball scenario where I could at least show up with an improvised lesson plan.

I awoke with panic carrying over that I was late for work this morning ..... then realized that it's day three of the four day Thanksgiving weekend and all I really need to do was either: 

• a) Go back to sleep and face the possibility of the dream resuming
• b) Put on my shoes and drive to McDonalds for a sausage biscuit and orange juice
• c) Fire up my turntable and cd player and give a listen to yesterday's vinyl and compact disc finds.

Routines

One reason that I struggle with retirement vs continuing to work .....

In the workday there are routines for me. I take my blood pressure medication before I go out the door, I drink water with regularity, I take a bite of food before 10am. There are other things. It's all part of my routine.

With vacation days or other days off, those things get overlooked or forgotten. It will be two o'clock in the afternoon and I'll suddenly realize that I haven't popped my pills or taken a sip of water yet.

There's no urgency for personnel care or maintenance.

I wonder sometimes why people often seem to pass away not long after they retire from work? 

Does it have something to do with the abrupt loss of structure and routines in their daily life?

Seems like it should be an easy fix. In reality, maybe not.

I have a thing for downtown street clocks. Not those with digital readouts (those are for the suburbs) but clocks with faces and hands and a hint of history.

Out Walking Again

Badly needed vacation day taken from work. I sometimes forget that there's a world outside of the seven-day-a-week work routine.

Out for a Thursday late afternoon autumn stroll in the park. Fitting it in between the rain showers. Darkness just minutes away. The cries of a bald eagle (that I failed to locate) in the sky overhead. 

I despise driving after sunset these days and while it's raining .... because I can't see shit (not to forget lines, lanes and curbs) on the roads .... but the lure of autumn photography was stronger. And especially after a friend asked me if I'd been getting any autumn photos to which my reply was, not many."

This after a visit to a downtown art gallery and a trip to the public library where I stopped by the "Friend's Store" and found a compact disc of music by the classical composer, Bela Bartok .... (which if I've identified the correct Discogs page, and I think I have, is worth ten to fifteen times what I paid for it) .... and a book by civil war historian, Bruce Catton. I'd drop in more often if they hadn't made the place look and feel so freaking sterile during their earthquake proofing and remodel a few years ago. They've driven me away with their overuse of the color white and their great efforts at decluttering of ..... well the books. Bookshelves in a library should be overflowing with titles.

Everything looks better through an autumn filter.

The hour 'fall back' of clocks a couple weekends ago, shouldn't have taken place until winter arrives. It's getting dark too early while there's still autumn colors to be seen.

Wednesday Notes

Will add to this hopefully as the evening unfolds .... or maybe this will be it. 👨

• All these photos I'm seeing of last night's incredible Northern Lights display have caused a photo of a sky-to-ground lightning strike to look rather, ho-hum. 
• No Northern Lights for me tonight. And way too many photos causing frustration from those that are able to view the sky. There are too damn many clouds here. I think it's punishment for my sins.
• Just talking from my own experiences but while older age brings stability in most things monetary or emotional, it brings incrementally increased weirdness in the dream word.
• Every once-in-awhile I get incredibly excited about the release of a new record. Far beyond the normal over-excitement usually felt. Such is the case with the album, 'Rituals' by Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange.) Fifty-seven years of collecting records (if my math is correct) and that thrill has always been there.

Birds of Different Feathers

This field has been densely populated by hundreds of sheep the past two or three days. Fertilizing the ground. Their droppings must be manna to the herons and egrets who are suddenly out in much greater numbers than usual. There are even a few seagulls mixed in.

Out Walking

Out for a stroll. Something I try to do daily. Taking in the changing autumn colors before the rains return tonight. Such a unique feeling or vibe in the air that in my opinion, the other seasons fail to offer. I would happily accept ten months of autumn with the other three seasons split up between January and August. I'd be very ok with missing out on summer extremes. A yearly snowstorm or two (minus freezing rain) would be ok for photography purposes.

The trick or treaters had better start arriving soon as I'm struggling with resisting temptation. 

Carry On

A guy walking past me downtown, singing a cappella, the old Kansas song from my youth, 'Carry On Wayward Son' and me wanting him to sing another verse. 

• A day away from work giving me the time during daylight hours to partake in three of my favorite activities these days .... lunch, bookstore and record store browsing. Senior discounts at both and one that I needed to ask for as there were no assumptions, which always makes my day.
• All this activity took a toll. I left home feeling like I was 25. Returned home feeling much older than my current upper sixties-something.   
• At the record store, it feels like the owner/husband wants to charge full price while the other owner/wife wants to give me the senior discount. I always wonder if my senior status is causing a slight rift in their marriage. 
• Came across a record today that I've always wanted on vinyl because of its cover photo .... priced at $156, I left it where I saw it. A true record collector would have taken it home.

Tempted but in the end, walked away. Just can't bring myself to pay the asking price. Why is it buried in the bins and not displayed on the wall of expensive records? Such an iconic photo in my mind. 

I've always thought that the people making jazz recordings from the 1950's and 60's had the best sense for cover photography.