Three In One?

My dreams are so freaking weird!!

Is it possible to be in three different places in one dream? 

Just awoke from one where I was at the Oregon coast but also back in college in Corvallis, where I received some news that had me deciding to jump in my car to return home, telling my roommate that I'd likely only be returning the next day to move my stuff out. A heavy rain began to fall while backing out of my parking spot and unable to get from gas pedal to the brake in one fluid motion, drove over a curb and a few feet into someone's yard and then once on the road, realized I was back at the coast where I looked at my fuel gage and decided I wasn't going to make it home on less than a quarter tank, stopped at a gas station, realized that I was now in South Dakota, where there was a foot of snow on the ground and upon filling and departure they handed a debit card back to me that wasn't mine  ..... 

And that's where I woke up. ..... Hey if it was South Dakota, wouldn't I be pumping my own gas? But I recall wondering if they would notice my Oregon plates so I must have been out-of-state. And I don't recall any homes with yards, across the street from the dorms at OSU but everything else about that place was as I remember it, so I was also in state.

Except that I wasn't. ...... Twilight Zone? The Outer Limits? Maybe a little Night Gallery?

If you don't understand those references, then you didn't grow up watching television in the 1960's and 70's. 

Or just maybe, as Neil Young once sang: "Everyone knows this is nowhere."

Corvallis and the coast .... what's that? 50 or 60 miles apart? The coast and South Dakota .... 1500 miles apart? How does one's physical location instantly change within one dream? I mean, I've never had a basketball dream where I was in my old grade school gym, took a jump shot at the OSU rec center, turned to get back on defense at the opposite end of the court .... in Madison Square Garden. That would have at least made sense to me.

And something I can't help but wonder: Does all this mean that I'm in my final days? Well hopefully not literally. 

Hotter Than $%&!!#

Whew! Day three out of the way of four forecasted hundred-plus degree days. Been feeling shaky on my feet through it all while at the same time, fighting a cold. Or whatever the hell I've had for the last five days. 

Each summer lately we seem to have three or four days where we seem to be attempting to out-hot Arizona, Texas and Nevada. 

These drastic and instant temperature changes I deal with at work can't be good for me. Walking through a door into sudden minus six degrees, with a machine-driven wind-chill factor adding emphasis ..... exit the same door while wearing freezer gear, to 100-plus. Then repeat, ten to twenty times a day.

A sidenote .... People would tell me to get a pair of long-johns. I discovered a substitute though. I wear pajama bottoms under my slacks. Seems to really help the aging knees and below the waist bones.

I sometimes think it's a wonder that I can still add, subtract and multiply (inventory related) at lighting quick speeds at my age. I don't need no stinking calculator though I have been known to pencil a few mathematical equations and solutions on rafter high stacks of cardboard totes (aka: "Gaylords") while in there. 

(Every time I hear the term, "Gaylords" I think, Gaylord Perry and spitballs)

Lately, I've mostly been coming home from work and staying home, falling asleep early and experiencing, as Steve Martin once said, some "wild and crazy" dreams. 

Tonight though, I ventured out to take a few sunset photos. Found a good view and when I finally walked away, a lady drove up and said that she wished I hadn't moved as she was lining up a photo of her own of me facing the sunset. 

Me? ..... Imagine that. Imagine risking your camera or phone by the shock to the system a photo of me might cause. Anyway, I resumed the position for another moment. I don't know if she got her photo. I didn't want to know. I'm a little shy about my photo being taken and generally run away screaming. When I turned back around, she was gone.

I'm trying really hard to stop playing the old geezer and being shocked at prices every time I go to the grocery store. Seems like everyone around has adjusted and accepted so maybe it's time for me to make the adjustment. 

Tonight's sunset. The end of a 104-degree day. Still, something like 97 at the time the photo was taken, with a lady apparently behind me attempting to get her own take on the moment. 

The view of this same circular object was a stunning pinkish this morning, as seen I assume, through lingering wildfire smoke and haze. But I was running frantic and late for work, had left my camera and red filter at home and I was on a stretch of road where there was nowhere safe to pull over. 

Turn Down the Volume

I walk into the darkness of the used record store this evening .... the owner immediately offered to turn on the lights .... and he has Def Leopard or Motley Crew or some such thing playing loudly and I should apologize here for not knowing anything about the harder rock but less than metal genre ..... I don't know if I misspelled those groups or if it was someone totally different ..... I just know that it was loud and still dark, even after he turned the lights on, and he was attempting to converse in normal mellow tones over the noise and I had no clue what he was saying. 

I said "OK' which he likely couldn't hear, to whatever was said, and moved on.

It had been a while since my last visit, so I was hopeful of finding something exciting but apparently, he hasn't been bringing much new inventory in because it was all the same stuff that I saw six months ago.

He has a lot of a few big names in Jazz but not much beyond them. I suspect the same sales strategy with the other genres. 

I did find a live Strawbs record from 1970 that I'd never seen before and which appeared in the lighting to be in near mint condition but once home, it's clearly not so mint. Overall, a pretty disappointing Saturday evening vinyl record (and cd) hunting session. 

Five minutes was all I could stand. It's rare when this happens but I couldn't wait to get out the door. 

Pastry Guilt

Isn't it ironic?  .....

Why is there a gym, with an endless stream of customers, next door to my favorite bakery? 

I park as close to the entrance as possible and still pass five people coming or going each time. Folks who I refuse to make eye contact with.

It's become next to impossible to walk in and out of the bakery without feeling considerable shame for my guilty pleasure purchases. 

Isn't carrying my raspberry jell filled, white frosting topped donut (or two), enough of a workout as it is? And the raspberry jell choice is a healthy option right? 😇😋 I seek and need justification for my actions.