Trash Talking

Conversation today with a friend who I used to play basketball 🏀 with .... and occasionally against:

Him: "You probably remember me always blocking your shot and you not being able to get to mine."

Me: "No, I actually recall scoring at will against you."

A case of two aging, washed-up, has been ex-hoopsters still talking trash.

Some things remain the same. 😉

For a few minutes we put aside the extra pounds, bad knees, arthritis, etc and it was like we were still playing.

Bizarre Dream #10,437

Woke up from a dream that some 6'5", 300 pound guy was knocking on my door in the middle of the night who wanted to do bodily harm to me and that I had better be at the appointed place and time in two days, or else .....

..... And the vague realization that his was the continuation of a dream from a week or two ago where I had caused some question to his reputation. 

Now that I've dreamed the cause and the threat  .....  is the final confrontation still in there?

I wish I could identify what it is that generates these bizarre dreams.

And again it was a relief to wake up and realize that no one out there (that I'm aware of) is wanting to kick my ass.

And if I could remember the place and time, maybe I'd actually show up in real life just to see what's there.

I better bring my spare pair of glasses.

The Drive Home

Driving home this evening from an evening out (I went to Barnes & Noble) ......

I drove by the house that (excluding the homes I grew up in), I've been inside more than any other.

My best friend's house growing up.

The memories and flashbacks ......

His older brother charging out the front door wearing his high school football jersey in an effort to playfully intimidate and rough us up in his crazed linebacker style as we shot hoops in the driveway.

The time we were playing football in the field across the street and my friend broke his leg.

          I've experienced moments of guilt over the years because I missed the tackle and it was the next guy's made tackle where we heard the loud snap of the bone breaking, followed by the longest second or two of silence where we all knew someone was hurt ..... and then the screams of pain. 

          If only we could go back in time and reverse history and I make the tackle. 

          The break would have never happened.

Visions of my first car, an early 70's-something model Datsun (Nissan) and parking in the street in front of that house.

The time his younger brother uttered a bad word and his mom demanded to know where he heard such a word ..... and he threw my buddy under the bus with blame. 😂 .... "Peter told me."

His old phone number. 

Funny how I can instantly recall that number from the 1970's but if asked right now, might struggle with remembering my current cell phone number.

Listening to Moody Blues, Santana and Beatles vinyl records in his bedroom.

Cat Rescue

There seems to be an infinite number of kitten and cat rescue videos out there.

And I'm beginning to think that 99.8% of them are staged. 

It would probably be a conservative estimate that I've gone for a thousand walks in the park in the last fifteen years and I've yet to come across an abandoned kitten on any of those recreational outings.

And it's like the same three or four people finding all these kittens.

Am I to believe that while I never come across a single kitty, some other guy in Kazachastan has stumbled across three dozen six-week-old kittens who happen to be out in the open for all to see, crying for attention and food from human strangers?

And that he just happens to always have, yummy cat treats, dirty cat face wipes and pet carriers with him?

And while there's the occasional hissing and scratching cat encountered or cat that scampers away when approached, that the majority of these stray kittens and cats are generally approving of and open to being approached and handed by strangers making their weird cat imitation noises?

Call me a skeptic and even an old fuddy duddy but I'm not totally believing in the sincerity behind all this random kindness.

Cat encountered while closely monitoring my movements ..... along with the activity around a hummingbird feeder a short distance away, in June of 2022 at the Catholic Abbey on the hill in Mt. Angel, Oregon.

Ranting and Raging

A guy at work was engaging in one of his usually multiple daily rants.

          (It was humorous at first but getting mostly tiring now.)

I decided it was a good time to go to lunch. 

When I returned a half hour later ..... Ok 35 minutes later ..... he was still ranting.

Same topic, same f-bombs.

          (I'm certainly no prude but there should be a limit to the number of f-bombs heard in a day. This 

          guy is setting records for its use.)

I think he was still on the same long sentence as when I walked out the door.

I don't think he even paused and took a breath in all that time.

I'd laugh if I hadn't started thinking it was so sad that he gets so consumed with cynicism and anger.

It was like I never left the room. 

He probably didn't even notice my departure earlier.

USED YONL

I finally deciphered the outdoor message board at the local KFC.....

"USED YONL" .... It means Only Tuesday. 

I don't know which bothers me more ..... the fact that someone arranged that lettering initially or that no one has corrected it since I first saw it on "USED" last week or that they are advertising something for a week that's "YONL" available on that one day.

It was weighing heavily on my mind.

My initial thought was that I don't want to eat anywhere that's using anything used .... be it straws, plastic utensils, chicken, mashed potatoes, whatever.

No exceptions to that rule.

I even entered it into a search engine a few days ago to see if it was common code for something and I was just incredibly unhip to the message.

Basketball Dreaming

3:30am ....

Just woke up from a dream of playing 3-on-3 basketball on an outdoor, asphalt court.

Matched up with a guy who was bigger and stronger than me.

A game where I was trying too hard ..... often with back to the basket and forcing things instead of slowing down and using footwork to get good shots, like I developed a feeling and skill for in my later basketball playing days.

Or facing the guy up and creating distance between us to get jump shots.

It was like I forgot everything I once knew.

There was also the knowledge that I had some sort of reputation as a player that I was failing to live up to in the eyes of the other five participants.

And the longer the match dragged on, the worse it became.

Then afterwards, walking with an old friend who had just done something weird at the high school prom .... an action not recalled after waking .... not anything hurtful but just kind of odd.  

How or why did the main plot of the dream morph into this short little sub-plot?

I don't know what physically happens when a person is experiencing an action dream ..... if a person is thrashing around in their sleep while they lay there dreaming? ..... But I woke up feeling physically like I'd just been through an actual game after not playing for months, with hips, knees and ankles bruised and hurting, feeling like I'd added twenty years of wear-and-tear in twenty minutes.

Early 2025. First remembered dream of the new year ...... the dreams can only get better for the next eleven months and 27 days, right?? 

And now I want to go searching for vinyl records which causes a yearning for the days of late evening pilgrimages to the 1980's mecca for vinyl, Tower Records. 

2024 Into 2025

So, I've made it through another year.

I wonder with every new year if I'll make it through to the next.

I probably mentioned that last new years day .... and each of the twenty years before that.

          And I'll likely mention it a year from now. 

          I hope.

How I spent my New Years Eve ..... Thrift storing. Looking for vinyl records, which this particular store has apparently quit stocking and subsequently looking for a cassette deck.

Having failed in that mission, I proceeded to return my empty plastic bottles at the designated bottle drop station.

The guy ahead of me was struggling and pushing mightily to get his full 'green bag' through the inwardly metallic fingered opening of the container. All I could hear was the crunching of plastic bottles .... and an f-bomb, so I figured I had no chance.

          Maybe more luck tomorrow, which as I write this is actually today, a new year.

I drove by the record store that has been closed for a year since the owner passed away.

I was curious. Like I have been each month of the past year.

Surely, they have begun the process of decluttering the chaos inside that was always the standard business model of his shop.

But it still looks like he just went home after locking up from the evening before.

He sure seemed like a simple, though eccentric kind of guy.

But transitioning to whatever is in the future for this tiny retail space is apparently a giant legal hassle.

Struggles seemed to be the end theme for 2024.

At midnight, I watched from my back door, a succession of fireworks being shot off a few blocks away.

I've always thought that was like sprinters running a hundred-yard dash.

A few seconds of excitement .... and then it's suddenly over. 

          Why?? Why not try for emotional longevity.

          Though I'm thankful for brevity when it comes to loud explosions.

I'm watching a replay of the 1977 Trail Blazers game in the finals where they beat the 76'ers for the NBA championship.

WOW! 48 years ago!! 45 miles away!!

Did we even play basketball back then? Had the game been invented? Did we have color television? 😂 

I watched this game live back then. I think 99% of the population of Oregon was tuned in.

A young Bill Walton and Maurice Lucas.

Four months later, I had a close encounter with them as they rode their bikes through Salem, Oregon.

Four years later, I got married.

My ex-wife told me a few weeks ago that she had moved back to New Hampshire, from where she had made a return to Oregon, (and multiple other places in-between), four or five years ago. Such a nomad.

          Time certainly fly's!! 

One day you're born, then it's 1962 and you're starting the first grade. Then, suddenly it's 2025 and you're left realizing that there's way too much fast forwarding through the years.