What Could Have Been

This is my kind of luck ....

A word game that I play on my tablet and I see the combination of letters to give me the greatest point total for a single word that I can ever truly have reasonable and believable hopes and expectations to tally. And in this sudden wild state of excitement that I'm feeling, just as I touch the first letter in the formation of the word ..... my tablet freezes up. And I glance at the timer, and I still have thirty seconds and normally when it freezes up, it unfreezes a second or two later, but this time no matter how often I try, the tablet just enters into a deeper freeze.

And that's the kind of luck that circles my existence. Like the time I tripped over a painted line on the basketball court. Or the rare occasion when I ran out the door with time to spare (instead of my usual last second exit) to make it to my destination on time and I encounter a three-minute red light and further ahead, the first car of a 125-car train traveling at five mph and just as the rear end of the train is in sight, it stops and reverses course ..... then forward, reverse, forward, reverse for an additional five or ten minutes.

And a half hour later, I'm still thinking about, frustrated and pissed off at what could have been with that forbidden, once-in-a-lifetime word.

And to top things off, it's supposed to be 102 degrees later today following up a 103 degree day before cooling down to 99 tomorrow. But on the good side of things, at least it's not 102 right now at 3:30 in the morning. 

And I'm looking at my glass of water ..... and thinking that it's less-than-half full which also means it's more than half empty. (It's actually about one-tenth full.) So that's a double negative of sorts to start the morning.

Weird Dream #7836

Awake from a dream that I met the musician who I listened to more than any others in the 1970's, 80's and 90's ..... Jackson Browne. 

That I discovered as it was going on, that he was performing at a local food cart park that I frequent, "These Days" for fish & chips.

..... (Why I dreamed this up? Hell, I don't know. I'm sure that even now in his mid-70's, his skill and reputation demands a greater performance venue than a gathering of food carts.)

I arrived there just moments after it had concluded. 

All there was on the stage, was an empty chair with an acoustic guitar nearby.

I turned to walk away and there he was .... face-to-face. Didn't even see his approach.

"I've listened to your music for a lot of years."

"Which records?" he asked.

"All of them."

The fact that I left my usual character and initiated conversation with someone I'd never met is evidence that it was a wild and bizarre dream. There were a few other words spoken that are blurred from memory these few moments after awakening. It was nice though for a few minutes to exit this aging hermit phase of life that I find myself inhabiting and feel "Alive In the World."

Bigfoot Sighting

Walked out of the freezer into the covered loading dock area and out the door into the sun's warmth and the outside world ...... and functioning gravel parking lot.  

Standing there was a co-worker from the next shift talking to a couple and their toddler. The toddler turned and stared and pointed at me.

Me with gray beard and wearing multiple clothing layers, black freezer gear, separate black hood, thick heavy black gloves and fogged up glasses.

In that instant, I must have looked like the Sasquatch to this curious one-year-old,  

Scene I Can't Forget

I get fascinated with scenes and images from movies and will watch them over and over. Like in the movie 'Tombstone,' when the Earps and Doc Holliday begin their walk to confront "The Cowboys' ..... and they pause and turn for a moment to look at the burning building in the background. There's something in that image that is powerful to me. Is there a message there? Why was the burning building included in the scene?