Dreams and additions

I’ve been having extremely strange dreams lately.  But, as Sarah has said, I have some nice lucidity and quite a linear storyline.  Here’s the last one I remember:

I am leaving a parking lot.  It was a pay lot so I was paying at the credit card swipe machine (it only took credit cards).  Behind me in line was Laura, a teacher I used to work with at Kenmore Middle.  I was having a lot of trouble with the machine, it wasn’t reading my card or something.  Laura was pretty impatient.  She started pushing my car out of the way with the van she was driving.  The whole time she was smiling, not in a vindictive way, but a sheer joy and happy way.

After she pushed my car out of the way she drove by smiling.  I had to circle the block in my car (and pass through several intersections and lane mergers).  I parked by the sidewalk to walk back to the parking lot.  I was pretty concerned I had left my credit card in the machine.  When I walk into the lot I discover this wasn’t the case.  Or at least its not in the machine, I”m not worried though.

Outside of the lot I walk right down the road.  There is a big steep hill.  It is snowy, so I decide to slide down on my bottom.  I use my hands and steer left and right, which I do pretty well considering I have to avoid not only multiple trees that have fallen in the street but also cars driving up the hill.  At the bottom of the hill is a cul-de-sac.  I recognize some of these houses, and immediately see someone I recognize.

Its a woman whom I had interviewed a long while ago.  I apparently interviewed her because she lived in a small house at the time, and I was interviewing people who lived in the world’s smallest dwellings.  Currently she lived with her mother, and her old, small house fit in the living room of her mother’s house (and it was in there).  She took me in the house where we laughed while looking at the small house.  Then I saw a picture of me from when I first interviewed her.  In the picture I was really young, maybe 18.  I was kind of saddened by it.  But I liked it.

We chat it up a bit and then I leave.  I walk out into a large field.  There are horse stables and other sheds and what not.  Some of them have gold Christmas lights on them.  And then I wake up.

As for the new addition…. I’m an uncle, again.  I now have a neice, Takara.  She awesome.  Trust me.

Frisbee Golf can be Dangerous

Sure it seems like a low impact sport, with little chance of injury, but as I well know any sport played with a frisbee can result in serious injury (I’ve got a titanium plate and 8 screws that can attest to that).

Yesterday at the annual “Joe-Willy-Beaver-Nut” Classic Mike was the injured persona.  A stray disc released by Sean caught Mike unaware with some bloody consequences.

Overall though the day was a success.  I played much better than I expected too, ate lots of chicken, and caught up with old friends.  More pictures of the Joe Willy will be forthcoming.  Day starts in forty minutes.

Nectar

Beer:  Nectar of the Gods right?  Proof God loves mankind right (fantastic Ben Franklin quote).

I remember this one friend I had in high school.  We would sometimes be over at her house when her father came home.  He always walked through the door into the house and straight into the kitchen to grab a beer.  I always thought it weird.  I didn’t drink then, but even so seemed strange.  Now I didn’t know the man well, he was always nice to me, and his kids were friends of mine, but it was a little weird.  This routine of his.

I can contrast this to barely ever seeing my parents (or at least recalling them) drinking in front of me til I was older.  One the flip side I can also recall one friend’s father who would always get so drunk at the lodge after work that we would sometimes have to drive in a pair to go pick him up (two of us drive there so one can drive his car back).

Today though, as I was walking back to my apartment all I thought was “by god I want a beer.”  It was a long day at work, almost 12 hours straight.  Worked on the website on my lunch break.  Worked on the website after I got off work for an hour and half, and then went to the “Parade at the Park” work meeting til 7.  And walking back, I wanted that beer in my fridge.

And yes that’s a rooster behind the beer.

Contemplative

I’m feeling a lonely and contemplative right now.  Don’t ask me where it came from.  Just sort appeared a few hours ago while watcing “The Nines.”  Fantastic movie.  If you haven’t seen it, look it up and go rent it.  I don’t think it has so much to do with the movie so much as the song towards the end of the movie.

The song is called “The Otherside of Mt. Heart Attack” by the Liars.  You can hear it here.  Its kind of a calm, progressing song.  It sort of builds.  And it gets stuck in your head, or at least mine.  Makes me quasi-sentimental.  Anyways, not having an over abundance of friends out here means that the times when I do feel a little lonely like this I have less options.  I more or less take is as a sign to get out of the apartment.  Which I am going to do in a few minutes.

I do have things to do tonight.  Cleaning, working on the Karamu webpage, scanning in daily drawings (I hate getting behind on scanning, but I always do); all those things can wait.  Right now, I’m going out to cheer up a bit.  I haven’t decided yet if that means a bar or a coffee shop.  We’ll see I suppose.

Looking Forward

I am severely looking forward to Buffalo.  I’m heading there Friday for a weekend of frisbee.  I don’t know why, til today it was just a trip, but now, well now I’m looking forward to it.  Not that I wasn’t before, just, I haven’t been back since February (seems crazy in the distance now) and it’ll be a nice escape/weekend vacation.

In other news I haven’t shaved since the Sabres lost.  My beard is itchy.  So I scratch.

I’ve been hit!!!

Biking home from work today a van hit me!!

Granted I was only hit on the shoulder, and also got my foot slightly ran over, but I was hit.  And thankfully the mirror was collapsable (one of those ones that can be turned in so as to save space) because I would have been knocked off my bike otherwise.

I’m a pretty “rules of the road” bike rider.  I ride in a bike lane when there is one (and there was one when I got hit) or near to the curb.  I stop when there’s a red light (I do follow the bus lights sometimes, but I consider that following the lights).  I use hand turn signals (really, do you know anyone who does that).  I wear a helmet at all times.  I don’t cut in and out of traffic and I always look both ways at cross sections even if I have the green light.

Today I’m coming down Euclid Ave in Cleveland when a white Ford van strikes me from behind.  Immediately my left shoulder and foot start to ache.  I don’t fall off my bike (or even stop) but am a little shooken up.  I look up to see the van drive off.  He hits the brakes a little hesistantly, keeps going, hits the brakes again a little, keeps going and finally stops at the red light a distance ahead (there was plenty of space to pull over).  So he knows he hit me, but doesn’t pull over.

Near as I can tell he must have swerved in towards me or just wasn’t paying attention.  The mirror struck my shoulder and my foot was dragged under the front tire a little (not under the tire, but the front tire must have hit my foot, and sucked it with it pinching it on its rotation).

I pull up along side him at the red light and he nervously asks if I’m ok.  Which essentially I am, so I say I’m fine.  I do make note of his licence plate as he drives away.

Upon inspection, I have two sharp red bruises (or at least what I assume will turn in bruises rather quickly) going up my left side starting below the should bone and ending up on top of my shoulder.  My foot, other than being red from being pinched, is ok.  It only took a year of biking in Cleveland before a vehicle tried to kill me.  That’s not so bad.