dreams

Wright Brothers

Just a few fragments remembered from the last couple of nights, the longest of which was:

The pioneers of flight come for a visit.  I am not sure they are the Wright brothers but I'll call them that although their flimsy caricature of a plane is nothing like the Wright flier.  They enlist my help on leaving - they get a running start with their plane and as they go past I am to slap a contact with a large electrical cable to start their engine.  I do so, but the engine doesn't start, and they have to return.  On this return or perhaps a little later they crash and burn, killing both men and one of their wives, destroying the plane and burning up $700,000 in cash.  Or perhaps it is all a hoax.

I am helping my father move some long heavy pieces of varnished plywood around some awkward corners and into an attic...  Stainless steel swage terminals coated in viscous golden liquid epoxy  - very like honey, dripping messily...  Maneuvering a boat between two floats and castigating some people who are standing in the way...   Driving down a hill past several pairs of people playing tennis in a rough gravel parking lot...  A bay shore under a brilliant full moon, with small groups of people strolling, going out in boats, quietly enjoying the magic beauty of a summer night...

Hawkers

I am at a big party.  The party is ancillary to some bigger event, perhaps a football game.  It has been infiltrated by a group of people who are selling some kind of product I know to be bogus or useless.  I keep confronting these individuals, but they ignore me and go on trying to persuade other people to buy their stuff.  Finally, I get into a big argument with their leader.  We are in the center of the room, and everyone stops to listen to our debate.  I manage to get this guy to admit that  he doesn't even know the ingredients of his products.

I feel vindicated and start to leave.  The parking lot is crowded.  I find my car, which is a cream colored old Beetle cabriolet with a white top with lots of crome and added driving lights, actually has a large SUV or pickup parked somewhat astride the passenger side.  I remember that I also have a van there.  I am trying to decide whether it would be practical to tow the Beetle behind the van so that I won't have to come back later...

Atlantis

I am with a group of people of diverse ages, not strangers.  As part of a journey the origin of which I forget, we approach the sea shore.  I notice that behind the expected low coastal islands there are some much higher peaks, of a glowing orange tan in the late afternoon sun.  I comment that it looks like Atlantis has risen from the sea. 

As we get closer it becomes apparent that what we are seeing is not a new mountainous island, but a very large off-white cruise ship right up against a small island.  As we approach the ship we notice someone tumble from a scaffolding being lowered down the ship's side.  He is a pudgy person dressed in a green quilted parka with a fur lined hood - well padded in other words.  He falls into a pile of snow next to the ship.  We are too far away to tell if he has been hurt or not. 

We start to climb the sloping side of the ship's superstructure.  When we get about half way up I realize that we are climbing on old, dirty snow.   I decide we have to stop because if we started to slip, we might not be able to stop ourselves before going off the side of the ship.  It is a moment of real fear. 

We start to reconnoiter another possible route.  To our left, aft on the ship appears promising, as the slope gets less steep there.  A couple of the teenage boys who are with us start deliberately sliding downhill on their big winter boots.  The sense of impending doom eases.

Someone points out my outboard motor, and I start discussing whether to get a new one.

Prisoners

I'm sorry to have been neglecting this journal.  It is not that I haven't been dreaming, but I haven't been able to recall my dreams.  Recently when I wake I start attending to situations in my waking life, and by the time I remember to try to remember my dreams they have faded.  Last night however, I woke a couple of times from fairly vivid dreams and I remember snatches:

An important woman has two men as prisoners.  She knows that one of them is an important powerful man and the other is not, but she is not sure which is which.  Both men are dark haired and about 6 feet tall.  The apparent important one is older, maybe 40, with a sturdier frame a squarish head and blunt features, while the other is thinner with sharper features and moves more lightly on his feet.  Both men are dissembling, for different reasons, throwing out hints of behavior that might indicate that they have reversed roles.  The woman sees all this, but still hasn't made up her mind about them.

In another dream I am at a service garage in back of a mall.  who ever I am with and I have gotten here in beat up old taxi cab which we had stolen for the purpose, but we now abandon among the  cars in the mall lot, many of which are also beat up old taxis.  Inside the garage some one is trying to get a partially disassembled big yellow bucket loader onto the back of a truck or trailer.

Later, I am approaching a small town across a grassy plain.  There are groups of people standing in rough lines listening to someone talk.  I gather it is some kind of youth award presentation, but I pass by and continue toward the town, which is really just one building an old two story white painted concrete building, open on the ground floor.  Inside a couple of grizzled old men wearing military uniforms under cheap coveralls are rummaging in their lockers.  I move ahead with trepidation toward the  counter, where I will learn my fate...

The Chinese are coming

I was walking through a large city on my way to an apartment in the west end where I was staying.  I thought I recognized a large building in the distance, some kind of department store.  As I walked along I picked up a newsprint magazine.  I was reading an article about the statue of liberty.  Apparently, the Chinese had been hired to refurbish her.  They were taking her apart to ship back to China.  I thought the whole thing very suspicious.  There were pictures of a giant ship and several different giant helicopters they had brought along to work on her.  These looked like something our of 1950's science fiction comic books.  They were manned by hordes of tiny Chinese.

I got in my car, the mini, and was demonstrating the [nonexistent] flat-tire self-repair system to someone (Bill A?).  There was a button on the steering wheel I could use to deflate the tire.  We got out of the car.  In a minute, the tire re-inflated - just as advertised.  I noticed that the car had a roof rack and a bike rack on the back [it doesn't].   The bike rack had its own set of tail lights, much larger than the actual car's, in case the bikes obscured the regular lights.  These new lights would make the Mini look like a large SUV at night from behind.

Back at the apartment, I was trying to load film into my camera.  The film was quite narrow and the leader kept breaking.  I was getting very frustrated until I realized that it was really a digital camera, so I didn't need the film.  I was chagrined at my idiocy.

Rage

Two people can help me by either carrying or putting in each of my hands 8 coins, some of which are quarters and some older larger coins with holes in them.  But both let me down.  One deliberately shows me he has contaminated his lot of coins with small screws and a screw driver. [ I think he is Peter C, a boy I knew very slightly in prep school whose father was a fixture on the staff of the New Yorker and who died not long after graduation.  I hadn't thought of him in years, but saw his name yesterday on a list of deceased classmates.] 

Anyway, I was very angry at both of these people.  I yelled at them and asked how they could do this on my daughter's wedding day. Apparently, what they did had spoilt the occasion.  I woke at this point, very hot from wearing a flannel night shirt, which I rarely do...

Anatomy of a CD

A group of us was listening to music on a CD .  The CD was broken - the outer shell of plastic peeled away to reveal a central spine with a row of six tubes on each side.  Each tube was covered with a little copper sleeve and represented one of the cuts on the CD.  To play that cut you had to slide a flexible black plastic or rubber tube over the copper sleeve.  This all happened automatically and invisibly when the CD wasn't broken. 

Then I had to get away to a party or gathering of some kind.  A boat was leaving that would take me there, but it left before I could get there.  It was then that I realized that I didn't know where my own boat, a center console outboard, was.  I had loaned it to someone or left it somewhere, along with its trailer, but I couldn't remember where for the life of me.  Suddenly I saw my little green car in the parking lot.  Luckily I found the keys in my pocket...

Tickets

Night before last I dreamed of tickets and travel.  Dark green paper tickets  arranged end to end in courses like bricks.  In the midst of the these rows of tickets was an irregular space that represented LA airport. 

I was discussing with someone an itinerary that had alternate possible stops in central Africa.  We were arguing about which city would be the most interesting and/or least dangerous.

Fueling up

There is a machine for dispensing a gasoline-oil mix as for fuel for two stroke engines.  The mix is set by a rectangular black plate about 2 feet by 6 inches, slightly tapered toward one end with a ridge around the edge made from some kind of heavy black plastic.  The plate has  different sized holes at intervals down its length, each hole representing a different ratio of gas to oil.  By shoving the plate into a slot on the dispenser to the level of the correct hole, you get the mix you want.

I want 50-1 which is the first hole.  I put the plate in to the slot.  Then I put the small hose into a small fill pipe and dispense some clear viscous liquid.  I realize I really don't need any,as there is overflow out of a vent almost immediately.

I wait in line for complementary coffee.  The coffee comes in tan cardboard cups like Green Mountain.   There are a few pastries wrapped in waxed tissue on the table in front of the coffee carafes.  Two people in front of me are passing pastries to each other in front of me, keeping from the coffee.

Finally, I get my coffee and one for ML who is wandering around waiting and checking out the merchandise.  J. has gone out back to check out some kind of boxing exhibition - not a boxing match, but some kind of historical exhibition.  I follow a two wheeled track through a field.  There are a few spready trees and a split rail fence beside the track...