The Dream Council

I have an idea for a book for young adults.

When I was in about second and third grades I had a recurring dream of being chased by a witch to a fiery cauldron, where she would call the tall, swarthy guards to throw me in the fire.

That's when I would wake up...in a cauldron. (No. Kidding. In my bed.)

Another recurring dream was discovering a pacing lion under my bed and when I go to look, the animal roars and runs at me. Another is that I go up stairs into the dark and suddenly feel terrified. Over the years my dreams have been so vivid, as everyones are at some point, that I am totally relieved when I wake to find it was a dream. Sigh of relief. It usually had to do with trying to find someone after I drop them off in front of a venue, like a theater, while I go park. Or promise to meet someone at a specific time and a dozen things thwart me.

Premise: Gods of the night and dreams aren't only ictional, mythological beings. Every religion has a divine presence that, according to history, prompts or leads dreams, deciding which are nightmares, and which are not. There are only a handful of humans, I being one, who knows this truth because of dream experiences from early in my life. Those humans have often mingled in one another's dreams, but unless one is conscious of this fact, it's just another mysterious face. In this world, the humans can meet, in their dreams, but those young to the practice, are only briefly able to hold their focus and stay in the meetings, which seem like hours or days in dream life, but are only seconds long, as most dreams that we have are.

The gods are introduced, telling of each culture's preoccupation with dreams and what they mean.

The Dream Council is aware of how one of the gods is determined to change waking life to her best interests. Although dreams are created to power the imagination, and perhaps, inspire life changes. This god wants to not just inspire, but direct, not just for one or two people, but thousands, millions, and she has the power to do this. She must be stopped, along with her Dream Minions who play crucial roles. This power could be life altering, motivating entire populations to dream and, thus, think alike.

How did she acquire this power? Who else among the gods is helping her? Who among the gods also want her to stop? and will that god join with the Dream Council to create the barriers needed to stop her from access to multiple humans?

Other gods throughout history have manipulated the thinking of entire populations, with the holocaust the most vivid example. Others include discovery of America, annihilation of Indian populations, and (possibly, but a stretch) the extinction of the dinosaur.

Dream Council members first discover their powers when a number of dreams actually come true for them, friends, family, even total strangers. Aunt Maggie's dog ran away. Where is it? A member of the Council knows, finds the dog, and brings it to Aunt Maggie. Other actions, such as winning the lottery are foretold, but also the subsequent result of the win (they buy a new car and are all killed in a crash), but can someone on the Council warn of this happening? That is a line that the Council, until now, are prohibited from crossing. The Laws of Dreams prevails.

Exercise Smexercise

We all wish we didn't have to exercise and have the doctor announce the Excellent Health of President Donald Trump. He plays golf a lot, but that's more for fun, he says. But I don't want to look like him, baggy at the corners, thick around my waist, and droopy face.

Oops, I may be too late. Sad.

Improbably, I still weigh 160 pounds, but my body is following the fall of gravity. I have to pull my pants up, which are already so tight if I tried to adjust my belt I would pinch my stomach. I just returned from 20 minutes walking up Nautilus, left on West Muirlands Drive, and back to my house. I try to do this, or something comparable, every day. I do enjoy walking quickly up the steps next to La Valencia from the Cove to Prospect...maybe twice.

I'm so beat I don't want to get out of my chair.

I was worried this morning when I was taking a dump and ran out of breath between grunts.

My doctor told me that before I stand up after a night's sleep to sit on the side of my bed because my blood pressure changes so much.

Stop writing, stop living

Prolific fiction author Stephen King was asked recently whether he ever tired of writing. His response  was prescient, to me, at least: If you stop loving to write, you have stopped loving to live.

I have frequently procrastinated writing even a line or two because 1) I'm too busy or 2) I'm too tired. Too tired to write...too tired to live? Too busy to write...too busy to live?

I do love writing, but I find myself doling emails or my responses, occasionally adding a comment after a Facebook post. After taking the reins on the Friends of the Library book store I was enjoying a series of posts to volunteers during the first seven days of the new year, delineating some of the changes, and adding a link to a library-related site. That was fun.

Without a specific audience, I struggle with typing out my thoughts or describing my activities. I expect no one will read any of what I write in these posts, but there are times when writing would be one of my most therapeutic and relaxing exercises.

SitNCycle: Return to Sender

A friend told me about buying a SitNCycle and how much it had helped him keep in shape. Looking for anything that would help combat my expanded presence, I went online and saw what I thought was going to be a way to exercise my way through my favorite TV shows.

I ordered the $245 machine ("Full Refund" if it didn't work for me) in my favorite color, aqua, and it arrived about 10 days later. Cool, I'll see if I can get this set up and lose a few despicable pounds. The commercial looked promising. An elderly woman (older than me, anyway) was pictured using the bike in front of the TV (yes, that's for me!) and easily carrying it from the living room to a hall closet.

But I think there must have been hidden wires in that video that help lift the bike off the ground to make it look so easy to carry around. My experience wasn't so cool.

For one, it was delivered to my porch, an easy walk to the garage. I could barely lift one end of the box off the ground. I finally dragged it to the garage, displacing all the pea gravel in the path. I cut the box open and found about a dozen pieces that I, presumably, could put together with help from a small-print booklet. First thing I found was a sandwich bag full of washers, bolts and nuts. That alone weighed a pound. I disassembled the parts, separating everything from the thick styrofoam packaging. I better keep this, thinking maybe I might have to return it.

There was no "might" about it. The base of the bike was too heavy to lift out of the box to set it upright to begin assembly. I stood over the mess. considering asking my "friend" to help me put this together. But even if he did assist me, I would still have to carry the thing around whenever I wanted to cycle. I carefully put everything back in the box, less the packing foam, and slid it onto a handcart, which i could use to move it.

Two weeks later I went out to look at it again. No, it wasn't my weak muscles that are to blame, but I could barely maneuver the cart. Another week went by before I decided that I wanted to return it to the company for my refund. I carefully packed it all in the box to (somehow) get it from the floor, into my car, and take it to the FedEx office. I accomplished this task, and shipped it back for my "Full Refund."

However, the cost of shipping was my problem. The company wouldn't provide a mailing label. The guy at the FedEx place asked me if the company would reimburse me for the shipping because it was going to cost $110. No, the shipping was my responsibility, so I'd pay it.

About two weeks later I got the $245 deposited back into my bank account. So this misadventure resulted in a true refund of $135, less the shipping. The company did offer me $35 if I'd just keep the bike, but at that point I didn't want to see the thing again. And what would I do with it if I did keep it? In a couple of years it would be still shoved in the corner of the garage being used as a clothes rack, the destiny of most exercise bikes.

But probably not still in the boxes they came in.

Leon's Homeless, Thanks to Texas' Efforts to Disenfranchise

I met Jackson last Tuesday in front of Carl’s Jr. on Convoy Street. I had just left my car to be repaired so I had the day to hang out. I gave Jackson, holding a worn cardboard sign asking for help, a $20 bill after we’d talked for a while.

“What’s your story?” I asked him, something I often do when I meet the homeless.

He had been in jail for two months for carrying a nunchuck, he said, something the police said was an illegal weapon. “When I got out, two women befriended me about a week later. All smiles, they were, and told me I could trust them. The next morning all my i.d. was gone.”

He’d been trying to get his Social Security payments, but didn’t have any identification. He did, however, have written down his SS and Texas driver’s license numbers. I thought maybe I could help this guy, so I invited him into Carls for something to eat and some snacks for the rest of the day.

His eventual story was so believable and fraught with the kind of details that bothered me so much (sleeping under store fronts, spending the day begging, a family that disowned him) that I asked him how I could help even more. There were things I could do. At least give him some more money for some thrift store clothes, and buy some groceries for a couple of days.

Knowing the weather was going to get nasty, I said I’d pay for him to stay at a motel for a couple of days. He had enough information that I could pay for a Texas birth certificate to be mailed to me, and I would help him get some i.d.

After a cab ride to the library on Aero drive and use of a computer I could enter what info I could and see what would happen. This is when I stepped into a legal morass that has kept me awake in the middle of the night.

We found the Texas web site and entered all the information, including birthdate, SS and DL numbers, and parents first, middle and last names. I was so relieved that I could help him in this way. But then we discovered how Texas and other states have effectively blocked the disenfranchised with this kind of mind-boggling hurdle: Jackson needed an “audit number” next to his DL photo to verify his identity.

Jackson didn’t have such a number, as it wasn’t something he knew from his original license. But to get his birth certificate for proof of identity we needed to be able to prove his identity, despite all the pertinent details.

I was flummoxed. There’s got to be a way to help him around this dead end. Maybe I could help him get his SS, which had been denied him. The next morning I took him to the Aero Drive SS office with all the information he had, details I expected the clerk there would honor. Nope. In fact, his record showed that, without proper i.d. there was a fraud alert that blocked his access to  $920 a month in disability payments he had been owed since early last year.

Jackson left the office in an understandable rage, and I followed him to the car under such a cloud of futility that I told him there must be a way around this. I took him back to his motel, at least happy he was out of the rain last Thursday, stopping at a market for food that would last a couple of days, at least until I’d done more research.

We needed to somehow get a copy of his birth certificate. Could he contact his mom in Houston? No, he couldn’t reach her after she moved. His brother and sister refuse to take his calls.

Yes, I provided Jackson with all the info on homeless shelters, food pantries, and other services, which he said hadn’t been as much help as he’d hoped. Whether this was true, I just had to take his word for it. 

My friends have told me I’ve done more for a homeless person than they would have ever done. True, but I couldn’t get him his birth certificate.

I had paid for the motel through Monday night, glad that I could keep Jackson dry for a couple more days. Saturday I called him and explained that I’d done everything I could to help him.

“What am I going to do now?” he asked. “Maybe money for the bus to Los Angeles. I’ll have better luck up there.”

But how would that be any better than San Diego?

“At least I wouldn’t be here any more,” he said. I explained again that I’d done all I could.

“Thanks for helping me to Tuesday morning. I’ll check out when I’m supposed to, and hang out in Kearny Mesa.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“So am I,” and he ended the call. 

Running from the waves

My favorite morning walks of late is from the Pacific Beach Grand Ave. lifeguard tower to the jetty in Mission Beach, then taking the #8 back to my car. I meet so many interesting beach goers, especially the ones with families. Nice talk with a Denver dad (about the popular marijuana laws in his state) at the beach with his daughters for their first visit.

I found a stainless steel ring in the sand, and it was a little too big for my right hand ring finger. (I know silver and this ring was much too heavy.) Earlier I met Zee and her husband, Frank, both from Croatia, who were scanning the beach with metal detectors. He had collected at least $20,000 in jewelry and cash in the years he has patiently walked the shore, carrying his detector just above the sand. Zee said she was going to retire soon, as the sand was hard on her ankles and she looked forward to sleeping in. Every day they visit a beach, arriving soon after 4 a.m. Frank sells the detectors, too. At 10 pm they meet fellow treasure hunters for breakfast and share their stories of adventure. In my case I was just looking down and found my ring, which has been relegated to a bowl of other beach finds (shells, a colorful rock) for future investigation.

One mum had her four kids playing in the water, but her two preschool Ethiopian adoptees were afraid of the waves, while their siblings frolicked. The unpredictability of the water rushing in, and the effect it would have, must have been disconcerting. One wonders if they or someone in their family have faced past similar circumstances, making them naturally wary of the unknown.

Do you work here?

One of my Warwicks' colleagues used to feel aggravated at customers who asked, while he was in the middle of stocking books on the shelf, whether he worked there. It is difficult to know if a person is a store employee when there isn't any identification as such, or a smock, or company tee shirt. 

When I'm at Vons or CVS I, too, wonder if the person works there when I see the guy loading eggs into the cooler, or restocking cans, because it can often be the vendor who provides that service. But usually the store has a colored smock that helps. 

Instead of responding to a customer's request with something like "No, I'm a volunteer" or something equally snarky, a pleasant "How can I help you?" is a sufficient answer. If an employee is behind the counter, it's a pretty sure bet that they do, indeed, work there. 

But I've been in stores in which I'm dressed business casual and customers will turn to ask me questions. If I know the answer, I will tell them (where is the restroom? what time do you get off?) without identifying myself either way. Or I will suggest they check at the front counter. If it's a pretty fancy store I might say "I wish," or something equally profound. 

It used to bother me at the book store when a customer would turn to ask for help finding a book, and another customer turns and takes up the conversation. "Oh, my husband read that book and loved it. I'll show you where it is." Other customers have interrupted me to give their opinions, at which point I stand back and, if they become engaged in a conversation, I quietly walk away.