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I can't predict when I have the time to post a new blog, but check occasionally. I'm going to try at least weekly.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

I had a dream...

Song of the day: “Where have all the cowboys gone” by Paula Cole. Was reminded of it the other day, and just had to look it up before I iTuned it. Hah.

So…I had a dream…no, no, no, not that one. I had a dream about a small item, which I just had to see if I could make it today. Let me explain first, because otherwise this item won’t make any sense to you (no, I don’t have pictures, my phone is at the repair shop and the temporary replacement I have really won’t do it any justice). You see, Grandpa hates wrist watches. He says that he’ll snag them on things, forget them, lose them, and that he just doesn’t like them. So we bought him a pocket watch a couple of years ago, which had him ecstatic…for a while at least. Then the stupid thing gave the spirit and he tried to have it fixed forever and ever, until the clock guy finally said that it wasn’t worth repairing. It really disappointed him, but he didn’t want us to buy him a new one.

We didn’t, instead I took an old watch (found it in a drawer somewhere) without a wrist band, took a piece of woods from storage and started working. I worked in two sessions of several hours, and these two shell shaped wooden disks, made two matching holes on either side, a ridge around one, an indentation in the other, and then tore through my room searching for an old Seiko box. Found it, and yes, memory served me right, it had two tiny hinges in it. Cut one out, drilled holes in it, looked for tiny screws and used a wee chisel to create a small indent for the mechanism (one of those that stays open, or shut, whichever position you decide on) and put it together. More sanding, engraving his initial on the lid (secretly of course, grandpa wasn’t supposed to know) and then mixing a bit of color into a clear varnish so I could treat the wood.

It is drying at the moment, but if all went well, I should be able to give it to him tomorrow. Yay. Hope he likes it, and I’ll let you know in the next blog.

Okay, back to business as usual. Let’s get up to date on the daily toils. Yesterday:
Well, there was no workout, which was a good thing since later in the day I got plenty of that after all. Hah. Did the morning chores, as usual, walked the boarder dogs, had breakfast and then headed down into the yard to add a few more of the reed fences. Only two or three more to go, thankfully. Also watered the young seedlings, the raised seedbed and then, after chatting with tenant a little, it was up to the wall and the terraced on top of it. For the remainder of the day I added layers of rock along the length of the wall.

Got several feet up to the ultimate height at last. Beautiful, in case you’re wondering, and with some seriously big rocks in it that will make for an interesting view that’s a fact. Hah. But it’s looking good. I think we’ll need to do another masonry day soon, but by then it will be high enough for us to start digging behind my cabin again so we can fill it up straight to the house.

While I was putting in rocks, I got a phone call of the computer doctor to let me know that we could come and pick up big brother’s Mac, at last. They had reinstalled everything and since big brother has been waiting with bated breath, we unloaded the car of the latest rock load, changed into something semi-clean and headed for town.

Well, I am happy to report that the Mac is once again fully functional, yay, and that big brother was gone most of the day while he was working on getting everything just-so in his electronic sweetheart. (He’s insufferable when he needs to spend a full day inside trying to sort the dratted computer out, mind you.) Hah. But no matter, he busted his knee yesterday (almost had to catch him at the grocery store because his knee refused to support him for crying out loud) so the inside-day, sitting with his computer, reading and installing, was actually good for his knee at least.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We picked up the computer, did a few groceries that should tide us over until next week at least, (grocery shopping day is nigh, darn it) and went past a variety of stores in search of a spray can with a color that matches the Opel. Turns out that the store that probably would have it was already closed for the day, so we headed back home where big brother spent the majority of the evening messing with his computer.

I, on the other hand, was a good girl and dutifully worked on the book. Worked for several hours on writing the last piece of the prologue; a gloomy pursuit scene. Two people fleeing for a third and then…well, I can’t betray the story, of course, but it was awesome. The scene flowed and I was done and about five minutes later swore viciously. I’d done it wrong. Seriously, I hate it when that happens. During previous conversations we had already decided on a certain sequence in the scene. Regretfully inspiration didn’t agree, and made me forget the plan. Now I’ll have to do an effing rewrite again.
Ah well, no matter. Time is on my side still.

Okay, good news. My interview with C.S. Marks was returned last night with all questions answered, nice and proper. I, of course, got to read them already, and had a blast, so y’all are in for a treat. Either the next blog, or the one thereafter will be a nice change of pace and let you read about another crazy author. Hah. I’ll keep you informed, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out when I post it.

Today, besides working on grandpa’s “new” pocket watch, cousin Ed, grandpa and I worked up by the storage, sorting through stuff. There were several piles, one garbage, one with keepers, and one with doubters. Also found a big pile of roof tiles, which we sorted through and stacked on a pallet out of the way.
Still a long way to go, but we’re getting there. We’ll get the mess neat yet. It sure would be nice if we no longer look like land fill up there. Hah.

Am a bit tired, and I really should work on that prologue still, so I’m going to call this a blog and see ya ‘round the next time, I’m sure. *snort*

Thursday, January 19, 2012

A little bit of fleeing never hurt anyone

Song of the day...seriously, you don’t want to know. It is such crap, and I have been trying to get it out all effing day, without effect. Aaaargh.

So yesterday I wasn’t I the best of moods (as you can undoubtedly imagine) so I decided to cowboy up and did a workout with doubled up reps. It did part of the trick at least, seeing as it got me pumped up enough to get started on the day.

First off we walked the boarders in the lower yard. They kinda liked that, running up and down, jumping against us and everything. I don’t get what the complaint of their previous boarding house. Apparently the big one was unmanageable, but he’s a sweetie and listens fine. They’ll come out when we say, go back in too, so for as far as boarders go, these are perfect.

Since grandpa was supposed to pick up his driver’s license at long last, cousin Ed offered to do it in our stead and set out early in the morning. Considering caregiver was out, big brother and I separated our time between yard stuff and tenant. She wanted to spent the morning in her room but opted to come down to my terrace later on.

That agreed on, big brother and I went into the yard and used the chainsaw on the tree that was split in half during the last storm. Poor Eucalypti. There it was, growing fast and limber, only to have a two day windstorm blow it to smithereens. Don’t get me wrong, with this particular tree it doesn’t really matter since breaking only makes them grow faster, but at the moment it is looking quite mutilated.

Grandpa spent the past few days turning earth, and since one of the patches is on a rather steep incline, and he tried to level it a little, we used the new cut tree to create a small wall of sorts. Was interesting hauling two massive tree trunks through narrow paths and gates, but since the sun was coming through every now and then, being in the yard on itself was a wonderful thing.

It was so grand in fact that we spent an extra hour or two later on, sowing red beets and leek in the freshly turned earth. Considering we were out there anyway, I harvested the first real cauliflowers, some broccoli and a whole batch of borecole for supper. Being down there already we also watered a lot of the fields (using the basin of course) allowing for plenty of growing despite of what is being called a persistent drought this time of year.

Because big brother was unable to fix middle sister’s sewing machine for the third time, mom and little brother had to go out in the afternoon to go to the repairman in town. They had to take the Land Rover, seeing as we had ordered the left warning light that wouldn’t be there until after they left. First there was some gluing to do, though, since apparently two attachment points of the light also got damaged during the skid-crash the other day. No problem, though, big brother managed to fix that just fine.

Walked tenant down later in the afternoon where she enjoyed sitting in the sun and reading a new book. Funny how she sometimes tells that she used to want to read a lot, but never found the time. And now, after her stroke, she at least is able to do that.
And boy, is she doing that a lot. Hah.
There were boring chores, a sand hauling trip later in the day, a short walk with Knight II, and then back home to work on the edit, after we took the opportunity to shave Gaucho (black Afghan), who was starting to look like a reggae monkey with all his dirty dreadlocks hanging down his paws, thighs and neck. Poor creature looked so bedraggled and smelled so bad, that it was almost unpleasant to pet him.
Afterwards he looked much better…and felt it too, if his arrogant pose in front of the fence was anything to go by. Proud big bugger.

The edit didn’t go all that bad, but also not as long as it could have been considering I was absolutely exhausted and was more than happy to call it an early night. Sure did that. Heck, I was actually in bed before one in the morning. Yay.

Oh, right. Am still ready Jack Vance, only now I’m going through Tchai/Adventure planet (the omnibus). Again, a fun adventure, but compared to Nightlamp and The Demon Princes, I don’t like the main character as much. Nothing wrong with him, just a little less…I don’t know…innocence in him, I guess, which is a pity.

Today…hmmm. Another good workout (despite me being unable to find my shwung) Lots of this and that’s, but on the most part there was yard work. Some watering (in particular the raised seedbed where the iceberg is finally working) rearranging the tomato plants in the big greenhouse because they are getting to be too high for the tables. We set them on the floor instead. (Had to kill me some bugs, of course, the little buggers keep persisting.)

The warning light was set back into the Opel today, which means that we can use it again. Got so used to the two cars that I almost felt handicapped without it. Hah. Ridiculous how that works, really.

Did some rearranging up by the storage again. On the most part roof plating, which has been scattered about on a big pile for the longest part, which we now neatly stacked together, in an upright position, with pins to keep the lot in place.

That done it was back to the yard for me (it felt a bit like fleeing today, but what the heck, better flee into doing something useful than not, right?). Spent several hours reconstructing all the fences grandpa tore down to turn earth. Seriously, he hates my little reed fences with a vengeance, but it simply is the only solution to keep the dogs from barging through the veggie fields.

It was nice. The sun was out, and though the wind was a bit on the nippy side, I could do most of the work in a t-shirt, which is definitely a plus. At one point I did have to don my sweater again, but by then I was almost done so I didn’t really mind.

Did a short edit in the afternoon (could postpone supper for a bit because grandpa made pancakes for lunch) which got big brother and me into another heated discussion about grammar and plot issues. Seriously, things turned nasty for a bit because there were moments when he was saying “that is wrong” every time I changed something, but did expect me to come up with a solution for it even though he couldn’t actually explain the problem. Finally compromised on a completely revised sentence that held little of the old information. Sigh

No matter though, we had to get out for rocks. And rather than just walking Knight II for a bit afterward, I decided to go for a short jog. Uphill was a disaster of course, but down hill went splendidly. Did the whole distance in one stretch, thank you very much…and better yet, the Knight actually had to go in a stretched trot, rather than just a walk while I ran. Hah.

Well, that’s it for me. I had supper, did some more edits, did the blog, and now…now I am well on my way of being fully ready to call it a day. Jeez. I’m seriously running on fumes at the moment. Hah

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

R.I.P. Amri

Song of the day: “The Pessimist is never disappointed” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Strangely enough it stuck in my head this afternoon. But considering the events of the day, that’s no big surprise, I guess.

Let me just start by saying that I had a crappy night, mostly due to the fact that it was friggin’ cold and thus the dogs kept squeezing up against me with Knight II actually squeezing in-between until I almost toppled out of bed (being even colder). It was my own fault, really, since I should have gotten my lazy bones out of bed and closed the door. Of course I didn’t. I would just grumble at the dogs, slap at some butts and snooze on until I was completely sore from curving into all sorts of angles.

Woke up with a massive headache, and being chilled to the point of needing a really, really hot shower. Since Amri (brown colored crossbreed, and I can't find a friggin' picture at the moment) was feeling poorly last night I decided to take him to the vet tonight. He’s not been himself for a while now, losing weight, while his tummy stays swollen, so after doing the morning chores we left for the vet and had him checked out because what with him drinking a lot as well, it could be a tumor, or his liver, or his kidneys.

It wasn’t good. The vet touched his stomach and didn’t like the feel of it. She tested his urine, which indicated that his kidneys weren’t working properly, at which point she made an ultrasound where it became very clear what was wrong. Apparantly the majority of his swelling was a tumor attached to his spleen, and what with the values of his pee, his kidney’s were most likely affected as well.

Amri went through the procedure with his usual aplomb. The shaving, the catheter, the prodding, the cold gel, but it was all for nothing. Sure, the doc could operate extending his life (not at all pleasantly) for another six to twelve months at the most under the best of circumstances, but all in all it was a bleak view of his future. I looked at him, the way he was lying in my arms looking rather vague about it all, and decided that I couldn’t do that to him.

He went gracefully, without a fuss, his head in the crook of my arm while I petted his neck and held him close until it was over. Crap!

Amri always was a proud dog, an alpha and for him to be reduced to that, it just wouldn’t be right. Gawd, I still remember getting him. It was in 2001 and we were visiting friends who ran an animal shelter. Sometimes, when Friday approached they would call us telling us of some splendid dog who had been placed on the terminate list, and we would be over there, walking amidst the cages and taking dogs week after week.

This was one of those days. We had come to rescue a young female German shepherd when I passed a cage and saw him sitting there. A small bundle of brown with a black snout. His fat little tummy bulging as he sat in the cage and then trundled over to get to bounce against the gate to draw me nearer. I was hooked. On him and his brothers, who were following right behind. Amri, Tayana and Asam. They were all gorgeous, some sort of boxer mastiff mix, undoubtedly, and maybe some Rhodesian Ridgeback thrown in to keep it interesting.

Amri wasn’t a dog prone to showing affection. But he was always there at a distance, coming over for only a daily petting and then just going his own way until it was time to go to bed. Always very composed, serious to the point of being grumpy in fact. He couldn’t stand puppies, but Gada was definitely the one he could stand best. Wherever he went she would bug him. And if I held her back, he would run ahead and bark in anticipation, waiting for her to catch up.

Gosh I hate it when this happens…and so unexpected. Seriously, I was still preparing for Gada, who won’t last much longer (or at least, I think so) if her hips are any indication, and then this. It really felt like a punch in the gut. Don’t you just hate cause and effect? Starting out (taking in dogs) you really don’t think about it. I mean for more than a year we blithely took in dogs, and now, as the years pass and the end of decade has come and gone, the consequence is digging in deep. Yes, lots of love and pleasure, and frustration, and aggravation, and more love, but also this: the losing bit. Not nice. Not nice at all, but a fact of life.

But enough about this. Spending the majority of the afternoon in the yard helped me numb things out for a bit (that works best in this situation, if you must know) and we planted more than fifty plants, which had to be done after all. Since we were busy anyway, we also sowed several rows of beets, which made up for the big field.

Afterwards we reconstructed the fences around the fields, because let’s face it, the dogs really like going through the freshly turned earth. Oh, before I forget, the first three cauliflowers are almost done. Yay. Looking forward to eating those.

There was the tent-flap door to repair in the carport. What with the storm of the past couple of days, it really wasn’t something we could postpone much longer. This followed a hauling session of dogfood. The delivery truck arrived in the late afternoon and the forty pound bags had to be hauled down to the storage where we had taken out the last few to check for mice again. Somehow the little buggers keep coming back, while we keep closing smaller and smaller holes. I really wonder where they’ll enter through now.

As for yesterday…not much of interest except for the fact that big brother and I almost got in a car crash. Yep. A car crash! It’d been raining most of the morning (started right after workout) and we’d been forced to head for the phone shop where our router was waiting.

Oh, in regard to big brother’s computer, the computer doctor says it will be several days before we can come pick it up. And we had so wanted to connect those two trips. But anyway, we were on our way home, actually not speeding for a change and went slip sliding into the railing on the passenger side of the car (my side, in this case). I remember saying, “Dude!” grappling for the door handle, as we bounced off and found grip again, and rolled down my window to see how bad it was.
Couldn’t actually see anything, so big brother kept going (4 mins away from home after all) until we got home and out to see.

Not too bad, all in all. Just a small dent in the front right panel, which we could (or so we saw after a short investigation) remove relatively easy to bend out again. All we needed to get was a new flashing light and some car paint…the latter will be tough, but the first should be here tomorrow or so.

But gawd, it was cold while I was working on the car outside. I’d put on several layers, a wool/alpaca sweater, turtlenecked T, fake fur bodywarmer and a leather jacket. I had gloves on, a baseball cap, hoody, gloves, and still almost froze my butt off. Got most of the bolts loose in the first three hours, at which point big brother was smart enough to suggest to put the car in the sun, which we did prior to getting those last pesky bolts that allowed us to take the panel off. Yay. Unbending it took a relatively short amount of time compared to the taking apart bit. Jeez. I was frozen solid all the way through.

The three dogs that we agreed to board for the next week or two arrived yesterday as well, by the way. A big golden mastiff/shepherd mix, and two crossbreed sisters will be spending the nights in my office, giving them some peace and quiet away from the pack. Their owner had to travel for work, and since she had no place to take them, mom offered to take them instead. Luckily the dogs don’t seem to mind so much. I for one know that mine would go absolutely bonkers if I left them somewhere for longer than a couple of hours.

As to the evening…the temperatures were low (low 40s), the winds high and the stove could barely keep up. Did a good edit, though, and actually got some writing done. We decided that I needed to add some extra background information to the story, meaning that I’ll be writing a prologue with a “what happened before” scene.

And now I’ve spent way too much time on this blog. I better get some more writing done before this day is fully over and I pass out in bed…looking forward to that, by the way.

Okay, I’m outta here.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Dream a little dream...

Song of the day: “I like how it feels” by Enrique. Been having a lot of him in my head of late, haven’t I? Ah well, no matter.

Let’s get started immediately, shall we?

It all starts in the Land Rover. Big brother is driving, Grandpa is in the backseat, and I’m looking around, wondering where the heck we are going. We are traveling in a straight line over bumpy knolls of grass, sparkly gray rocks and patches of yellow sand, with on either side of us a wall that is rapidly becoming higher.
“I don’t think this is going anywhere,” I point out, watching pampa grass knolls brush past the car at regular intervals, the white brick walls, interrupted by patches of piled up slabs of slate stone, on either side of the car. There are high reaching stems of bamboo, a little waterfall that pounds into a small basin situated in a niche we pass, and a grassy path on which we drive.
Overhead the sun is shining brightly. A clear blue sky with rapidly tumbling cumulus clouds, is almost too bright for my eyes. I can’t find my shades anywhere, and considering the car is bumping along on the road that appears to be getting bumpier and narrower within every passing minute.
A noisy scraping sound, along with a jostle that makes me wince, I ask, “Did you just hit something?”
“Uh-huh,” answers big brother, his features tight and dark. Something’s bothering, and it isn’t the narrowing passage.
“Two somethings,” deadpans grandpa from the backseat, looking a tad tense himself. I can’t blame him, since there is a sense of urgency and worry inside me as well.
On the side of the car two long, jagged scratches mar the white paint.
Up ahead, behind the left wall I can see occasional glimpses of a black roof building that for some reason reminds me of that big old hotel in that seventies horror movie “The shining”. Except that the roof is black, and that the beam structures, much like with those old cathedrals, stick out in clear contrast.
Big brother continues to drive on.
The pampas grass is blooming here, and the planters that are about as high as the wheels of the car become lusher with greens. By now I’m no longer wondering if the passage is getting narrower; it is. In fact by this time big brother has to pull to a halt lest we get stuck. We’re already close to that predicament, considering we are no longer able to open the doors.
“Now what?” I ask.
“I guess we should climb out and see if we can get over the wall to see where we are,” answers big brother, while grandpa in the back concurs and begins lowering his window. The three of us climb out, the planters supplying us with sufficient purchase to reach the top of the wall. Using pieces of black slates as foot holds, I climb onto the ledge and peer at the long drop down. There’s moss and grass at the bottom of the sheer white wall here, and before me, obscuring the view of the big house in the distance, is a rather vast pine forest.
I carefully slide my way down the wall, for as far as that is possible. I actually rip my pants, but no matter, with little trouble I land on the soft soil. A glance up shows that grandpa and big brother are nowhere in sight. I wonder about that for a moment, but see no other recourse than to head on out to the building and find a phone. As it turns out, I’m not carrying my phone. Strange.
For quite a while I walk through the woods, sunlight only occasionally touching the pine covered ground, and small tufts of green the only real color in this world of shadows.
Suddenly I come upon a row of buildings. They appear old and built on the exact edge of the woods. They are placed close together to a point of them forming a barrier through which I can barely see, let alone pass. There are glimpses of sun light and blue sky visible between the structures, so old that there are cracks in the clapboard walls, and even broken boards there where I thought I might be able to pass through because the last house on the row is build against a hedge of a wildly growing cypress hedge.
Worming myself through it, I basically stumble into a corridor of sorts. It is unexpected and I feel momentarily disoriented as I look around the almost sterile looking gray walls (two kinds of gray. Darker below, lighter up with a black border between them). The floor under my feet are olive green tiles, and every fifteen feet or so a dark puce colored door slashes through the gray. There are murmurs all around and a distant beeping that I can’t place nor locate.
I feel chilled in my short-sleeved white T, and the tiles make the soles of my shoes squeak rather ominously. I wince every single time I put my feet down, and yet the urgency that I sense doesn’t allow me to stop and wait to fully orient myself.
“Sam!” I spin around at the scream, see a young woman come rushing towards me. I don’t know her, and yet I do. Dark haired and almost fey in appearance, she’s only a few inches shorted than me. She has her arms raised in a somewhat imploring fashion.
“Sam! Help me,” she pleads, transforming before my eyes. Skin peels away from the protrusion of her cheekbones, showing fetid flesh, reddish and bleeding as her eyes sink deeper into their sockets and become vacant and pale. She makes an inarticulate sound, more a gurgle than anything. Her hair, lush and curly when she first came running towards me, is becoming greasy and dead-ish at the same time, hanging in dirty strands on either side of her now gaunt features where her once red lips have turned to a sallow blue.
“Help meeee!” she sputters, stumbling with a much familiar stagger as I scramble backwards. “’elp meeee” again while she reaches for me with clawed hands of which the nails have turned black and jaggedly sharp.
I have nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, what with my back against one of those bland gray walls, when suddenly a ponderous sounds explodes from nearby. The girl, I don’t even know her name, shocks comically, spins on her heel as dark blood fountains around her chest. She slams into the wall in front of me, as another explosions batters my eardrums. I close my eyes for a moment, determined not to watch the girl’s head explore in a gory mass of blood and flesh, and then glance in the direction from where the gun shots originate.
There’s a blond dude standing in the open glass doors. Strangely enough he reminds me of a very young Gary Busey (or his son) while he stands there in what appears to be a white nurse’s uniform. He is holding a smoking black shotgun.
“This way,” he calls, gesturing to the corridor behind him. He is looking at tad harried, I’ll admit, and for the first time I’m starting to wonder where the heck grandpa and big brother disappeared to.
“Come on. No dawdling. We’ve got to get out of here fast.”
Rather than look at the dead zombie girl, I start running towards the guy, but as I pass through the door I suddenly find myself on a Swiss balcony, overlooking snowy slopes as far as the eye can see. Behind me there are noisy screeches and growls, like a herd of monsters from a nightmare are rapidly approach, but a glance back into the corridor from which I come, shows only the dead zombie girl.
Again I have this sense of disorientation, but I have no time to ponder it as the guy with the shotgun urges me on at a run to the end of the seemingly endless balcony.
“This way,” he shouts over his shoulder, already climbing over the banister and letting himself fall down the three stories that we’re removed from the snow covered ground. Though usually heights disturb me, I don’t hesitate as I climb over and jump just as I feel a sharp scrape in the nape of my neck. With a noisy oomph I land in a thick pile of snow and scramble after shotgun dude.
“Where are we going?” I pant, daring a look up where a suspiciously zombie-like creature leans heavily over the banister I just climbed. Backing up the monstrous grunts and squeals is that distinctive beep that is seriously starting to bug me.
When I don’t receive a response from my companion, I glance back and realize I am once more alone.
Swearing (I won’t bother you with my creativity in this regard) I scramble away from my landing spot from fear of the zombie coming in pursuit and hurl myself head-first into the dark pine bushes that are located about fifty feet away from the building. Where’s big brother when you need him, I wonder distractedly, elbowing my way through the snow, and then squealing (somewhat inelegantly, I’ll admit) when the ground drops from under me, all of a sudden and I am send hurtling down a muddy slide. I come to a slippery stop at the bottom of the incline, covered in mud and feeling chilled to the bone as I slap at the muddy soil on either side of me. “Blast it!” I mutter the words, on a subconscious level aware that I should keep quiet, despite me getting the distinct impression that I am in fact dreaming. (Sometimes it takes me a while, as you might have noticed. Hah)
Ignoring the coldness of the mud and the smell that seems to come at me from all sides, I slip-slide my way to a rocky outcropping and use its steadiness to look up at what appears to be a long, long distance that I slid down. There, at the top of an uneven crater-like hole (in which I am shivering) I can see the Shining house loom high into the bright blue sky. There are sounds of music, laughter and talking voices drifting down, and I start my struggle to ascend up the rocking wall that leads up to the building.
The snow is gone, and by this time I’m pretty darn sure that I am dreaming, and wonder where the heck I’m going as I climb higher, and higher until I finally drag my butt up on solid ground and lay there behind a wildly blooming rose bush. I never get how I can be out of breath in dreams, and yet I am. The sound of an engine nearby makes me scramble into a squat (by this time my clothes are semi clean again) to peer through the rosebush. With the rumble of the car, that beep is once again becoming more prominent and I shake my head as I try to focus on what I can see through the branches of the deep red rose bush.
There, on the white gravel car sweep in front of the massive structure a black jag pulls to a halt and two women in black robes and red high heels (don’t ask me why, this is as weird to me, as it is to you) climb from the back seat to scamper up the brick dais whispering and laughing together like a bunch of teenagers.
I am about to slink my way down to the next bush, away from the building that seems threatening to me, even with all it’s apparent splendor, when a voice behinds me says: “What are you doing here?”
I start…and wake up with Knight II ramming his friggin’ paw into the small of my spine, and blink at the gray morning light falling into my bedroom.
As it turns out, the beeping I was hearing was my alarm, which, apparently, had been going off for a solid twenty minutes. Yup.
Knight II felt bugged by it and woke me up in the most effective way. Hah.

So, that was fascinating. I knew I was in the mood for a good horror movie last night when big brother mentioned that the younger sib got “The Eye” with Jessica Alba (he was so mean mentioning it. I’ve been wanting a good horror movie for weeks now, darn it.) on DVD. Clearly I wanted a horror so badly, my mind did it for me, eh? Hah.

But anyway, there were some clear old movie indicators in there. I mean seriously. Did you get the references? Gary Busy’s son in a nurse’s uniform? “The Frightners” anyone? The hotel in “The Shining”? “Labyrinth” from the eighties, maybe? Clapboard military housing from “The Bodysnatchers” in the early nineties? Zombies as in every zombie movie ever? The long stretching hospital corridors as in most Japanese horror movies?
Of course then there was the Swiss chalet-like balcony. I can’t really place that with a movie. Hmmm. Weird.

What can I say, I’m bonkers and my dreams proof as much. Gotta get the ideas for my dreams somewhere, don’t I? What better place then wonky dreams?

No matter though. Let’s do a quick sum-up of the past couple of days. There were chores, gardening, of course, and I spent most of the days working in the upper yard. I was in fact in the storage area sorting through the messes gathered there. Seriously. There’s two years of stuff lying about there, and just yesterday I needed 4 hours to sort through the last of my tile collection.
Then today going through plastic, tubing and all that stuff, which is fascinating for me, and not so fascinating for you, so I am more than happy that I could supply the dream for a change. Hah.

It was also quite nippy, meaning that Chaos spent most of his time on my bed, huddling under the blankets. No matter that I made my bed three times he kept pulling everything loose to make a nest for himself, the son of a gun.

Knight II insisted on joining me up by the paddock, and was cold for most of the time. It did get him an appetite, so I didn’t mind. Heck, for the first time in ages he ate a full bowl in the evening.

Well, this will have to do the trick today. Not much else happening except for a failed cooking experiment with Oxalis. It wasn’t gross, but it also wasn’t anything to write home about. Luckily I had also baked potatoes, meaning that I could open a couple of cans to supplement for the veggies that failed during tonight’s supper. Turns out Oxalis is really, really sour, and though I can see possibilities with it if it is mixed with other stuff, as a sole vegetables it won’t be a big success. Think sauerkraut, but then with a somewhat bitter aftertaste. A pity. I will try again in the near future.

Gotta go.