retracing my footsteps

last night when i got home from work i checked the email and then promptly fell asleep right here at this desk, in this chair....it's likely unnecessary to point out that i woke up completely stiff. i then managed to make it as far as the couch in the living room, where i immediately fell asleep again for the remainder of the night. twelve hours of sleep did me some good, but as comfortable as the couch is, it's still not my bed, and i felt a little wooden this morning.

backtracking to Sunday (Loren's actual birthday), i gave Loren his presents, most of which i elected to save for the occasion. he really liked the new bat (it's sweet!) and baseball i gave him, as well as the comic book subscriptions (Marvel comics all: Spider-Man, The Hulk, and- best of all i think- The Fantastic Four) and the Scene It! game (he took it to his mom's- wonder if he tried it out...). i asked him to save the last gift for when Mom and Dad came over later in the evening.

Loren headed out almost before the wrapping paper hit the floor, to dig up some kids to hit a few balls with, and i gave him some peace for awhile before tracking him down to remind him his grandparents were coming over, and we needed to eat dinner. still, it seemed a shame not to pitch him a couple, so we stopped by the common area behind our place for a few. i tossed him a few underhand then switched to overhand. he used to put up a fuss when i threw overhand to him and i think the momentum of the moment let him get by that. it's been a while since i pitched balls to him in any manner whatsoever, and he might have gotten over it anyway. besides, in the interest of full disclosure i must say i have actually pegged him with the ball a few times, and he did take a couple hard pitches (one to the side of his helmet and one in the rear) the one season he played baseball on a team, so he had legitimate reasons to be gunshy. however, new bat and ball won the day, and he's all for the overhand pitches now, which is great because i pretty much suck at throwing underhand. in any case, i tossed him a couple overhand pitches, and i think it was the third pitch that he just clobbered. it was easily a 50-yard shot- it went the length of the common area and would have gone a lot farther if the building hadn't gotten in the way....it had just gotten into the downhill part of its arc when it hit the roof about a foot below the peak (it's a two story building) and took a big curving-around-backwards roll to eventually land conveniently in our own yard- a damn fine hit, and easily the farthest ball he ever hit! that was enough for me to declare the common area off limits for baseball; we're going to have to take it someplace there's more room if he's gonna hit 'em like that. Loren was impressed enough to talk about maybe playing baseball again, which would be a good thing if he still feels like it come next season; this season's well underway.

pizza's smellin' finished- more later.

just watched Ocean's 12- pretty good movie. the original was fun, and this one was almost too cute sometimes, but it was still good. but i digress; i was writing of the remainder of last weekend.

incidentally, if one digresses from a digression is that a trigression? i think i just trigressed....

so we came in from the minor baseball session and i tried to get some dinner going. a couple fine steaks were the bill of fare, grilled to perfection was the plan. unfortunately, the propane tank (finally) ran empty, so broiled steak would have to do. dinner was hot on the table when my folks arrived. Loren ate what he could manage of his monster steak, though of course the mashed potatoes were immediately gone. i knew there was no way he'd finish all the food on his plate- he's getting big but he's not that big. my own steak went down the hatch, and Chowder got a nice bone. soon enough dinner was done, and Loren was ready to open his last gift, a couple new D&D manuals (the Monser Manual III and the Psionics Handbook). they went over every bit as well as i imagined they would. as a gift giver, nothing beats knowing what the recipient likes. in short order a couple of Loren's neighborhood friends showed up, and we split Loren's (delicious) birthday mud pie (courtesy of Mom & Dad) 6 ways. Loren went out to take advantage of the rapidly waning daylight, and i had a little more coffee with the folks before they left. Loren hit the showers, then it was time to dig a chapter further into The Wishsong of Shannara before Loren hit the hay.

Monday was really laid back. i'd planned to hike up Mount Si with Loren, but the weather was iffier than i would have liked; we ended up playing it by ear at home, before heading out in the afternoon to catch the animated movie Madagascar at the new theater in Alderwood. it was pretty good, and we sat all the way through the credits since Loren's determined to catch all the "easter eggs" he can since i explained what they were to him. then we headed to Melissa & Jason's house for some barbecued salmon. Nichole, Chris, and their boys made it out, as well as Mom and Dad, so the family was all there and it was fun. Jason's done a lot of work in the yard, including clearing most of their trees, and he showed me the view of south Whidbey Island from their garage roof- very nice. if only the neighbors could be convinced to chop down their own trees, they'd have a fantastic view. from the garage, you get a dramatic peak-a-boo of one of Whidbey's cliff bluffs abutting the Sound. Jason said he'd like to put a second story on the garage and connect it to the house- a great idea, though a lot of work. i'm sure it was nice for the Wylls to get everyone out on their new deck, a nice piece of work Jason completed last summer. while Jason and i were on the garage roof, Ethan and Chris came to the edge of the deck. Ethan (and Cole too for that matter) wanted to come over too, but as that involves a (somewhat dicey) walk across the top of a fence from the deck to the garage it was out of the question. he asked his dad how we got over there, and Chris told him, "you jump from here." there really aren't words to describe the look that Ethan gave his dad then, but it just busted Jason and me up. i suppose it was something along the lines of, "....are you @#$)(@#$ kiddin' me?" hilarious. yes, i know, you had to be there, but i was, so i'm writing it down, so there.

off home after the barbecue, for another chapter of Wishsong and then bed, before a 4:30 alarm and a 5:30 road trip to Granite Falls then back to work. when i got to Loren's mom's house in the morning, Loren was wearing his sandals rather than his tennis shoes, which he elected to leave at my house as he has another pair at his mom's. for a change, all the lights were on there when we arrived, and Loren's mom kinda grumped out the window about "where are his shoes?"....which i didn't really understand....but then 5 minutes later, while i was southbound on Mountain Loop Highway, she called to apologize, explaining that she was only short with me because she was thinking it was 7:15 (slightly more than an hour later than it actually was) and Loren was going to be late for school, and he didn't even have his real shoes. this incident shall henceforth be known as The Mystery of the Advanced Alarm Clock, when it is inevitably referred to, in a subsequent age, by historians, and scholars of all stripes, tracking the profound implications of the event back to their humble point of origination.

Tuesday was another early start; beginning then and continuing for the immediate future (at least) i'll be starting work at 5am. a very busy weekend and a few early starts in a row, plus some longer-than-normal work days certainly contributed to my nodding off right here in front of this computer last night. i fully intend to get fully horizontal tonight. with any luck i'll have another really interesting dream like i did last night, though i doubt it. last night's was pretty strange.

REM report portion of this post:
Scene 1:
i was standing atop a city building with a small group of people (2 or 3 others), looking down into the alley between that building and the next one. at least 10 stories below lay the body of a girl, or woman, in a short yellow dress. she was splayed in a position that would have been extremely uncomfortable had she been alive; as it was she lay atop a remarkably large and irregular pile of debris. i got the impression that the inhabitants of the two buildings (none of whom were visible at the moment) had just thrown all the items, large and small alike, from the windows of the buildings into the alley, to fall where they would and who gives a damn. at some point my mom was there, and she was telling me about a terrifying close call in a failed elevator in the building we were standing on. then it was as if Mom had never been there, and i had only the story she told me, which i passed on to the disbelieving members of the small group i was still standing with. their discredulity seemed to stem from the fact that the building didn't seem tall enough for the story to be plausible.

Scene 2:
i was inside the building with the most incredulous member of the group, determined to prove Mom's story. we were standing in the parking garage, a split level affair that resembled the parking garage of the Park Place building in downtown Seattle. the sunlight was streaming in from my left, as i looked toward a bank of freight elevators directly in front of me. the human traffic in the parking garage definitely resembled an airport, and i saw a man in a uniform rolling a very large, dark blue baggage cart (with red accents) away from me, perpendicular to the traffic flow into the garage, toward the elevators. i was explaining to the other person something along the lines of, "see there's the elevator bank right there."

Scene 3:
then i found myself on the tarmac of an actual airport, with planes on the ground. a pilot was heading for his plane, and it didn't seem out of the ordinary at all for me to be standing on the tarmac with him. he was an older guy, and he offered to make an exchange with me....something i had (paper....my ticket?) for a sloppily-folded $100 bill. he held both items in his hand, and i only paused a few moments before taking the money, at which point he asked me something along the lines of, "now, isn't that better?" i'm not sure i agreed with him but i couldn't resist the money.

Scene 4:
then suddenly i was back on the rooftop again, looking down at the dead girl in the yellow dress. the very next thing i can remember is falling, down into the alley, toward the body. at the moment i should have impacted i woke up.

many people might be scared by a dream like that, but as i've stated before, i never get scared in dreams. anxious sometimes, a little tense, excited certainly- but never scared. i just find the whole thing too interesting. that was definitely a wierd one. usually they come in bunches, so maybe i'll get lucky and have another one.

falling asleep early yesterday, i never made it out (as planned) to get a new pair of shoes for work. i refuse to ruin another perfectly good pair of sneakers in that machine shop. it's too harsh an environment for them, the soles just can't take the grease and steel chips. i knew i was going to have to get out and get some boots, which i finally managed to do tonight. i spent about as much as i expected, which is more than i would have liked, but i think i got something that will last a while, and won't be too hot come summertime. we'll see how they work out, and how long these last. i tried on a bunch of what they had in my size, and the most comfortable ones were actually the cheapest, i'm just hoping they're tough enough to take the abuse.

this is the point of the post where i realize i've retraced my footsteps all the way back to where i am now: the point at which i let you off the hook and head for the sack with my book.

PEACE