of the bounty of the garden

hummus & falafel pita sammies, our first few tomatoes from the yard, many many otter pops.

Our gardens and my parents' gardens are somehow connected. I'm inspecting our Hillbilly tomato plants, looking for signs of flowering or fruiting. Frustrating! But then I finally spy them, probably the hips of flowers, the fruit probably too small to see, still up inside. The plants are actually covered with them. There is a tiny set of ruined, dried up fruit, too, on one plant, like four sun-drieds, but tiny. That won't happen again, we're on it.

And then I saunter over into my parents' gardens. They've been out of town, and I don't know my way around their vegetables. Here and there, I come upon more and more bushes. A bell pepper that is huge & tall, at least 5 feet tall and with two finished-- actually about 2 days over-ripe-- peppers, and many many more about to come ready. I take the two peppers, I will stuff and roast them.

Flash to me in my kitchen, I have Quorn cutlets and I want to shave them into fine cut strips, but my knifework is poor and I end up hacking them. I can do better and begin again, and I will mix that with rice and cheese.

Flash back to the gardens, I find a large tomato vine, again very tall, with many tomatoes but none ripe. In a big (waist high) plastic pot, I find a strange chile vine. It was covered, some time back due to weather, with a tarp with dirt on top of it. I pull this back and find that the vine has thrived and produced many, many chilies, slowly ripening in the wan, brownish light coming through the side of the pot. Some are nearly ripe, but not quite. WIth the full sunlight, we will have a bushel of chilies in only a day or two, now that they're uncovered.

starcraft retreat with co-workers

from a few nights ago, probably thursday night. beer, frontier vegetarian burrito, early to bed.

On retreat with a group of co-workers from IV. We're up in the mountains, building relationships apparently through taking part in mock battle situations. I've been appointed commander of my particular team & army. View swings back and forth between realtime and birdseye map. We've successfully rampaged up to the north, wiping out the remnants of the yellow team. But recon shows a major force of orange team units massing to push back down through that very area, and we are spread out and thin, if numerous. I call for a withdrawl back to our staging areas, behind the safety of a bottleneck with an overlook.

My plan is to install heavy artillery/tanks along the top of this cliff face, to bombard any approaching orange forces. I need to protect these installations from air attack and order Big Mike to start on anti-aircraft systems. I have these big, shallow fiberglass boxes that will serve as the bases of the AA towers. I drag one set into place and show Mike what I mean. There's little time and I'm beginning to feel frustrated at the level of inaction.

guido is shot

second dream of the night.

Someone is leaning in my bedroom window, firing randomly with a pellet gun. I am aggravated, but unharmed, but when I sit up, I realize there's a dog in bed with me. I think it's Pee Wee, and she seems dead, hit by a pellet. I yell her name, then realize that it's Guido, actually. I am so full of anguish, I know that I will have to tell Josh what happened, that his little guy is dead. My head clears and I realize that it was not real, I'm awake, Guido looks at me sleepily.

trouble with the alarm

il vicino #12, water, otter pops, late night cereal

First part of the dream I've forgotten, we're off at the war, somewhere. Don't remember. Something about a run-down town and a dance club. [I've dreamed this place before. A place I had to be dropped off.]

Back home at my parents' house, though it's mine & Josh's, too. We come home and the alarm is acting funny, I suspect that it may have been tripped. Damn fucked up sensor. We're home for some time when Stephanie calls, tells us that the alarm has gone off, and they called her apparently. Our conversation about whether the police were dispatched or not is confused, at fisrt it's one, then the other. But apparently, there is some particular individual or personality in the mix that insisted that the police come, even though they know it is a false alarm. Capricious, and I'm pissed.

I'm in Eric's old room, which is now my bedroom/office, on the computer checking email and bank accts. We're waiting for the police to arrive, and all somewhat apprehensive, due to our political leanings and where we just were, off at the fight. The pigs do come, but I think they quickly disappear or become a guy from the alarm company. He continues work that was already started. There in the wall of my room, if you pull back the door just so or something, the wall is massively hollowed out, back around and behind the large fuse panel. It's somewhat like the wall is 6 feet thick of solid plaster that has been carved into a curving nook. I realize that it breaks through into the adjoining closet from the next bedroom, and also it could easily be put though into the bathroom. [A setup that actually references the 411 house, not 9305, were the hole carved into my bedroom wall.] This gives me an idea about a little escape route, in case "they" ever come for us. I could duck through and out the bathroom, and at least buy a couple of seconds if they were searching room to room. The police are around, though, and I need to conceal my computer activity, and many things in my room. The danger is very real, even if they seem to be unaware of who we are.

wedding crashers

Felt like i was on crack all night, got up at 1.15 to have cereal & a hot shower, read 'till 2.15. Even in my dream, I felt exhausted.

We go to the event. It's going to be out on an open field there on campus. We try to get there early, but it's really kind of a waste of time. So we end up just fucking around & waiting. So-and-so, the female of our group, needs to be picked up, someone goes to get her. Back on campus, there is a wedding, and they're handing out programs to anyone who walks by. We all end up with one. Should we just go to the wedding to burn time? The question is asked. I have to piss [why do i pee so much in my dreams?], so I go down into the sports plex buildng, down in the basement. I'm naked and feeling really unattractive, but then the place seems deserted on the whole. I find a stall, do my business. Someone's around out there. There's a mirror in the stall and I look at myself. When did I get THIS fat, I wonder. I go back up, we've decided to hit the wedding, but we're disappointed that the real food & festivity doesn't begin until SO much later, that we would miss it. But hell, we'll see the service and there's bound to be some grapes & crackers after, at least. We're hungry. We maneuver into what seems to be the line, but then realize the real line is up and around. We go up there, and they take our programs like tickets, which seems dumb to me.

the mayor's a tool and i have to pee

Humus & salad dinner, water, a glass of ovaltine.

At work at a bar, everything white and black. Jessica is behind the bar, I'm off and sitting at the end of the bar, against the wall. Mayor Chavez is there, watching the results of the election. He's looking old and washed up in flashy blue sunglasses and a trendy shirt, unbottoned half way. He's being an asshole, and Jessica finally snaps and starts telling him off. I put her into sort of headlock, my elbow locked across her mouth. She struggles a little bit, and somehow keeps washing glasses behind the bar. I let her go, and whisper that he's just an asshole and she should just let it go. The Mayor looks pleased and self righteous, and I tell him to grow the fuck up and behave himself. He's mortified that someone as lowly as myself would slap him in the face.

I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. As I go in, another guy behind me turns to walk away, apparently because I'm going in. I try to yell after him that there's plenty of stalls, but I can't think of the words. I go in, pull a garden hose off the wall and into a stall with me. Behind the can there's a huge canyon dropoff, each stall has a corresponding section of huge noodles suspended from the other side. Mine are giant brown, buckwheat noodles. I pee all over them-- I pee and pee and pee-- and then I hose down the noodles with the garden hose. The noodles begin to hydrate and turn a lighter color.

travelling adventures

dreamed this saturday night after humus dinner & beer bust with jonsey

Josh and I are travelliing in London, sitting in a storefront cafe or pub having a bite and a beer. Environment has a green glow to it. I want to get out and about, Josh wants to sit. I promise not to get lost and go walking. Once in the street I find myself naked, but take two newspapers-- one for the front, one for the back-- and charge on. There's some amount of outrage from passersby about me going around that way, maybe some police harassment. The cafe fronts a HUGE plaza/intersection (talkin' the size of Red Square), longer than wide, some massive buildings around it. One is black and made of nesting shapes, like the Sydney opera house, but with Dutch guild house profiles. I make some rounds. trying to reach the black building, but i can't get to it, it's always too far away, always getting further.

I get back to the cafe and Josh is gone-- how will I find him? There's a payphonethat keeps ringing. Is it Josh trying to call me? I never get to it on time, but then a 40's noir street kid-- cap, coat, gloves with the fingertips cut out-- is there and he'll answer it for me, for a price.

We catch a flight to Scotland/India, but there's a stop-over on a small island. (Did we fly in on a pontoon boat?) The island is dominated by a big, old, decaying hotel. We have to go through and down to the docks at the foot of the building. The elevator down is actually a grimy, semi-furnished room, pink or maybe mint green walls. How do you get the door closed? We finally figure out how to force the huge rolling door closed, now how to get this thing moving? Time is short, we need to get down to the docks and catch our boat. We find the small, dumpy button, like an old doorbell, in the middle of one wall and hit it, finally on our way.

We get out to the dock, and there's a huge crowd. We're late and missed our boat, but the guy finds us a space to squeeze in on another. The boats are the size of a bed, flat, like really thick cardboard or gatorboard. The sides are only two or three inches high. Some sorority types are on with us.

We make it. A loud, bright, colorful bazaar.