elainegrey

My dreams tend to have surreal landscapes. Last night's involved river-like waters and odd fishing. The night before i dreamed of a new home that had a second cottage attached. I was finally checking out the cottage and it was a maze of additions and ad hoc construction, including a school bus. It was furnished in a weird sort of dollar store luxury, odd dog kennels built in (and then i would see how plastic laundry baskets and towels were involved. And then we discovered that an older women (or women?) still lived in the maze.

I'm not sure why i would want to remember my dreams. I have a strong sense that the visual symbolism is not tightly coupled to the process that is occurring: the seeking and exploring experience seems more significant.

However, sleeping in the past two mornings i actually have snippets to remember, so there's that.

Friday night Carrie and i went over to my sisters, ostensibly to go for a walk. Instead i plopped down and had a few glasses of wine with my sister. Yesterday morning i spent with my sister at my parents, ostensibly to go through a pile of my mother's craft stuff. I cam home with block printing tools and stuff to preserve flowers. My sister: much more stuff.

We also had a long chat with my Dad who remains distressed about his mother's husband, C. C was scheduled to come home from rehab this week, but had yet another stroke. Meanwhile, Dad's mother has been paying all C's bills (including his broker bills), running her into an overdraft state. I think Dad's resolved the urgent part, but he's anxious about getting C's sister to pay his mother back. All in all he's anxious about C and his people exploiting his mother's generosity. (And C is not in need of financial generosity to survive.) (Although Grandmámá's gifts of gold to C ... eyeroll.) The long story of how C has only partially managed his affairs, such as appointing those responsible for financial & health decisions, but not telling them and not being willing to tell my father who they are, just leads to more indignation.
Because now i'm indignant that this man's selfishness and paranoia puts my dad in the uncomfortable situation of being the competent person on the scene with no authority. I know C has accused my dad of being after my grandmother's money, and dealing with such accusations weighs heavily on my father.

And, this is very comfortable middle class money: my grandmother worked for the phone company when it was an monopoly. We're not talking fiscal empires here.

The rest of the afternoon and evening i just relaxed. We did take Carrie for a walk at the walking track at the near by community college.

At home for me, elephants have been a concern. The rest of the clowder have had their own small dramas: Greycie Loo is coming out of the traumatized reaction to her teeth cleaning. Carrie was going to be spayed, but after being left at the vet, it turned out the vet & back up vets were unwell.

I've finally settled up for my road trip with Carrie, reserving places for us to stay. I remain closed up, not reaching out to family other than those here and not reaching out to friends. Hard for me to parse what is going on with that. The governance issues of this country can't be blamed for everything -- yet ....

[and then i had to go about my day]

Wednesday collapsed under the weight of too many concerns. I read  Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children sitting on the deck in the sun: it helped. Mental reset. Christine & elephants yesterday and the wee hours this morning. I think once Greycie Loo is back from her teeth cleaning (off to take her in shortly) things may settle here.

Measuring the weight i felt i was carrying, i decided to not attend the Raleigh march and stay home. I suspect i'll end up working outside in the rain, moving dirt.

Carrie Dog is settling in -- which actually means she's less settled. She's getting a bounce in her step and i really wish we could let her off leash in the front yard. She just isn't quite under voice control yet, and she seems attracted to going down the driveway. She's got energy we don't know how to dispel. She's not interested in fetch. Long walks seem like a good plan, and Christine's sister has suggested a local dog park. I'm thinking of trying to tie her out while i work in the yard Saturday.

Gloom was going to continue with my laptop failing to start. That has been resolved, though, so all's good.

Gotta love the new search engine techniques. I simply searched on "macbook won't start" and Google pulled up a little snippet that had, apparently, just the trick.

I miss yanking the battery out as a solution.

Gloom lifts with the lovely emails thanking Christine for standing up against the propagandistic video. Yesterday evening i shared with her the BBS goings-on. We both don't want fear to drive our decisions, and i made clear that my distress that persons would immediately call for a boycott over a post to a mailing list was not distress that she posted. And then we had a good laugh about what boycotting a blog would require.

Regarding the German shepherd question from yesterday, i think my real dog question has to do with how soon do dogs identify a family as their pack? Christine and i have been talking about D-O-Gs (when in front of the C-A-Ts): we've often talked about how when we left apartment living we would get one, or two.

So when i misspell shepherd as shepard, spell check suggests Shepard. When i misspell shepherd as shephard i get no suggestions at all. I hate schwas. I remember learning about schwas in elementary school and spelling and just being completely baffled. I don't think the a vs e schawa issue i have is related to the pen-pin merger of my native region in the southeast US.

On Monday, we were discussing how a dog would affect the cats -- and Christine remains concerned about how the cats have adapted after the move. I have cat-dog concerns too, but mainly because i would want a dog that would be large enough to be threat to the cats. I find most small dogs... unfair to dog-dom? I grew up with medium sized dogs and have a bias towards shepherds. We always had dogs and cats and never had issues -- but a neighbor's dog killed my brother's cat and i am well aware of the potential.