The Recurring Architecture of My Dreams, Part I: The Early Years

I had a dream over the weekend and it has caused me to think about my history of dreams and some of their standard settings. This last one was some place new yet familiar.

I can remember dreams going back to my early childhood (five or six years old). The two earliest were non-repeating: the first has no setting just a dark background and involves a standard wooden school ruler, 12 inches long with flat bottom and slightly beveled top, fractional inch segments* imprinted in black and the small metal insert running the length against which you could run your pen or pencil to draw a perfect straight line. I hold the ruler in my right hand (I'm left-handed) while a pale green, luminescent spider about an inch long slowly crawls from the far end toward me. I watch as it passes each printed tick mark on the ruler, starting and stopping, glowing faintly as it closes and I can not let go no matter how hard I try until I wake just before it touches me.

The second one seems more. . . normal . . . for a five/six year old: The new suburban neighborhood in which we lived backed up to, and was named for, a long, forested ridge on the other side of which was a reservoir. On the crest of the ridge, one tree stood above all the others, a pine with a peculiar top which, if you squinted just right, or had very poor eyesight as I do and couldn't focus properly, looked an awful lot like a Tyrannosaur. Which, in my dream, it became and waved its tiny arms about and chomped its huge jaws but never came down into our little valley because it was still rooted up there.

Both of those dreams are over fifty years old and only happened once.

The first of my recurring dreams started shortly after. It was also the first of my lucid dreams. It was the flying dream.

I remember lying on my back, under the covers, yet not touching the bed. With a little effort I could swing my body sideways, left then right, until I was moving like a pendulum or someone swinging in a hammock. Soon I was flying two or three times a week. I still remember the delight I felt when I eventually realized I could control how far I could arc the swing and when I first performed a full barrel roll.

At some point, I turned over so I was facing down and thus began moving through space. Left, right forward and (with some difficulty) back were mine. The only thing I never got the hang of was altitude control and I remained at a constant (and not coincidental since that just happened to be the height of my bed) three feet off the ground. And this is where the first of the recurring locations came in as I found myself repeatedly navigating through my brightly lit, empty school, into and out of classrooms and up and down the clean, polished hallway, no one else around, until, inevitably, the one long hallway would narrow down in a kind of forced perspective and I found myself with shoulders wedged against the walls unable to move and woke up. The school setting was accurate down to the desk arrangements, lights and radiators in the classrooms, including the overall floor plan. As dream settings go, except for the last little bit, it was quite mundane.

A couple years later we moved to another town and those dreams ended,

* There was no such thing as metric in those days. I wear an onion on my belt.

An Exception to the Exception?

I have a  policy of not harming spiders, even when they build webs in the house, because of the good they do, provided the webs are kept out of sight, i.e., down by the floor under the cabinet overhangs, behind immovable objects such as sofas, etc.

Overnight, someone broke the rule and this morning I found a small web with small occupant strung in my bathroom between the sink faucet and the mirror behind it. I was about to remove it when I noticed the corpse of a mosquito lying beneath it. It was one of those small, silent mosquitoes we have down here that are very difficult to see and give no warning, going for knuckles and other joints and raising extremely painful (and long lasting) welts.

So now I'm torn.

The Perfectionist, or, The Architect Recycles Her Edible Structure

Bartleby threw up all over the floor last night. At least she was considerate enough to do it on the tiles just outside my brother's room and not on his bed or rug. She'd been acting kind of standoffish the day before, not wanting to be touched at all and I think feeling ill may have had something to do with that. She also drank inordinate amounts of water and just before the incident was doing laps through the kitchen and living room which I now surmise meant, "Let me out, quick! I'm a gonna barf!" I'll know better next time. For the record and considering the sheer volume I had to clean, I believe the cat is hollow.

Afterward, that is, I after I cleaned up all the evidence and she'd had a chance to eat again, she became very friendly, crawling up into my chair and sleeping in my lap for two hours.

Which is not the actual story but merely the lead-in.

As I was walking out to the trash with my hazardous waste bag, I bumped into a spider web. Now, this is a frequent occurrence there being a persistent little arachnid constantly stringing strands between my car and the orange tree. Actually, what I collided with was the lower of two horizontal guy wires about three feet apart, a thick strand, twine as opposed to thread, forehead high, stretched across the walkway from the garage to the oak, a good seven feet long and taking some (slight but noticeable) effort to snap. Snap it I did and when I looked up the bottom third of the web had swung up and was stuck to the middle with a large brown spider tangled up in between.

I felt bad about that but it was dark, even with the walkway lights on, and the web hadn't been there four hours ago when I'd come home. I was hoping, since it was a beautiful web, regular and symmetrical (until I collided with it), that the spider would rebuild it, but, when I went back out to look a couple of hours later (around 10:30 or so) only the top supporting cable was left, and this morning even that was gone.

It seems like a lot of silk to eat, but then, it was a lot of silk to spin in the first place. I presume she'll try again someplace else with traffic more appropriately sized to her abilities.

Good Citizens

I voted early late yesterday. It was an interesting exercise in civic virtue and endurance.

5:10 p.m. -- Found a parking spot in the nearly full lot across the street from the county office and got in line. I'm less than fifteen feet from the entrance. Unfortunately the line goes the other way, down the length of the building into another parking lot, disappears around the corner and comes back again alongside the building to the door. Some female DJ has set up just past the door and is urging people to get excited, clap, cheer and dance in line while she alternates playing patriotic songs ("Anchors Aweigh," "The Ballad of the Green Berets," "The Caissons Go Rolling Along") and Village People hits (unless "In the Navy" is considered a patriotic song now). At least, in this segment of the line, we are slowly shuffling away from her.

5:25 p.m. -- The sun is shining, the air is warm, the sky is cloudless and deep with sixteen buzzards lazily circling together high overhead sharing a single thermal. The short Cuban woman immediately in front of me is reading her Nook. We've made some progress and the line has filled in behind us but we can still hear the music. The cameraman from the local Fox station has panned the crowd a couple of times and is leaving.

5:35 p.m. -- The two rather large young women behind me are on a cell phone: "We're going to the rodeo tomorrow night. Ask him if he wants us to take his truck there and sell it. There'll be, like, a thousand cowboys there."

5:50 p.m. -- We have reached the first turn. The line is revealed to be sort of golf club-shaped and we have traveled down the length of the shaft and are just starting across the base of the club head. The flock of buzzards has drifted off to the east.

6:05 p.m. -- I have a better view of the crowd as it loops around. There are people of European, African and Asian extraction, some in mixed groups, and a few unidentifiables. There are singles, couples and families, older folks with large bellies and tractor caps, young people with very short and very long hair, a couple of shirt and tie types and -- this being Florida -- a whole slew of Bermuda shorts and polo shirts.

6:10 p.m. -- Starting the second hour. The whole bottom-of-the-club-head part of the line, being in the parking lot, has to shuffle around like an immobile conga line to allow two cars that we have surrounded to leave. We imitate a rough sine wave. Both vehicles escape. No one loses their place. The Cuban woman looks up from her story to tell me how impressed she is that we Americans are actually willing to stand in line this long for anything.

6:15 p.m. -- We have reached the second turn and are now moving toward the top of the club head. People who are part of groups are temporarily dropping out of line to go sit on the curb. One gentleman is leaning against a Dumpster and the family a couple of people in front of the Cuban woman who is back to reading her Nook have split up with the mom taking the baby and carriage off somewhere.

6:40 p.m. -- The third turn. We are now starting across the top of the club head. We are also, at last, on the sidewalk that circles the building. Which means, we are also, finally, headed toward the entrance to the polling station. It gives us a sense of accomplishment. The sun goes down. Although the sky stays yellow and pale blue, without clouds the air cools quickly. Somewhere behind the rodeo girls, I overhear one couple talking to another about how they have friends in Illinois. I hear the words "their senator" and "well, they ought to know, then" but cannot tell either from context or tone of voice whether they are praising Obama or damning him.

6:55 p.m. -- The building exterior lights come on. Although the sky overhead has turned indigo, toward the horizon it's still pinkish orange creating intricately delicate silhouettes from the palm trees. The rodeo girls are talking with a young Nicaraguan woman who is voting for the first time. From what I can gather one of their horses (it's hard to tell from the names. They could just as easily be discussing a ranch hand) got in with the goats and scared them.

7:00 p.m. -- The final turn. From here its a straight line to the front door down a long narrow pink stucco arched arcade dripping with giant spider webs spun around and under the recessed ceiling lights (which is really pretty smart when you think about it because that's exactly where the moths and other night insects are going to go) and which the numerous, and very large, spiders are busy repairing and expanding. We remark on something we have all noticed: Although we see people being let in in groups, we have not seen anyone leaving. I suggest they're storing voters in a large underground vault, but one of the rodeo girls insists that if you don't vote for Obama, they just kill you right there. Can't tell if she approves or not.

7:10 p.m. -- Start of the third hour.  The reactions of the people when they turn that corner and recognize the final gauntlet they must negotiate is amusing. Several, including the larger of the rodeo girls, decide to step out of the arcade and move along on the lawn parallel to the line. The line itself develops knots and gaps as people bunch up between light fixtures and avoid standing directly under webs. The spiders do have a tendency to jiggle around and occasionally drop a foot or two before catching themselves.

7:20 p.m. -- The larger rodeo girl rejoins us and the Nicaraguan amuses herself by playing "what's that on your shoulder?" with her. The Nicaraguan then begins to imagine that creepy things are on her but I let her know it's just karma crawling up her back.

7:25 p.m. -- There is a stifled scream behind us and we turn to see an open circle of six people staring at their feet. Apparently, a spider lost its footing, but they all bravely stomped it.

7:35 p.m. -- We're at the door! It is being guarded by a sweet little old lady of iron will and steel determination. She asks how many in our group (which we have sort of become over the course of the evening) and when one of the rodeo girls pipes up, "Table for eight, please," shuts the door in front of the Cuban woman.

7:40 p.m. -- We actually see some people leave and the gatekeeper lady lets the Cuban and me in. We are greeted by another line, this one to present IDs. There are three stations but only one in use. As we stand there a second station opens up. The rodeo girls and the Nicaraguan are let in. I say, "That's what you get for being a smart-ass," to the one who requested the table and she grins.

7:45 p.m. -- The Cuban lady and I present ID. Basically, you swipe your driver's license (or other acceptable form of ID including credit or debit card(!?! Seriously, WTF? debit or credit card?) Mine is fine but it turns out the Cuban lady has requested and received an absentee ballot and does not have it with her or proof that she did not already use it and so, after two hours and 35 minutes in line, she is taken away.

7:50 p.m. -- I sign electronically that I am not committing voter fraud and am sent to the next table where my ballot is printed out. I am told that, in this county, thanks to various local offices, referenda and initiatives, there are 32 possible different ballots. Every voter gets a custom one based on their precinct. mine is four large sheets, printed on both sides.

7:55 p.m. -- I manage to find the only sit down voting station in the building.

8:10 p.m. -- Beginning hour four.

8:15 p.m. -- I finish marking my ballot, put it in the protective "privacy jacket" and take it to the vote counting machine where, under the very-careful-not-to-notice-how-you-voted scrutiny of a poll worker I, after verifying my identity, feed the sheets into the machine. I give them back their pen and "privacy jacket" and they give me an "I Voted" sticker.

8:20 p.m. -- The rodeo girls and the Nicaraguan are finishing up the same time I am. We're all veterans now so we just nod and smile a little and say "goodbye." The parking lot is almost empty when I retrieve my car.

I find out later the Cuban lady had to cast a provisional ballot until the County Clerk's office can track down her absentee ballot. She spent all that time in line Friday because she works two jobs both Saturday, the last day of early voting, and Tuesday, election day. I, of course, have no idea who she voted for but with that kind of dedication this country's in good shape.

The Living Room Carpet, Red In Tooth and Claw

So, I was watching Rachel Maddow last night when a bug scurried out from next to the lanai door panel and into the middle of the room. Bugs, especially the ones that scurry by night, generally come in two varieties: spiders, which I let live despite being, sometimes, almost two inches in diameter because they tend to set up shop in out-of-the way places and eat flies and mosquitoes and other things I would otherwise have to kill myself; and what the natives, in a remarkable piece of rebranding implemented, successfully, to keep from squicking out the tourists, call a Palmetto bug but which is, in fact, nothing more than a giant, not-afraid-of-the-light (probably because of that very size) cockroach.

This one was not a spider.

Before I could get up from my chair and stomp the "Palmetto Bug," however, something very cool happened. Although we do not generally encourage the lizards in the lanai room or outside the front door to come in, and go to great lengths to remove them unharmed when they do, I may want to rethink that policy since this small lizard suddenly appeared from under the curtain by the lanai door and started stalking the roach. The lizard's reflexes were so fast it looked as if the two critters stopped, started and moved as one, but each little lightning movement brought the them ever so slightly closer together until the lizard pounced, grabbed the bug and lifted it off the floor.

Unfortunately, the roach was significantly larger than the lizard's head and it paused to reassess its options. Also unfortunately, this was when I decided to get a closer look at the circle of life dance being played out on the carpet and spooked the lizard. It dropped the bug, which didn't seem to have any inkling of the danger it had been in and wandered off under a side table. The lizard also scurried away from me and in roughly the same direction. The last I saw them, the lizard was once again in stalking mode. They both disappeared under an arm chair.

Coincidentally, I found a small lizard on the arm of the couch just before turning in for the night. I couldn't tell if it was the same one, but I opened the lanai door and helped it out.

Meanwhile the cat was at the front door begging for food.

Useless beast.

Redneck Studies

I've been studying my brother for some time now and I am beginning to get a handle on the concept of "Redneck" especially the southern variety. For one thing, it's an acquired trait. My brother was born and raised in New England and has lived everywhere from the northern plains to southern California without betraying any such tendencies previously.

One of the primary traits is the habit of trying to come up with original yet ad hoc solutions to common problems, attempting to bypass the ways of the world as it were, without, at the same time, covering all of the possible, and often obvious, consequences.

For example: My brother decided, a couple of years ago when gasoline prices were going through one of their regular and in no way manipulated spikes, to do a little hydrocarbon arbitrage. He bought a number of plastic jerry cans and filled them with regular unleaded in an attempt to lock in the price. The full cans he then stored in the shed out back.

Let's forget the opportunity cost of tying up cash in a volatile commodity.

The redneck point is: The shed is not watertight. Neither are the jerry cans. By the time the price of gas had risen enough for him to feel justified dipping into the strategic reserve, the cans contained probably 98% distilled petroleum and 2% H2O. I had to rescue him more than once before we figured out why his truck kept conking out on him (invariably in the middle of the night).

Although he no longer tops off the truck from the cans neither has he disposed of the contaminated fuel. (Note: Review the concept of sunk costs.) Apparently, a couple of weeks ago he filled the tank of the lawnmower from one of the cans. The lawn is now knee high and the grass is literally going to seed. (The length of time it has taken to fix the mower, this time, is not entirely his fault since Mom put the receiver of the phone in her room (Why does she even have a phone in her room?) down backwards which took the entire house off-line for the weekend (we don't use the land line much) causing the lawnmower repair guys to get a busy signal and delay returning the mower to us.)

The last time the mower needed repair (August) he bitched and moaned for a day and a half about the cost. This time, not a word. Which means he knows it's his fault. The repair guys didn't just find water in the tank. Spiders (more accurately, spider corpses) were clogging up the carburetor, too.

Eight-legged Sisyphus

Now that Rainy Season is over I have the tendency (unless my brother is going to turn on the sprinklers and water the lawn) to leave my car windows open at night. Keeps the interior from overheating once the sun is up again. Unfortunately, it also allows a very persistent, determined and ambitious spider to spin a web from the outside passenger mirror halfway across the dashboard.

We're talking maybe two feet from side to side and four or five inches high. And thick. I can feel the resistance when I sweep it away.

Every night. Every day.

The spider must be living in the car but I've never seen it. Or maybe it's in the mirror casing. I can't imagine what makes my dashboard such prime real estate but I know, whatever I do to that web today, it will be back tomorrow.