Weird Dream Channel

I'm traveling somewhere in the US, before my trip I had gone to the ATM and gotten cash to last me through a week at a resort where almost everything was pre-paid. Several times I have to pay for something, incidentals, a special meal or snack, and each time I open my wallet, take out $$ and get change. Also in my wallet is a large piece of paper, white with black printing, folded unevenly, some kind of receipt. Maybe more than one, because after a couple of times I can't see how much money is left in my wallet.

Check out of the resort and go to a small town in the middle of nowhere. There is a mom & pop convenience store with a deli attached. Pop is no longer with us, Mom is a pudgy woman who strikes me as evil in some way. The store has a hand-written sign done in spray paint on a piece of wood which looks like it was ripped out of the bottom of a sunken rowboat. I can't make out the name of the store. Inside the store it is dark, there is just a counter with some pens and pencils in a glass beer mug, and the owner is sitting behind the counter. To my left is one of those refrigerators with a glass door holding soft drinks, and it looks fully stocked. There is also a rack of small bags of potato chips on the counter. Nothing in there for me, so I go outside, and next door to the deli. Somehow in the time it took me to go outside, many years have passed, Mom has done very well with the deli, and now the spray paint sign hangs over a spanking new modern-looking building. The store is still the same dingy empty place, but the deli is now an open store font - no door, the whole front wall is open and people are lined up to be served.

I decide I don't want deli, I want a sit-down dinner, so I walk a little ways to a Middle Eastern restaurant. A gypsy woman is sitting at a small round table, heavy wood, big enough for two people to have dinner. She has no cash box or cash register, but she is clearly the person you order from and pay for your meal. One by one, two or three people come up to her and order something which sounds to me like "keefee" or "keetee" and I get the impression it's some kind of cured beef. I see them pay, it's $18. So I order, mumbling "keetee" so that if I've got it wrong she will think I've said it right. I look in my wallet, and there is only a 5 and a couple of 1's , so I ask if she takes credit cards. She looks at me like she did not understand. I take out my credit card and show it to her. She says something through clenched teeth, with muted anger, but I can't understand. I ask her to repeat it, and get a slightly angrier, louder response which I still can't understand. Her accent and the clenched teeth thing is making it not understandable. A waiter comes by and says, in the same gypsy accent but clearly, "we do not like credit cards, but accept them for the convenience of our guests". The gypsy lady unclenches enough for me to understand that I need ID with a photo which looks like me on it, not something taken 20 years ago. This is when I wake up.

---

Good thing, too, because in the dream, and in the waking world, my driver's license photo was taken 20 years ago, and looks very little like the mostly bald, white-haired middle-aged man I am today.

teasing an LJ friend

For cinchntouch - it ain't Brandon Lee, but check him out anyway

He's Dead, Jim

He's Dead, Jim
Originally uploaded by how3ird.

The boy did not fall, he was posing for his pals. Note the kid in the foreground up top, who seems to be flying.

Uploaded six more to Flickr. Why six? Because that's the daily limit for the NikonStunningGallery which got me started on Flickr.

Satyrdaze

Very quiet day, I slept in, warmed up a smoked turkey drumstick for lunch, went to the massage place from 2 weeks ago, got another decent massage from a Chinese lady named Fifi. I didn't ask.

The techie challenge of the day was to slurp about 1GB of music from the Sony mini-disks I'd brought with me to Thailand, and put them on the spiffy new player. Good news is the new player has a much easier to read and navigate display, bad news is it is stuck at a 1GB limit, where each mini-disk is 1GB and even at the lowest Sony compression my music takes up 5 disks. I dealt. Almost 700 tunes is more than enough to get me through one week overseas. So, one more project done.

Got email from the mother of the bride, she suggested a wedding gift, which was one of my dilemmas. I wanted to bring something which was small, but valuable. The idea is to travel light. The idea was a Thai batik, which is great because it's valuable, beautiful, and fits in a very small space in my luggage. The other possibility was his and hers sapphires, but I like the batik idea best for the wedding gift - something they can enjoy together. I'm thinking embroidery swatches for the parental units.

Watched some TV - a special on the secret life of Isaac Newton. Bottom line is he was a heretical alchemist in his spare time. Sat out on the patio and read some more All Tomorrow's Parties. Not as good as Gibson's early stuff, but good enough. The cats kept me company, sitting on the mats and the cement and the dirt, watching the world through the gap in the bottom of the wall. Noisy party across the way, they had lined up the empties on the wall (it's only 4 feet high) and it looked like 3 per person and growing.

Just spent an hour and a half looking at the Blue Cross pharmaceutical formulary to find out if my drugs are included when I have to switch providers next week. I hate to say it, but as far as drug coverage goes, it looks like I am being forced into a better plan. I hate when being a curmudgeon kicks me in the butt. Also went online to find providers and discovered that I don't have to choose a personal primary care physician as they said, if I just choose a medical group.Camino is building that new hospital up at the old Emporium site, and they seem to have a widely distributed set of clinics in my area. Three times as many as Kaiser. Harumph, butt-kicked again.

So I logged into the benefits page and signed up. And got another shock - the company's cost for me is only $151/month. The guy who showed us the rate sheet said it was $312, compared to $375 for Kaiser. Strange, because Kaiser's numbers were closer to $202 when I looked them up. And as an Old Fart, my rates are higher than average.

Looked up the Pickwick pub, and if I wake up in time I'll make the drive to join britgeekgrrl's soccer madness, at least in time for the second half. IMHO it all boils down to the last 20 seconds anyway, since they incessantly replay the previously scored goals.