flemmings | Entries tagged with dreams

Dream that I'm in London, taking the Tube from my hotel, except that like Tokyo, the London underground also connects to trains within the city. But I was very underground in grey dark dirty concrete caverns, and the subway trains took forever to come and I was missing both my phone charger and tablet charger. Ran into my brother, there for a separate business meeting along with his besuited English counterpart, who told me I should go back to the hotel to get my chargers, so I waited for my subway train, and waited and waited and waited...

Some of this is owing to The Scholar and the Last Fairy Door, and some perhaps to bro and s-i-l taking an hour to get to the restaurant by transit when it should be straight up Bathurst, two stops to St George, and a ten minute walk max up Bedford. Bathurst doubtless being the culprit, and dedicated lanes south of Bloor a very good idea: except that it's a streetcar south of Bloor and no way to stop people sitting on the tracks trying to turn left.

The only way I will not drink is simply to have no alcohol in the house. OTOH if it weren't raining and I didn't ache from vaccines and gardening, I might not need alcohol at all.

Have several books on the go and don't much want to read any of them. Discover that yes, I did read Network Effect and Exit Strategy in dead tree last year, is probably why they made more sense then. Sent Meddling Kids ebook back to the library because it was clearly heading towards Lovecraft Land and I have very limited patience (read: none) with abominable eldritch horrors and elder gods and whatever else horripilated that very unpleasant man's skin. Also The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, because it was set sort of this-world, not the pleasant otherworld of Waggoner's first two books.

Have KJ Charles' Think of England which is clearly heading towards disaster! before I presume happi endo, and I don't want to be there for it. The mystery set in ancient Athens with a playwright is pedestrian, because anybody writing theatre in ancient Athens is up against Mary Renault, even if I *know* Renault was cheating. She cheats so plausibly, is all. The Path of Thorns is growing tedious for no good reason, just it is. Have yet to start The Scholar and the Last Fairy Door, simply because Perry and I are a bad fit. So I read Paarfi instead, and even Jhegaala, because I am loose-ended in the extreme.

Did dream pleasantly last night, or rather this morning, of cleaning up at daycare with Daycare Hugh who in RL is as retired as I, and about to become a grandfather. Which segued into me buying a dress at a dress shop on the second floor of a nondescript outlet, sort of hidden from the masses behind a special door. Dresses turned out to be hand-decorated by the middle-aged woman who let me in to the large room where the special dresses were.

Other reason I can't get out is that my feet crack deeply and constantly unless I pumice and moisturize them before the cracks get too deep. I have a crack across the instep of my right foot which is hard to get at, what with pumice, elbows and ticklishness being as they are, so I have essentially a deep cut on the sole of that foot which is taking its own sweet time closing up, in spite of first aid cream and bandaids and all. Have bolstered the bandaids with panty liners to cushion it, but it still hurts to step on. So yeah, couch potatodom it is.

Laundromat was achieved so now I have underwear, or will when they finish drying. Hanging on the drying frame which is hanging from the living room chandelier, because I still don't trust me on the basement stairs. Also have face cloths and hand towels because I snagged a dryer before the guy with a good six bags of laundry could grab them all. No, I'm being unkind. He only used four dryers and there was no one else there.

Recurring nightmare last night, only this time the person I cut open and dumped into a non-existent pond was my father. Woke from that, was having nothing to do with the 6 a.m. aftertaste so went back to sleep and dreamed something pleasanter which I have now forgotten. Was still logey when I got up and had infinite trouble with the day's Squaredle. Could be allergies starting, I suppose.

Being in a funk because of All That, I bought a litre and a half of white wine yesterday, and have gone back to 40 minute sessions with the bike machine. I think the exercise is probably more efficacious than the wine, and if allergies really are starting, I should keep the wine for cooking with.

Sigh. Five years of pandemic. Do wonder if I've ever caught it and that's why I keep shedding like a sheepdog. And can't find lint rollers anywhere to remove it from my dark clothes.

Must have been Tuesday that I called the dentist's secretary to straighten out the confusion over my receipt. She had no idea how I came to have a receipt for $13,000+ either. But the correct one came in the mail today, so that's one thing off my list. I might even get my forms to the accountant before April, first time ever.

Read somewhere the account of a guy who was in a coma or anyway unconscious for a spell and in that time lived a life in minute detail with a girlfriend whom he married and had kids with: and then woke up to find that his very real life didn't exist. Not that bad for me, but in my two hour sleep-in this morning I dreamed a whole affair with this guy from when we started dating to when I broke off with him because, basically, I really didn't know how to have a relationship with someone and especially not this guy. Who had gone and rented an apartment for us without asking if I wanted to move in with him. Which I explained to my mother was what's called a red flag. This was at a pseudo-Bedford but much larger and fancier with my family still living there. No wonder I didn't want to move into an apartment.

Hydro bill also comes in, with a minus amount. Fine, that's a good fifty dollars saved. And then run across a FB ad for a Muslim food bank which, like all food banks in this burg, is running out of supplies, with the added wrinkle of halal and Ramadan. So send them the money saved on overpaying my electricity last month. Goes around, comes around.

Mh so the posties are ordered back to work. The posties are, rightly, not happy about this. Also a month worth's of mail and parcels to be delivered. Nope, lunar New Year's it is. Expect nothing before that. Especially as I have no stamps.

Otherwise, it rains. I make hamburger stroganoff. I dream of leaving the daycare with my two bicycles, which is behind the doors to the UC quad, only instead of leading into the quad they take you to.. East Hall? West Hall? The junior common room? A lofty barn-like structure in any case. Some place I haven't been to in going on fifty years, whatever. Can't remember where I wrote my Chaucer exam in '77 but that seems right.

Dream of vaguely Edwardian setting except for Mother's friend Mrs. O'S in an emerald green 50s dress with patch pockets over the chest whose flaps stuck out at a 90 degree angle. Problem was actually who would inherit the throne of England, there being something wrong about George V. Possibly that his name wasn't in fact George.

A few days ago found some empty peanut shells near the stove's burners. Figured I might have dropped a few when decanting shell holder into bio garbage bag. Came home to day to find more peanut shells by burner, and hear something scritchying in the kitchen. Happened same time that NNDs returned home, could have been little M doing something in the hall, but peanuts suggest it's much more likely that mice have moved in for the winter. Have put trap by stove in case.

Apparently our warm September means no fall colours this year. A pity, but my gas bill thanks me.

Finished the four volumes the library has of Daemons of the Shadow Realm and immediately want vol.5, orderable from the mighty river. But after 5 I will want 6 which doesn't come out until November, and 7 in March. So am trying to possess soul in patience till then.

Reading Daemons of the Shadow Realm before bed yesterday got me a very unpleasant nightmare of being a Japanese girl being stalked by a something, or a menacing someone, in an obscure city landscape. This will not stop me from reading vol2 because I'm such a sucker for backstories, but yes, this manga is quite as unpleasant as James Nicoll said it was. I mean, I was forewarned because it was his review that made me put a hold on it in the first place, but that's no consolation.

Went to get a scrip at the pharmacy yesterday, pharmacist wanted to review my meds with me, so after the lunch break scrum cleared a bit that's what we did. She recommends the pneumonia vax which enh, because I'm never near enough to anyone to catch it, though I always blamed the walking pneumonia of '85 on my friends' unheated Amsterdam apartment in December. But it was just as likely from the flight back. I think the pneumovax is free to crones my age, I just don't know if I care for the side effects. The shingles vax she also wants me to get is *not* free, and costs big bucks, and also has side effects. I had the old vaccine somewhere back in the day, but they still want people to get the Shingrix. And I did have chicken pox as a kid back in the dark ages, so caution suggests...

But also the covid vaccine is now available and she was all ready to give it to me after I'd filled out the form. Only I have appointments next week, so I'll do it when my schedule is clear. And a good thing I triple-checked said schedule, because I had it firmly in my head that the catscan was Tuesday the eighth and it's actually this Monday. The follow-up is on a Tuesday, the 15th.

Today was something of a bust since all I did was get sheets and towels to the laundromat and got caught in the rain doing it, but that's one foot-dragging chore over. Was pleased to discover that the trucks which were blocking the route to the laundromat the other day were actually replacing the broken and uneven sidewalk, both sides, that makes getting there with a loaded walker a pain. They still haven't made good the curb: asphalt is down but not the concrete yet, so there's a bit of a gutter in the roadway one must bump over, but it's a definite improvement over what it was before.

Uneasy dream last night of accidentally running into a (non-existent) former lover whom I had not only ghosted but whose very name I couldn't remember. Very embarrassing. She looked disgusted, not surprisingly, and told me what it was. I can't now recall what language it was, though I may have *thought* it was Greek, but I knew that in that language her name meant 'hope.' Make of that what you will.

But since it was barely light when I woke from that, I turned over and went back to sleep and dreamed, more cheerfully, of attending Japanese classes on the main hall of a sort of Shaolin temple. I sat up at the front- on the floor, of course- but everyone else was clustered at the back. The only trouble, when I left the classroom and went out amid various pupils practising sort of kung fu moves, was not being able to find my shoes, which should have been at the door of the main hall. Not there, and not in the rooms after it (which may or may not have segued into that non-existent restaurant on Bloor, back of the Colonnade) but with relief appeared at the foot of the wooden steps leading up to the temple.

If I get up when I wake up, instead of rolling over and going back to sleep for two hours, I can get to the laundromat ahead of the stinky softener using hordes. Early enough and I can get in before the café owner turns on the whiny music. Have done this two days in a row, though today was later with whiny music, and now have a clean throw rug from the side room, clean face towels and cloths, clean sheets and pillowcases, and a clean terrycloth sheet to clutch at night. And can stay home for the next three days while the air show goes booming around, with my three books from the library yesterday..

But getting up when I wake up makes me very tired. Also achy, but that may be just the humidity. It isn't really that hot, but muggy oh dear yes.

Reading The Mystery of the Red House, or rereading rather, because someone posted fanfic for it and I couldn't recall a single detail of the book. Still can't, even though I'm halfway through it.

Read the latest Rivers of London comic the other day, and a chunk of Questionable Content last night. Reading graphic novels gives me, well, graphic dreams, though not directly related. RoL's catgirls yielded a fat Chinese girl baby, maybe 8 or 9 months, with some kind of disability that required a special sort of side-opening seat to accommodate it. Last night's is gone but doubtless involved frustration with a phone that wouldn't work, because all my dreams do.

Dreamed again of That Place I Used to Live In where I left all my books for years and years. Though this time I'd come back to it and was renting it with my upstairs neighbours Jeanette and Juliana from Brunswick. But my books weren't in the closet where I'd left them, the shelves were totally bare, and I was perplexed at what the landlord could have done with them. But on the third floor of the house/ apartment were these drawers and in them were-- something thin stored on their sides: record albums or anime cels or maybe comicbooks in plastic? which were as good as my books, I think.

Rain and thunder at intervals all day. Stop and start, sun comes out and then dark again. Streets have flooded out west though I never noticed the downpours here, either because they didn't happen or because I've been on the couch all afternoon, looking at books from-- um, not my childhood exactly, but adolescence certainly. Egypt Under the Pharaohs by Leonard Cottrell, in which ancient Egyptian generals become old Malaysia hands from Blighty oh dear, and The Last of the Wine, whose print is much tinier than my 17 year old self remembers. Have never been able to read Renault with an open mind since (her early 70s snarking at feminism in The Mask of Apollo) an early master's thesis I read that said, basically, all Renault's heroes have daddy issues and Theseus is a dork. They do and he is.

This morning's lie in dream was an almost coherent From Eroica one where Dorian was throwing a birthday party for Klaus with a fancy cake, which Klaus didn't want to eat of course, and an incursion by spies of some sort, as well as a gaggle of teenage boys who were there for some other reason, and distracted Dorian was trying to keep all these things together.

Then as I was sitting on the couch there was a tremendous banging at the door, which left me uncertain if it was my door or NND's. But then Guy (it's always guys who bang on the screen door; women ring) found the doorbell and pressed that, so yes, my house, and what does he want so insistently? He wants me to sign for my 100 Demons, is what, so how lucky I answered the door.

Meanwhile the next installment of Murderbot arrives at the library so off I trot to get it. Then drop by Ninetails coffee shop for a cold brew and look, today they have the smoked salmon and yuzu mayo croissant, so I get one of those. Barista says 'you can sit down, I'll bring you your coffee' and I say I'm outside, where I've parked the rollator, and he says he'll bring me my coffee anyway. This is pleasant.

White haired woman in sunglasses stops as she's leaving the café to ask what I'm eating, so I tell her, and consequently get a slice of her life story about how her teenage rebellion against her fisherman father took the form of refusing to eat fish and she still doesn't but now takes omega-3 capsules even though she doesn't trust most supplements but needs to keep her brain in good order because she lives alone and now she challenges herself mentally by for instance setting up her new modem and router herself which she didn't want to but two years ago she'd just have hired someone to do it and this year she managed it alone. I do miss conversations, which this wasn't, it was someone talking at me. Yes, old women living alone are starved for human interaction: but I'm an old woman living alone and you don't see me buttonholing strangers to talk about my cinnamon tablets and turmeric. Which said, just about the only people in TO who will talk to strangers are indeed old women.

The croissant btw is nice enough but the yuzu mayo is loaded with wasabi so shall not repeat.

Roused myself this evening to make the chickpea, spinach, and coconut curry I've been intending to for the past few days. Is very good but if I ever do this again shall use light coconut milk because regular makes things very greasy.

Met SND out with her new pup, name of Oliver. The theory is he's part chihuahua but his markings are, I'm told, more Jack Russell terrier. To my untutored eye he looks like nothing more than a miniature beagle. J says one can do DNA tests on dogs now: always a market. I'd only do that if I suspected herd dog DNA so as not to be surprised by herding behaviour.

Spring. After weeks and weeks of only crocuses and snowdrops, daffodils and tulips come up in sunshiny spots. A cherry is blooming down on Barton. I am moved to do some dusting and mopping and furniture polishing upstairs, to take advantage of the bright unfiltered sun before the trees burst into leaf. But I also rerereread Agatha Christies: zoomed through Lord Edgeware Dies and Curtain and Cat Among the Pigeons. I owned a copy of the latter as a twelve year old and read it so often that I have much of it memorized.

Had a pleasant dream the other day of being back in Tokyo and out at night with Finder Jean and Mary senpai, on a broad street that was partly University Ave here and partly some unnamed boulevard seen from a taxi, back in 2001, with Fearless Leader. In the dream we were, as ever, heading for an archetypal Tokyo bookstore, but I believe some people stopped us and talked us into taking their baby.

Waste of a morning when I woke up early (for my values of 'early') and limber (ditto) and did not go down for blood work because it rained last night and the walker's wheels will get disgusting and I have nothing to clean them with. The bamboo cloth I use needs a serious wash in hot water and bleach, probably by hand since I can't do it at the laundromat and my machine won't handle hot. Maybe tomorrow...

Nice dream though of attending a party at Fearless Leader's place, an apartment 'around the corner' from Vice-fearless Leader's place (streets were more like alleyways in Tokyo shopping areas by the train stations) where I was staying. A number of other Chinese girls there (girl from my aged viewpoint = mid-twenties) and a Black guy who lived upstairs from FL and his little girl (= 18 months). Rolled over and dreamed of trying to find elevators in an expanded version of Robarts Library. Which I think owed something to the PO in Going Postal.

Dreamed I had a house with an enclosed paved front garden in which I kept a male lion. Occurred to me that I hadn't been feeding the lion recently so took the lion shopping for meat. Rest of dream was frustration in not being able to find meat or not getting the lion to follow me etc etc. I believe the lion was behaving like a cat, hence the frustration.

Days are essence of early December, sweet cold and dry sidewalks and clear lustrous light of the temporarily returned sun.

Now the library's 'print from the web' function is back, I discover there's no need to print out an application for the dental rebate or whatever it's called, because the govrrnment will mail an application to those eligible. And thus we cope with ancient Luddites.

Vodka is a terrible thing. (So is gin FWIW.) Give me enough of it and all I want is to order in food, which is bad for the bank balance and antsy after dark, since my porch light isn't very bright and my number sign isn't easily visible. And if they deliver across the street, as they've been known to do, I can't see them doing it uniess I'm on the porch in the -3C weather. So I resist temptation. Still, it eases the aches. I can't be having with a dry January. As any Scandinavian knows, winter is when you need the cushion of alcohol. I'm quite happy to be teetotal in April or May, those bright allergy months.

Did get to the laundromat so have a clean fleecy with pockets again, and clean trousers. New owner, or new owner's man of business, is a friendly guy who was shepherding the repairman, so someone is on top of those broken machines. After the previous regime where they went unattended for months, this is very welcome.

Tuesday night I dreamed I was visiting Vice-Fearless Leader in New York, as I did in the oughties. Next day got her New Year's card with photos of her gigantic offspring. Well, son #2 isn't that big, being barely into his teens, but son #1 is a leggy teenager who might as well have had Dutch forebears by the size of him. My, what a NAmerican diet can accomplish.

Today, after rolling back to sleep from a spam phone call, was me visiting The Other Daycare, located in a repurposed church near Bloor and Avenue Rd. There was Randi and Stephen from the 80s, and other unidentified staff, and they wanted me to do a shift 'tomorrow', which was a Friday holiday. Alone, and when I asked if it was the Infants (of whom there were six) or Toddlers (of whom there were seven), they said Well um both? By myself. Which I informed them was totally illegal and no. Got on my bike and headed home but of course then found myself in a frustration dream where I couldn't get across Avenue Rd, so woke up instead.

The trouble with sleeping past 11 is that I can't roll over and go back to sleep as I can do if I wake at 9. Yes, well. Life is rough.

Of course I also woke out of a frustration dream of trying to get three babies back to daycare, at night, in a triple stroller, through the University College (UofT version) campus, gone suddenly baroque with steps that aren't there and narrow gas lit passages, also with steps, that lyingly promised to take me up to Hoskins and Trinity College (again, UofT version: universities in the Brit-sphere have no innovation with respect to either names or architecture.) Could gave done without that, especially as my Christmas Eve dream was a charming cosy murder mystery. I believe the white-haired Miss Marple-ish sleuth was in fact the murderer.

Weather is mild but grey and dank, and is supposed to rain all week, which is par for the Dead Days but also dispiriting. We may see some sun on Saturday. I went out today since the PoP was only 56% and got misted on. Tony Korean restaurant was fairly full, even at 3 in the afternoon, but the Koreans make the most of their holidays. When they get them, because the big supermarket and greengrocers were open. Bought celery for future turkey salads but was so full from egg and beef donburi that I skipped dinner.

To get xmas music out of my head I went looking for that Kenyan song from many years back Mama nipeleke kwa baba (Mama, take me to my father.) Then started googling around to find what the swahili means and discovered that nipeleke is a very useful phrase for things like 'take me to a hospital' (hospitalini)- I mean, should you find yourself sick in east Africa some time. They also tell you how to say please, which I can't remember because there's no catchy tune to teach me tafadhali. So then I had to look at Duolingo for swahili which starts you with pronouns: mimi (I), yeye (he, she), sisi (we), wao (they), and wewe (you, sing). Oh. Years ago a roommate told me how to say The elephant is about to step on you in Swahili. Tembo is elephant and wewe is you but my memory of the verb, after 40 years, must have become corrupted, because I remember it as 'na piga' but you can't prove it by any Swahili verb chart. And after googling a bit about verbs in Swahili, I once again resigned myself never to learn that language. Verb prefixes for both subject and tense? No way. Might as well learn Basque if you're going that route.

Honestly, why do people think Japanese is a hard language? Yeah, there's causatives and passives and passive causatives, but they're quite regular. Presumably if you hear the Swahili version of I am going, you are going, he is going often enough, the sound sticks in your head as easily as, well, 'I am going' etc. (or wasuresaseru). But life is too short at this point.

Experience says that if I walk for at least a n hour, my hysterical tendons will calm down enough to let me do things like laundry and dishes. That is, unless my knee is seizing up too, in which case nothing works except ice and NSAIDs and they not well. So of course today was spent first on lying in, drifting in and out of dreams about weddings involving Vice-Fearless Leader, because bed was so cozy and warm, and then in lying on the sofa reading Marcus Didius Falco. Getting up now will be an experience.

Sun in a dry November, especially a warmer than average November like this one, lifts the spirits amazingly. Have been humming Sting's Fieldsof Gold for two days now as I trundle about the city. Physio today followed by laundromat. I cleverly left the face cloths to be washed draped over the bathroom waste paper basket as a reminder to take the scrubby nylon cloths too. They live behind the shower curtain so I'm apt to forget them. Alas that I didn't have a mnemonic for my terrycloth sheet as well, which I only rememberd once I was at the laundromat. At least there was hot water for my towels and sleep hoodie. But now I discover what the deal is with the new washers whose price seemed to change arbitrarily. It's not arbitrary. Cold wash is four dollars, warm is five, hot is six. There are still a few one price for all machines but they don't take the large loads.

Had a donwanna morning, loath to get out of bed, wanting only to roll back to sleep. But doing that got me once again the persuasive 'Remember that person you killed back in the 70s?' dream, so I perforce had to pull myself awake to shake off the horrors, which only disappear once I'm actually out of bed and into the reality I'm trying to avoid. I think I need a few more meatspace people in my life. Chatting with my Korean physio helps but once a week isn't nearly enough. This is why I wanted a dog, she says wistfully, so I could chat with all the other dog owners. But even if I could walk, dogs mean getting up at 6 a.m. which I simply can't do.

Two nights of disturbed sleep for no reason I know of. It's very disconcerting for me to wake up to darkness several times. Once yes, but three times? Anyway, last night got me two literary dreams: the first was a Dick Francis novel which sleeping brain thought was one of his real ones, just in technicolour. Details gone so I don't know if it was or not. Second was a Peter Grant involving, if I have this correctly, sex magic with fish milt, commentary on Peter's methodology provided by a young girl who should have been Abigail but may have been me.

Lots more Mo Xiang Tong Xiu arrives at the library, along with the newly purchased Jane Austen A/U which must read first ('20 people are waiting'). By the time I get through that and three volumes of MDZS, vol 1 of Heaven Official's Blessing may have arrived. Meanwhile I'm halfway through MDZS 1. I was wondering when we'd get to the ostensible premise of The Untamed, 'Together they fight crime!' and I think we just got there. Pretty amusing still, with everyone balancing on swords and swooping about. I did wonder if I shouldn't just watch the series on netflix, but probably not. As with the anime, I have a sneaking suspicion that the live action version was for people who'd read the web novel; certainly the sense of What's going on here? as well as the general darkness was what put me off the anime. Yes, I know it starts at night; I still couldn't make out what was going on.

Though I hope Wei Wuxian will start being a tad less tiresome in time, because for now he's very tiresome indeed.

Well, if you stay up to 3:30 ayem reading Marcus Corvinus, you can't expect to wake up much before noon, so I consider myself virtuous to have been up at 11:30. Though not so up as all that, given the time needed for exercises and all. Also was dreaming of being at the cottage with my bro and Mom and Dad, remarkabe because I never dream of my parents these days, and an amazing rainbow in colours that rainbows don't come in, and going off to get them something from the store but being distracted by the appearance of a charming 3 month old baby girl, and 'Sorry, I have to go play with this little one.'

Windy day, extremely windy in 'knock 'em down' fashion, but that might have been the fault of where I was walking ie along Dupont to Spadina, with all the condos a-building, and then down Spadina to Bloor where all the condos have been built. Well, highrise apartments, anyway. Also they're tearing up Spadina on the west side at Lowther-- sewers, one hopes-- requiring a detour to the east side amid both the rubble and the crocodiles of school kids coming up from ohh I dunno, the JCC or something. Though there seemed to be a school tour of high or middle school kids congregated outside the Native Canadian Centre, so they might have been coming from there. Anywaym I limped down to my old sushi restaurant that I frequented two years ago, pre-operation. And it still seems I was in better shape then than now, except for the knee. But I strongly suspect I was a good deal lighter then than now. Whatever, I keep on keeping on, hoping that walking will strengthen *something*.

Why I was walking on Dupont was to get to the Shoppers Drug there, one of the select few that sells Seniors and Students TTC passes. My current Presto card is a regular one, and minor though the difference is ($1.05) and little as I use transit, it still bugs me to pay full fare. So now I'm set up for the future, if any.

Coherent dream last night of being back at what passed for my Japanese dorm which was a much more upscale place with french doors leading out to a garden. It had been snowing heavily-- several feet worth-- but the blessed Japanese staff had cleared it all away so I could go catch my train no problem, because the garden was also the platform for the trains. And then I was in a train dream, heading out to meet Finder Jean as I often am in these dreams, amid the grey looming concrete of the stations. And as also often happens, there was some problem getting there, but I've forgotten what. Usually it's me trying to call and the phone not working.

Swiffered the bathroom and upper hallway yesterday, was unambitious and achy today so only succeeded in cleaning some hard water deposits on the bathroom sink. Lincoln in the Bardo awaits me at the library but meanwhile I'm doing Dick Francis in Rome ie David Wishart's White Murder. Marcus Valerius Corvinus is preferable to Marcus Didius Falco if only because he has fewer hangups and doesn't make such bad decisions. Though one of these days he's going to call the wrong person Sunshine and that will be that.

(When you're wondering how often men think about the Roman Empire, factor in what they're reading at the time. I have spent close on fifty years not thinking about the Romans but now I do. And I'll say this for them: in Rome a slave could buy their freedom which you couldn't in any other slave owning society I know of.)

Happy new year to those who celebrate.

Either massage yesterday really did release a bunch of stuff, or the back brace I put on today (first time since I stopped working 3.5 years ago) really braces, but walking today was almost a pleasure.

Also my sister's hip replacement surgery seens to have gone well. Much relief all round.

Great dream last night about a French sorta steampunk library or was it a university, with these bibliomanes/ connoisseurs of erotica looking for porny books. Wish I could remember more than the bare bones.

Because the lows are getting into autumnal mode, and because a low of 10C/ 50F feels positively wintry after a run of 22C/ low 70sF at 6 a.m., last night I put the down duvet back on the bed. With the result that I refused to get up this morning even though I was awake at 8. Well, and had to get up briefly because cool temps start the debloat process which means shedding water weight. But then I rolled back to sleep not once but three times in my wool and feather nest and had pleasant dreams of my brother and Peter C from uni setting up some kind of computer/ tv/ Wurlitzer for me in one of those familiar settings that will never précise exactly.

Otherwise had a massage that loosened up a few tendons. But things still spasm afterwards. This is getting really old.

Lost day. Too stinky to go out, too achy to do anything but sit on the sofa. At least I got the recycling out, or rather, Sadie's mom put it out for me.

Dream of taking my (really an ebike but I never thought of it as that ) from dream! Daycare, situated sort of across from the museum instead of several blocks west of it, through those tony non-existent restaurants and hotels south of the Colonnade instead of north of it, threading narrow corridors in an attempt to get out of the buildings and finally managing to get out into a conglomeration of the AGO's back lawn, the Victoria College campus, and Trinity-Bellwoods park way down on King St. Accompanied by a person of uncertain gender who might have been the DC cook crossed with someone else. The area back of the Colonnade with the tony restaurants is one of my frequent dream locations, though it never looks like itself, since there are no stores there and it quite often pretends to be in Tokyo.

The downstairs tablet used to stick an icon of anything I googled into the 'most visited' dash, which was a nuisance because I want my most visited sites there. But now it won't put any icons there, including my most visited ones. First world problems but still annoying.

I might just be in the clear about my window AC. Seems I've been pressing the program button which then assumes I want it to shut off after an hour. Pressed the clear button last night, after which it stayed on for the two hours it took to cool the room, after which I shut it off and slept with the fan. Or didn't sleep because insomnia and loud thunder. Turned light back on and played squaredle, the special puzzle with 218 words that I've been hacking away at for a good week now. Got four more words and finally went to sleep.

To be woken by more thunder around 9 from a tantalizing dream about a very famous and much run-after--- someone. Identity on the tip of the mental tongue but won't come clear. Not quite Dorian Red Gloria but not quite not. Bowie? Sarah Bernhardt? All of the above?

And it rained, and it rained, and the weather apps kept promising more rain. But around 3 the sun came out so I went over to Palmerston school, repeatedly pushing through puddles to get some of the gunk off the rollator's wheels only to have more gunk stick and actually jam them from time to time. And voted for mayor and at least that's done. Had coffee at the place across the street which was just about to close. More rain and thunder due tomorrow but sufficient unto the day is the weather thereof.

There was the yearly environment drop off down at Central Tech, which feels far away in spite of being a lot closer than my old massage studio. But it's south and anything that isn't east of me registers as far away. And I had several sacks of old batteries to be disposed of, but there was also a rainfall warning (also thunderstorms and funnel clouds) and I didn't want to chance being caught in a downpour. So some day I'll take them over to the putative drop off outside Huron School, which is east of here in a straight line but well past Spadina. I'm told that the recycle store at the end of the street also takes them but I can't unload bags of the things on them, and they probably want the ends taped as well.

I dreamed, very realistically, that I tried to get on my old bike and could, no problem, and thought Well that's a relief, must remember to carry my keys now. And then I woke up.

Succeeded in finishing the doorstopper that's due next week at the library. Unfortunately the doorstopper is Company of Liars which has nothing in common with the Canterbury Tales and whoever said it did is, well, a liar. Unlike some people I liked the ending well enough in its Ima Ichiko-ish way but the book itself left me bilious. Have been unable to read anything but Thorndyke since and even Thorndyke is putting me off now, so I play Squaredle instead. This will change eventually and I'll get back to Scarlet but right now I don't think I can face the French revolution either.

I never entirely woke up from this morning's recurring nightmare of 'hey, remember the guy you knifed to death-- yeah, remember the crunch as the knife went in?' which meant that the dream just went on and I had to deal with having knifed a guy to death in some kind of noir film-- night, street lights, rain. Could have done without, frankly.

Otherwise I swept the porch of last year's leaves and calcified whatever poo-- must be squirrels because the other fauna's are much larger. Which started my back yelling. No health within us.

So after yawning my way through yesterday, last night I couldn't get to sleep. No reason, just I was awake. And stayed awake. And got up after an hour and went and read Dick Francis one-eyed until a quarter to four, which is cut-off for no headache sleeping. Rewarmed the beanbags and got into the wool and feathers and eventually drifted off, to dream of sorting out my various treasures in what purported to be my bedroom at Bedford, only it was twice the size of that not-unsizabe chamber and also thought it was somehow part of that Dick Francis novel.

I woke, as expected, at 10. I can't count on 4 a.m. bedtimes resulting in only 6 hours of condensed sleep or I'd do it more often, but at least I wasn't a basket case. Didn't accomplish anything today, of course, except dishes. And finishing Dead Cert. Francis is wonderful comfort reading if not indulged in too often. Helps if it's one of the ones I don’t remember and this was, in spite of that annoying mystery topos of love at first sight and will you marry me after two? three? meetings.

Evidently this is a Known Fault because after I tromped up to Highway Robbery North, the local medical outlet, they had a selection of replacement straps for my brand of rollator, 19.95 a hit. I asked about raising the arms so I don't have to stoop but it seems mine are already at the max. However there's another brand that will go higher and that have the handles you're actually meant to rest your arms on, mine for a mere 595, down from 1200. If I feel apocalyptic enough I might even go for it, but right now what I'm being apocalyptic about is, is the gov't going to give me my pension and assisted income this month or not. I'd hope it was an automatic deposit but nothing is guaranteed in these latter days.

Departing from my streak of unbroken sleep till 11 or noon, today I was awake at 7:30, and though I lay in bed for an hour, I didn't go back to sleep. The window guys have been working next door for days now and I barely register their thumps and bumps, but somehow today was different. So I was through the day's erranding about the time I'm usually just getting started, and have been logey and sleep-deprived since. But did have a nice coherent morning dream about being at a department store in Japan with two newbies, showing them the various features and advising them to stay away from the sixth floor because there was an anime convention going on there and they wouldn't be able to move for cosplayers.

I've had these black tops for years approaching decades, as witness the bleach stains covered by my amateur embroidery, as also the fact that the store I bought them from closed five years ago and they weren't new then. But once take them to the laundromat and wash and dry them in hot and they shrink. Shrink! It's like I never washed them in hot water before. But I never put them in the dryer, and I'll know not to do it again. And luckily it was both ragbag tops and not my one remaining respectable one. The two new tops didn't shrink either, being clearly of better quality.

Yesterday I decided to do at least one of the foot-dragging things I've put off and opted for flipping the side room futon: to discover that I can no longer flip that heavy leaden lump. For a bit there I thought I wouldn't even be able to get it back on the bedframe, but much heaving and puffing later it was back in place. Being hefted about seems to have fluffed it up a bit so it no longer dips drastically at the side where I sit down on it, but clearly I must seek the help of one of my muscular male neighbours. I suppose not hefting kids for four years will remove whatever muscles one had to start with.

The Korean super has marvellous tuna mayo onigiri but they cost and they don't keep. Never as good the next day. So when I was last there I bought some nori sheets and some Korean tuna in case that makes a difference and made my own at home. Can't say they were a huge success. I can't shape them in the neat triangles that the Koreans do, while the tuna was oily and probably needs proper Kewpie mayo. Not that the originals have much tuna or mayo in them: they're mostly just rice and seaweed and thus carb-heavy. Ah well, shall save them as an occasional treat.

Have been troubled all day by obscure flashbacks to this morning's dream which was something palace conspiracy-ppoi. There are no details remaining but stray emotions attached to it keep floating past my brain anyway.

Uncomfortable sleeping conditions led to much waking last night: room too warm, moving air too cold, elbows and knees too unhappy. On the up side I retain clear memories of several dreams. I was at L and WT's place with both their daughters, arguing that (unplaceable male character from Austen novel) was the best archetypical protag because both kind and (some other quality). I'm afraid that one came from a tumblr post on what constitutes a himbo ie someone who is beefy, kind, *and* dumb. Beefy and dumb is a jock, beefy and kind is a hunk, kind and dumb is a normal guy.

This segued into a dream set in ancient China, accompanying an army marching into new territory, except new territory was a narrow road lined on both sides with shacks or lean-tos built wall to wall with no spaces between, that went on and on for miles. Inhabitants hid on the roofs. We reached a boundary, otherwise unmarked, and our general was pleased to discover that there were apples in abundance to feed the troops with.

After which I was in a cozy murder mystery with a white haired old lady as sleuth more or less, which took place at our family home and ended with little old lady preparing a powder to put in the food that was being prepared out on the driveway, in order IIRC to poison the local squire.

Meanwhile the heat has subsided to merely warm and brought out the forsythia and the sakura on the south facing streets. Went to the library for the Craft Sequence book I don't have and started it in the Ninetails coffee shop. Instant time travel: Gladstone belongs firmly to the Before Times when I was still able-bodied enough to bike and work. However I note that my glacial recovery has reached a point where I can occasionally walk into a store without the walker. I limp and my back still spasms occasionally, but it's more than I could do six months ago.

M's birthday party next door. There was a chronically whining little kid who was getting on my nerves- 'someone pay attention to that toddler please'- until it occurred to me that it was probably one of those noise-maker whistles, the kind that shoots out a rolled up paper.

Had a nightmare where I was somewhere doing something but suddenly felt a sharp pain in my elbow that made it impossible to lift my arm, and though I called to my friends for help they didn't come as the pain got worse and I got more desperate. At which I woke with a sharp pain in my arm from sleeping in a funny position or something. That's the elbow I can no longer straighten because maybe it got chipped in that accident 40 years ago, and which aches most of the time anyway.

Went back to sleep, woke again at quarter to nine, took meds, used bathroom, rolled back into bed again and drowsed, listening to M next door running up and down the corridor, went back to sleep, and woke some time later to hammering from next door. Seemed odd that the tenants would be assembling Ikea furniture but who knows? It was only when I was up and ready to go out that I realized it wasn't Ikea, and hadn't been M either: it was workmen putting in new windows. Which lord knows were needed, because the old wooden ones leaked air. But the new ones aren't sash, like the old ones. They're swing-out casements, and those have a tendency to list over time, pulling downwards because of the weight. That's if the opening crank also doesn't get pulled out of true so you can't open them at all. But that's the kind of windows they're pushing these days, when they aren't installing the five foot square jobbies that put your life on display for the neighbours or require you to live behind closed curtains or blinds like Italian grandparents.

Then returned from erranding, I saw they'd replaced the front downstairs window as well. Now my front window has never been opened in the 35 years I've been here, because I had it fitted with a plexiglass cover advertised to keep noise out. Which it does marvellously, as well as heat and cold. But next door wasn't as efficient, so yes, replace, but to do it they had to take out the stained glass transom over the sash window, which was one of the charming touches to these houses. So I'm a bit sad about that, even though it isn't my house.

Annoyed that this morning's dream didn't stick long enough for me to note all the details of what was apparently a Japanese chanbara/ schlock samurai TV show or movie, in which I was a young Japanese girl in disguise somehow in the company of an middle-aged ronin/ disguised shogunate spy/ basket-wearing shakuhachi-playing disguised spy (truly, a regular feature of series like Mito Komon with, who knows, maybe a pinch of actual historicity in that basket-wearing monks* did exist.) But all that remains is the nuisance factor of having to change a very ahistoric tampon in the presence of a middle-aged ronin/ disguised shogunate spy/ etc etc.

* known as Komusô.

Uneasy-making dream last night of me, for certain age-difference values of me, taking up with a young woman and being very ambivalent about having her as a lover. I think the idea was that I hadn't really wanted to start anything but hadn't said no in time. Not helped by (I think) being backgrounded by the family home. Certainly Bedford was in my draams somewhere but not necessarily that one.

Got out today for Japanese food and then a latte. Maybe it was the gin in my gin-and-Sprite or maybe it was not moving yesterday or maybe it was low-key allergies, but I was very low-energy walking home. There are times when I seem quite limber and able to dispense with the walker, and then there are days like this when it's all that keeps me upright, which is discouraging.

Did a wash because temps will be 'turn on the heat' tonight at least, and they can dry on the lines in the furnace room. Then began the task of bringing records up from the basement. Managed precisely one bag full because lower back screamed in protest. Given that I was so reluctant to descend the basement stairs that I waited till I was completely out of clean underwear to go retrieve the ones I washed ten days ago, two trips is an accomplishment.

I was right to drag my feet on assembling the Dirtdevil. There's a hose that fits into a ring that fits into the canister, and the hose came out of the ring and wouldn't go back in. The manual treats hose and ring as a single unit and gives no idea how the one goes into the other. So after fifteen minutes of pushing and squeezing and grunting I concluded that the part was defective, packed all the bits back into their plastic bags, and put off the tiresome question of how to return an amazon order. And then, because I can no more stop scratching an itch than I can stop looking for words-that-aren't-there in Squaredle, I pushed and squeezed and grunted some more until, with the arm strength of a young man, the hose got pushed far enough into the ring that I could turn it righty-tighty into unmovingness. So go me, and feh.

Last night's dream purported to be about the Marlows at home with visits by vague relatives and much to-doing over bath times and Lawrie not able to be the Shepherd Boy after all because she had such a hissy fit over her bathtime that she started to run a fever so (somebody- Esther?) had to/ got to play him after all.

Reading Austin Freeman's Thorndyke mysteries because the library has them and Gore Vidal is getting up my nose. I strongly suspect that his view of politics is plain and simply Wrong. The gossip about the Kennedys is interesting enough (no news to me that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was no JFK either) but leaves me feeling slightly grubby. Of course, Thorndyke is no fast fun raad either, but still an improvement. What I want is more PMT, so instead I keep going over the last story in vol. 1 and its very odd happenings, like the menacing man the okami-san ushers out of the establishment on (if I'm reading this correctly) days that have eight in them but who *seems* to show up two days running? and who may not be the proprietor's favoured client/ boyfriend at all but the personification of the psychic detritus it's necessary to clear out at regular intervals.

I was having a very nice dream about the four dragon kings who turned up for what I think was a cheese-tasting somewhere, with intimations that the other guests were maybe not human either, but I had to get up for a chiro appointment so all that remains are the bare facts and a vague impression that I was Gouen the Black Dragon.

This does not excuse the piggery of today, which included a Macdo delivery and chocolate, but at least I got my 30 minutes of biking in.

I'm still eating breakfast upstairs because it's still more convenient, to say nothing of less painful. Truly, how did I manage to go up and down those stairs back in pre-op days when I had to wear a support around my knee 24/7? Upshot is I haven't been weighing myself daily as I used to, but yesterday I did, and discover that not drinking has not lost me any weight. In fact I've gained another three pounds and am now 20 pounds heavier than when I used to limp up and down those stairs. Yeah, that'll do it. So it's stop with the cheese and the butter and the sugary Bolthouse lattes (which I will miss) and if I must snack, do it with carrot sticks and guacamole.

Thus I walked today, before the evening's snow dump, and had sushi and a single glass of wine and limped home as the wind blew high and the pressure dropped. There's several inches of sludge out there now, much of which will turn sludgier in tomorrow's highs of 5C/40F. Not knowing when or if the freezing rain would start, I forebore to shovel the stuff while it was still snow and to lay down salt, because as I've said ad nauseam my melter doesn't, and I might have merely been preparing a skating rink.

But nice dream last night about a new coffee shop in my neighbourhood where I met my brother amongst the twining branches that made up some of the walls. Woke and then couldn't remember the name of my old coffee shop that turned into a restaurant in 2016. Sip and dunk, was it? Weird, because I went there several times a week from 2009 on.

Of course it takes me this long-- up to vol.6-- to realize that the web will provide me definitions of Japanese phrases much faster and more informatively than the wordtank or my many many paper dictionaries and phrasebooks.

I must also note that in Ima Ichiko's Taisho/ Shouwa world, no merchant's wife can bear children. All heirs are byblows from geisha mistresses. It's one of her Things, like boys disguised as girls and occasionally vice versa.

Slept into past noon without waking once, which means a good ten hours plus. No idea what this narcolepsy is about. Dreamed that my family had moved into a new house but while I was away during the morning (I knew where I was away at when I woke up but have since forgotten) my parents had moved all my furniture into a small bedroom that I didn't like at all, because there were other bedrooms on the the other side of the central stairway that were larger. Also the drawers had all become wonky from being moved and some of them I couldn't get open. Couldn't find my own clothes to go out in (to the same place I'd gone that morning) and wound up having to wear a dress of my mother's from the 40s or 50s, with lace ruffles and ruffly ankle socks.

We couldn't use the front door, my father said, because the lock was broken, but there were actually two front doors, side by side, and as I was standing there an Asian woman came and unlocked the second one. She had her little son with her and said she was the new fourth floor tenant. This led to much dialoguing between my parents and my younger brother about was she really the tenant and did the house actually have a fourth floor, and by the time they figured that yes, there was a fourth floor, the woman was so put off she decided not to rent the apartment after all.

So since I couldn't use the front door I went out the back, which led to a nice walled garden with raised brick defined flower beds, which led to an opening in a wall or hedge, which led to the outdoor patio of a restaurant. Most of the tables were occupied and all the guests and waiters were charming gay men including my former coworker Stephen, who was very surprised to see me. But I took a seat and was being very happy and then I woke up.

Another dream fragment, riding a railway or subway in Japan that suddenly didn't go where it was supposed to but up north. So we all got off at the station, which was in an old-fashioned department store with much wood and stone floors, and tried to get the elevator (wooden with old-fashioned cross-hatch expanding doors- have no idea what they're called) that would take us to the right platform to get to the right station but of course the elevator wouldn't come. And all this time I had the Patarilloish infant son of erm some kind of yakuza oyabun maybe that I was taking home to his father while he made age inappropriate snarky comments about my inadequacies, and I lost his stroller so had to carry him on my back in a sling, and finally with great relief got to where his father was but had to get one of the shopgirls? waitresses? secretaries? to point him out to me. 'That's him in the rose-coloured suit, so fashionable, as ever' but it didn't look like him at all.

Am dragging my feet on the Pratchett biography. Should just power through or else take it back unfinished and let someone else have it. With nothing else to read I've gone back to beavering my way through PMT 2, but early Ima Ichiko is unusual vocabulary. What's the colloquial meaning of grindng tea? Must have recourse to the web because wordtank and dictionaries alike fail me.

Caught the tail end of a dream in which a bunch of other stuff was happening, but in this fragment I was sharing a house with a bunch of guys and one woman who lived in the basement apartment. We were all in the kitchen with the sun shining in and I was hurrying to get dinner ready for Jenny, my fat old grey cat (decidit 1995) who was winding about my ankles, yowling. One of the guys started to piss on the pile of plastic bags that were piling up in a corner in plastic bag fashion, and I yelled at him because that was the door to the basement apartment where the other woman lived. Idea was that he didn't feel like going upstairs to the bathroom to take a leak. I took Jenny's dinner around the corner and the other woman came up into the kitchen but her two little black kittens came with her. They found the food and started either playing with it or eating it while Jenny looked on in puzzlement. And then I had to hurry off to the other part of the dream, which is on the tip of my memory but won't come out unless I stumble on the right word that will bring it all back, something that only occasionally happens.

Cold today so stayed inside and finished The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur, set in Joseon Korea. I don't have the wherewithal to watch Kdramas, so this is the next best thing. Also reminds me of that work about Korean shamans from ten years back. I'm all for shamans, especially if you live in a buttoned-down repressive Confucianist country. I now have holds on her two other books. Though I could really have done without her including Jesus in the acknowledgements. My cradle (French- important!) Catholic's attitude is that Christianity is an excellent cover for organizing against Japanese occupiers but there's no need to keep on with it afterwards: and if you must, mon dieu, do not make it evangelical. Though for all I know, the factors that made shamanism agreeable to Confucianist Koreans is what makes evangelical Christianity agreeable to modern day Koreans. Am reminded of a friend's friend who converted to Catholicism from Buddhism because, he said, he wanted a God who was personally interested in him, and no eastern religion gives you that.

Very coherent dream last night, a complete murder mystey set in just post-war England among a horsey set of people who got offed one by one. Details vanished on waking but I'm pretty sure the murderers were a bunch of protesting teenagers. I *think* they were protesting the treatment of the horses, but don't quote me.

There was a FB meme about 'how I love reading about the vicissitudes of people in history when I have to make a phonecall in the morning.' This is me. Finally called the insurance brokers. And much as I like our multicultural city and glad as I am that people who speak Bengali or Majhi or Urdu can do business in their native language, gee is it nice to occasionally hear a bog standard Canuck accent speaking at bog standard Canuck speed. Like the guy at Immigration in New York, that time I lost my passport, who was Québecois so I didn't have to spell my whole name out for him several times.

So that's done and now all I have to do is guess whether we'll get freezing rain tonight or not, and put salt down if so. Is currently raining but no bets.

Marvellous Tokyo February afternoon, meaning worrisomely warm for Toronto. 6C, 42F. This summer will be hideous if other no-winter winters are anything to go by (2012, 2016). But the sweet cold, the glowing sun, the walking in shoes! I shall enjoy the moment for what it has to offer.

Have also discovered that if you set the Heart Sutra to music, the Heart Sutra suddenly starts making sense. Possibly the Heart Sutra isn't really agreeing with Ecclesiastes' vanity of vanities and all is vanity, but I believe the word vanity in the original is a lot closer to 'emptiness', in which case it is. Or seems to be. And what about Strawberry Felds Forever? Oh dear.

Forgot to mention the pleasant dream I had Friday morning, travelling something that purported to be the New York subway but was more a long stone-lined passage, with Nora Jemisin on our way to the Met, where she had to leave me because of an appointment. Entrance to the Met from the subway was up a set of stone stairs with gilded or at least brass art deco gates at the top, all curving lines. Unfortunately awareness of real life conditions intervened and I was eyeing those stairs dubiously when I woke up.

Reading backwards in Phantom Moon Tower gets me at last to vol.3, first story dating to 2008. And yes indeed, we're in prime WTF Ima territory, of the 'read three times, look up every fifth word, still can't figure it all out' variety. A bit better than her prime 100 Demons method of 'write the plot points on separate cards, throw cards in the air, draw story in the order they fall down in' but that's not saying much. Anyway, on I go. In the meantime I read Gladys Mitchell's Timothy Herring series. The first three had an odd echo of PMT in that everyone wants Herring to get married, as everyone in Shōichi's family wants him to get married, but Herring was being a stubborn bachelor while Shōichi was pursuing Yōsaburo. But Herring gets affianced at the end of book 3 so now he has a wife. And is becoming that Mitchell favourite, a high-handed bullying manly man, which is what women really want, not gentle considerate lovers like the one his wife had before. Mitchell wasn't married, of course.

Reading back DW entries reveals that I've always coughed and sneezed my way through January, even in polar vortex years like 2022, so no surprise if I'm doing it in this hitherto mild winter. There's no more dust than usual, which isn't saying much, but I keep checking my furnace filters and my furnace filters keep being the same colour as my new ones ie still clean. Presumably the guy who checked the furnace last October did some cleaning, because this is unusual. Then again, I've not been using the thing as much, thriftily relying on jackets and throws to keep me warm. But I'm still sneezing and coughing from the sinus drip, and I do wish it would stop.

I'd also noticed that stairs were getting easier to go up and that I could sit in my rocking chair reading and get up from *that*- which hasn't been possible for years‐ so I happily assumed my dry January had lost me a few pounds. Well, no. I've lost exactly half a kilo and today the less said about my knees the better. Scar still aches in cold damp weather and, ok, I've stayed indoors two days running. So things may be better tomorrow when we're promised rare sunny periods.

Complicated dream last night that still sticks with me, of travelling or living in Japan with a bunch of Asian girls, vaguely Chinese but some others as well, which probably owes something to the international cast of Himawari House. And we were all packing up to go home and trying to fit things in our suitcases and I had to decide what things to leave behind before the porters came. And now that I've written this the dream details fade: they were accessible only as long as I had no words for them.

Usually when I wake at my usual time, which is 9:15, I will roll over and go back for another hour or two because nothing these days is as pleasurable as warmth and oblivion and the occasional morning dream. And I would have done that today in order to continue the dream of being a young Jewish woman in some undefined country where traditional customs still had some sway, trying to convince her ardent suitor that really, she wasn't into marrying him no matter how much he serenaded her from rooftops or whatever it was, because a lot of other now-vanished stuff was going on as well. But then it turned into a very-much-me in my classic nightmare situation of having murdered someone, and this time it was three very real babies from work though from different decades, whose throats I'd cut in a horribly vivid fashion. Even awake and doing my 'no you didn't' routine I couldn't convince myself that no I didn't, so I had to get up and let reality assert itself.

Reality is an inch or so of snow, so even though my Good Neighbour had cleared my walkways even at that early-to-me hour, I shall be staying in and not going to laundromats or coffee houses.

Before I forget this one, as I have forgotten several previous dreams involving people I actually know, Friday night or Saturday morning (in the dark all times are the same) I dreamed of Aziraphale from the Good Omens tv series coming into his bookshop to find Crowley painting the walls puce, aided by his current Companion, whoever she was. Please note that I haven't seen a single episode of Good Omens or New Who, but cultural osmosis gonna osmose.

I never know if the aftermath of my vaxxes and boosters are real or psychological, but the evidence is tending towards real. No.4's extreme mental fuzz was a bit over the limit to be emotional fallout, and yesterday's bivalent led to my chronic dull sinus headache turning into a real headache of the kind I never get, and upped the chronic joint ache by a factor of ten. So I heated some beanbags, rolled me up in my duvet, and went to sleep for five hours. I don't nap anymore, ever since I stopped overdosing on muscle relaxants, so if I nap there must be something unusual happening.

Then, having slept to almost ten, I had some food, read a little online, went back to bed at midnight, and slept another nine hours. So yes, there were side effects this time, and I shall inform the Province so when they send me the follow up questionnaire they like people to fill out.

But I got a few good dreams out of it. Best was the one where Petronia and I were studying with a famous Japanese novelist who was a seductive narcissist with a bad reputation where women were concerned. Petronia had already had a course with him and was wise to his ways. I was less prepared, but after the three of us had taken a trip somewhere to collect his early manuscripts, I told myself I was only sucking up to him to get material for my thesis.

I'm always slightly miffed when my dreams fade as I wake because these days dreams are the only excitement I get in my life. (Maybe after all I should get a TV, but TVs these days are so complicated that my technophobe self cringes at the thought.) (Also TVs are bloody expensive. There are other things I could spend $400 plus sales tax on. Like a laptop, or even a desktop.)

But I know for certain that I've dreamt about Queen Elizabeth at least twice, once where I believe I had her conflated with Mrs. Bradley, and once set in some vaguely eastern, maybe Chinese, harem setting where she was still the queen but weak and on her deathbed, amid political plots and harem scheming.

Dreamed last night about the assassination of Julius Caesar, which went as per Shakespeare at least, except that at the end Caesar's corpse turned into a roasting turkey basted in red blood. And what do you make of *that*, Herr Doktor Freud?

I was going to take a water pill today but my body forestalled the necessity. After my third bathroom trip in as many hours I looked at the clock, registered it as New Time 8:15, and said Sod it, I'm not getting up at this hour, and went back to sleep. Which led to a nice dream that I actually remembered, about visiting my sister in her dormitory room in Japan where she was studying. Room was actually western style with, I think, pale blue carpeting on the floor. My sister played an exquisite tune on the instrument she was studying before leaving for a lesson with her sensei. I knew what the instrument was when I was asleep, but it turned out to be one of those dream amalgamations that has no single equivalent in the waking world, like 'a flute that is also a violin' sort of thing.

My spate of limberness did not in fact survive yesterday's lack of exercise ie walking. Back hurt and right knee panged, so I dosed myself up and limped out to get coffee. Shall hope this works for tomorrow. I bicycled half an hour yesterday but clearly that doesn't help. Which is a bit worry-making. Winter is coming and, unless we stay mild, walking in winter is not always possible. I'd hoped things would have strengthened up by now but evidently not, or not always.

Out of curiosity I checked the active ingredient in my codeine cough syrup. It's hydrocodone which was the essence of useless last year after the operation. I believe that it once- once in a ten day period- had the happy-making effect of the cough syrup and was never as effective a painkiller as the anti-inflams. Weird. Perhaps the sugar makes a difference, because the syrup is so sugary it crystallizes.

Couldn't get to sleep last night because Thursday night I took Nyquil and my body likes to do Instant Addict ie if I take something that makes me sleep one night, even as a byproduct, next night I'm stuck with a sulking 'more more more said the baby' scenario. So got up and read one-eyed until past two and eventually fell asleep, only to have a queasy-making semi-nightmare where I was in some kind of ethnic supermarket and met the Little Girls' mother, whose hair had gone silvery because she had cancer and was having treatment. Followed by the usual frustration dream topos of not being able to make my phone work, not being able to buy the cake I needed to, not being able to find my wallet etc etc.

Blawblaws pharmacy doesn't have braces or tensor bandages for reasons best known to itself. Doesn't have any form of Tylenol either, for reasons I once knew and have forgotten. My endeavour is to *avoid* Tylenol, which is damned difficult because it's in everything, and always exta-strength. My sinuses stay blocked because Sinutabs have acetaminophen. I have to separate my Robaxacet muscle relaxants because they have acetaminophen. I once found pure methocarbamol, the relaxant component, last year but never since. Now it's take a turkey skewer and try to prise the white bit off the green bit without making it shatter into powder. Annoying.

In any case I got to the independent pharmacy at Bathurst and they had ankle braces. Or ankle brace, single, in an M size. Sounded like it might fit so bought it, but of course it would fit an unbloated foot. When it first got cold my ankles did unswell, but though it continues chilly, I have pudgy feet again and weight has gone up. Water pills, encore une fois. And stay in tomorrow.

Profile

flemmings

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

The rodents are running hurrah! hurrah!

Entries tagged with dreams

Expand Cut Tags