From: dicksilk@gmail.com   
      
   2020/01/15 Wednesday   
      
   Just a personal note:  yesterday, my mother went out to a gathering / reunion   
   of her (literally) old ladies' golf clique, who also tagged in a "mild"   
   *surprise!* party for Mom's 90th birthday (on the 18th in 3 days.)  Nothing   
   special there, except that    
   Mom brought back this (small) ultra-moist, super-delicious, chocolate   
   mini-Bundt cake, perhaps 6"-9" in diameter, and maybe 4"-5" tall.  I don't eat   
   sugary-or-bread stuff anymore, because it seriously messes with my head (do I   
   have some kind of brain    
   tumor?  perhaps, but that's not the point of this note.)  So there was a good   
   40%-60% of this mini-Bundt cake left, inside a *wonderful* little airtight,   
   plastic tray with dome (to keep it fresher longer) but when I got up this   
   morning, the cake was GONE    
   and only the plastic shell was left behind.  Well, I know mom doesn't pig out   
   on stuff, and wouldn't feed chocolate to the dog, so where was the cake?   
      
   Not having an answer, I sadly threw out the plastic cake tray & dome and just   
   waited for her to get up / come out to the kitchen and discuss it.  Turns out,   
   she placed it in a baggy or whatnot and put it in the freezer, saying she'd   
   given up chocolate    
   for Lent.  The fact I had to explain to her that lent was before Easter, and   
   she didn't quite understand this at all until she consulted a calendar, to me   
   is something of a warning signal.  She's normally not quite that daft, even on   
   an "off" day.  For    
   now, I'm simply gonna chalk this up as a "Senior Moment" and keep working to   
   make things better / put together a plan / work for a better tomorrow.   
      
   Meanwhile, last night's dreams involved a bit of wildlife prior to waking, the   
   most recent dream involving a cheetah with a VERY long tail, perhaps equal to   
   its body length.  And while that's not terribly unusual and possibly an   
   exaggeration on my part    
   of what I saw in the dream, the way the cheetah *used* his or her tail *is*   
   different:  There was a scene "outside" where an animal was being hunted,   
   where there was a view of a cheetah hunting outside as well, but for whatever   
   reason, it seemed more    
   like the dreamer's perspective was that of a human hunter, and the cheetah was   
   possibly a pet.  It also seemed as if the human might have been responsible   
   for bagging the prey, but this part was VERY unclear, clarity 4 or 5 perhaps   
   at best.   
      
   The scene changes to "inside" a "cave" or cave-like structure, and there's   
   something of a "split" view, with dinner somewhat "on the table in the   
   kitchen" area but then a back-pan to the caged area where there was a cheetah   
   being kept inside a smaller    
   chamber, much like a cage w/iron bars, inside this cave, and a sense that this   
   might be the way the human safely keeps the cheetah indoors (OR it may be a   
   different cheetah altogether.)  The interesting thing here is that a large   
   section of the carcass    
   of the prey (perhaps a wild boar or something?) had also been placed inside   
   this cage area, only this small chamber had a hole in the roof that somewhat   
   served as a skylight, and (this is the strangest part) the cheetah was using   
   its tail as a skewer,    
   and had thrust the carcass out through the hole *using* its tail, one might   
   think in an effort to sun-bake the carcass (?) <<  this entire last scene was   
   simple "seen" yet upon waking, VERY perplexing!   
      
   A dream *before* this cheetah scene involved something akin to underwater   
   activity, although any SCUBA equipment was not perceived whatsoever.  There   
   was a small school of small fish, roughly the size of brim or possibly crappie   
   (pan fish.)  The scene    
   lasted only a moment, long enough to capture the sense of capturing a fish   
   with my right hand, although this was more "sensed" than "experienced."    
   Imagine if the dreamer WAS an underwater creature, and this sense of capturing   
   with one's hand were only a    
   "translation" of what actually occurred?   
      
   Going back up a bit further into the dreams (farther back into the night,   
   prior to waking up) there was this very odd dream about a guy with what   
   appeared to be a rectangular-cut ruby in his right eye.  His face was   
   otherwise very rugged / leathery in    
   appearance, and had the feel of an African-American pirate.  I (the dreamer)   
   found myself contemplating what it must have been like, having that gem   
   affixed in place of his eye, and as my attention locked on for a second on the   
   image, I noticed the gem    
   was surrounded by a gold-like perimeter with blackened features, much like my   
   high school senior ring (as if someone had removed the entire shank and bulk   
   of the ring and used the setting mount and the gem as a form of an eye-patch.    
   Somewhat "cool," if    
   you think about it, however some might call it "gaudy," and although this is   
   an unkind word, "niggerish" is perhaps the best adjective, as it describes an   
   Afro-cultural style of fashion with respect to gold and other jewelry.  But   
   again, I found it more    
   fascinating than anything else.   
      
   This dream was followed by another dream that involved two black males, only   
   these were FAR different:  There was this one (adult, 30-ish?) black male,   
   only his arms and legs were gone, and the bulk of his torso was very   
   reminiscent of a worm.  In fact,    
   he moved about on the ground in a worm-like orientation, but seemed coherent   
   and sentient as anyone else.  In fact, I was a bit impressed at his spirit and   
   attitude, one might actually say "sunny" disposition.  Some other black male   
   of roughly the same    
   age, possibly younger, made perhaps *ONE* comment to either ridicule or   
   otherwise disparage the first guy, then HE ended up in exactly the same   
   (worm-like) condition, on the ground, both of them moving around by wriggling   
   their bodies, something like a    
   cross between an inchworm and a snake, but able to make fairly reasonable   
   speed.  There was an extremely brief discussion regarding something like a   
   laugh from the dreamer, with the realization that now they had each other's   
   company, along with something    
   of an offer to give them a lift somewhere, as if they could possibly be placed   
   inside a baby carriage and pushed somewhere, but they seemed content with just   
   being who they were on the path they were on.  I can only suspect that this   
   was clearly a    
   symbolic dream of some sort.  In fact, ALL of this seems symbolic, except for   
   the real life incident of Mom thinking this is Lent.  After she turns 90, I   
   may bring up the thought of her moving into an assisted living center.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)