Until Someone Better Comes Along (Dream #4)

The tide went out farther than it has in centuries. The last time a tide was this low was during the reign of the Inca’s. I don’t know why the tide went out so far, some ponder that the moon is closing in on the earth & will soon have an intergalactic fender bender resulting in the largest insurance claim ever filed. Some insurance companies are reported to say they will not pay out even though this was not one of the exclusionary items in their policy. They say that the moon hitting the earth will cause worldwide earthquakes & volcanoes. Those along with tidal waves are excluded therefore no insurance claims will be paid.

The tide went down & I was admiring the carved figures in the sand, knowing better than to touch the priceless items. Thieves came down & started scooping handfuls of the carved figures. Some figures were crude, barely recognizable as their intended caricature. Others elaborate & although minute in size would have sent shivers down the spines of those closest to the originator of the figure. Some were flagstone, soapstone & other ornate but worthless stones. Some were the prized stones of alabaster, pink marble, even gold. Some people go too far in their tribute to the dead, but whatever makes them feel good.

I was possessed by the spirit of the protector & descended to the part of the stony, naked for the first time, beach where the collectors were beginning to reap their rewards. I swatted the priceless merch from their hands & blocked their passage towards any more of the treasure. Surprisingly they drew swords. I guess I miscalculated the worth of these treasures; however my possessor made me Aware that the protection of the symbols was worth the sacrifice of my life. So I defended & battled fiercely until the tide began to creep back in. Although some scoundrels absconded with the loot I was able to protect the majority of the tributes in their original place. The dead cheered me & passed praises on me & my family for eternity.

I clamored out of the tide which had an undertow that was beginning to overwhelm me. Some hand came down & helped me out of the cold water. I felt I had done a good deed but somehow felt that it was unimportant compared to the warm touch of live flesh of my friends and family. I decided Even if my creator & the spirits of all the dead called on me that I would remain here to support my friends and family, a much more valiant, immediate, & difficult job than honoring the dead. What worse could come of the dead, they are already dead. But the living, wow, that is a job for persons of true greatness. I don’t meet that calling, but until someone better comes along…….

I Can Cook!

There are some doubters out there on my culinary abilities. I do have the ability to throw together some hearty home style fare. Granted my eating habits do not generally border on the gourmet. I can get satisfaction from a can of store bought chili eaten cold right out of the can. My palate is indestructible & I can eat & enjoy anything. During the apocalypse I will do just fine eating whatever comes my way, while you finicky people will starve & die. However my post apocalyptic powers of survival do not preclude me from enjoying some good eats.

I do a mean bar-B-Q & make great Bloody Mary's. I delve into Japanese food & come out with Asian styled creations that would rival most of the bland Americanized Japanese restaurants. I pull my Asian style inspiration from authentic Japanese foods. I do a mean stir fry using leftovers & whatever is currently in the fridge. My Mexican food, spaghetti sauce, & chili are the specialties. You better like it hot though because you will be reminded of all 3 of my specialties the next morning in a very spicy way, if you know what I mean. My chili may just burn a hole right through you while you are eating it.

Don't judge my culinary abilities by the food I choose while drinking, although to me those are the perfect grubbing for that particular situation. Just wait until you get the opportunity to get fed the Kevinized way. You will be a happy camper, until the next morning's spicy constitutional that is.

My Dinner

Tonight at the Liberty Kitchen we served up a traditional Japanese country fare. We began with some crispy deep fried garlic flavored chips made with tapioca flour. These crispy jems pack a punch of garlic. You roll out the tapioca flour with just enough water to make the flour workable. I dampen my hands & roll, then dampen them again until just right. There is no way to overdo it with the water in this fashion. You then cover generously with garlic powder & let them dry completely. Heat enough oil in a wok to cover them by a few centimeters. I mix my oils to gain flavor. I use part olive, part hot chili, part sesame, and some vegetable. You then drop them in with enough space to grow they will plump up reminiscent of pork rinds, but are much lighter, crispier, & in my view, tastier.

Our next menu item was the cold soba noodles, served over ice in a strainer to let the melting ice drip away. These sweet noodles go perfect with a Japanese soba dipping sauce you can pick up in any asian style food store. Garnish with some Japanese style pickled vegetables & a quail egg & you have a perfect light appetizer before them meal.

For our main course we have sukiyaki beef cooked in a broth of ponzu sauce, which is a citrus vinegar, with some hot chili oil added in. Over this sprinkle some Japanese red pepper. Then pound sesame seeds into a fine liquid & add a little more sesame oil to thin it out. This is your dipping sauce for the thinly sliced beef. Heat this slightly in a pan, just to warm then place in a dipping bowl. Serve this with more Japanese pickles, I prefer the pickled eggplant with some ginger & beefsteak plant for flavor.

South of the Border

I Purchased plane tickets to Mexico for Evil Cat & I today. Will the trip be easy & comfortable? Will we be laying in the sun with Margareta's being carried out to us by beautiful tanned girls in short short skirts? Will the maid's come & clean our rooms of all our dirt & money while we are out riding air conditioned tour buses to destinations where we can shop for trinkets to our hearts delight?

Anyone who has traveled with me knows the answer to all those things is a definite & resounding no. You know I regularly travel without a place to stay set up & frequently sleep in parks, bushes, the occasional dumpster(mostly just those with cardboard, depending on how drunk I am). You know that I frequently disappear off on some adventure only to pop in at just the right time for a free meal & a beer. You know these trips always turn out much more interesting than anticipated because of the disorganized way in which I choose to travel.

Does this mean I will be fully prepared for all that will come at me? Hell no, I tend to obliviously get by in bad situations for some reason. My pure dumb luck somehow gets me out of some of the most perilous situations, even turning them from dangerous to rewarding. These very situations are what make travel exciting, Make me continue in this style of travel, & keep me from shying away from the more adventurous trips in exchange for the more comfortable.

Bullwinkle Head (Dream #3)

The line into the event was not moving at all. Apparently the venue was at maximum capacity for the Prince Charming concert. Everyone wants to see Prince Charming play live. I hear it is a spectacle of a lifetime, not soon to be forgotten. A limo pulled up, obviously special guests. The chauffeur opened the door & 2 radiant princesses came out. They are going to get in even though the rest of us peasants have to grovel in the line. Wait, they are not letting one of them in. The bouncer is pointing to the sign above the door. "No Bullwinkle Heads Allowed". What prejudice, What gall, she is a princess you know. The bouncer was not budging. Not willing to miss an event of this magnitude the other princess went in. The Bullwinkle headed princess did not.

The limo left with the Bullwinkle headed princess. A few minutes went by & the same limo pulled up. When the chauffeur opened the door this time a beautiful princess with an enormous nose appeared. As she passes I could see the edge of the Bullwinkle horns sticking slightly from the veil. I knew it was the Bullwinkle headed princess. I remained mute, I was rooting for her to get in even though I could not. The bouncer was not unwise & spotted the Bullwinkle headed princess right off. He was not harsh in his rejection but was unmoving in his stance. "No Bullwinkle Heads Allowed".

The limo left with the Bullwinkle headed princess. A few minutes went by & the same limo pulled up. When the chauffeur opened the door this time a beautiful princess with an enormous Humpback appeared. Humpbacks are definitely allowed in, In fact they always get priority seating when they arrive. I was thrilled to see a Humpback, let alone a Humpback princess. This made coming to the show worth it even if I don't get in. The bouncer asked for her ID, when she moved to look down into her purse a pair of Bullwinkle horns popped out of the hump. It was the Bullwinkle headed princess. I like her ambition. I truly believe with her determination that she would eventually get into the Prince Charming show tonight.

The limo left with the Bullwinkle headed princess. A few minutes went by & the same limo pulled up. When the chauffeur opened the door this time a beautiful princess with a long Giraffe Neck poked out. Wow, I have never even seen pictures of the Giraffe Neck's, let alone a princess of the Giraffe Necks. My year is made today, nothing can top this, not even getting into the Prince Charming show. The bouncer welcomed her, bowing & scraping the ground with his hat, even the unmovable rock of a bouncer was in awe that he was in the presence of the Giraffe Neck Princess. As she entered, the sign slung over the door that stated "No Bullwinkle Heads" whacked her in the head. The Bullwinkle horns popped out of her disguise & she was sent away once more.

She did not return to her limo this time. The bouncer had finally beaten her will. She ran crying into the alley with her hands over her Bullwinkle horns, ashamed of that part of her body she could not change. I felt bad for her, I was rooting for her all along. Poor Bullwinkle headed princess.

The next day I read the local trash magazine while I drank my hot cocoa. The magazine, The Kingdom Enquirer, Had a picture of Prince Charming on the front. He was drunk & kissing the Bullwinkle headed princess in the alley. The other princess was in the background glaring with anger at her former friend. Why did she get to kiss Prince Charming? She's a Bullwinkle head. The picture looked like my Bullwinkle headed princess made out well, however the caption more accurately described the doom she was destined to feel. It read "Bullwinkle Head dumped by Prince Charming on first date"

Ah, Rats!

We saw your gang of rats in the basement a few weeks ago. You were having a great time romping around the basement. What a perfect environment for our rat children to move into. Obviously the noise & partying is a bit much for us. Our rat children are in their college years & need a cheap or free place to nest. We brought them by to see the place & they just loved it. They even found the bags of rats nest you so generously left out & began redecorating right away. We found the rat traps laying around with the free food on them, we appreciate that you did not have them set. Our children did not understand that spent traps are not dangerous & they showed their disdain by defecating on the traps after we were done eating the food. This does not in any way reflect their opinion of your space as a whole. They just love the levels of boxes to play in and the easy pathways beneath the pallets. You have really outdone yourself in the development of your accommodations. We hope that you become fast friends & that our children can join in your ratty celebrations. If our children become a burden to you, don't hesitate to contact us for assistance in a resolution.

Yours Truly,

Mr. & Mrs. James Thurgood Huxley Rat

Good Sunday

I wasn't expecting any kind of enjoyment or excitement today. Then I completed the story of a trip to Deadwood & the animal encounters along the way. I felt the need for caffeine & sugar, two items I rarely crave let alone actually ever ingest. I ran into Evil Cat at the bottom of the stairs. She said that a friend of hers was in town & they were meeting her and other friends in common at the cupcake Royal. Sugar & Caffeine. I enjoy the company of all those friends in common & the interesting subjects they discuss. The friend from out of town had a great story. She was going to do paint ball wars with some of her friends and her sister. She was shocked at the size of the guns, not being a gun person or having any past experience with guns. She went into the battlefield & basically hid the whole game, only popping up occasionally to shoot & watch her paint explode against the scenery. One time she came up, shot at random & then heard her sister exclaim "I'm hit". She had shot her own sister in the face with a paint ball. She felt horrible, in fact as she was telling the story I could see her slightly well up. She said she went out of the battle field only to find her sister sitting outside crying. She found out her sister had been crying even before she was shot in the face by the paint ball. Obviously battle did not agree with either of the sisters. It was genuinely touching to see the level of compassion & lack of aggressiveness in someone. However that lasted about a whole second before we all agreed that on the paint ball battlefield all people are targets & we would have had to take the shot too.

I reminded myself just how much I hate cupcakes or any type of sweets by eating a portion of one. It was disgusting. I had to toss the uneaten portions right away. I could not stand to look at them laying on the table.

We went to a realm more comfortable to me. Hazlewood's, the bar down the street in Ballard has an elixir much more enticing to me, Bourbon & Beer. Here we discussed our loose associations with organized crime syndicates of our past. It turns out that we are all non-criminals but have had close associations with many in the crime world. The horse racing & show horse industry is apparently fraught with criminal activities. and apparently so is the pesticide industry. One or two in the group had not had any close interactions in the crime world & it shocked them how close some of us had come.

We decided that food was in our immediate future & jumped over to Thaiku in Ballard. Here we all experienced many flavors new to us & not just new but good. We all took samplings of the others & shared ours. Even the drinks here are original with exotic African & Asian ingredients set to stimulate & slightly hallucinate. They limit you to one so you can't really get to those levels of hallucinations some would like to reach.

On the ride home there was debate on whether or not the girl bending over on the Supersuckers shirt Poverty was wearing showed snatch or not. I stayed out of this conversation because though I could not see it was showing snatch, I liked to believe it did. What a good Sunday this turned out to be.

Along the Way

I turned onto the highway, the final leg of my journey to visit Snowball. My light immediately caught the glowing eyes of something wandering in the road. The eyes darted off the road, then back into the road several times. They couldn't seem to make up their mind. As I drove closer the eyes revealed themselves to be a fox. The fox had found a roadkill & even though my high beams were barring down on him, he could not leave his treasure behind. He was trying to pull along his feast but the tires that had arrived there first had thoroughly glued the snack to the pavement. His eyes never leaving the roadkill, the fox jumped off into the grass.

Three deer were in the road as I approached, I slowed with caution out of habit & it paid off this time. All three could have easily veered into the forest as they ran from my oncoming lights. They panicked & opted to run back out into the road right in front of me. Then instead of continuing across the highway they veered away & ran in front of me for about 40 yards. One of them got a clue, jumped from the middle of the road all the way across a lane, the median & a ditch, landing on the rise beside the road & dropped away from sight. The others followed, though not in as graceful a fashion. One of them barreled through at ground level kicking up dust & grass the whole way. The final deer decided to try the graceful jump the first had done. This did not work out as the deer plowed head first into the ground after tripping, she quickly regained & trotted away deciding not to try the graceful deer thing again.

This animal was unexpected as she ran into the road. What is she? She looks like a weasel, fully 2 times the size of a cat. Her markings were black on top with white on the bottom. She moved like a woman, as her front end went one way, her back end swung wide the other way. She snaked her body across the road quickly & disappeared down the ditch. I wish she would have lingered longer. She was interesting.

A large white owl sat on a fence post & watched as I went by. I wonder what the owl thinks as the lights approach then swing by on the road. Most animals seem to think along the lines of prey or danger. The owl was not far enough off the road not to feel danger. Is Mr. Owl contemplating the taste of those large animals with the bright eyes that keep growling by?

A regular house cat slinks across the road. The cat was low to the ground as she went across the road. Her body language I have seen when scolding pet's in the past. I think she knew she was not supposed to be in the road & now that she was caught by my headlights showed her shame.

Not 10 yards past the cat a field mouse ran like a bullet across the road. I bet that cat would sure like to know about this.

I began to think, outside of the fox that had welcomed me to this highway, the size of the animals was going from large to small. Deer, Weasel, Owl, Cat, Mouse. I started contemplating what could be smaller. Then I thought, how did a house cat get out here in the middle of the woods. Must be a cabin or something out here. I figured the way things work in this life are unexpected. So the next thing fate will send to the spotlight on the highway will probably be something like a bear or a moose or something huge. Right as I was pondering this. I had to slam the brakes as something huge in front of me froze in the headlights. It was a homeless man, pushing his shopping cart across the road. He froze like a deer in the headlight. What the heck is a homeless man doing pushing his shopping cart down the middle of a rural highway in the middle of the forest? I slowed to pass him, he did not move until the lights had passed, then quickly pushed away. I saw he had a large item in his basket. It stood about 7 feet above the edge of the basket. The blue tarp covering it was too small & left a portion exposed. It seemed to be a large black monolith. I'm not going to wonder about this, chalk it up to one of those David Lynchian scenes where there are no true answers, only the underlying feeling of the vast unknown.

Screwed (Dream #2)

I walked along, eerily reminded of the neighborhood of my childhood. No one talked. I looked over to Maggie & pursed my lips with the beginnings of a word. The look on her face stopped me before I could make a sound. Silence seemed to be the preferred modus operandi. A cute fuzzy duckling wandering in the road caused me to break the silence. I caught it up quickly and exclaimed in a very childlike tone "duckieeeees". I caught up another to pet & play with them. While paying attention only to the ducklings, I had wandered to the side yard of their home. The laundry was out drying in the warmth of the day. Parents of the ducklings lived in their makeshift coop on the side of the house. Maggie & Pete did venture a touch as well as entering a few bars of filtered emotion. Their speech makes me feel like boring opera. I however fully indulged in a childlike frolic with the baby birds. While playing with the fuzzy wuzzies, a pit bull appeared & bit down on my arm with a growl. Maggie spoke, "it figures" was all she said. Though her statement was intended sarcastically, it was right on track with my life so far. I talked to the dog, exhibiting no fear, as this was not the first time I have been menaced by a dog or bitten by a beast. The dog chewed thoughtfully while deciding if I was a danger to his charges. I spent some time explaining that there was no ill intended. Making up his mind that I was of no danger my arm was released. With a second thought, he bit down again, then released as the final decision came. I was not a threat. I thanked the dog. He sat in the dirt and watched as we wandered away down the dirt road.

Snowball in the Fire

Kickin rocks & watching the dog eat dirt was all that I could have dreamed of doing at this particular time. The satisfaction was incredible & complete. I had no desire of anything else, no hunger, no sense of temperature, no feeling of the need to go anywhere or do anything. This all broke up by an instinctual reaction as Snowball fell into the fire. As I pulled her out before more than a small part of her leg could be burned, I felt the edge of the fire pit give way. I had planted all of my weight & was fully committed. I was going into the fire. How does that dog eat that much dirt? And why? what a weird dog, I like her.

Northern Inexposure

What an odd day, I have faded in & out of sleep at least 30 times. I keep having these micro dreams that incorporate some of the stuff happening around me in reality. The Young Ones & The Northern Exposure DVD box sets are providing the twisted reality portions of the micro dreams. Evil Cat woke me to feed me macaroni & cheese. I decided it was time to join the bloggers. My dreams will be documented along with a current item and an item from my past. My past issues will not follow reality, rather they will be based on my ever evolving memory of the past. Items stored in my head are along the lines of 10 Van Gogh paintings all being done simultaneously on the same canvas. Interesting? absolutely, factual? not completely.

The Parking Garage (Dream #1)

The skyscraper was so immense that it was difficult to figure out how to return to the parking garage. I began to worry, the bed of my pickup has valuable items that are easy to walk off with. I chose a flight of stairs, unsure if they would lead me to my truck. As I descended the stairs a large thug who is quickly descending down from the flight above draws my attention. I was startled when an old whore with a kid in her arms stepped out in front of me while my attention was above. She exposes her breast to get my attention, then proceeds to ask "can me and my kid stay with you tonight" and smiles wide exposing gaps where the ivories used to be. Her whole demeanor & speech was proposition for sex in return for a place to stay. I thought about it for a second & then remembered the thug that had drawn my caution earlier. I noticed that the whores eyes ran independent of each other, she blinked at me as her other eye floated on the thug as he squeezed by us in the stairwell. As he passed he turned & waved his hands in the motion that clearly stated: Dude, don't do it! He slid his finger across his throat to indicate the imminent danger I was in. I politely declined the whores proposition at the suggestion of my unconventional savior. The exit neon flickered awakening me to my original quest, my truck. I went out to the parking garage.