Weird Dreams, Yucky Taxes, Happy Feet, Gardenscape

I ascended and reached the top of the narrow stairwell and turned right, entering the place that was my bedroom of my old childhood home. The radio was playing on the cheap, boom box stereo I owned that was perched on the old chest of drawers with the sloppily applied dark walnut-coloured stain and weathered looking varnish.  The radio’s reception was half loaded with static, and I tried to adjust the tuning, but it wouldn’t change to anything clearer. It was night time, and I looked to my left towards the window to see that there were glowing sparks streaking across the sky heading eastward. I went back downstairs, and out the front door walking about 8 meters from the entrance. I turned around, and looked up toward the west, looking above the roof of our house back on the farm. It was a meteor shower, appearing to sweep very low over the sky, directly above our homestead. Suddenly, one of the streaks changed its trajectory, and came careening down toward very close to where I was standing. It brushed over the huge old shady Black Poplar tree that grew on the south east corner on the front of our house, and landed in the yard close to where we used to incinerate garbage. It continued to burn brightly for a while. Unlike any other meteorite when it lands, there was no blinding flash of light or explosive blast upon impact. It rested flat on the ground, making some of the grass burn around it, but leaving no impact crater. It stopped glowing and then instantly became cool enough to touch. The shape of the rock itself was like a prism, about one and a half meters in height at the apex, and 3 meters long. It was hollowed out inside, I could tell by a crack on its surface. I pressed against the end face of the stone prism, and it crumbled away. It was like a weird celestial storage locker. Inside of it were incredible things: rolled up scrolls and canvases of some kind of art that was too intricate and beyond any description I could ever give.  There were bars and ingots of gold, platinum, along with other semi-precious metals; there was another special article there too, which for a split second caught my attention. It was a . . .

And that’s when the train awoke me from this dream, as I heard its whistle and its rumbling going across the South CNR Bridge at 6:00 AM yesterday morning. This really burns my ass. This kind of dream: with myself encountering a surprise source of some sort of treasure, is a commonly recurring theme for me. During the climax of the dream, just when I'm about to see what the big discovery is, there perhaps is a physiological surge of adrenaline that gets triggered through the excitement, which stirs me awake before I get to see what the great wonder actually is, or to remember any more detail in the dreamscape. Or, as in this case with the train noise, I coincidently get awoken by some external stimulus. The initial findings usually appear to be “money”, or strangely printed paper currency, which is another reason why probably collect foreign bills. It would be interesting to know what this all is supposed to mean if it were properly Interpreted. I’ll probably check out the dream section of Hyperdictionary, just for a hoot later.

Sleeping with the window opened a quarter of the way, to have a train’s horn disturb me was a consequence of a forgotten detail from the spring cleaning and airing out the place the day before. It took up most of my day. I honestly shouldn’t have done it because I never felt had energy for it to begin with, since I did a long stint of work before that. I ended that day very exhausted, with a bad headache, but at least nothing is looking further neglected.

I used one of my two mental health days I’m allotted for the year yesterday. I should have used it and the other one long ago. Since yesterday was the last working day I had before the end of the fiscal year, I thought I had better not waste it and I used it to file my bloody taxes, and deal with all other personal fiscal matters. It’s hardly what a “mental health” day should be used for, but I figured it would be in my best interest and easier to pool my energy into dealing with this bit of hell, and then have two full days off to relax, rather than doing it sporadically amidst all the extra shopping and other junk to do; coming back on Monday as a real tired, grouchy son of a bitch. I thought I’d better get those affairs in order and cleared out of the way before making all my other travel plans for the month of April. I’ll be visiting the family for Easter, and attending the burial of my Grandmother’s ashes later in the month. My Dad’s health is as yet a big question mark, but I hope he’ll be released from the hospital before Easter. I’m preparing for contingencies of repeat visits though.

Anyhow, my taxes, plus some other aggravating paperwork, took a few frustrating hours to process, with one break to do some jogging. Then I used the remainder of the day for something else that isn’t conducive for promoting good mental health for me. That would be shopping for shoes.

Sorry boys . . . time to retire.

The 2012 Federal Budget was just released recently from Ottawa, and it’s the Canadian parliamentary tradition for the Minister of Finance to buy new shoes for that day. I figured that since I’ve been probing through my own annual expenses and budget that I should do the same. It couldn’t be avoided any longer, as the ones I have now are pretty much tattered, and I wasn’t going to the bloody malls during a Saturday before the Easter weekend looking for them. I utterly hate shopping for shoes because there are so very few durable, good-quality shoes that actually fit my stupid, semi-deformed feet* properly. It’s easier for me to buy a vehicle for myself than it is to get a decent pair of all-purpose, utilitarian shoes. Like most average Canadian men, I generally avoid shopping for anything that can’t just be grabbed off the shelf and taken straight to the till. I don’t like having to physically try on things to test them; that’s unavoidable when it comes to shoe shopping. I look in hopeless disgust at the heaps of dozens of open shoe boxes that some poor shop worker has went through so much trouble to get for me, only to find out that it was all an exercise in futility to find any hiking or sports shoes that fit my feet, along with my custom made orthotics. I could move on to as many as three or four stores, spending most of a day doing this before I find anything. I’d probably be the shoe customer that would ultimately make someone like Al Bundy blow his brains out. I hate the seriously ridiculous amount of wasted time that is used for this kind of quest. When I do find any they very seldom end up ever being bought at a bargain. This time though, I did manage to eventually find something without too much wasted effort, and not too terribly expensive, but how long they’ll actually last is still a question for debate. I noticed just how much all the running I’ve done has again changed the characteristics of my posture and walking also, and so my orthotics may need to be adjusted, or changed.

New babies

I think I subconsciously and purposely keep all my runners shabby, scuffed up, and riddled with holes, as to dissuade anyone from stealing them, and the expensive orthotics inside them. In a scenario where, God forbid, some maniac is trying to mug me, brandishing a weapon, and demanding that I hand over my wallet, I probably wouldn’t think twice about complying**. However, if the same bastard started pressing me to hand over my shoes, all I’d have to do is think about all the miserable frustration, and anger that I’d be faced with in trying to replace them (and the orthotics), and channel that energy onto this prick as I tackled him. Facing that kind of rage and fury, he’d be begging to die by some other comparatively more merciful, less painful/ humiliating/torturous means instead. I know I’ve been on this subject too long, and even though I’d like it to not have to be so, getting a pair of good, durable shoes for my feet is necessarily a big deal for me, since most of my time is spent with serving people who can’t use their own, and are relying on mine instead. Knowing this, one becomes a lot more appreciative and conscientious of allowing their feet do their job comfortably, and even more so, maintaining the ability to walk properly, seeing day after day how limiting life can be without the ability to do so. I suppose that’s also what’s been bothering me a bit: seeing the kind of condition my own father is in now, and how his mobility is being impaired.

The best sign of spring.

Oooh Yeeeah. . . Daddy like!
Must get this for Man Cave.

Today, the trade show in the neighbourhood this weekend is Gardenscape. The only thing garden related and practical for me would be small container gardening for my balcony, but then I remembered after paying my admission that my deck space is going to be renovated this summer, and thus it would be kind of pointless to plan on planting anything out there. So, initially I felt kind of stupid for even bothering to go there. However, I endeavoured to make it worth my while. I found a demo massaging armchair that I used for a few minutes, and it did me a world of good. It made it worth the cost of entry alone. My own therapeutic masseuse's fee is several times more than the admission to Gardenscape was. Plus, unlike my masseuse, the chair didn’t make me feel like I was getting my hide ripped off of me. I feel so much better. By another lucky happenstance, I made contact with a cute little woman in charge of a housecleaning service, who provided good credentials and references. I think I’ll use her instead of troubling myself with the next go around of long term neglect/absence and seasonal cleaning. I wish I found her sooner. My only other big home project is to reorganize my kitchen space, and then I should be content. I some got ideas for that from Lee Valley, who also had reps there. That chair, new shoes, the smell of flowers, and the loamy aroma of living soil, made me I feel like a new person. I entered a few draws, and with my luck, I would probably win the most impractical thing to ever have around this place: a hot tub (there were like a dozen vendors for them there). It would actually be worse than not winning anything. I have nowhere to put one. I hope there is a cash prize option.

The kind of sign I should own.

*-Not really grossly deformed, but enough to keep me out of the CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) back in the years when I would have considered enlisting, and enough to give me a lot of future spinal/ambulation problems without any corrective support. It didn’t help that my feet/knees were subjected to a lot of punishment doing repetitive and intensive heavy labour during the years of my first wage-earning job after high school, which still has as impact on me I’m sure even today.

**-Judging by all my earlier tax calculations, he wouldn’t find anything in there anyway. The federal government beat him to it.