Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Did you know snowflakes can hurt? I found this out yesterday on my way home from the transit station. I'd ridden my bike up in the morning to catch the bus, and during the afternoon a light snow fell when I returned to the transit station to get my bike and ride home. Almost as soon as I started out, a snowflake hit me in the eye. Not a pleasant feeling! All the way home I was blinking and keeping my head down to avoid having snowflakes maul my eyeballs. Being out, riding through the snow, was invigorating. I've actually been considering trying to ride twenty miles or more on a weekly basis all winter long no matter what kind of weather we're having. First, I have to find my booties, though. I really don't like having cold toes. You know what else hurts? Dreams. I had a dream last night during which something happened that created an intense emotional pain. One part of the dream I remember the most is me standing at a sink, washing coffee mugs and crying because of ...

My first Don't Squander Opportunities came last evening at a get-together with friends. Smoked oysters. Eat one, my friend said. They'll bring good luck. So I stabbed a toothpick into a dark brown blob of flesh piled on a plate and plopped it into my mouth. The smokey flavor spread over my tongue and the roof of my mouth. The texture was soft, like a piece of smoked fish. I savored every second of the delicacy. Yummm, I said. I enjoy most seafoods, and the smoked oyster was yet another like to add to the list. My friend, in my phone contacts as Princess Leia because of her affinity for all things Star Wars , however, after very, very hesitantly biting just a small piece off an oyster, grimaced and spit out most of what she could. I wonder if the real Princess Leia would have reacted that way to smoked oysters. I kind of think she would have eaten them with gusto. Cricket sucker, anyone? And my second Don't Squander Opportunities happened as a result of me being ...

Lately I've been having really vivid dreams, the kind that are so crystal clear when they're playing out that I remember them for days afterward. Last night, I had one such dream. When I woke up from it I was very tempted to get up to research the possible meaning behind it. One look at the clock kept me in bed; it was only 1:46 am. I still had several hours of sleep to enjoy if I pulled the covers up to snuggle under, so I did just that. No way was I going to forget the dream even if I did go back to sleep. In the dream, I was walking Neurotic, Silly Dog along a rural road. I could see up ahead of us a trio of kids in the road, walking away from us. I was faced with having to decide to continue walking straight or turn left onto another road. Right when I had decided to continue straight, a rather large, very bright pink with white stripe skunk came out of the ditch just in front of us and began to cross the road. While I marveled over its color--bright pink?--at the same ti...

from The Phoenixian Book of Creatures That's what I dreamed about two nights ago--a really, really big snake with a head at each end. I wasn't really scared of it while dreaming about it. Well, maybe just a little. But I woke up wondering what in the world a snake with a head at each end meant. I've never read about one. I've never seen one in all of the lit that I read. I had to find out what meaning lies behind this kind of snake. In my searching I found out the snake comes from Greek mythology and is called Amphisbaena. It is an ant-eating snake borne out of the blood that dripped from Medusa's head. Okay then. Glad to know a creature from my dream is the spawn of a woman who enjoyed turning men to stone. Is this some kind of unconscious desire of my own? Further searching unearthed that this kind of snake means being pulled into two different directions. Now that I can buy into. Personal issues have had me in a bit of a funk lately. Some of my unhappiness...