Three ice hockey games in three days wear me down. I'm still not recovered from the fever and antibiotic therapy. It takes me until Wednesday morning (from the prior weekend) to finally shave - I didn't have the confidence that I could put a blade to my throat and not start slashing.
I wander down to the Frat House on Friday night - it is the start of Halloween activities. The place is packed! It also seems that everyone that I know, except ChiChi, is there tonight: Bob, Hai (now known as Jimmy since his citizenship ceremony), three Dannys (Couldn't there parents think of other names? What Dan or Daniel was popular about 30 years ago that would make their parents name them that? I don't know.), Chris, Alex, Sabrina, and Doug. Because it is Halloween, somebody has a camera and now, in existence somewhere, is a picture of me, Sabrina, and a Miller Genuine Draft spokesperson all huddled together at a table. (Don't ask!)
There are a lot of great costumes this year! The costumes span the gamut of everything imaginable and some that I don't even know what they are. Just before the midnight judging of the costumes, Sabrina leaves to change into her REAL outfit. This year she comes as Sabrina the Peacock Girl - with peacock feathers and CD-ROMS in strategic places on her dress. She gets second place. (A set of six people dressed up as a Chinese emperor and his concubine take the $150 first prize.)
I leave at a reasonable hour. Well, what has become a reasonable hour for a Friday night. Though I have again lost all sense of sanity, realism, and being since a certain person is again here tonight, at least I don't end up screaming obscenities at the end of the night. I have the same feelings of disgust as last week, but this time I don't outwardly verbalize them and, instead, release them in other manners.
There is a man sleeping on the sidewalk near my truck when I leave the after-hours party to finally go home. I do not disturb him.
The dream happens on Friday night (actually Saturday morning) after I have returned home at some ridiculous hour and just before I am woken up by a 75 pound golden retriever licking my hand at 6:20am. (Bad dog - he's not supposed to be on the carpet!) I am about to play a round of golf against one opponent who is present but who I don't know. There is an official starter and he gives us the following instructions: "This is a best score match. No handicaps. The course consists of one hole, a par 29."
I ask, "Where's the hole?"
The starter looks disturbed that I interrupted him, but goes on to explain "The hole is located at Garden Grove Blvd and Brookhurst. There's a sewer on the northwest corner of the intersection and here's a photo of the pin placement today." He pulls out a polaroid photo and shows us the location of the sewer grate next to a Shell station. And he continues the instructions with "The drug dealers on the right are out of bounds. The hookers on the left are a two stroke penalty. Hitting a homeless person with the ball is a two stroke penalty. Anyone else is a one stroke penalty. Tee it up gentlemen, and may the best man win."
After a few strokes down Garden Grove Blvd, my opponent comes over and asks, "What club do you think that I should use from here"?
And I respond with "Well, seeing that you've still got 1.25 miles to the pin, I think you better use all the club that you've got".
Nopester wakes me up from the dream. I get up at 6:20 am, do the laundry, and go for a bicycle ride. Seeing that there has been flooding along the LA River, most of the entrances to the LA River trail are closed. I keep heading south on surface streets until I find a pedestrian entryway that is open. The south end of the trail is closed, so I have to turn around and head north without encircling the aquarium. When I've had enough, I stop at my exit from the LA River trail and, of course, the gates are chained shut. So I lift the bicycle over the 5 foot fence and climb over the fence in order to leave the LA River trail and get back on surface streets towards home.
By 2pm I am tired. But just starting to drink. Because I can still remember the previous night. When the whiskey bottle is almost completely empty, I have forgotten previous bad memories. And start working on EOS dynamic testing storyboards.