Rest in Peace

My mother-in-law passed away today, after several months of health problems.

When I first met my wife, 27 years ago, her mother was in the hospital.  At the time, the doctors predicted that she had, at most, six months to live.  Just a few weeks later she was back on her feet and stronger than ever.  We always joked that she was too stubborn to die.  But this year her myriad of health problems finally caught up to her.

My mother-in-law was intelligent, sarcastic, headstrong, witty, and full of good advice.  We had our differences, but we got along, and I always respected her.  I will remember her fondly.  

Rest in peace.

I Voted!

I waited in line for 30 minutes, which is less time than it took when I voted 4 years ago.  I'm still pissed that I had to vote in person.  My state forbade mail-in voting unless you have a specific reason, and fear of COVID isn't considered an adequate reason.  It's an obvious attempt at voter suppression - what better way to ensure a low turnout than to make people afraid they'll die if they vote.  But it didn't seem to work, judging by the large number of people voting early.

In the past four years, we've seen Trump tell more lies than any president in US history.  We've seen him deny science, change tax laws to favor his wealthy friends, promote xenophobia, use the presidency to promote his own businesses, dismiss any problems that didn't directly affect him, blame the Democrats for his own mistakes, divide the country, stand up for racists and Nazis, and fumble the pandemic so hard that thousands more died than would have under a rational leader.

Remember, if you voted for Trump four years ago, you did this.  You.  Did.  This.  We warned you, and you didn't listen.  There is blood on your hands, and you owe your country a penance.

But there's still time to make up for it.  If you can't bring yourself to vote for Biden, at the very least don't vote for Trump again.  Don't double down on your error.  Own it, and resolve to do better.  Prove that you can learn from your mistakes.  Get back in God's good graces, and finally feel better about yourself.

Now go forth, and sin no more.

Dream Journal 10/19/2020

Screw it, I don't post enough blogs as it is.  I might as well use it as a dream journal as well.

Scot Adams, creator of Dilbert, has often said that there's nothing less interesting than listening to someone's dream.  But he's also a Trump supporter, so what does he know.  I can promise you this, that some of the dreams I post here will be boring.  But writing is a muscle, and I need to do it more often, even if I don't have a proper subject.  If you don't like them, skip those blog entries.

Last night I dreamed that I revisited my childhood home.  I still have lots of dreams where I live there, but this was different.  In this dream, I was the same age I am now, living where I do now.  But I found out that my parents' old house was now abandoned, and had been willed to me.

I arrived at the house, and everything was dark.  From the outside it looked pretty normal, except that all the windows had been boarded up.  But when I went inside, it looked much older.  Inside the house, everything was made of unfinished wood, like an old barn.  The floorboards weren't even tightly fitted, and you could see through some of the slats.  But other than that, the downstairs still had the same floorplan as the actual house.

But then I went upstairs.  The second floor was impossibly big.  It had the layout of a shopping mall - one huge hallway, and lots of store-sized side rooms.  But it was still completely wood.  I was there with a group of people I don't know in real life, and we all had camping gear, preparing to stay overnight.

An old woman approached us, and she told us she'd been living there for decades.  She said she was over 100 years old, and she was glad to finally have some guests.  I think she was based on Mother Abigail from Stephen King's "The Stand".  She said I could have ownership of the property, as long as I allowed her to continue to live there as well.  

Another odd thing, while most of the mall level was wood, there was one exception.  We discovered that there was one actual store in the otherwise empty mall.  It had a normal looking store front, made of plexiglass and neon.  It appeared to be a video/music store like FYE or Media Play.  The logo looked like Blockbuster Video's, but had a different name where the logo would be.  It looked so out of place, all lit up and modern, surrounded by old wood.

The old woman told us that was where she kept her record collection.  And that's all I remember.