Pirates, Plymouth and Plumbing

        I was at some sort of public park, with some pirate themed festival going on. There was a ship on rails in a shallow moat, three masted with people dressed as pirates aboard. The ship made a circuit around an island that looked a lot like Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland. Both MS and JR were there, dressed as pirates. They asked me to come aboard. I volunteered to climb up to the top of the rigging, and did a bit of fire eating for my part of the show. (I have never done fire eating, ever, and can barely juggle torches as it is.) I was there on the main mast, blowing fire 10 feet into the air and snuffing the torches in my mouth. I was trying not to lose my nice pirate hat.

        When the show was over, the Stage Manager wanted a group photo, but not including the people who’d been invited from the public. I was coming down out of the rigging and managed to get in the first shot, then dropped to the deck and was in the second shot as well. The SM was incredibly upset and had me thrown out of the back stage area. While it was only me goofing around I felt bad about it and went back to the guard to be let back in to turn in the juggling torches, as they belonged to the show. The guard told me he’d been instructed to hold me up so they could get ready to beat me up.

        “I only wanted to return the props and leave an apology,” I showed him the torches.

        “OK, but hurry up or you’ll be in trouble, unless you know karate or something.”

        “Brown belt, but not karate.”

        “Hurry then, I don’t want anyone getting hurt on my watch.”

        I went in and put the props on the SM’s desk and left a note apologizing for goofing around and ruining his photos.  This was a huge anxiety producing dream, especially since I was behaving in a very un-me-like fashion.

        I went back to sleep after trying to figure out what that dream was telling me, and immediately found myself facing a highway patrol officer at my front door. It seems someone had abandoned my old Plymouth on the freeway. I pointed out to the officer that I hadn’t had ownership of the Plymouth for a couple of years.

Dad came out with me. He’d recognized the car and had the HP come and pick me up. I didn’t have any keys, of course, because I had sold the car. The car was open, and the spare key I’d taped to the top of the glove box was still there. . We drove the car and it was in pretty bad shape, barely running. I asked the highway patrol officer if he could try to find the real owner, as I felt odd about taking the car to Mom and Dad’s house without his permission. The Highway Patrol officer said the car had been there long enough to be considered abandoned and the legal owner was unresponsive.

I still couldn’t figure out how this wasn’t stealing. Dad agreed to take title to the car, as he had really missed it. I gave him the number of the Performance Plus near my home that had done all of the great work on the motor when I’d last had the car, and they actually agreed to send a mechanic over to work on it in exchange for some computer work.

I found myself wondering how the car had not been towed if it had been declared abandoned. It was one of those dream obsession moments that would play over and over again until we noticed the house was getting very damp and warm.

I looked into the AC de-humidifier closet, and the reservoir, which normally drained into the bathtub line, was full to overflowing. I called a plumber to come out, but Dad wanted to call Sears to fix the AC unit. I finally convinced him that the AC unit was fine, and that it was the drain that was blocked, probably with old cat hair.

The plumber arrived, a very sweet looking blond woman in bib overalls and a khaki shirt. I really enjoyed watching her work. It turned out that I was right; there was a wad of cat hair blocking the drain, as well as an old sock, which Dad admitted had been rolled up as a cat toy for their last cat.

In talking with the plumber we discovered that we had met, she had been a birthday party ‘dancer’ for my 30^th birthday many years ago. Although it was reasonable that I would remember her, I was surprised that she remembered me, or more accurately remembered the two women who’d arranged to get her into the birthday celebration and how nicely we’d treated her, dinner and drinks on us. (Apparently that wasn’t all that common during her career.)

Ad astra per technica,

FF