Pursuant to a couple of inquiries, permit me to respond to my calling the holiday season, perhaps pejoratively, spontaneous.

For all my faults, I pride myself on my predictability.
Dinner is always ready on time.
I lift three times a week.
I read and work at the cafe everyday at noon.
I’m never late for appointments.

During the holiday season, I plan dinner meetings with friends and family; some at home; some in restaurants.
For the restaurants, I always book thirty days in advance, and earlier when booking the popular dates like New Year’s Eve.

And while I usually agree to go along, any unplanned idea, like at 9.30pm someone excitedly, “I have an idea!” engenders in me a shudder.
We’ve just finished a long, satisfying meal that calls for rest, not a call to “Let’s go to a movie.”

Spontaneous.
Usually not fun for me.
Nor is midnight shopping on Black Friday.
Grinch-like, I.

Compare to winter.

Cold isn’t fun.
Storms aren’t fun.
They are often unpredictable.
Predictably so.

Forecasters see a storm forming.
Not happening.
Forming.
They handle the unpredictable by using percentages.

As a nod to the unpredictability of the weather, we may have to pack extra clothing ‘in case.’
The weather unpredictable.
Predictably.

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Tagging Today
Saturday, January 5, 2019
My 268th consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
Time is 12.01am.
On Saturday, Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 46* with a feels-like temperature of 37*.
Warmer than what the past 35 days have been.
There will be some rain during the day.
Can’t predict when from here.
Prepare for the unpredictable.

Dinner will be a chicken roasted for 70 minutes per pound.
A trial.

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Question of the Day:
Dreams. What are they?

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Love your notes.
Contact me @ domcapossela@hotmail.com
from an anonymous “Cheers”

The Introduction:

Happy New Year Dom!!

I share the same loathing of winter. It is dark and cold and oh so long. I'm glad to see that your winter ends on February 14th! Much shorter than mine. Mine seems to reach the very bottom of its dank, dark well early-Feb and then they only start hoisting me up and out of the well to resurface in March while the lion and the lamb have at it. Your comments made me think of something I wrote a few winters ago that perhaps you'll appreciate since you hate winter so. I hesitate to share it widely since it has such a depressing tone to it and some people love winter--and don't get me wrong, winter has its highlights sprinkled about when a blizzard snows us in enough to keep us home but enough to send a tree through our house or some other disaster--but in the end the dark days win out and I am scouring for crocuses desperately by March. 

I looked and looked to find this. For some reason I thought it was already in my computer (the things I hand-write and that I like enough to remember are usually, eventually typed into a computer document) but after looking through every folder it could possibly be in I couldn't find it. Then I dug out my notebook where I sometimes write and found it. I had thought it was a poem, but it was prose after all. 

I have typed it up for you. So, you can consider it my special, extra dark, winter gift to you! Also, this is a typed draft from a written draft and I am not taking time to revise it-- so here it is with all its pimples and warts:) 

Cheers, the anonymous

The Story: Winter Corpse, written on 1/28/13 

Ahhh . . . Winter. The dead of winter. There’s definitely a reason why they refer to the belly of winter in terms of death. As it drags slowly on like a stiff, cold corpse being dragged down an abandoned street because of some obligation—because of some promise of a better, more appropriate place for something void of life and stiff with alone to rest.

We continue through the streets of winter looking for smoke billowing from a chimney with its home-spun scents filling us and feeding our imagination that is so desperate for a distraction, a motivation, a focus. But nothing billows, nothing glows. There is no soft light playing like a mirage in the distance. We have to just find the strength within ourselves to continue: right, left, right, left, breathe, sigh, right left . . .

Perhaps this is just a small test of our grit. A small pause to remind us of how great things were during warmer times when we still found something to complain about in our spoiled-rotten-I-deserve-the-best-and-everybody-owes-me world. Winter may be really what we all deserve, but God, the universe, the puppeteer in the sky decides to just give us a taste, just a quick little jab.

I, for one, will endure and yet like the whiners we all are I will complain about it, compare it to past years, start counting down days, get a little sulky in my skin, a little less amused, claim a few more headaches, imagine spring crocus and almost smell the thaw of the earth as it starts to wake.

Maybe I’ll try to complain less the rest of the year and appreciate more. Maybe I’ll try to do everything possible outside, even hanging my clothes on a line to dry in the sun like our much smarter, less whiney, and far more industrious ancestors did. What is wrong with us that we drift wherever the wind blows us—too lazy, too checked-out to insist on the right direction just because it’s the harder course.

When will more difficult but righteous ever win over easy and questionable. The day we decide we need not bother to drag the corpse, that we deserve a break, that day will surely be the last day!

Web Meister Responds: So nice. We can hunker down with a warm smile.
We thank you, cheers.

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Answer to Question: 

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.

The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, although they have been a topic of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history.
Dream interpretation is the attempt at drawing meaning from dreams and searching for an underlying message.
The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.

Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep—when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake.
REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep.
At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep.
However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable.

The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes.
People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase.
The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven; however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.

Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses.
During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of REM.
Dreams related to waking-life experiences are associated with REM theta activity, which suggests that emotional memory processing takes place in REM sleep.

Opinions about the meaning of dreams have varied and shifted through time and culture.
Many endorse the Freudian theory of dreams – that dreams reveal insight into hidden desires and emotions.
Other prominent theories include those suggesting that dreams assist in memory formation, problem solving, or simply are a product of random brain activation.

Sigmund Freud, who developed the psychological discipline of psychoanalysis, wrote extensively about dream theories and their interpretations in the early 1900s.
He explained dreams as manifestations of one's deepest desires and anxieties, often relating to repressed childhood memories or obsessions.
Furthermore, he believed that virtually every dream topic, regardless of its content, represented the release of sexual tension.

In The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Freud developed a psychological technique to interpret dreams and devised a series of guidelines to understand the symbols and motifs that appear in our dreams.
In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind.
They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre.

Carl Jung rejected many of Freud's theories.
Jung expanded on Freud's idea that dream content relates to the dreamer's unconscious desires.
He described dreams as messages to the dreamer and argued that dreamers should pay attention for their own good.
He came to believe that dreams present the dreamer with revelations that can uncover and help to resolve emotional or religious problems and fears.

Jung wrote that recurring dreams show up repeatedly to demand attention, suggesting that the dreamer is neglecting an issue related to the dream.
He called this "compensation."

The dream balances the conscious belief and attitudes with an alternative.
Jung did not believe that the conscious attitude was wrong and that the dream provided the true belief. He argued that good work with dreams takes both into account and comes up with a balanced viewpoint.
He believed that many of the symbols or images from these dreams return with each dream.
Jung believed that memories formed throughout the day also play a role in dreaming.
These memories leave impressions for the unconscious to deal with when the ego is at rest.
The unconscious mind re-enacts these glimpses of the past in the form of a dream.
Jung called this a day residue.
Jung also argued that dreaming is not a purely individual concern, that all dreams are part of "one great web of psychological factors."

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Good morning on this Saturday, January 5.

We started with a discussion of the preferable, the spontaneity of the holiday season against the unpredictability of the winter season.
We were treated to an anonymous [to the general blogging group] take on winter, and ended with a discussion of dreams.

Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

See you soon.

Love

Dom