December 30, 2016

I started doing Sudoku and reading news articles at four forty-five this morning. Sometime after six, I fell asleep again. Often, when I dream at this time of the morning, my dreams center on me being groggy or falling asleep when I should be awake and doing things. Perhaps it's unconscious guilt for not getting out of bed. Who knows? This morning's dream was quite elaborate and it went something like this:

​Kim and Kate are with me in BOB. They have a rental car which needs to be returned, and their own car needs to be picked up from a repair shop. They depart for home and ask me to take care of the cars. I had planned to decamp and drive south in BOB that day. The car rental place is northeast of me and the repair shop is northwest of me. If I drive the rental car back to the agency, how will I get back to BOB? How I am going to retrieve their car? (Clearly, in my dream there is no Enterprise-Rent-a-Car or Uber. Why didn't Kim and Kate take the rental car back when they left? What I am supposed to with their car once I retrieve it? I can't tow it.) Meanwhile, I have masses amounts laundry and dishes to do, and I can't seem to finish either. BOB then transforms into a park home of sorts. A former friend stops to say good-bye because I'm leaving town. (Where the hell am I?) We have coffee and I fall asleep at table while he's there. I wake and he leaves unceremoniously; as he's departing, he uncharacteristically fawns over neighbor's cat. I'm groggy can't seem to wake completely. Once again, I attend to the laundry and dishes which must be self-replicating because I can't make any headway. I still can't figure out what to do about the cars. It's getting late, so I decide to defer my departure until the next day. The next thing I know, I'm playing tennis with a guy I know from the jewelry industry. (We were only acquaintances and we never played tennis together.) I excuse myself and run from the court because remember the car problems. I go inside "BOB" and a woman I barely knew from business school is doing yoga. I'm nonplussed by her presence and she leaves shortly after I arrive. Somehow, Jean is there. Then my mother's sisters show up and rearrange the furniture as I knew they would. When they are finished I tell them I don't like what they have done and I ask them to put everything back. I get on a scooter and ride toward car rental place. I call while driving and the guy who answers says he'll pick up the car at seven that night.

I wake up and I'm really groggy like in the dream. Christ! Kim and Kate left their car in storage in Miami when they left BOB and me in Naples. They had offered the car to me, but I couldn't tow it, and I didn't want to commit to staying in one place until they returned to Florida at the end of January. I always have a lot of laundry to do when guests leave, but there are never any dirty dishes. Enterprise and Uber are both here: I always look for them when choosing destinations longer than a week. Sherri is trading out her Airstream for a park home next week, so perhaps that explains BOB's transmogrification. The former friend who came to say good-bye was someone I knew from the jewelry industry and we talked weekly. This summer, I realized I had made the last three calls to him so I stopped calling. He still hasn't called me (not even for my birthday), but he responded to a text I sent him in November. I can't explain the tennis game at all: my “tennis partner” left the jewelry industry and opened an optical shop; and, I want new glasses (from Ben Silver, not from him). I can't make any connections to the woman from business school other than her name is Jill as is Kim's sister. I am going to start doing P90X yoga next week. My aunts invited me to visit them in Ottawa when I return north. I thought of inviting them to Florida, but I want to maintain my solitude to focus on getting a job. Yesterday, I moved some "furniture" inside of BOB; also, I always have to move things when I have guests.

If I wake up at four forty-five tomorrow morning, I'm not going to go back to sleep: instead, I’m going to water board myself and confess to anything…everything.

Yesterday, when Sherri and I were walking on the beach, an ambulance –sirens blaring – went south on A1A. Sherri said that she hoped it wasn't going to our park. Right. When an ambulance comes here, it's not because someone's grandson has broken his arm skateboarding around the park. She said some of the residents chase the ambulances in their golf carts, following them to their destination sites. At first hearing, the thought of it was comical, but that dissipated immediately. She said that it happened when her husband went into cardiac arrest: people she hardly knew were gawking outside her trailer. An EMT had to tell a man to move away from the rear of the ambulance because he was violating the patient's HIPPA rights. What a rude, insensitive thing to do! Clearly, some people either have no decency or they are frighteningly ignorant. Wow.

I spent 20 minutes after stretching class talking to Beverly. She had been talking to some others before class started, and I learned that she had lived in Burlington, MA and worked for a semi-conductor factory. I had heard previously that she had grown up in Maine. We talked about the demise of the shoe, textile, jewelry, and semi-conductor factories in New England, and especially in the greater Boston area. We agreed that those jobs are never coming back, like those lost in the Rust Belt: the cost of the infrastructure re-investment and the lack of working-aged, skilled employees render the prospect impossible. She lamented that kids don't learn trades. I explained that the Europeans do it very well. I enjoyed our talk and think that she is a lovely person.
Beverly also told me that alcohol isn't a big problem here inasmuch as people don't create noise, wreak havoc, or otherwise terrorize the park. I said that I have noticed when I walk the dogs that a lot of people start cocktail hour at four. She said yes, "It's called Pour at Four,” and everyone goes home by five-thirty for dinner. If I eat dinner at seven tonight, that will be early for me.

I did P90X "Ab Ripper X" this morning and it was tough. The pulled hamstring was the least of my problems: I'm weak from not exercising, and the paraspinal muscles on my right side are very tight. “Western medicine Jean” suggested acupuncture or massage. I Googled providers and I'd have to unhook BOB to do that. There is a massage therapist within cycling distance, so I may try her. Jean also suggested the hot tub – which doesn't do anything for me – or a heating pad, which seems unbearable given that it's typically 70 degrees inside BOB at night.