Noah's Birthday

I woke up Thanksgiving morning with a beauty of a hangover. I'm still hungover. And it was a wet, cold, rainy day. And I'm hungover. And I had to work. And I'm hungover. Did I mention I'm hungover?So why is this Thanksgiving Day so miserable? Noah's Birthday last night. Some of my guys were going to Clyde's for Noah's birthday. Clyde's is two miles from my home. Only two miles. I thought, "OK, it's close to home, I can do that. I'll have a drink or two and go home."Not likely. These guys turned out to be a blast and we came close to closing the place down. We had beers, we had shots, we had a good time. Thanks Andy, Justin, Brandon, Josh, new friends Zach and Joey and happy birthday Noah. I hope you got good and drunk and had a good time. When you play with the big dogs, be prepared to suffer! By the way, this picture is not what it appears to be. Someone dropped a quarter on the floor and both Justin and Josh spotted it at the same time. Both being grossly underpaid servers, they were determined to advance their fortunes.

Dream State

So just before waking up this morning, I had a dream. I dreamed I was in the front bedroom at Bounding Bend just waking up on Christmas morning. My door was open and I sensed that someone was lurking just beyond.

I said, "Who's there?"

Then my little brother came bounding in and jumped on the bed, bouncing up and down.

"It's Christmas, it's Christmas!"

We wrestled around a bit and I told him to go get cleaned up and we'll go downstairs. Then, as Scott left, my dad entered the room. I hadn't had a dream or thought of my dad in a long time. At least not since mom died. He was in his usual slacks, buttoned down shirt, loose tie and an open sweater.

"We need butter. Your mom needs butter because the butter we have has gone bad."

He didn't look good. As a matter of fact, he looked terrible. He was kind of delirious and hunched over. He said he didn't feel so good.

I told him not to worry, to take it easy because Scott and I will go do the shopping. He left the room to go back downstairs. I flopped over on my be and looked out the window at the morning. The sun was just coming up and had just peeked over the horizon. I sang the Doxology to myself and got up to take a shower and go to the store. I went downstairs and found my dad curled up in a chair next to the fireplace. He said that he'd called the hospital. Something was really wrong and I was worried. My dad never complained about being sick. I started my shower and then my alarm went off and I didn't finish the dream.

Now that I'm awake, I got to thinking about my dad. I hadn't thought about him in such a long time. He died back in 1983 when I was 22. I think about my mom every day. Since I believe in the fact that many dreams contain messages, I started to think about this one. I got to wondering, do our loved ones who have passed languish if the living don't remember them? Because I believe in the purity and love of God's Kingdom in Heaven, I don't think so. Maybe it's just a little of my own submerged guilty conscience coming out. I miss you too dad...

It's a boy!

November 7th, Election Day saw the addition of Andrew Chase Watson to this planet Earth. Andrew is the son of my niece, Natascha and her husband Jerry. Andrew is very healthy with quite the set of pipes. And a biggun too, 9lbs. 2oz. Baby and family are doing fine.