The dream

Dear Bloggers,

First of all happy 2012 to you all that read my blog, I went to bed early last night around 2 o'clock because I’ve been down with a nasty bug the last few days of 2011. I snuggled down into my covers with pillows surrounding me and fell into blessed sleep. I woke at 7 AM this needing more cough medicine and another slathering of Vicks. To man of my age the flu is a near death experience. After having had 5 hours of sleep already, it was tough to fall back into that comfortable oblivion. I finally made it around nine in the morning and had the following dream….

I walk up the steps of a house that we have checked out on the internet and it was surrounded by snow, the doorpost lit with Christmas lights and the livingroom window decorated with a lovely garland, a rocking chair with red cushions, a rustic end table with an antique lantern and a pot of hot chocolate waiting for the tasting. After a few minutes of a gentle swing and the warmth of the tasty brew, I take my cup and head for the door. Damn it feels like home and hopefully it is a dream come true this time. As I very seldom can remember my awkward dreams.

Surprised and pleased I open the door to a spacious room with a cheerful fire dancing in the hearth. Every bit of the house is decorated with lovely decorations and fresh sprigs of evergreen and holly. The kitchen sits at one end of the house, a succulent meal waiting in the oven, home baked cookies and candies fill a tiered tray and fresh coffee brews on the counter. Inspecting the contents of the refrigerator and cupboards, I see that nothing has been overlooked. There is food aplenty for breakfast, lunch and dinner with snacks to enjoy between. Yes I dream about food and that is though being on a strict diet of low carbs.

Exploring the living room I find a shelf filled with books to my liking and a cozy throw and pillows on a comfy chair by the fire. Next to the chair is a basket with wood and fire place tools hooks, to poke up the fire on the table has a drawing tablet and all the essentials to create with. To the side of the room sits a desk filled with a laptop and supplies for writing on paper the old fashioned way. A camera patiently wait for my use. An entertainment center holds a television, DVD player, stereo, DVDs and CDs for my enjoyment.

I climb up a spiral staircase to an open loft above to find a large bed with a dark but warm blanket, a couple of pillows in different shapes and sizes and a bed-stand with a laptop and a spot to hold a coffeepot and cup for my nights of snuggling in and writing. The bathroom sits to one side of the loft and houses a great shower only

.

I am charmed and somewhat giddy over the idea that I have this lovely piece of heaven to myself. I reach for my cellphone to call my family to thank them for this gift and find that I haven’t brought my phone with me. Panic hits me where is my family? And how can I reach them? I open the computer to log on to facebook to at least contact my wife, only to find that facebook and email is not allowed. I am able to browse the internet, but there will be no contact with the outside world for these two weeks.

My heart begins to ache. I’d rather share this place with the ones I love. How can I spend Christmas alone in the perfect place, perfectly decorated and saturated with the things I love if the people I love aren’t with me? I try to enjoy the amenities of this wondrous place but find I fall deeper into despair. I want to leave but have no idea how I’ve arrived. Can I find a way home before Christmas arrives to spend that blessed holiday with those I hold dear?

In the living room, a mysterious door appears and I cautiously open it to inspect the contents. It is a hallway that leads to room after room of beds, bathrooms, a playroom. My heart aches even more at the emptiness I find. I wander back to the living room and sit on the floor before the fire, feeling sorry for myself and sorry for those I’ve left behind. Is this the future did I do something stupid or what. Panic strikes me again.

Steps on the path drag my eyes away from the fire. The door opens and through my tears I see the faces of those I love file into the cozy house.

I woke at that point to the sound of my wife placing our daughter into our bed before she would wake up the rest of the family who had a long night last night.

I am fully awake in my own home filled with love, mess and crappy decorations. Still achy and sick from the flu, but so much happier than I could ever be in this perfect little house with all the perfect decorations and amenities. Without those people who make life beautiful for me the perfection of that place would feel beyond empty, barren.

This kind of emotions probably run through my brain due to the things that are happening in our neighborhood at the moment. two couples have been broken up due to adultery and they have been good friends for many years. But if one starts doing the other it soon becomes a life soap opera affecting most painfully the "innocent" partners and specially the poor little kids. How can people that stupid. Again this morning hell broke loose.

It must be hard that you are left with a broken heart and broken future dreams. But I wander always did the victims not give enough to their own partners or is it the adventure to have sex with a familiar "stranger"? Don't they realize that they will ruin their kids lives as much as their own. It is pretty hectic for a sleepy village like this. And it has been going on for a few years. It was found out by a extreme high cell phone bill. Silly how all of sudden things can turn.

Think before you do and still do many other things impulsive.

The Old Sailor,

The Christmas Carol Phone call

Dear Bloggers,


Unfortunately I am getting unemployed again and I really start to think that it is a fetish to bosses to lay off staff just before or during Christmas. As this is not the first time that it happens and yes I can handle it, but some of my fellow drivers can’t. One of them ran straight up to the office and told them that he would leave straight away, another driver said that he will leave just before Christmas. Hmmm.......these are hard times to keep a job, as soon as the temps office called alarmbells started ringing and the applying machine was started up again. As Scrooge was on the television I twisted this into a hard feelings Christmas Story. Sit down by the fireplace and read and weep.

In a phone call from the temps office that I work for on Tuesday, the Christmas Spirit of the Past from the company had announced the plans to lay me off by the first of Januari. F**cking great but I am the choosen one together with the Ghost of Christmas Present along with his entire Department of Concurrent Events. This restructuring will result in the reduction of the busdrivers the ones that made some mistakes are chucked out.

Despite being able to provide instantaneous hi-def visualizations of events happening simultaneously anywhere around the world, the Ghost of Christmas Present’s capabilities have been largely superseded by the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, making his offerings redundant and too expensive to maintain.

Spirit reminded he will still retain the services of the Ghosts of Christmas Future and Past, along with their entire staffs. He announced that that the remaining departments will continue to provide a valuable function in the Christmas Spirit’s operations by continuing to leverage the blissful memories of Christmases of long ago as well as demonstrate the pain and despair that will occur if the target doesn’t reform his ways.

Average Boss
“Nostalgia and dread have always been what ends up redeeming the scrooges anyway,” The temps office Spirit said on the call.

These organizational changes were necessary to reduce costs and recover from three straight holiday seasons of stagnant growth in Spirit’s mission to restore hope to humanity and bring together estranged family members.

The Ghost of Christmas Present never saw the layoffs coming.

The Christmas Spirit expects to reduce operating expenses by a unknown percentage and is confident he will still be able to meet his business objectives of turning grouches, grinches and scrooges into tolerable timetable for the traveling by bus human beings.

A look into the future

 

The life-like imagery and special effects produced by the three Ghosts have always looked impressive but was expensive, forcing Spirit to do a full cost benefits analysis for each department. Unfortunately for the Ghost of Christmas Present, Spirit’s review made the outcome all too clear.

The Christmas Spirit’s analysis confirmed his suspicions that the Ghost of Christmas Present was too expensive to keep on the payroll and was not nearly as effective as Past and Future in making holiday grouches reconsider their anti-social ways.

“With mixed emotions, we regret to announce that the Ghost of Christmas Present has to be seeking for opportunities outside the company,” said Spirit. “He built a strong foundation in allowing us to see how our target accounts were ruining the lives of their family or demoralizing their employees.”

Spirit says that if his account managers need to know what was going on in some house across town,”now, we can just check their Facebook status updates or read their tweets.”

The Spirit of Christmas says it simply does not make sense to carry the expense of a six-figure executive salary when these capabilities can be provided at little to no cost. He then demonstrated on the webcast what social network applications can do by revealing a Facebook post about one of his targeted accounts.







  

” Spirit said. “It really is a beautiful thing.”

Additionally, a Facebook status update can reveal how holiday-impaired grouches can negatively affect the quality of life of their employees during the Christmas season. He showed this screenshot as evidence.

Spirit said that prior to the announcement, the Ghosts had visited him in his bedroom, each over the course of three nights to plead their case.

“The Ghost of Christmas Present really disappointed me and didn’t show me very much,” Spirit said. “All I saw were other people sleeping. Although I now have an interesting story about our director to tell at this year’s holiday party.”

He could have become a good man

 Spirit revealed that the Ghost of Christmas Past showed him as a young upstart corporate director and how much joy he experienced in restoring hope and faith in Christmas, saying “I was reminded of how much I love what we do, how we make a difference in people’s lives, and how hot that one girl from accounting was.”

“Christmas Future had a great presentation,” Spirit explained to the hotshots and the blokes from the provence of Friesland. “Once he showed me that the decision to drop Christmas Present and make some changes in our tax liabilities and investing in new systems will give us a double digit growth over the next five years,. . .well that sealed it.”

The Ghost of Christmas Present was understandably distraught with the news that his lifelong career had recently come to an end, saying “I only wish I had seen this coming.”

What happened to the Merry days of Christmas

Because his only skill is quickly being replaced by another driver after the first of Januari, the Ghost of Christmas Present is worried about what will come next, especially considering that his former colleague Christmas Future kept giving him knowing glances of pity as he left the building.

When reached for comment, the Ghost of Christmas Present still maintained that his services are invaluable.

“You won’t get that on a ‘what are you doing now’ status update,” Present said.

Have a better Christmas than me.

The Old Sailor,



Food Fight in Supermarket

Dear Bloggers,

Hooray it's almost Christmas time and therefore a more elaborate dinner.
If I do go shopping it is obviously seriously crowded in the supermarket and the shop is well prepared for this extra busy days.
I quickly count about twelve young lads who are filling the shelfs.
But it is also logical because the last few days were related to the heaps of snow and not many people went shopping.
It was a tragedy at the car park because almost everyone is coming now with their car and the parking is not very well shoveled.

After twenty minutes I finally managed to secure a place eventhough another driver thought otherwise.
But when it comes to driving and I am sure that I am standing in my right, I'm too quick for them all.
The brutal party swears and grows behind the wheel and I wish him to have some joyfull days.
He tears away and nearly ramming an unsuspecting oncoming car.
I have doubts on the humanity and peace on earth feeling this year.
But time to move ahead and get a shopping cart.

In the shop you just slowly move yourself from A to B, not really my thing because I always shop with a purpose and now I know where to find everything here.
Well but then I have too take it easy today because winding yourself up it doesn't help at all.
If I drive into the isle with softdrinks and put my stuff in my cart, is the guy who fills up the drink being called by a colleague to come help him at the meat department because there are a couple of men fighting.

Astonished, I follow the two young comrades. As a former night watchman on a vessel you are in these situations ready to lend a hand if it might escalate, but when I arrive at the “crime scene” the situation is under control and the manager of the store is admonishing the two men.
This otherwise very friendly man speaks to the dumb duo.
But what exactly happened and what led to this absolutely senseless struggle?

Two men went to attack each other during an argument about a supermarket product that apparently was important for their Christmas dinner.
The bizarre battle took place in a supermarket nearby the village where we live.
A somewhat older man and a man in his forties both wanted the same article from the refrigerator shelf.
This led to a struggle that was getting ridiculous and was terminated when the older man gave the man of forty a punch in the face.
The man came to fall and was immediately absorbed by the massive group of shelf fillers and the manager. But the damage was already done as the older man has probably got a broken jaw and the man of forty a black eye, as they both have something to be proud on and a peaceful Christmas to accommodate.

And this time ode to the young people that very calm and strictly pulled the fighters apart.
The two bastards probably had to seek treatment for their minor injuries.
It surprised me very much that the Christmas emotions can run up so high on a piece of meat.
But as I am a creative “cook”and if I would run into something like this, then I have just bad luck and I will just make something else.

Well let's hope that it will be a peaceful Christmas and a peaceful New Year yet.
For even the newspaper, I am not getting happier because I read that a bus company that hires security guards to prevent cases that the drivers are being regularly robbed and attacked.
There are too many people who think you do not have to work for money and trying to get money this way.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Old Sailor,

The Christmas feeling.

Dear Bloggers,

Yeah....right,

All around there are notes that they'll be back in a week or so when the calendar has rolled over.
No such luck is in my mind, where this time of year marks that we have to get it finished before it is too late again.



Sorry I don't do Christmas.
There I said it.
I don't like the holiday.


Santa's last days of Christmas

Materially, I have everything I want.
I have done Christian Christmas and figured out by reading further that this is one of the biggest lies ever told.



If you compare the Christian way to the ancient Egypt’s or Bhoeddist religions (and there are many more of them).
They are basically seen all the same, it is only a matter of how they have been forced into our lives.
Even astrologists have an explanation for it.


How to safe money during the credit crunch

I've noticed that people who say they are experiencing the cheer of the holiday are tensed, sometimes grumpy, and a lot of them are drunk.



I'd be much happier if we could do some spontaneous carol-singing and ho ho ho'ing in January or May or September.


Out Hunting, best day ever

By moving around I've lessened the effect of the holiday on my existence; it used to be, when I was younger and did not know that much about the backgrounds, that a full two weeks of the year were spent in fake joy.
Now I've got it down to just a few days.



He does not really exist was the first disappointment, after that the Christmas feeling started to crumble down.
(All parents are the same; they all lie to their kids and tell them not to.)
I have a job to do, celebrate with my family, and of course great food.



I want to lose some weight, get some colour in my face, and surprise people who don't expect much, but that has too wait until the next year.
And while I don't like Christmas, I do like the New Year's.



Instead of celebrating the birth of a "king" over 2000 years ago,I would have more with a queen.(All I want for Christmas is ...... , please fill in your own text as it is your present).
Oh I got carried away again, and yes a dirty mind is a joy forever.



So let's raise a glass in remembrance of 2008, and in expectation of 2009


Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Even if you do something silly in these days do it save.
Otherwise you might and up with unexpected or unwanted relationship gifts.

The Old Sailor,