Chapter 17: Hot Lemonade

 The Boy and his Friend were in trouble from both Mom's.  Apparently the two had been gone longer than normal for them, that the whole day and night had gone by without their presences, they had been missing.  Neither The Boy or his Friend were even aware that they had been gone so long.  They denied all questioning. 

Early the past morning The Boy and his Friend had been working in the Hay field stacking and organizing bales into a couple different hay stacks, one slightly smaller than the other.  After working in the field the two decided to go shooting and grabbed a couple BB guns, a bunch of BB's and a few targets to shoot up.  The targets consisted of Styrofoam cups, a couple cans, and a paper poster of William Shatner as Captain Kirk.  

The Boy and his Friend took the targets, BB guns, and ammo out into the back forty of the property and set up the shooting range.  Small bets were made.  Things like comic books, candy, who pays for the next movie, the kind of stuff kids gamble with.  The BB gun warriors spent the rest of the afternoon shooting up the imaginary foe, Captain Kirk died in shreds of old poster paper. The Battle was glorious.  The Boy and His Friend had become the invading Klingon warriors. 

After shooting up all the BB's and destroying the targets, The Two picked up the paper mess and stuffed it into a garbage bag brought with them and walked back to the trailers.   After placing the paper and Styrofoam into a burn barrel next to The Old Man's garage, The Two went into the Bel Aire to get something to drink.  

While in The Bel Aire The Boy found a pitcher and some powdered lemonade.  He and His Friend made some real cold lemonade, mixed it up good and each had a glass.  The pitcher was left on the counter.  It was cold.  The water on the property was naturally very cold as it came from a deep water well.  The Boy's Friend was looking out the window over the kitchen sink when He suddenly became very scared.  He pointed out the window and managed to say, "Look, what the hell is that?"

The Boy looked out the window and in the Western sky he saw what looked like a black spot in the middle of the sky.  It was shaped like a football and appeared to be getting bigger and closer by the second.  Then it was gone, then it was there, then it was gone.  

The Two were looking out the window at the disappearing reappearing black spot in the sky when it suddenly appeared again right over the horse stall and was so big that it covered the entire sky.  There was a low hum, then a buzz, and a pressure in the ears and head, and...

The Two woke up in the middle of the kitchen floor, "What the Hell was that?" The Friend asked.

The Boy said, "I don't know."  Then he grabbed the lemonade to have another drink.  The pitcher was warm, very warm, and the drink was hot.  It tasted like hot lemonade, and it looked like the sun was just coming up in the morning horizon.  "What time is it?" The Boy asked.

"Looks like 7:00" His Friend answered.  They were both confused, bewildered, and wondered what happened to the day.  

The Mom's wouldn't accept the story.  The Boys were obviously making it up.  Even though The Boy and His Friend denied going anywhere other than shooting in the back forty and making lemonade.  They had no idea what happened or where they were...

Peace and Balance,

John   

Missing Time

 Occasionally, not as often as It used to happen, but occasionally I suffer from a malady called, "Missing Time."  For instance yesterday Mona and I visited the medical community for what should have been a short 30 minute talk.  We left the house at about 11:20 AM, the appointment was for 11:30.  Only being a couple minutes around the corner from the appropriate office we arrived in plenty of time for the meeting.  The appointment went off without a hitch and we left the place about 30 minutes later and came home.  That would have made it around noon to 12:10.  I got Mona situated and went to the store for a few essentials.  That process was a short one, I don't like the shopping experience my anti social nature tends to prevail and I came home at about 1:30 ish.  We had a short talk, which involves some poking fun at each other and other folks.  She wanted to play in her books and I decided to send a text inviting my two compadres Ray, and Michael over for Weekly holy beans.  Then I suddenly noticed it was 3 o'clock.  We lost about 90 minutes of time.  Poof, gone just like that.  

Missing time has plagued me for most of my life.  I have had spells where entire days have disappeared without a trace.  I discovered early on that trying to find lost time is much like looking for air.  You know it's there, but can't see it.  Unless your in the LA area.  But, that's a whole other universe.  

More than just a few years ago, I had an appointment with a student in my office on Main Street.  I got up early and had some breakfast and decided to take a bath, we didn't have a shower, our apartment was in a house that was a tad over 100 years old and the plumbing was not exactly up to date.  I was soaking and decided to go through a short meditation while in the hot water.  Always a relaxing process.  I came out of my meditation and noticed a message on my answering machine, one of those old types that use tape to record the messages.  At that time that's all that was available.  The message informed me that I had missed my appointment with the student by a little more than four hours.  Shhhhsh.  Missing time.  

Lapses like this one have plagued me since I was a grasshopper.  An explanation may be in a later blog.  When it makes sense to me.  

Peace and Balance,

John