Imagine having a series of bad dreams in one night startling you like an automatic rifle: bang, bang, bang. Nightmares robbed me of gentle sleep as I confronted Popeye and the pope, Miramar and Rose Canyon.
I don’t know what I ate or drank last night, but it caused me to dream that spinach had become our latest victim of the war on terror or fertilizer gone bad. In my dream, Popeye had proclaimed that spinach was the latest untouchable, raw spinach. If spinach were a Catholic, it would be sainted like Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul II. Spinach, with its iron and protein, folic acid and vitamins B and K, has been touted as a possible prevention of cancer and heart disease. Now it had become tainted by E. coli. The canned stuff was still OK to Popeye in my dream, but when was the last time you bought canned spinach? Spinach salad was a staple to diet-conscious Americans. Spinach was pre-packed and cleaned for time-constrained Americans.
Granted, the daily news has been bad for years, and folks open their morning paper very gingerly, afraid to read the world has ended in a bang and not a whimper, but come on, spinach? Check your cookbook and see how many ways you use spinach in your diet and lose weight while gaining joy. Spinach salad? Spinach antioxidants? Spinach vitamins? No more bad jokes about spinach in your teeth. Can broccoli take the place of spinach? Raw broccoli guarantees gas, but spinach salad with a bacon dressing, hard-boiled egg and mushrooms guarantees heaven. Popeye, say it isn’t so.
And then what’s going on with my pope? As a cradle-to-grave Catholic, my next nightmare involved Pope Benedict XVI riling up the whole Muslim world. Impossible, I thought, as I tossed and turned in bed. Hadn’t I just written the pope to ask him to reconsider promoting women priests and married clergy as his legacy during his pontifical career, knowing full well the Holy Father would not budge on these decisions?
His speech at his former home in Bavaria at the University of Regensburg received an unexpected reaction by some Muslim countries. Reading the pontiff’s speech in totality was a time-consuming task. The culture of today is shoot first and ask questions later. Reaction to bits and pieces of the speech was easier than reading, reflecting and then responding. After all, Pope Benedict didn’t leave the sectarian West unscathed either in his talk. Waking up from this nightmare, I made a note to ask the pope to quit the tough love of Dr. Laura and turn to the Dr. Phil method of coddling the world. Maybe the pope should do what the San Diego City Council does when there’s a critical decision to be made: closed meetings without public scrutiny. Otherwise, it would be another nightmare for one of the Holy Father’s faithful.
The next nightmare involved the Marines at MCAS. I dreamed that some well-paid, politically appointed airport authority members of a committee had spent $16.8 million to decide that Miramar without the Marines would be ideal for a relocated airport. While the committee had studied the endangered species, they neglected to protect the human species surrounding the airport and the Marines who protect them, especially during this war on terror. I dreamed I was yelling at the Airport Authority that several University City residents and several Marines could have come to a decision that wouldn’t make Miramar the international airport, and we would only charge a million dollars.
Finally, still trying to shake off sleep so wrought with anxiety that even Macbeth’s nightmares paled by comparison, I dreamed our beloved City Council and mayor, on the advisement of consultants and city planners, had agreed to rape and pillage Rose Canyon in the name of progress and fairness. Putting an artery through the quiet North and South U.C., developers would get a green light to continue to overbuild North U.C. and Interstate 5 traffic could race through the community to get to somewhere important like La Jolla. I dreamed that a group of wonderful neighbors, intelligent and diligent in duty to share traffic woes with their friends to the west, actually believed they were dealing with a city that would do right by them in spite of the fact that the city had failed them in overbuilding North U.C. already, had failed them in underestimating costs for local beautification projects, and had failed them miserably in all things local. Still, this group of dedicated volunteers believed in aligning themselves with political leaders who wouldn’t be found after the damage was done, after what the group thought was going to take place in linking the North to the South University City.
All in all, last night was rough on this sleeper, but I am reminded of that Russian proverb: “The morning is wiser than the evening.” I’ll have coffee with that thought and then carefully open the newspaper.
P.S. Thanks from the Standley Recreation Council and the family of Pat Preston to the many folks who donated to Pat’s memorial bench.