The butterflies are showing up right on time ahead of the January 15th, 2022 debut of my podcast EVER NEW; as fully expected, I had a “not prepared” dream last night.

 

In the dream, Mom had driven me to the airport, dropped me off, and left for home. 

 

The trip had been hurriedly conceived and arranged, and appeared urgent. When I got to the ticket agent, she was distracted but she confirmed (I thought) a flight out that day, so when I asked her which gate to head to and the time of my flight, she said, “Oh, there are no flights going to your destination for today as of right now.”

 

Perplexed and a bit riled (because the trip was urgent) I asked, “So, how can you give me a ticket when there are no outgoing flights?” She remained distracted and wandered off.  When I looked into the paper sleeve where the ticket and boarding pass should be, it was empty! But I had paid her to issue me a ticket!

 

And then I realized that I had headed out in such a rush that I hadn’t even packed a suitcase, and I didn’t have my cell phone with me, either! So, I couldn’t call Mom back to come pick me up. In fact, I no longer even remembered her phone number because it was programmed into my phone, so I had no way of calling her even if I borrowed someone else’s phone.  (Side Note: Mom passed away in 1998, so having her number these days isn’t even possible, although she does let me know she’s still here and sending me love and encouragement from time to time.)

 

I was on the verge of panicking, so I thought I’d leave the airport and walk a little to clear my head.

 

That didn’t help much until I spotted an older fellow and a young child playing. He was alternately swinging the child in a swing, throwing him up into the air and catching him on the way down, and in other ways having a whee of a time.  The man was grinning, the kid was laughing, and all was well with the world.

 

That’s when I stopped panicking.  I knew I was right on time and it would all work out.

 

MY INTERPRETATION OF THE DREAM

 

In the dream, I came full circle and realized what my focus should be on right now (because the mechanics of the thing are being worked on now and will be well in hand before the debut) — creating a whee of a time (envisioning the podcast itself and what I want the result to be for listeners/guests/live visitors) and not worrying so much about the “mechanics” of getting it done.

 

It was a total “not prepared for the mechanics” dream.  And it did remind me to focus on the contents of the podcasts.  So I’m doing that now.

 

PODCAST SEGMENTS

 

One of the REGULAR segments is going to be where I will ask listeners to recount a moment during their lives when something warmed their hearts and reminded them that there is still a lot that’s going super-well with the world, as divided as it seems to be over so many issues.

 

It doesn’t have to be a big thing. One of my most recent examples is when I was walking a few days ago. There’s one property I pass where there is a field with at least 30 full-grown white geese inhabiting it. They’re usually back by the house that sits off the road a good hundred feet or so, but sometimes they’re up by the fence when I go by and I honk at them (as best I can) to say hello.  Here’s an image I took of most of them about a month ago.

 

 

Well, as I was approaching the property a few days ago, a white USPS delivery truck was coming toward me from the other direction on the road and as soon as the geese (who had been back by the house) heard or spotted it, they came honking, running and flapping as fast as they could toward the front of the property.

 

My first thought was, “Oh, my gosh, they must think that’s a huge mother goose stopping by!”  — which was of course a dumb first thought because geese are smarter than that. What they were actually saying with their animated, excited body language and voices is, “FOOD TRUCK!!!!”

 

Sure enough, the postman came out of his rig with a big bag of something geese love (I’m not sure what it was, maybe popcorn or cereal because it was white or light yellow) ) and he tossed them about a third of whatever was in the bag. Oh my gosh, those were some happy, happy geese!!!

 

Grinning broadly and giving the postman two thumbs up, I told him, “That is AWESOME!!! YOU MADE MY DAY  – AND THEIRS!”

 

He grinned back and told me that he had brought his nephew along on his rounds one day and when the geese came running as they arrived, the boy had exclaimed, “Do you feed these ducks every time?!” (I hope he corrected the boy’s species designation!)

 

What a delightful, delightful encounter. It just reconfirmed for me that people are doing lovely, loving stuff like that all the time that I don’t ever get to see or know about. I remind myself of that often now.  (I wanted so badly to take a video of their interaction, but didn’t have permission, so I just watched.)

 

BROADCAST NEWS,  IN SHARP CONTRAST…

 

The so-called news companies like to keep viewers either riled up (“BREAKING NEWS” is their specialty, even when it’s something picayune instead of  something we need to know to protect life, limb or the country/world) or passively entertained (the Kardassians, dog show winners, and other precious time-consuming nonsense) so  they keep tuning in.

 

I stopped watching what passes for broadcast news these days years ago. I will tune in again when they start covering topics of substance without political slant (as in the good old days of Murrow, Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, and Huntley/Brinkley) and as much good/uplifting news as bad, and not until, which will likely be never.  They’ve found what works for them, even though, hair-raisingly, it troubles and prejudices minds and risks the very survival of this nation. In a single sound bite, the news industry sucks, by and large. They have been severely compromised by the big corporations (with agendas that pollute, kill and marginalize) that own them.

 

But enough about that!  I’m going to decide (WITH YOUR HELP AND INPUT, PLEASE!!!) what other segments (and how much time to set aside for them) will be features of each podcast.  I don’t want the podcast to be too structured, but I want somewhere to go if no one who’s listening wants to get involved LIVE and needs encouragement to do so.  Listeners can type in comments and/or video in (when I give them permission to video in).

 

It’s going to be a lot of fun.