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I dreamed a murder mystery last night with most of the cast from NCIS in it. Since they were the only show I watched last night, I guess that makes sense. The setting was a gym which again makes sense because I’ve missed two days of gym this week and I am missing it terribly. Both my mood and my body are worse off for it. Every permanent ache I have aches more because of the lack of movement and the hours at the desk typing. Watching the character of Tony bopping on a treadmill with headphones on, singing to a song and pretty much dancing on the treadmill was a fun highlight. I knew who the murderer was just like usual on the show, and his motive made little sense in the bright light of morning, but in the dream it seemed logical. End of dream had me in a house that was supposed to be mine, but I’d never seen it before. I was sitting on a couch that had it’s back under a large picture window that looked out on a suburban neighborhood, again one I’d never seen before. There was a large spreading tree, maybe oak, maybe not, and I heard hooting very loud. A Great Horned Owl was in the tree somewhere. I reached for binoculars, but then saw the big owl very low in the tree. It was a real enough that I could see the tufts of feathers on it’s head that give the bird it’s name were ragged on one side, like lop-sided dog ears where one goes up and the other goes down. Then there was a second owl behind the first and I thought, a pair, we have a pair of Great Horned Owls in our yard. Then the owls started to sing in English and do little bopping mechanical dance, and had those mortor boards hats on from graduations, and they were round and plump and perfect mechanical owls. It was an advertisement for something. I no longer remember what, but one of those bad late night TV commercial things with the owls merrily singing the jingle, and then saying the address at the end with phone number for the business, though I can’t remember either now.

So, need to stop listening to murder mysteries as our books on tape while we sleep, and maybe less NCIS, or any other murder mystery before bedtime. And, I need to get back to the gym in a serious way, though maybe too tired for weights today. Maybe a very gentle treadmill here at home. I have looked up Great Horned Owl in the Ted Andrews animal books. They are one of the prime predators of skunks, and often the prey/predator relationship of an animal will tell you it’s balancing medicine/magic/message. They are fierce predators and can break the neck of a full-grown woodchuck with their talons. Crows mob them, because once night falls the owl will raid their nests and in the dark the owl has the serious upper hand. Crows will sometimes be joined by Red-Shouldered Hawks in the mobbing, because Great Horned Owl will raid their nests at night, too. Normally crows will mob the hawk, but I guess the enemy of your enemy, can turn your enemy into an ally. Common safety makes friends of us all.

I can hear birds singing in the background. A Cardinal is singing his spring song, though since the female Cardinal also sings, it could be a her, too. Cardinal is one of the few song birds where the female can sing as much, or close to as much, as the male. Just as the male will dim his colors to help sit on the nest, so a totem that is all about sharing gender roles more evenly. But the big thing about the Cardinal singing it’s heart out behind me is that it’s singing it’s spring song, even with snow on the ground it’s marking territory and sending that hopeful song into the cold January air. I saw a pair of Mourning Doves mating yesterday. We’ve had a pair of Red Tailed Hawks tolerating each other in the neighborhood, which may mean they’re looking to be mates this year. It would be so cool if they nested nearby this year. Spring songs, mating, the birds are letting me know that winter will not last, and that warm weather is coming. Winter will not last and neither will this book. I will finish it just as the snow will melt and spring will come. It’s all part of the cycle of things. I can’t decide if equating me writing books to the seasonal cycle is a hopeful, egotistical, or depressing. Hopeful I’ll be done soon, egotistical that me finishing a book is a sign of the turn of the year for me, or depressing because I always seem to be eaten by a deadline in the winter.

Spring is on it’s way, and this book will be done. Winter never stays, it melts into spring, and the book never stays forever on my computer, it just seems that way sometimes.