Lost in the wood

I think I have a bad case of wood karma.  A few posts back I wrote about me going all postal on a downed tree with a new chain saw. And I alluded to a checkered past I've had dealing with sketchy tree services and wood.

But back to my latest encounter with a chain saw. I stacked all of the wood I'd cut up next to my fence but near the sidewalk that abuts the street. My plan was to eventually haul it into my yard, stack it and use it for our outdoor fire pit.

So yesterday my wife tells me that she'd got a call from a friend of ours who happens to be a local police officer. She'd been driving past our home on the way to work and spotted some guy starting to load the wood I'd cut into his vehicle. She stopped, got out of her car wearing her police uniform and proceeded to lecture the guy about taking things out of other people's yard without their permission. I believe he mumbled something to her about thinking it was free to take because it was just sitting there. Fortunately I hadn't left my chain saw just sitting there or using his logic, someone would have assumed it was up for grabs, too.

Okay, I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. On one hand, I can't believe the audacity of someone to just go on someone's property and assuming it was okay to take wood from a pile. On the other hand, I don't really have a wood burning fireplace and it will likely take me years of burning wood in my outdoor fire pit to get rid of the wood. So it wouldn't have been the end of the world to have the guy haul away the wood.

The true irony is that years ago when I'd had a couple of trees cut down in my yard, it took me ages to find some one who would take the wood without charging me a fortune to haul it away. I guess the trick is to leave it close to the road and pretend you don't want anyone to have it.


But still, I'd put in a lot of work to cut the fallen tree into digestible chunks that could be burned. It wasn't fair for anyone to assume they could just take it. So when I got home last night, I changed into work clothes and went to move the pile inside my fence to reduce the risk that someone else would be tempted to take my wood. Despite our police friend chasing off the other wood thief, I discovered that four of the largest rounds of the wood had disappeared. So either the wood thief had already loaded it or someone else came along and like the looks of those pieces.

I chucked the remaining wood over the fence (and I can now tell you how much wood this wood-Tim can chuck). Now all that remains is to stack it neatly with other wood scraps I've accumulated until I either burn it or decide I need someone to haul it away. In which case no one will want it.

That should be the end of the story, but last night I had a dream that I was in some park or beach area stoking a fire with these nice chunks of what looked like Alder wood. And they were burning nicely. One piece in particular (which I swear looked like one of the chunks of wood that was stolen) ignited immediately when I threw it on the fire. It was as if it had been soaked in gasoline or oil.

Though the obvious interpretation of the dream was that my subconscious knew I needed to start burning the wood to get rid of it, I still felt compelled to go to an online dream interpretation site and look up what it meant when you dreamed about fire:

"Depending on the context of your dream, to see fire in your dream can symbolize destruction, passion, desire, illumination, purification, transformation, enlightenment, or anger. If you are not afraid of the fire and it is under control or contained in one area, then it is a symbol of your own internal fire and inner transformation. Something old is passing and something new is entering into your life. Your thoughts and views are changing. It can also represent your drive, motivation, and creative energy. Alternatively, the dream may be warning you of some dangerous or risky activities. You are 'playing with fire.'"

As with all interpretations of dreams, horoscopes and palms, the description is pretty vague. Though I was impressed at the breadth of the dream interpretation web site. There was even and entry telling you what was meant when you dreamed of filbert nuts:

"To see filbert nuts in your dream signify peace, harmony, and profitable business ventures. To dream that you are eating filbert nuts denote true and dependant friends."

This is good information to know. Though I had to Google "filbert nut" because I wasn't sure that I've ever eaten one let alone dreamed about one. Turns out that a filbert nut is also know as a hazelnut. So I might just order a filbert nut latte the next time I'm in Starbucks just to stir things up a bit. Funny thing though, when I looked up what it meant to dream about an hazelnut which one would imagine would be the same thing as dreaming about a filbert nut and found this:

"To see or eat a hazelnut in your dream represents untainted love and honored devotion. You have no lingering doubt or mistrust in your relationship."

I'm thinking the dream dictionary is a bit random. I kind of figured that when I looked up a dream I had a couple of nights ago about trying on an overcoat in a high end men's clothing store in New York City and then not being able to find any of my credit cards in my wallet to pay for it.  The dream site said that dreaming about wearing an overcoat meant I was shielding myself from something (my guess would be the weather).  And dreaming about losing your credit cards indicated that you were being careless in your waking life (which would be pretty much obvious if I misplaced my credit cards).

 So I'm going to just guess my dream about building a fire just has to do with me being anxious about getting rid of the wood that I didn't want anyone to steal.

Damn you wood.