Weekly Dose of Mark

Sunday, November 9th, 2025

Penny Firehorse had a couple of announcements at Freelance Fandango. The first“Sunrise Rose” is now part of the SeaTac Community Center Collection. She also received a Juror’s Award from the Federal Way City Council during their Arts Alive event last month. Stan brought in a couple of books by Mercer Mayer, an artist previously unknown to me. The books were “A Boy, A Dog, and A Frog” and “Frog Goes to Dinner.” Both of these books were old, as they were first published in 1967. I might have even had them when I was a kid. They were unique in that they were children’s books without words. Stan has plans for a wordless book, and the size and shape were exactly what he had planned.

I spent the morning mulling over the voters’ pamphlet. I also did some online browsing to explore some of the viewpoints that were only presented as bullet points in the voter’s pamphlet. Krista had to print off an official voters’ ballot, and hers never arrived. It turned out that it was delayed in getting to Krista and arrived after she had cast her vote.

Krista makes her own granola. She uses a recipe she found online, but has made minor tweaks to it. She doesn’t like raisins, so those were cut, but she does like dried dates. So she cuts those into raisin-sized pieces. I love her granola. She makes it about once every two weeks.

Several years ago, my friend James Stowe went on a significant diet and lost a substantial amount of weight. He created a holiday called Donatmas. He selected November 9th as the date. The whole purpose of Donutmas is that you are allowed to eat a donut completely guilt-free and shame-free. He reminded me about this on November 8th, so I picked up a half dozen at Helen’s the next morning. The pickings were thinned out because I didn’t get there until 10 am.

November 7th marked the start of the next Sumo Tournament. It seems we just had one, but those are held two months apart. Both of us were sorry to hear that Endo retired. He will become a coach at the stable that supported him. It’s not uncommon for wrestlers to sustain injuries that hinder their performance. We’ve seen a lot of that happen over the years. Currently, there are only two men in the highest rank of sumo who have yet to miss a single bout: Tamawashi Ichirō. He is also forty years old, one of the oldest in high ranks. So that is a phenomenal record.

Here are some of my dreams from last week:

I watched some movies:

Oct 31 For once, in a very long time, my dreams faded away before I could remember them. It felt so weird.

Nov 1st #IDreamt in the future, an agency would take orphans and experiment on them to give them powers to become employees. It turns out that there are many agencies, a few of which are government-funded.

Nov 2nd #IDreamt I started a movie studio when I was in college. Due to shoestring budgets, there was a lot of improvising for sets and props.

Nov 3rd #IDreamt I was enchanted. As long as I remained within the stadium, I was a Chorus Line performer who could run 200 yards faster than anyone else.

Nov 4th #idreamt I needed to return a rental car early to Hertz, schedule a flight to Chicago, gather up tools from the side of the interstate entrance, and get back on the interstate via another ramp.

Nov 5th #idreamt I reserved a small room by the beach, but was given a multi-room pool house. The hotel overbooked, and the clerk thought it would be an amusing upgrade.

Nov 6th #IDreamt I was doing fulfillment on a series of six enamel pins, the designs of which were vague. They might have been Kanji. I was double-checking an order.

Nov 7th #IDreamt that I was at a police station writing a novel. I’d just completed a quotation which I attributed to “The New Necronomicon.” I mused that such fiction would launch conspiracy theories.

Nov 8th #IDreamt my late cat woke from a nap, disgruntled that a bird laid four eggs on her forehead while she’d napped in the sun. She thought there were three. I hid that one hatched and was a chick.

Nov 9th #IDreamt I was conscripted into the Galactic Navy when Earth was absorbed by the Clem Empire. Luckily, getting my boots magnetized took priority over chemically mesmerizing.

I should mention that Krista and I watch Anime with Japanese audio and English subtitles. We do this because I want to sharpen my listening skills. And I get a kick out of seeing where choices were made in translation. This week, Krista and I finished off another Anime:

With You and the Rain, aka: Kimi to Ami to (2025) 12 Episodes. Rating: 7

This quietly charming anime was intended to be a one-season series. A writer brings a Tanuki into her home. Everyone, including her, treats it like a pet dog. The fact that it writes simple signs to communicate doesn’t seem to bother anybody. Do yourself a favor and watch the ever-altering credits. It was something we didn’t notice until about episode 7.

I watched a couple of movies while on the treadmill this week.

85. Nov 4th, Harder They Fall (2021) Rating: 8

This film is a Blaxploitation Western created for a modern-day audience familiar with the genre. I give it one point each for paying homage to the structures of both those genres. I give it an extra point for the soundtrack. Music is crucial to a Blaxploitation flick, and it’s carefully constructed into the structure of the scenes. A line in the movie, “That’s a white town!” becomes my favorite line in the film when the sets of the towns are revealed. I watched this movie on Netflix.

86. Nov 6th, Sinners (2025) Rating: 9

This film is a way above Blaxploitation. It’s a horror movie that takes half of the movie to set up the backstories of the main characters and give them depth and soul. Music is woven into the narrative and done so expertly. I found myself genuinely surprised rather than predicting the unfolding of events, even though they should have been obvious. So, kudos for making it all work. I watched this movie on HBO Max.

More next week,
Mark