Tranquility of Solitude Ruined -- A Dream

My dream life of late has been disappointing. I used to be able to recall a lot of my dreams. They were so vivid. Not so much lately. However, this morning between snoozes on my alarm I was got a welcome surprise, a weird dream with a celebrity in it. 

I was walking through a fancy restaurant alone, being shown to my table. I was about to sit down and enjoy the experience of dining in a fancy restaurant. I was really looking forward to my evening of solitude. I was in a great mood and really looking forward to my dining experience. All of the tables were curved booths with high backs, puffy and a little sparkly, like paint on a bass boat, but delightfully muted. The table linens were crispy and bright white. The dishes looked like mother of pearl with a satin-y blue border.  

Olivia Wilde, as her character on the TV Show House, Dr. Thirteen came up to me. She had a stethoscope around her neck and was carrying a clipboard. Like the restaurant's seats, her hair also sparkled like the flecked brilliance of a bass boat. She told me that she noticed that I was about to dine alone and didn't want me to. She said that nobody should have to dine alone and she sat down at my table, without asking, just assuming I needed company whether I wanted it or not. 

I scowled at her the entire time. Her good intentions ruined my meal. 

You're Innocent When You Dream - A Dream

 I had a dream last night - 

I was driving though some kind of outdoor community commerce area; people sitting at cocktail tables eating tiny sandwiches and drinking coffee, people walking their dogs, people buying pretty stuff they don't need. I stopped at a crosswalk to let a group of people pass by. Once the last person passed my car, I started to go, but just as i started to go, one of the people from the group turned around, made eye contact with me and walked directly into my car. I pulled over and walked over to the person I hit with my car and started talking to her. She told me she wouldn't be seeking medical care or pressing charges. She was living under an assumed identity and wasn't ready to tell anyone who she really was and if she were to seek medical care or involve the police she'd have to tell everyone who she really was and she didn't want to do that. So instead of me getting in trouble for hitting someone with my car, the victim and I drank Campari and people-watched.

If You Want to Be a Top Banana, the Cheese Stands Alone - a dream

 I had a dream this morning.

I wasn't the photographer, but I was in charge of taking the pictures at some kind of event where the walls looked like something like if David Lynch had a hand in decorating the Madonna Inn. My job was to take portraits of families dressed in their very best clothes, all made out of cheese. 

American cheese was the big stand-out, very versatile, especially good for lapels. 

A Very Duggar Destination Wedding - A Dream

 I had a dream this morning

My family and I were invited to a Duggar wedding. I don't know which Duggar was getting married. It was a destination wedding. First we had to all meet in Arkansas at the Duggar compound then as a group, fly to Hawai`i. Nobody would tell me why we couldn't just fly to Hawai`i and meet them there. We got our hair done at the Duggar house then flew to Hawa`i. After the wedding we went to the reception. We were dismayed to learn that we weren't assigned a seat at the reception. We weren't allowed to attend the inside. They told us to look at our invitation. We are told that although our presence was requested, we were invited. All of the invited people got to go into the reception. All of the requested people had to wait outside. 

We left feeling really put out and disappointed. 

Steve Martin's Personal Life - A Dream

I hate when I can't remember my dreams. 

This morning I woke up at the end of my dream and said out loud .....

If only I could remember what this dream was about.

The Bearded Dragon and the Basking Snake - a dream.

 Last night I had a dream I had a pet snake, but I didn't really enjoy him. He snuck out of his enclosure and went outside and ate a crow. It came back inside and started basking in the cat tree in the window that looked like a real tree, a ficus, actually. 

When I went to grab the snake to put it back in its enclosure, I grabbed a bearded dragon with the agility of a feral cat by mistake. I kept trying to go downstairs so I could return it to the neighbor but the stairwell was flooded and I couldn't get outside, so I did the only thing I could think of doing, I made the bearded dragon wear a top hat with a feather hatband. 

The snake just stayed in the tree, basking like the crow-eating, ficus-loving snake he was.

Incorporating Pauly: A Dream

So this morning I was dreaming -- 

I was at some kind of function where there was a pool but nobody was allowed to go swimming. My cat Pauly came close to the edge of the pool to get a drink. He slipped and fell in. My sister dove (dived?) into the pool and rescued him. He turned orange, but we gave him CPR and cuddles and he was fine, but still orange.

When I woke up and got out of bed, I went to pee and noticed some cat litter on the toilet seat like Pauly was trying to drink out of the toilet. Then I went into the kitchen and Pauly's water bowl was spilled all over the kitchen floor. Pauly had his face in the bowl drinking up the few drops that were left.  I threw some paper towels on the spilled water, refilled the water bowl and started my day.

Good Morning!

Strawberries - a dream

I don't really like strawberries.  They're OK, I guess. I'll never choose a strawberry laden food, but I probably won't pick them out if I'm served something. I will however, flat out refuse a chocolate covered strawberry. I don't really seem to get the point of them. There are a few very specific exceptions to my feelings of meh concerning the strawberry. When I was a kid we used to dip giant strawberries in sour cream and brown sugar. I liked that, but I think I liked it because of the tangy slurry that was created with the strawberry juice, sour cream and brown sugar. Also, at the Marin County Fair I usually make time to enjoy a Tiger's Blood shave ice. With the addition of watermelon and coconut, the strawberry becomes refreshing on a hot day. And finally, a favorite of my youngest is a quick jam made from boiling together strawberries, sugar, lime juice and a pinch of salt. It's a nice addition to waffles. Two baskets of strawberries will cook down to fill an 8oz mason jar. It's pretty tasty. 

This morning I woke up to a dream about strawberries. 

I had two baskets of strawberries. One was the conventional kind in the green plastic basket. The other basket was a clamshell container filled with strawberries that had to be stored in the freezer. They were very special strawberries that needed to be kept at a very low temperature to remain fresh. They could withstand the freezing temperatures, while never freezing. They were like the Tardigrade of Strawberries. They didn't even taste really cold when you ate them. 

Bigfoot and Big Eyes - a dream

Sheltering in place is not all it's cracked up to be. I'm getting a little stir-crazy, as to be expected I guess. I want to leave the house, but the moment I do, even if it's just to walk down to the beach and back, having no contact with anyone save for the smile or shaka to a passing stranger, I want to go back home. We're being responsible, we're trying to stay sane, but dang it if it isn't really freaking boring sometimes.

Anyhoozle, it's no surprise we've been watching a lot of TV. Of course I've been dabbling with Tiger King, but it isn't a series for all of the eyes and ears in my house, and by the time everyone goes to bed, I figure I'll go to bed as well and so the perfect time to watch the show is wasted in favor of my beauty rest. This week we've been going back and forth between Master Chef and Finding Bigfoot. I was never into Master Chef until recently, so I've been getting caught up. I'm on season 4 now. Finding Bigfoot, on the other hand, was appointment television. We watched it all the time when it was first run. Now that it's on Amazon, The Boy has been watching it nonstop.

To that end, I had a dream . . . . . .

I was at a Bigfoot street fair on Oak St. just east of the Panhandle. It was the last day and people were packing up and heading back to the woods. The Finding Bigfoot people were there. I ran into Rene as she was packing up her stuff so I went up to her to say goodbye. She had the sweetest tour bus, trailer-bus type contraption. It was three car lengths. The third car was a tiny airstream no bigger than a tiny u-haul trailer. The middle car was a platform with a jeep on it, like a cross between Lorelai Gilmore's car and the kind you see on  the TV show M*A*S*H, and the first car was a self-driving wood paneled square bus with  bright, crystal clear picture windows all around. Inside was wood paneling kind of like an old F-train. There were shag area rugs and beanbag chairs on the floor and pictures of Big Eye Kids on the interior walls. There were bench seats along the sides, but no seatbelts. We went for a drive down Oak St towards the old freeway entrance, because in my dream it still existed. We had to take a super sharp turn. the middle car with the Jeep and the airstream u-haul hit the side rail and made sparks as we took the turn. She looked at me and said "happens all the time."

Stay safe everybody. Make sure to connect with your friends and family over the phone; skype, duo, zoom, facetime, all that stuff. When you encounter someone, maintain a safe distance, smile and give them a shaka. Shaka spreads only love and aloha, not coronavirus.

Candy for Gordon - A Dream

If someone I know is traveling abroad I ask them to bring me back one of two things; their extra coins or candy. 

I have tons of coins. My favorite coins are Yuan from China that have a hole in the middle. I also really love the 20p piece from England. I'm sorely lacking in Francs, Lira, Lats, Kroon, Marks, Escudo and Peseta but have a large amount of Drachma, Guilder, British Pounds and Kwacha and Euros.  I'm not really interested in paper money. I think non-US money is very interesting and colorful, but I'd rather have the kind that jingles, rather than the kind that folds.

For candy, just as I don't want the more valuable paper money, I don't want the fancy candy. If I get fancy candy, I'll most likely appreciate the box more than the candy inside. I want to try the mass market Hershey, Nestle, Cadbury, Mars type candy. I don't want fancy.  I want the kind that kids want to eat, the kind they buy themselves at the corner market. I want Flake Bars, Aero Bars, Violet Crumble, Crunchy Bars, Caramello Koalas, Cherry Ripe.

I had a dream.

I was at Sunset Super, which is a grocery store in my neighborhood that serves the Chinese community.  I was showing Gordon Ramsay around the store, We spent a little bit of time looking at  the giant tank of geoduck clams next to a giant ice bed of whole fish with bright shiny eyes. As we were walking around the store, we happened by the candy aisle. I walked him through every single candy, and made him try everything. He was amused but a bit annoyed at my persistence and insistence that he try everything. Candy wasn't really his thing, but he was a good sport.

The Birthday Party - A Dream in Base 13

DNA and Me in 1998. I'm pretty sure I was pregnant with my oldest here, but I didn't know it yet.
But I did have stitches in my hand (not shown) from butchering a giant salmon.

My favorite author is Douglas Adams. I first discovered Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at the El Dorado Libary in Long Beach. It sounded interesting. I read it. I loved it. It was a fun outer-space SciFi story with quirky characters and really great one-liners. I've read all 5 books in the trilogy. (I've read, but don't count And Another Thing, the 6th book in the trilogy, however. It wasn't written by DNA and I felt that Eoin Colfer, the author, was trying too hard). However, if I am being honest, more than H2G2, I liked the Dirk Gently series.

More still than H2G2 and Dirk Gently being a great reads, Douglas Adams helped me on my path of being comfortable with and embrace my weird; from him, I learned to accept myself. It was sort of my nerdy version of "it gets better."

Douglas Adams died in 2001. It made me sad.

Last night I had a dream about him. I woke up happy.

In my dream, Douglas Adams was still alive and he had a daughter around the same age as my youngest child.
I went to a birthday party at Douglas Adams' house. The inside of the house was white and had lots of flowy white fabric acting as walls creating rooms in the house's open floor plan. The back wall of the house was a giant window / sliding glass door that opened up to a big backyard with rolling green hills. As soon as we entered, my kids took off and went to the backyard to play. I looked around the room to find some interesting parents to speak with. All the parents were sitting still. Nobody was talking. They all looked really uncomfortable. Sitting in the middle of a long Kings Table was a dad from my oldest kid's class. He had an ax through his head; not a real ax, a fun one. Think of Steve Martin with the arrow in his head, that kind of ax. He looked like he wanted to be really whimsical and fun but ended up regretting his decision.

I walked around the living area a bit, noticed a great buffet table filled with delicious food. People were standing around it, but nobody was eating. I decided that going outside where all the action was would be more enjoyable. I went outside. The kids were having a super fun blast. There we life-size creatures characters from The NeverEnding Story milling about, a giant waterslide-dunktank-archery ride, lots of streamers, a maypole. 

While watching my kids play and run around off in the distance, the dad of my oldest kid with the ax in his head approached me. I asked him where DNA was. He said he spoke with him earlier but that he hated parties and was most likely hiding from all the hubbub as much as he could.


.

To Catch a Cat Cold - A Dream

My cat, Pauly sleeps with me most nights. Usually he gets himself comfy in a spot somewhere around my knees. When it gets really cold out, he sleeps on my head. Last night when I woke up to pee, I found him curled up right by my head..

This morning I  heard my cat sneeze about 5 times in a row. I think he may have sneezed on me last night.

I was in some kind of vacation house with a group of people. I recognized them in my dream but I can't remember who they are now. I was sitting at the kitchen table. I had just started a load of laundry in my pull-out sofa, because I guess in my dream life, Ikea sofa beds can be hooked up to a plumb line. There were a bunch of kids playing outside. A baby about 6 months old crawled up to me. She was dressed like Minnie Mouse. She sat on my lap and watched the kids play through the window. After a few moments she turned her head towards me and sneezed directly in my face. 

Les Claypool and the Flying V and the Quest for Soup: A Dream

When I was about 18 I had this friend. His wife won a Flying V guitar on some radio contest. She was so excited to win it. I saw it. It was pretty. This was almost 30 years ago. I wonder what she did with it. I guess I'll never know.
















The Boyfriend and I plus a handful of our friends were at some kind of house together. Les Claypool was performing somewhere nearby. He happened by us and asked us if he could crash with us. Of course we said yes. Not wanting him to feel awkward and wanting to give him a sense of normalcy, we largely ignored him and let him do his thing. Mostly what he did was amble and putter about carrying a Flying V, just like Randy Rhodes' guitar and talk about how he wanted to eat soup, really good soup.

He mea maʻa mau ia i ke Caprica - A Dream for you and I

Lords of Kobol, I woke up to fantastic dream this morning.

There are nights when I don't want to go to hula. Y'know, you get home from work after a long day, you're tired. You don't want to get back into the car and drive across town. My oldest daughter, who is also my hula sister didn't want to go either. She, like me, had worked a full day on her feet and could have been easily convinced not to go. We make the right decision, we e ʻeu ka lemu (got off our booties) and holoholo-ed to hula. 
I've never regretted going to hula on a night when I didn't want to go. I am always happy I went. Last night was no exception. It was a good class. After class we got home, I put the little ones in their beds, got comfy in my bed and watched a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica on Hulu. I'm in the middle of Season 3 right now. It seems my evening served as really excellent dream fodder.

I was at a restaurant having lunch with Chief Tyrol and Cally. 
(I was probably on Earth, but who knows, I could have easily been on Caprica. I don't think I was on the Cloud 9 ship, unless I was in the employee cafeteria on Cloud 9 because it wasn't fancy. It was mostly shaped like Barney's on Solano.  Yeah, it totally wasn't the Cloud 9 cafeteria because why would I save all my cubits to pay for transport from Faru Sadin to Cloud 9 only to have to eat the space equivalent of Sysco chicken nuggets? The restaurant was definitely on Earth or Caprica.)
We were seated along the wall at a 4 top but all the 4 tops along that wall were really close together. Chief, Cally and I had just ordered and I look up and see one of my kid's friend's dads walk in. I get up to say hello to him. He doesn't see me. He turns away and grabs a 'ukulele from the top of the bookshelf, sits down and starts playing Henehene Kou 'Aka. I say to myself "hey, I know that song." I get up, stand in the middle of the room and join the dance right at the "for you and I" go right into the kāholo and start the second verse, get on that street car and make my way to Waikīkī, Kapahulu, and Kaka'ako (moo).

Lemuring Around - a dream

I don't believe dreams are prophetic. I don't think one receives knowledge in a dream that isn't already swimming around in one's brain. I do believe, however, that dreams can help to sort out one's thoughts, bring to light one's anxieties, fantasies, and fears. Of course one's dreams can also be just weird random occurrences of strange stuff and don't serve any purpose other than to entertain us, but that's not the kind of dream I had last night.

Last night I had a dream that I can't get out of my head. On the surface it's kinda funny, but the more I think about it, the more I can't shake it.

I was walking through my living room and there was a dead lemur on the floor. I kept trying to get around it but its tail kept getting in my way. I was finally able to kick it aside, only to find there was another lemur on my back that wouldn't go away. I saw my ex-husband and asked him to remove the lemur. Instead of pulling it off my back, he just tickled it and repositioned it. I tried to remove the lemur but couldn't. The lemur, with its cat-like jaws (yes, I know a lemur's jaws aren't cat-like, but this was a dream, remember?) grabbed onto my hand and wouldn't let go. I yelled "Ow, fucker" and punched it in the face. 

I woke up swinging. I actually woke from sleep swinging.

It goes without saying, there are a few obstacles in my life that just won't find their way to completion or success no matter how hard I try to make them happen; my divorce being final, a full-time permanent job with benefits, finding a safe and happy place to live for my kids and me.

Luckily the drive to keep swinging endures.

Taking One for the Team - a dream

There's this guy I follow on Instagram. I've never met him but he's posted enough photos of himself that I'd probably recognize him if I saw him on Muni or around the neighborhood. I had a dream about him and Anthony Bourdain.


Anthony Bourdain is a repeat visitor to my dreams. You may remember him from dreams past.

I went on a date with this guy from Instagram that I follow. We connected through the online dating platform Plenty of Fish. We met at a bar that had two separate entrances. I went through the door closest to the bar. He went through the door closer to the restaurant. I saw him walk in. He did not see me. When I saw him I knew instantly that I did not want to meet him. Luckily, who did I spy at a table close to me but my good friend Tony. I walked sneakily up to him so as not to be noticed by the Instagram guy and slid into the booth next to my friend. I told him what was happening and asked him if he'd help me out by making out with me so I could hide from the Instagram guy. 

He said he'd be happy to, so we made out until the Instagram guy went away. 

James vs. Jim

About a year ago my brain stopped giving me amazing dreams. It made me sad. I have always had a colorful and really vivid and strange dream life filled with actors, TV personalities, awesome soundtracks and just general over-all fun. My guess is that the last few years have had my brain has been occupied with other things that something had to give. My dream life it seems, took one for the team and took a nap.

Just as the fog in my life is starting to clear a bit, my dream life is waking up. So happy. I quite enjoy the strange things that come out of my brain.

I was sitting in a waiting room or lobby of some sort talking to a few people from my past that I used to work with, but didn't know very well in real life, but in my dream we were friends. 

Still in the same room, I find that I'm sitting on a banquette, like what you'd find in a diner. red glittery plastic and a table with a crinkle cut metal border. I look across that table and see 1970's era James Brown. We don't know each other but we start chatting about whatever. 

He tells me that he has a bad cold and needs to go to the doctor but doesn't want to because he doesn't want fans all around him and he's nowhere near his regular doctor. He doesn't feel good. He just wants some cold medicine and then to go to bed. 

I tell him to call ahead and tell them his name isn't James Brown, but rather 90's era Jim Brown. Then only Jim Brown fans would show up at the doctor's office and he could totally sneak in, disguised as a Jim Brown fan, himself. He looked at me, thought for a second, then said "That might just work, Baby. Thank you."

Glad I could help.

Welcome back dream life. Don't ever leave me again. You keep me too entertained.

A Different Kind of Yummy - Dream and Food Review

It was a pretty good Sunday.

The Kiddies let me sleep until 10am. I was having weird dreams all night long and had to sleep until I had a dream that wasn't creepy. I ended up waking up to a dream where I was being held against my will at a book store because they thought I was shoplifting. They searched me and determined I was not shoplifting but they still needed to charge me $10 for taking time out of their day to search my bag. They wouldn't let me leave until I paid. I told them they were stupid and I wasn't going to pay, then The Boy's school principal handed the store owner a check for $10 so I berated the store owner for taking money from a nun. I figured at 10am that's the best I was going to get so I should just wake up. So I did.

I spent the next hour drinking a particularly yummy cup of coffee, in my Fonzie cup, of course, eating honeydew melon and watching Doogie Howser, MD on Hulu snuggled with my kiddies under a home-made quilt on the couch.

Turned into a pretty swell morning.

We finally got around to getting out of the house. We went to a yard sale and picked up a few books, a Walter the Farting Dog stuffie, some shoes and a skirt for $6 and a Starbucks gift card that may have had $25 on it or may have had only 7 cents.

My oldest Kiddie was craving a sandwich so we went to Cheese Plus. CP is located on the corner of Polk and Pacific in SF. I was stoked to find parking just a short block away. When I worked at a local business we used to order their cheese platters on a regular basis. They were always super yummy and a big hit.

I don't, however get to the actual store very often enough. I'm happy we made the trip today.

We got to the sandwich counter. The Girl ordered her sandwich. I ordered a Cubano sandwich for me and a Tuna sandwich for Bean. The Boy was mad that CP didn't have cheeseburgers and fries. He grabbed a bag of pop chips and I ordered a Crissy Field sandwich for him. He was mad that I ordered him the sandwich and told me he wasn't going to eat it and I was stupid.

We got our sandwiches and took a seat in the parklet. The Girl opened her Toasted Crissy Field sandwich. She said it was delicious and she ate the whole thing. The Boy opened his bag of pop chips and his odwalla juice, tucked his knees inside of his t-shirt and ate silently, giving me "you should have gotten me a Cheeseburger and Fries" attitude.

I handed Bean 1/2 of her tuna sandwich and opened up my Cubano sandwich and started to enjoy it. She took a bite of the Tuna sandwich and said "This isn't the kind of yummy I like," and gave it to me. I gave her a bite of my sandwich and she took it from me and didn't give it back. She put it on her lap and ate it layer by layer until it was gone. She loved it. Tuna sandwiches are the wrong sort of bees for her, I guess. Cubano sandwiches are right up her alley, though.

Meanwhile The Boy was finding his popchips and odwalla weren't enough. I opened his sandwich; a Crissy Field, untoasted and handed it to him, He reluctantly took it from me and sniffed it. He dared to take his first bite, then he decided he could suffer a second bite. With the third bite he figured that if the first two bites hadn't hurt him, the next one would be OK. By the fourth bite he was committed to the idea that the sandwich wasn't such a bad sandwich after all. By the time he had finished the first half he said that his sandwich was the best sandwich he had ever had and that all sandwiches should be made exactly the same way as the Crissy Field Sandwich, untoasted is.

So, if you want to feed a hungry teenager who really wants a sandwich, go to Cheese Plus and get her a Crissy Field Sandwich , toasted. She will eat all of it.

If you want to feed a hungry 2-1/2 year old, don't get her tuna. Get her a Cubano Sandwich. She may not eat it sandwich-style, but she'll eat the whole thing in a manner that makes sense only to her and make yummy eating noises while eating it until it's gone.

If you want to feed a hungry 7 year old who thinks that Cheeseburgers and Fries are more delicious than a stinky freshly made sandwich, get him a Crissy Field, untoasted. He'll be suspicious at first then decide it's the best darn sandwich he's ever had and wish for all future sandwiches to be so yummy.

Then we went home. The Girl did her homework. The Boy had some Minecraft time and Bean and I hung out and watched some Dragon Tales together. (Man, I hate Dragon Tales).

We had dinner, took baths, washed hair (the only sucky part of the day because my two youngest think washing hair is worse than bamboo under the finger nails) then went to bed.

I'm ending my day with some cashews and a nice glass of Petite Sirah.

I'll take a Sunday like today any day.

Me and Mr. Somebody - A Dream

Last night I had a dream I had an almost-boyfriend.

There was this guy who was sweet on me. I can't tell if it was Eric Roberts or Anthony Bourdain. (I'm hoping it was the latter. Screw it. It's my dream. I'm going to say it was the latter.)





He was taking me out on a date. While I was getting ready I stepped in some weird mud and had to hose off my feet and change my clothes. I changed into a yellow one piece jumpsuit, baggy pants halter top type thing, a flowing scarf, a big floppy hat, brown sandals and big round sunglasses. 
We drove in his convertible. He took a very beautiful yet super scary route along the coastline. One lane hugging the rocks with waves splashing over as he drove down the road. We got to our destination. It was an all-star baseball game. I told him I'd never been to an all-star baseball game but I had been to an all-star hockey game and the arena was empty. It was nice to see a full stadium even though I was totally overdressed. We got to our seats and instead of bleachers or stadium seats, everyone sat on pillows on the floor. Some people from work with big impressive titles were sitting near us. I heard one ask another "what's she doing here?" and the other answered "they're kinda sweet on each other." Then the first one shrugged and said OK.

Down the Drain -- A Dream

I don't like Caillou at all. The talking puppets creep me out and I think I may want to punch every single one of them on the show, and Caillou twice. Don't even get me started on the way Caillou pronounces the word Pizza.

The other night I dreamed I was hanging out with Caillou and his mom. I don't think they knew I was there. I was just there not participating.
Caillou's mom was giving Caillou a bath. All of the sudden Caillou's mom heard the front door open and said "Oh, (insert favorite expletive here)" and grabbed a baggie out of her baggie mom jeans' pocket and emptied a baggie of little blue pills down the drain. Since the water wasn't draining fast enough the little blue pills kept floating to the top. Caillou and his mom kept pushing the pills down the drain until they all went down.