Dream a little dream

The other night, I dreamnt (dreamed? had a dream? Grammar police: please help) that I was a backseat passenger in a tiny European car (somewhat like the original Mini) with an old friend of mine, Dani. She and her mom were sitting in the front and I was crushed sideways across the back 'seat', holding on for dear life as we zipped around a labryinth of tiny streets. At one point we navigated a turn that took a wrong way, where we had to back up almost off a ledge, and ended up getting out in the middle of some sort of orphans' school where children of all ages were running wild. The scenery and architecture were a mix of pictures and film I've seen of Santorini, Greece, the scenery from Nacho Libre and the controversial new film by Deepa Mehta about Indian widow communites, Water. (Rent it/put it on your NetFlix queue now, please)

Clearly, one should not drink martinis without the proper precautionary measures. Out of nowhere in my dream, I began laughing hysterically....why? Because I had an Idea for a new addition to McSweeneys Lists: Lesser-Known Classical Greek Figures:

• Helen of Sparta - the face that launched a thousand pans of baklava
• Comet - Ajax's lesser-known friend.
• Jeff the Argonaut. Jason's first mate.
  

There were a bunch more on that list, at any rate, to make me wake up laughing at myself - my second-favorite way to wake up. The first, of course, would be to awake and find myself in on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Costa Rica. Which suggests that my ancient Greek name should be Morphea, Queen of delusional dreams.

Dreams

In which I have nothing of note to say, and thus will shamelessly steal a page from Karen and also Menosblog:

For/From Karen: Things I'd love in my dream house:

An enclosed outdoor shower in the yard, (which would be beautiful, of course) so that everyone could rinse the sand/dirt off their feet after being outside or at the beach.

Oh, IN the house, you say?
-His and hers bathrooms. Pedestal sink or one of those cool recycled/tempered-glass all-in-one sink/counter units. Of course, my dream house will come with a cleaner, so I don't have to fuss over every drop of water, right?
-Walk in closet. We have one in our rental unit where we lived when we were first married, I miss it SO much!
-12 foot ceilings with bull-nosed (rounded) corners and a high crown molding with recessed uplighting all around ...on dimmers, of course.
-Bamboo floors (a beautiful, low maintenence, renewable resource) laid on the diagonal.
-"Man room" for all of his ... crap. Since I know he'll always be a packrat, why not go with it, at least in one room?
-Master bedroom with enough space for more than just my bed, sans frame. See? modest requests, really.
-A guest bedroom/office for me, making a grand total of three bedrooms.
-Screened in porch, or better yet, a verandah. Like a loggia, one of the most romantic words, methinks.
-Kitchen with built-in breakfast nook, island and dishwasher. I dream of having a dishwasher, preferably two of those nifty drawer style ones that use way less water, operate independantly of each other, and are faced to match the rest of the kitchen.

Said kitchen should open up via a cool hatch/bar (or something) to living/dining room, thus allowing cook to talk to guests, since we know that the cook gets lonely. This would be able to close, so that we don't have to look at the dinner dishes mess while enjoying dessert.

Ok, now you put yours in comments, ok?

Part Deux.... When I Rule the World, Part the First:

1. There will be no unwanted pets or children. Persons who demonstrate inability to parent the children they have will be monitored via video 24 hours a day. Said video shall play out on their roof via a digital display.
2. Cellular phones and their owners, like a fool and his money, shall be soon parted if they are used in conjuction with a steering wheel.
3. Plane tickets to and from Colorado/Santa Barbara will be not more than $100.00, ever.
4. Bread, pasta, rice and tortillas and all cheeses, chocolates and nuts are now Health and Beauty Tonics.
5. Nothing will happen before nine am except sunrise and the night before.
6. There will be a readily available beauty salon that is open till midnight where one can get a pedicure, a manicure and a martini at the same time. Said salon shall be reasonably priced, but will not offer hair cuts or colors so as to avoid any follicular disastors.
7. Persons unable to comprehend the meaning of the words "budget" and "no" shall be unable to become married.
8. The next person to ask me when I'm gonna haave a baaayyyyybeeee! will find that thier tounge spontaneously combusts.
9. I will enjoy excercise other than volleyball and swimming and going to the gym.
10. The words 'Humour, colour' and other such words shall be given their proper, British spelling.
11. I'd be a much better writer.

Unintended

I had a dream... no, not that kind, the sort where you wake up and wonder, "hmmmm... should I call (person in the dream). Normally when someone says this, I'm in the back row, rolling my eyes and snickering - so if you're of that sort, please, fill out the shoe poll from yesterday. Or better, yet, someone please tell me what the hell does a persons' geographical origin have to do with it being IN ANY WAY ACCEPTABLE for them to BACK INTO MY CAR and NOT EVEN APOLOGIZE?

No, no - my dream started with Scott and I hanging out at our friends' house, talking about our upcoming home projects, music and our various pets over drinks and dinner like always. I kept noticing Chiada jumping up and down and going to their guest bedroom, but didn't think anything about it. We started talking about them adding on to part of their house and she commented rather off-handedly, "Yeah, since we really need the room now with the baby and all.."

I stared at her in shock and gasped, "Whaaat are you talking about?"

She replied, "Oh, didn't I tell you? I was pregnant but I didn't know it - we had a little girl a couple of weeks ago - we're still in a bit of shock, actually, sorry for not calling you." She scooped up her little girl, who was sleeping in the middle of a pillow barricade in their guest bedroom, and showed her to me.

"How did you not know?" I asked - and she gave me this whole story (I won't go into details, but suffice it to say: completely plausible) about her surprise baby and how she'd gone to the ER for what she thought were back spasms and presto! A tiny, pink-lipped little peach of a girl. She wasn't quite sure if the baby, whom they hadn't named yet, had been born early, but she was perfect and healthy, so the hospital had let them take her home. They hadn't had any time to process the whole thing, buy baby stuff or clothes, or anything but the bare necessities yet.

Scott and I looked back and forth at them and each other and the little bundle in shock, and I said, 'you guys are going to be great parents, even though you weren't ready- don't worry, I'm going to throw together the Mother of all baby showers for you!'. We went home and I started calling every mom I know (lots of 'em - most of our friends, in fact) for their nice, but out-grown baby stuff. My dreams are usually pretty realistic and detailed, this is, in fact, exactly what I would do in real life - so that bit wasn't surprising.

So why bother to tell this story? I don't know - maybe because within this week, I've had several dreams that have come true, or because every time I get a feeling about something I should or shouldn't do and ignore it, it comes back and bites me in the booty. Who knows?

More about yesterday and its' random events later!

You Give Me... Fever..

I've always had what could be termed a "vivid imagination" - as witnessed by the fact that as a small child, I carried a box of Morton Salt (you know, like... this..) around with me, wrapped in a dishtowel, and called it my brother. (This was before the girls came along) At about age four, I got a bad combo of pneumonia and the flu while we were on a ski vacation in Tahoe. It came with a complimentary dose of high fever that I *swear* fried my little brain forever. The good news was - I got better fairly quickly (a week or so) ... but the bad news: I can never, ever get too hot while I sleep, or I will get these weird acid-trip/horror movie dreams.

I know, a dream sequence... but surely someone besides me will find these amusing. The first one started out pretty normal- I was out in my (weedy!) yard and spraying it with some sort of weed-killer (I'd talked about doing that the other day). All of the sudden, my entire yard was filled with old-styled British "pram" strollers, and each one had those freakishly real-looking dolls in them. Look - tell me the blonde one isn't flipping you off! And the other one... the eyeeees.. they are looking right THROUGH you, aren't they? (shudders)
I will bite youuuuu!
Dead eyes... dead eyeeees... Just me, is it? I think NOT!
To add to the freakishness, one of the little buggers popped up and BIT me on the hand, and would not let go, so I was flailing around my pram-filled yard with this thing attached to me, and a voice-over from...somewhere goes, "Oh... this one's defective....we're going to have to put it down - just spray it with the weed-killer and I'll take care of the rest."

I'd like to go on record and say I think dream-analysis is by and large, complete bunk. (With the exception of S. taking me to the Brew House a couple of weeks back to get Beef Stroganoff, thus briefly breaking my 15 year long no-beef streak. That was brilliant.)

Than I dreamt that I was in my hometown, at some friends' house, and that I fell asleep with my face in a large, tiffany-blue cupcake. You tell me, people. You tell me. I'm after a cupcake.