And what was it you had for dinner? Hmmm?

One of the joys of the last week or so has been a set of interesting dreams.  Now, I'm not someone who has nightmares, or finds meanings in dreams.  Other than the ones that are telling me I have to go to the bathroom, of course.  My dreams usually are just snippets of things I've thought about over the last, say, 40 years that fall into the garbage disposal that is my subconscious and spit themselves back out into a pile the color and consistency of fruit salad.  But sometimes I have a string of interesting ones, and this weekend has had some.

For example this one was kind of interesting, at first.  I was like part of a "lord of the rings" type movie, complete with voice-over narrator.  We were four elves swimming downriver, heading towards a large cavern in the near distance with myself on the far left.  Just about then, the announcer says something in a deep British baritone about "parasites" in the water, and I look over as the guy next to me is attacked by something that...er, leaps out of the water, it is about the size of a large red basketball with a thin black stinger about a foot and a half long.  It impales the elf next to me, he screams, and they both disappear under the muddy water.  Needless to say, I was out of the water faster than you can say, "the others began to swim to the riverbank", and watched just in time to see the "parasites" get the other two guys while the announcer was like, "He had thought they would be part of his summer memories... and now, he's all alone."

So I start walking the rest of the way towards the cavern (which BTW had a nice grassy trail inside along both sides of the  river), when the announcer says something about eating something... and there in my hand was an insect that looked like a foot-long cross between a cicada and a grasshopper.  I quickly rubbed it off my hand on some nearby leaves, hoping the announcer didn't mind that I skipped the "eating" part.  Just then, something started to bite the back of my neck (this turned out to be an itch when I woke up), and then my elbow.  I started to lay/fall down, as voice-over guy said something about me being captured once I passed out.  Now, I'm pretty good at knowing when I'm dreaming, and usually thinking I'm on a TV show or movie doesn't fool me a bit.  So I thought to myself, "Captured, my butt," and ran the other way.  When I got to the place in the river I started, I woke up.  Just scary enough to make me sit there for a minute when I woke up.

Where did this come from?  Well, I'm reading The Silmarillion for about the eighth time at lunch at work, so I figure that's what brought it up.


Another one that night was a typical back in high school type.  As always, it starts with being late for a class due to trying to find a locker.  This is where working my new job helps, because I don't put a lock on my locker there, so I didn't have to remember a combination (or get it from the office), just stuff my stuff in it and try to remember the locker #.  (24!)  I get to this class, and the prof is lecturing away on some abstract poly-sci subject, so I figure it's either history or sociology and find a seat.  I begin to recognize people in the class- most of them people I knew but not well in high school.  For some reason I was hanging on to the seat in front of me, until I noticed that the girl sitting there (whom I didn't know, but would've liked to) was squirming and about to figure out it was my innocent, oblivious finger that was making her uncomfortable, so I sat back.  Looking to my side, I saw a girl from high school (whom I barely knew) having her ear seductively whispered in by a Mexican girl I worked with at my old job (whom I barely knew). 

Of course, that makes it time for a scene change, and I'm in the hallway wondering if I brought my lunch box.  So I somehow track down my locker.  I find no fewer than three heavy jackets crammed into it like babies into Singapore, but no lunch box.  So, I tell myself, "It's a dream, just create one".  So I concentrate until a lunchbox starts to materialize;  but it was taking to long so I said, "Heck with it, it's not lunchtime yet anyway", and away it went.  I went down to the restroom, where someone gave me about a joint's worth of marijuana in a cellophane cigarette pack wrapper.  I stuffed it in my pocket and said to myself, "If I get caught with it, I'll just say that since it was given to me at school in broad daylight, that I figured it was fake and was going to use it to prank someone when I got home."  Good idea.  I eventually made it to the next class, I think it was going to be an English class, but the dream got boring then and trailed off.

Take from that?  The school stuff happens all the time;  the lunchbox probably is my subconscious wondering why I'm not working; and the dope?  We'll blame that on the whole legalization thing.

Last night, the fun started when I was in a silver Charger being driven by my girlfriend, who must be one of those lovely amalgam characters my mind uses when it doesn't want to bring in Laurie or my ex.  We had just ate something somewhere, but we were on like a "tour of restaurants" for our anniversary.  So we pull into this strip mall early evening, and she parks next- and I mean RIGHT next- to some big pickup truck.  After squeezing out the door, we walk into this place, a tiny little hole in the wall Italian joint, and are greeted by an older (but not quite elderly) lady and her two huge and silent sons.  I'm describing to her what I had at the last place, and she listens, grabs some stuff, and then says, "We'd better hurry, because I have someplace I have to be."

"You mean you're the only cook in the place, and you're leaving? " I say politely as I can.  "Well, we'll come back later."

"No, no," she says, "We'll just have to hurry."  Just then her husband, in coat and hat despite the fact it was summer when we got there, comes in and says, "Are you ready?  We gotta get going."

"I can't,"  she exclaims.  "These people are here, and..."

"No, we'll just go," I say;  and at that point, my GF, pissed at missing out on this dinner, slams her way outside.  Now I am a bit P.O.ed, and say as I pass the guy, "Thanks for messing up our anniversary."

I'm about five steps out the door when the guy says, "Can you come back in, please?  I think I'm going to have to charge you $9.38."

"What?"  I shout.  "What for, we didn't eat anything."

"But we heated up the grill with olive oil.  I think I'm going to have to charge you $9.38."

"But that's not fair!"

"It is to us truckers!"

"Too bad, I ain't paying it."

" Look, I'm going to have to charge you..."

"And I'm not paying it!" I shout over my shoulder as I walk away, around what is now a semi truck and squeezing into the car through the window- as GF nearly scrapes me off on the semi's rear-view.  As we drive away, GF starts crying because she thinks the guy is now going to break into our house and steal $9.38 of our stuff to make up for the meal we never ordered.  I mumble something about kicking his butt if he does, and the dream comes to an end.

Take from that one?  I like Italian restaurants, but found a "tour of restaurants" a stupid idea.  I think the charge had to do with the unemployment snafu on my part.

Final one, short and sweet.  Like many dreams, this one happens in my old neighborhood in the parking lot/playground of the Catholic school I went to as a child.  Like every dream set there, it has certain elements. A) Some sort of vehicle issue.  B) It's raining.  C) I want to leave, and something is preventing me.  D) At least one vehicle is parked in the grass between the nun's house and the school entrance, where it shouldn't be, and is either in my way or is my vehicle, unable to get out.

This time, there were two vehicles in D) position, and both apparently mine.  One was my first car, a shit-red (AKA burgundy) 1980 Fairmont two-door; the other our current black Impala.  Something is wrong with one of them, and Laurie is going to do "something " with it whilst I tend to the other.  By the time I get the other one into the actual lot, it has become a silver motorcycle; and if you know me, the last place I need or desire to be is on a motorcycle.  So I turn the key (yes, turn the key) to start it;  nothing happens.  So turning to my vast knowledge of two-wheelers, I proceed to grab the handlebars, slam the front end up and down several times, and try again.  Thankfully, I only had to do this about three times before I woke up.

Take from that?  Must be worried about the car.  Winter driving and all.

There was another one, involving some girl (another amalgam) and an old trailer I lived in; but I had to go to the bathroom during it, so it quickly devolved into "what odd place or object will I urinate into rather than finding what human beings would call a toilet, and will it flood while being used or after being flushed."  Usually with such dreams, I use the first "facility", soon feel the need again, and the second time I wake myself up.  So, due to the subject nature, I'll spare you that one.  Or, at least, some of that one.