New Territory

Last night I dreamt that Wes and I bought the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, TX. I've been lucky enough to go in there a few times, and it's an amazing building and one I'd love to renovate if I happened to be rich.

Apparently in the dream, we were rich - or at least close enough. We installed proper gates and stuff to keep people out and were planning to live in a few offices on the lower floor (which don't exist in reality) until the place was renovated. Unfortunately there were tours going through still, and they wouldn't listen when I told them to get the hell out of my hotel.

Still, apart from that annoyance, the excitement of looking at the renovation and trying to figure out what we could salvage and what needed to be redone was super exciting. Here's to hoping someone actually does it someday!

Small sidenote: I have taken lots of Baker photos, and you can find prints of some of them for sale at Wilde Designs.

Teenage Dream

Obviously I've been having trouble remembering a lot of dreams clearly lately, but last night, I got lucky.

I'm not sure if it was discussing my celebrity list over dinner or having a Glee marathon with my sister (culminating in "Never Been Kissed" just before bed), but despite being a short dream, last night's was definitely a good one. My sister and husband and I were on vacation in New York staying in a nice hotel. No idea why we were there or what was up, but they said they had a surprise for me... and in walks Darren Criss. The picture left is the one that set off my mental image for the dream: glasses, scarf (gray scarf with a green jacket in my dream, if it matters to you), winter coat. And for some reason I had absolutely no qualms about walking straight up and hugging him.

I'd love to say there was fascinating, interesting stuff that happened after, but Pike woke up, and mommy action trumped sleeping. Still, it was sweet and cute and nice. I'll take it!

Narrow Escapes

Creepy old house, originally uploaded by CaptnMom.

My dream last night was exhaustingly elaborate. It started with my mom and sister and I going to this old house for a tour. It was supposed to be haunted and was a cool place. There was sort of a complex of old houses together and even a small theater that they held little improv shows in.

Somehow I had been there before and knew that there was something wrong with the "package" deal they offered to stay overnight. Before I could warn mom, she signed us up. I was nervous but finally said okay since it would take a long time to get home and it would be easier not to have to drive.

The first part of the night was a sort of burlesque show thing in the theater that reminded me a lot of the environment at Rocky. It was a lot of fun and put me at ease. When we went back to the house to get ready for the dinner they offered, I started getting really edgy. Part of the "story" or whatever of being an overnight guest was that the people who worked there would sneak into people's rooms and steal things using a series of secret passages and panels and stuff. I finally got way too freaked and told mom we had to leave. She said that was fine but that she'd promised to help the older lady that owned the place with something first.

I reluctantly agreed to wait a little longer. I stayed in our room and got all our things together because I didn't want something to get taken and us have to stay longer just to get it back. After awhile, mom still hadn't come back, so I took our backpacks and went downstairs calling for her. The employees - who had already started the formal dinner for the guests - told me she was still talking to the lady. I asked where my sister was and they said she was outside. Everyone was acting very polite, but it was a creepy, strained politeness.

Eventually (I can't recall how), I found Kathy and we realized by then (the people weren't pretending to be nice anymore and they were trying to chase us) we had to get out whether we could find mom or not. They'd managed to box our car in when we tried to drive off, so we ended up running on foot down this crazy, scary, complex network of roads looping over and under each other. We finally found a spot to get off the road and cut through into a swampy area.

On the way through, we found another guy who was running from the people at the house. Together we all managed to evade them and eventually get back to down. It was supposed to be the town where my mom and sister live, but it was different. The guy went his own way and we went to our grandma's house. While there we saw strange pictures (they weren't home yet) and realized that she and my uncles were somehow in league with the people at the house. We high-tailed it out of there and back to mom's house, which was very different from her real one.

We were completely freaked out and had no idea what to do. We were both terrified of where mom might be and how to get her out and somehow I was worried that Wes would go there or had already gone there. Unfortunately I woke up before the mysteries could be solved. Maybe tonight it will be Kathy and I to the rescue.

Ostrich Attacks

Ostrich, originally uploaded by greenpinkorange.

I wish I could remember my dream from last night more clearly because it was absolutely nuts. The dream opened with my mom, hubby and myself along with a lot of the rest of my family (even some I am actively no longer in contact with) being at grandma and papau's house. Grandma had asked me to go through some old boxes and repack them, so I was working on that.

At some point, something weird started happening out in the yard (which had also become bigger than it really is). There were all sorts of scary animals out there. There were also suddenly other people I didn't really know in the house who I suppose we knew in the context of the dream. At one point, a few people decided to go out to papau's shed to get something and the girl that was with them got her head eaten off by an ostrich in full horror movie style. No, really. It was surprisingly grizzly and not funny like you'd think it might be. Ostriches are mean fuckers.

So we decided we all needed to get out and drive away. I stopped sorting and we packed up our bags. Somehow we weren't scared about going to the cars in the driveway despite the fact that there were even prehistoric looking cats and stuff stalking the yard by this point. We ended up joining most of the people in a large bus driven by a guy that, again, I don't really know. We were driving toward the edge of town (that wasn't really the edge of the town they live in) and trying to find a place to eat.

I sort of lose the thread of what was going on at that point, but... wow, it was a little crazy. And, once again, I don't think anyone but me and mom actually *spoke* to papau in the dream. I'm still not clear whether he was actually there or... what.

Dreaming of NOLA

New Orleans, originally uploaded by LeaSc.

In my dream last night, my husband and I set off in the car for New Orleans along with our friends Becky, Nathan, Katie and Clay. Somehow we all fit comfortably into what looked like a regular sized car. Dream physics ROCK.

In any case, we arrived at the city and were hitting up strange corridors of the French Quarter that don't really exist. I was just sad that this was only one of a series of dreams last night, so it didn't last nearly as long as I would've liked. I'm exhausted today, but I appreciated the vacation last night!

The Best of Times and the...

Ewan McGregor, originally uploaded by Uncinefilo.

I've been having a lot of nightmares lately dealing with family drama. It's nothing all that deep. I know precisely what it means, it's not that interesting, so I've been sparing everyone.

Before the nightmares set in last night, though, I was treated to something I haven't had in awhile - a cameo from my dream husband. I don't mean dream husband in the sense of him being my ideal, exactly, just that Ewan's my go to sexy dude in dreams. I mean, look at him. Not hard to figure out why ;)

I wish I could remember the plot (something complex involving sci fi stuff and clones and whatnot), but the good part? I had my very own Ewan, and I got to have a lot of fun with him. Not as much as I would have liked (stupid dreams changing on me right in the middle!), but it was enough to take the sting out of the second half of the night, believe you me.

Visits and Fashion and Family

Where the Streets are Made of Gold, originally uploaded by Sue Pennyfield.

At the start of my dream last night, my mom was taking Wes and I to stay at a friend's vacation home. Oddly her friend was an old art teacher of mine, but in the context of the dream, she apparently knew him better than I did. When we got to the house, we realized it looked like someone as already staying there. We were confused since he'd said we'd have the place to ourselves, but we figured maybe his son crashed there for a night or two and just didn't clean the place up again. It was posh with everything from a swimming pool to a gorgeously manicured lawn.

In time we realized that the other people staying there were our family. My uncle's ex wife, my cousin (who I was genuinely happy to see), and my uncle who we've been having all the real life issues with. Grandma was there as well. At one point she and I were going through some drawers to clean out one of the rooms so we could stay in it and we found an old gold skirt that had been hers. She said I could have it, and the strangest part was that it fit (she's a half foot or more shorter than me).

I was actively working to avoid my uncle so that there would be no drama during the visit. We just wanted to have fun. I was doing one of my rounds through a hallway to get away from him when my papau walked through on his way to get breakfast. He just said, "Morning, sweetheart," and moved on through. He was wearing his usual robe, his hair was all ruffled from being asleep, and I seemed to be the only one who thought it was strange that he was there.

All in all, a strange night of good and bad.

Cheerleaders & Old Stemware

What would you do if you were a master of invisability?, originally uploaded by DARKspawn.

My dream began innocently enough. I was in high school... or something. For some reason most of the people around seemed to be cheerleaders. They were incessantly talking about a competition coming up. Cordelia Chase herself was even there practicing a ridiculously difficult routine involving a machine that looked like it belonged in a circus and would spin the person in it around and then let them go so they could land dramatically. When it went badly (duh!), she was trying to convince the coach that Buffy had sabotaged her.

One girl was pissed because her coach wanted her to cut down her 60 minute routine to only thirty. The other cheerleaders, naturally, were full of sympathy. My main problem personally was that I couldn't find about half my clothes. I wanted to wear a particular yellow shirt because I had decided that my clothing theme for the week (NO, I don't have those) was going to involve dressing to match a cool poster I had (that I don't have in real life, sadly).

At some point I ended up going with mom and Kathy to visit my grandma. Kathy drove us, and neither mom or I was nervous about that fact. Amazeballs! In any case, we got there and grandma said she had something important to tell us. That made us all sort of nervous, but we settled in and mom told her to let us know. It turned out she had just decided to move some old glasses from her wedding to papau into a different room. We were all a little WTF about why she was so dramatic about it, but also relieved that it was nothing bad.

Then we piled back into the car and Kathy started driving. I realized that instead of being where grandma actually lives, we were in Hamilton, TX. I kept asking why we were there, and Kathy looked at me like I was nuts for not realizing it was where grandma lives.

And then? You guessed it! Alarm.

Memories and Visions

Old Spice, originally uploaded by Batang Nikonero.

My dream began with my grandma and I staying with a friend who was getting married. I have no idea who this friend was, but they were apparently loaded because their house was massive. We weren't part of the wedding party, so we were catching glimpses of them doing things like going off for the belly dancing-themed bachelorette party. I couldn't figure out why we'd gotten there so early when we didn't have much to do, but at least the place was swanky.

Eventually we went out to breakfast and then back to grandma's house. I still felt kind of weird being there without papau. Nobody was home, so I went back to papau's old room. I was just looking for some little piece of him left there and then he walked in. He looked the way he's looked the last couple of times I dreamed about him - not a young man, but strong and vital. Maybe in his fifties? But with white hair. In my dream the room was Dewey's although I think Gary is living back there in real life.

Papau was talking to me, but I don't remember what he said. He went into the bathroom and found some of his Old Spice aftershave on one of the shelves and handed me that. Then someone who was apparently Dewey's girlfriend came back. In the context of the dream, I knew and liked her a lot (though in real life I've never seen the woman. lol), so I gave her a hug and then left to go with mom to pick my stuff up from the house where grandma and I had been staying.

We were all supposed to meet back at the house for a family lunch or something, so we had to hurry. That was about when the alarm clock decided I was done dreaming.

Triple Threat

Bright Eyes., originally uploaded by { KC Photography }.

In my dream last night, Wes and I had just moved into a new place. It was in a small town still but a bit more populated than Ponder. We were next door to someone that grew a bunch of their own veggies and (we could see through their mostly glass back doors) had a freakin' sweet kitchen.

But the really noteworthy thing is that we had three kids: a little girl who was a toddler and two babies. Oddly the babies were a few months apart in age, so don't ask me how that worked out. In the dream I kept having trouble remembering their names, though Wes called the boy Perry at one point. Which I would never, ever name a kid. Ever.

Otherwise it was pretty standard domestic day to day stuff... still a bit on the odd side, though.

Molesting the Doctor

The Guardian - Matt Smith interview, originally uploaded by Cameron K McEwan.

I credit my dear friend Chad with the lovely start to my dreams last night since he kept sending me delicious YouTube vidoes of Matt Smith <3 In any case, in the context of the dream, I was somehow involved with production on the new Doctor Who... but there were other people there who really shouldn't have been, such as one of the guys from Red Dwarf. That's just how dreamWho rolls, apparently.

In any case, we were doing a read through of the scripts all sitting on the floor. I was sitting with Matt and giving him a hug from behind while he read his script. Yep, I'm a dorky fan girl even in my dreams. But in my dreams? There are no restraining orders and people are happy with the interference. Oooo.

Then in real life, Otis decided to wake us up because apparently he was thirsty. When did he become a toddler? Anyway, I went back to sleep and things became less warm and fuzzy. Which sucks cuz I much rather would have kept snuggling Matt, damn the luck!

In the second dream, we were going to a university where Wes was taking classes. There was some kind of play or ceremony going on, and the really weird thing? My mom and dad were there and together, which is, as most of you know, bizarre on a LOT of levels. At one point I went upstairs in a building and there was a hotel room set up for people to wait in or something. I hung out there for awhile and then went downstairs. Wes and I ended up getting in a fight on the way out to the parking lot (we'd all driven out there together) because he wasn't listening and then was being rude. He got pissed and ended up ditching to talk to some chick he was in class with.

I was so ticked off that I just went upstairs to the weird little room again. My phone made a noise and it turned out I had a message. It was from Wes saying that he wasn't sure we were going to work out after all and he was going to take some time to be sure. He said he had gone home with the girl I'd seen him talking to, and that I should just go home with my parents alone. The alarm naturally chose to wake me before I could process any of that or fix anything, so a night of dreaming that ended awesomely fell entirely into suck.

Moments

I'm a bit tired this morning because my dreams were active last night. I vague impressions of family stress surrounding my uncles moving in with my grandparents, but the part of the dream that really stood out was that papau was there. He was alive and fine. Mom and Kathy and I had come over to stay the night, and we were figuring out which room we could stay in. The living room of the house was the same, but then you went down a hallway and suddenly it was like a hall in a mansion. There were tons of rooms, but we knew only a couple of them were set up to sleep in. Even in a stressful, weird dream, it was worth it to spend a little time with papau.

Dangerous Liasons with Snakes

Crotalus scutulatus ( Mojave Rattlesnake ), originally uploaded by Mr Nikon.

I was staying at grandma's house and finding myself frustrated that there were no toothbrushes around to use. I'm not sure why I expected there to be one since grandma hasn't kept one there for me in the better part of a decade.

I looked out the window and saw that the yard was flooded. It wasn't swampy like the last time (within the dream, I still recalled my previous dream), just wet. I could see a few small fish (a goldfish kept watching me as I moved around the window) and some water bugs. After some more searching in the house, I went outside.

There was plenty of room to walk around the flooding, so I went over and sat on one of the walls in the yard. Frogs were jumping around in some of the puddles, so I watched them. When I bent down, I realized there was a hole in the wall so that you could see under where you were sitting.

I saw the back end of a snake and froze. Rattlesnake. When I turned, I saw that I was right beside the front end. Sophie (one of our dogs) wasn't far away, and I didn't want to act too strangely because I was worried that she might come over to check out what was going on. Instead I started backing off slowly. Well, the snake didn't like that a bit and coiled up to strike.

Somehow I managed to grab it, but once I had it, I was too scared to cut its head off. I stabbed it a few times in the neck with my pocket knife, but it was still alive. It followed us, so I caught it again and held it so it couldn't bite. When I got inside, I was freaking out and explained to mom what happened. She chided me for not killing it and then chopped its head off herself.

We were then preparing to take a trip with grandma, and I was disappointed because I'd forgotten to bring any music at all for the drive. Before we got much further than that, the alarm woke me up.

The Normalcy of Strangeness

Baby Vivian's Hand, originally uploaded by My Little Chickadee.

Last night I dreamt that Wes and I had just brought a gorgeous little baby girl home from the hospital. I kept being surprised to find that we had the things we needed (it was as if I was going from thinking about having a kid to being home with one). As the dream progressed, my memories of the hospital and stuff slowly began to fill in.

The really interesting part was that it was all very natural. It wasn't odd having her there or caring for her. We fit it all in with the things we usually did, we brought her along with us. She slept like an angel, and I was continually surprised by that. I reminded myself over and over during the dream to enjoy it because I didn't expect it to last.

It was interesting to have a dream about a situation so relatively foreign to me that was so restful.

Unplanned Vacations

July 10th 192/366 . . .Toby at Baker Beach, originally uploaded by TulipFleurs (busy mode here and there).

Back to the ocean again! Wes, mom, Kathy and I were on vacation with the puppies. We arrived at the hotel where we were supposed to stay and our room wasn't ready. There was a waiting room (literally a hotel room, however, not a lobby) where we were put to wait. We were lying on one big bed with the dogs and there was an older lady on the next bed over. We weren't paying attention and Otis got up onto her bed. She seemed charmed rather than annoyed and gave him some attention.

Eventually we were able to go up to our actual room, and then we realized that Wes hadn't reserved the space at the resort we were going to the next day like he was supposed to. As it turns out, when we looked it up, the really beautiful beachside resort we had wanted to stay at (and one I've visited in previous dreams) was closed for a few days, so we were scrambling to find another location that would be as nice.

Before we could find one, however, the alarm brought me back to reality. D'oh!

Family and Lakes

A lot of my dream from last night faded when I woke up, but parts of it stayed with me. My grandma was staying at our house, and I was able to sit down and talk to her about some things one of my uncles did when papau was dying. She actually listened and absorbed and was as horrified as she should have been when I really told her.

On our way back up driving home to grandma's (it was just Wes and I in the car by then, I think), I was stopped by someone working on a road crew who had known papau. She was talking about how sad she was to hear that he had passed away. Somehow we ended up somewhere else entirely, and then papau was there. He was alive and younger and smiling. Unfortunately I woke up for a bit and when I went back to sleep, the dream had changed. 

At some point later in the dream, we were back at grandma's house. Looking out back, I could see that there was a huge lake in the yard. The yard itself had expanded somehow, not changing layout somehow but simply expanding in size. The lake had occurred naturally because of all the rainstorms that had apparently been happening in the area, and fish had even swum into it from someplace. Some were normal, but I could see some bizarrely oversized fish swimming around. There were also strangers down at the lake swimming. That made me mad, and I went outside to tell them to go away, but they were already packing up to leave by the time I got down there.

Stealing Glitter

mystical eye, originally uploaded by tara_tearex.

In my dream, I was going with papau and Kathy (my sister) to some fireworks. We were driving through a small town that was supposed to be Lampasas but wasn't. It looked different. The area around the field where the fireworks were going to be was very crowded, so we ended up parking far away and deciding to walk.

We cut through a craft store in the town square, and I was looking around for something. I wanted to ask someone where to find it but the employees were being rude and wouldn't help. On our way out the front, papau saw a jar of blue glitter stars, picked it up, and said, "I think these are on discount today." He smiled and just walked right on out with it, so we followed. We were still on our way to the fireworks when I woke up.

Ice Cream Social & Abandoned Carnivals

I wish I could remember my dream from two nights ago more clearly. I know that at one point Wes and I were attending some sort of community ice cream party. People from all over town (whatever town it was we were in) had made all sorts of unusual, funky flavors of ice cream. You could get full servings of the flavors or just get little tasting cups of a bunch of them. We saw a bunch of people I knew from high school there for whatever reason.

Then we were sneaking off to break into an abandoned carnival that was nearby. It was all boarded up and stuff, but there were ways to sneak in if you knew how. We were going in for something specific, but I have no idea what it was. Unfortunately I woke up before we got to really check the place out. Dang!

Early A-Kon

Last night I got to go to A-Kon early. The only problem is that somehow it was taking place this weekend, so I wasn't prepared. I didn't have any of my shirts ready, I forgot parts of my costume... The upside was that the hotel where it was taking place was even prettier. The rooms were fancy, and they all had really big closets.

Another pleasant surprise was that my mom and another friend (who I don't actually know in real life) had come along with us. Sadly we never got to the convention part since I woke up just after the unpacking. Still, kind of an interesting dream.

Seeing Inside

Last night's dreams were brought to me by terrible acid reflux. Good times!

It actually started out well. Wes and I found a house in Denton that was about the same size as ours currently and found a buyer for our current house. We were thrilled and moved in. The place was great, and the kitchen was like something out of a magazine - all super duper well appointed and fancy. I moved out into the living room and was about to tell Wes about how absolutely perfect a particular spot (with a high arch-y window and lots of ceiling clearance) was going to be for Christmas tress, and he got all pissy. I told him I was just trying to share my excitement and he answered something rude that I can't recall now. Effectively killed the buzz of THAT dream.

At that point, I think I must have partially woken up because my dream switched focus. I was watching a television commercial where everyone was shadowed by people who were showing how they really felt. For example, a couple was talking about how happy they were together, but behind them their "shadows" (who didn't actually look like them) were making faces and rolling their eyes.

Then I realized that I could see those things in the real world. I was in the house Wes and I had bought, but no one was there except myself and my papau. He was moving around more easily than I'd seen him do in a long time. There was a problem with the plumbing, and maggots and ants and other bugs were coming up through the pipes. We were annoyed but not freaking out. Apparently the city was somehow responsible. But since we couldn't drink water out of the pipes, papau had gone out and gotten me a shake before I got up so I'd have that to drink. I was getting ready and turned around to look at him and saw that I could see one of the "shadows" following him. It was smaller than him and greenish - basically a sort of cartoonish version of someone who was really sick.

That was about when the acid reflux woke me up yet again.