In one, I was having dinner with my parents, Doc, my dad’s brother whom I have not seen since I was a young teenager, and two people from my office, among other guests, at my parents’ old house in Plano. The kitchen was dark and lit with candles and little brass lanterns, and the table was a large square dark wood table, with placemats and dinnerware in beautiful earth tones and rich reds.

Mom was, not entirely of her own volition but at the suggestion of one of the dinner guests, cooking an authentic Central or South American meal for us. She brought around little tiny shot glasses shaped like the bowls of martini glasses, and gave each of us three of them containing different authentic cocktails. It was a gorgeous presentation.

And then in the center of the table, she set down a small bowl containing the plucked and bloody carcasses of two small birds. She had an exacto knife and said that, in keeping with cultural tradition, she had to perform an augury before the meal. An augury, if you recall from studying classic literature, is a ceremony where a priest or augur examines the entrails of sacrificed birds or other animals in order to predict the future. I was horrified; clearly my mom did not want to do this but felt forced to. I got up from the table and said that I couldn’t take this and had to leave. I went into my dad’s study to lie down on the carpet until the animal sacrifice part was over. I fully expected that someone would come get me when dinner began, but I guess I fell asleep or something because next thing I knew, my mom woke me up. I went into the kitchen and all the guests were gone and the table cleared off.

In another dream, I had to go back to high school for a year, and I went to live with my parents so that I could attend the school in their area. I got up the first morning, looked in the mirror and realized that I was very thin. I was wearing a short skirt that I kept pulling down because I knew Mom wouldn’t let me out of the house wearing it if she realized how short it really was (but it was FASHIONABLE!). I fumbled around trying to get a lunch together and find something to eat for breakfast. The only thing in my parents’ refrigerator that I could find to eat was a tortilla. All their cheeses and meats were left unwrapped and sitting out on the shelf, drying out and crusting over.

Whoever was driving me to school arrived, and I had to get down the stairs to the basement/garage, but the stairs were unbelievably steep and completely covered with knickknacks of every sort. I was afraid I’d step on something or fall. Somehow I made it downstairs and to school.

The school seemed to only have valet parking. The building itself, both inside and out, was made of a beautiful dark mahogany wood, with little brass lanterns everywhere. It looked like a law office or something. I couldn’t figure out which area of the building my first class was in, since things were marked very poorly. I ended up late to the first class. Lunch was my second period of the day, and I was shocked to realize that they expected me to eat lunch at 10 in the morning. I didn’t know what to do with the lunch I’d brought, as it appeared to be a plastic grocery sack full of frozen vegetables. One of my classmates told me that I could store it in the large freezer in the lunchroom, as everyone had their own space there.

I think that I decided I didn’t want to go to school anymore, because part way through the day I went into a storage area in one of the hallways, opened a large sliding door, and fetched my mahogany ladder with brass pins. Someone had dismantled it for storage, so I had to put it back together. I needed the ladder in order to get my car keys. Outside the school, in the valet parking area, was an enormous magazine rack, the height of the school. It contained giant magazines, and all the car keys were hung at the very top. This is why I needed the ladder. Kids without ladders often made a game of trying to sneak past the valets and climb the rack to get their own keys. The valets were more like police officers, actually; you definitely were not supposed to do this.

I was on the front lawn of the school and I watched as Valerie came out, looked around sneakily for valets, and began to scale the magazine rack. But she wasn’t going after car keys; she simply wanted a copy of Fortune magazine because her picture was on the cover! Sadly, she got caught by the valet cops and handcuffed. And that’s when I woke up.

In yet another dream, I dreamed that Jamie spoke his first word: “probably.” I looked at him and said, “Did you just say something?” He put his hands on my face, pulled me in close like he does when he is giving a kiss, and said, “Pwobabwy, mommy!”

May 26

How do two sick parents manage to care for a demanding 6 month old, all without getting him sick too?! It’s a daunting task. I miss living near family sometimes :( Thanks to Auntie Rachel for pitching in to help us get some rest today.
Doc and I have been sick for the past week or so, he with a nasty head and chest cold, and me with some sort of stomach virus. We’re both feeling better now, him moreso than me. But it was pretty tough for a while. I sure miss my mom. I’m thinking more and more lately about packing up and moving to live closer to them. It would be crazy to leave a good job and try to sell a house, considering the current state of the economy. But what once seemed like a far off “some day” kind of dreamy possibility, now seems much more real.

May 24

I feel like crap. Exhausted from baby. Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. But I’m trying SO hard…
The weekend consisted of nausea, vomiting, dehydration, exhaustion, inability to eat, inability to sleep when I did get a chance, trying to entertain the baby when I didn’t have any energy reserves, and trying to prevent him from getting Doc’s cold. Unfortunately, he does seem to have an occasional low grade fever and a little cough now, but nothing too major.

May 22

I hate hate HATE dealing with the medical insurance industry.
We are about to engage in battle with Blue Cross in an attempt to get them to cover Jamie’s Nutramigen AA formula, which is unbelievably expensive. The cheapest we’ve been able to find it will cost us about $25-$35 per DAY. It is a medical necessity due to his food sensitivities, and some states do require insurance companies to cover elemental formulas for babies with severe allergies. Texas is, of course, not one of them. Wish us luck.

May 21

I am glad my son is feeling lots better most of the time, but wishes that he wouldn’t fight sleep with every fiber of his being.
He just hates going to sleep. He hates staying asleep. And he’s really good at not sleeping for very long at a stretch. This is getting so tiring.

May 18

I am trapped beneath a sleeping baby in my office…
Jamie came to visit me for a couple of hours while Doc went to a doctor appointment. It was nice.

May 17

I was born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia.
We went with Rich and  Angela to the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. It was closing weekend, and crowded beyond belief. The exhibit was really neat, and we enjoyed the company and subsequent dinner at Ziziki’s.

May 12

I miss my mom already, but look forward to days of smooth sailing. We all deserve it.
Mom left for home this morning. I miss her a lot. Sadly, the ‘smooth sailing’ part hasn’t quite happened yet, but we’re working on it.

May 10

I am confused by the new movie “Rise of the Lichens.”
Yes, I know it’s “lycans.” I just like to imagine a film about strange symbiotic plant-animals rebelling against their oppressors.

Last night, I dreamed I was at work, but work was in an enormous suburban high school. It was so big that it needed shopping-mall-style map kiosks posted throughout. Auditions were being held for something that day, and there was a sign posted on a door that said “Wanted: 100 40-year-old men in cone-shaped hats.” It was my job to find rooms for these auditioners to practice and sleep in.

By the time I was done, I realized that it was 9:30 at night, and I hadn’t called Doc to let him know I’d be working late, but when I looked at my phone, I realized that he hadn’t called me either and I thought that was very strange.

I decided I had better get home pretty quick, so I packed up my stuff and went to look for my car… but I couldn’t find it. That is, I couldn’t remember how to get to the parking garage where I always parked my car. It was near the rooms where I worked, but I had no idea anymore how to get there. I began to wander through the school, wondering if the reason that I couldn’t find the garage was because I didn’t drive that day, but even in Dreamland that didn’t make sense. I found myself in the center of the school, in an enormous library. It was very much like a European city plaza, with a large flat central area and steps leading up to another level. Students were lounging all over the steps, which were covered in large red and green candy canes and wrappers. I had to pick my way carefully down the steps to the central plaza, trying not to step on anyone or their candy.

I found a map kiosk near the school’s food court and realized that the parking garage was all the way on the other side of the building.

Then I found myself in a bus stop on the side of the highway, in bright sunlight. Someone was with me, and it kept switching off between being Kathryn and Brittney. We were waiting for a bus that would stop on the OTHER side of the highway. I was unclear how this was supposed to work; would the bus driver see us and wait for us to attempt to cross four lanes of fast-moving highway traffic? Shouldn’t we really go to the other side to wait? There was other no way across except for an overpass a half mile down the road, and I was certain if we walked all the way to that, we’d miss our bus. Brittney decided to see how easily she could cross the road, so she dashed out to the center median, hopped over it, and ran almost all the way to the other side… and then turned around and tried to come back, but by this time there was a car coming. I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t just go all the way across to the bus stop, but luckily the car was able to stop in time to avoid hitting her as she ran back to the median.

Right about this time, a sherriff pulled up to our bus stop to ask what the problem was. I told him that we were trying to get to the bus stop on the other side of the highway, and he started walking off towards the overpass. He said, “why don’t you drive over there,” and handed me his keys. I got into his car, which was actually a small pizza-slice-shaped platform with wheels. I sat down on the platform, wondering where I was supposed to put my feet, and tried to put the top half of the pizza slice on top, but it was made of thin wispy tissue paper and was hard to position into place without it blowing away. There didn’t seem to be gas or brake pedals, or a steering wheel or ignition, either.

And then I woke up.

I started out alive, which was the unsettling part. I was watching some guys dressed in green military garb in a helicopter on the ground. The whole side of the helicopter lifted up to open and reveal five men inside. They all had large guns, and they were definitely bad guys. They were talking to a Native American man sitting in a chair next to the helicopter with his friends, and he was also a very bad guy.

The military group wanted him to build them a lot more parts for some weapons they were producing, but I knew that each group of men actually had plans to kill the other group. The Native American man “agreed” and said he needed to get some paperwork out of his file cabinet, which was mysteriously now located in the helicopter. So he climbed in and opened the bottom drawer to get his gun, but when he turned around the military men opened fire and shot him hundreds of times. I was curious as to how they got their bullets to only hit their enemy, who was sitting at point blank range right in the middle of them all, but somehow none of them were hurt.

Then the dream shifted and I found myself inside a hotel room. There was no furniture or decorations in the room at all. I had invented in my head some sort of device or system that would quickly and nearly painlessly kill anyone inside a room: the walls would grow and thicken to 1-foot-thick super-strong metal, and a bomb in the center of the room would explode and vaporize the person in the room. I had thought of it, which was enough to make it become reality, and now I found myself inside one of these rooms. I knew what was about to happen, and I also knew that there was no way out. I was going to die. And I was oddly resigned to this fact, and at peace with it. Doc and I had some sort of psychic mental connection, and I was very connected to him at that moment. I could feel his love and energy, and he had no idea what was about to happen to me.

There were three objects in the room: the bomb, which was the size and shape of a small alarm clock, a bottle of oxygen, and a note. The note said to breathe in a lot of oxygen before the bomb exploded; it would be easier and less painful that way. So I took the bottle, lifted the cap off, crawled into a corner and laid down with the bottle near my nose, breathing in pure oxygen. I started to feel euphoric; my limbs and face were tingling pleasantly and I had this growing sensation of euphoria creeping down my body. Then the bomb went off. I didn’t hear, see, or feel a thing.

I was dead… but somehow I was also still there. Now I was standing in the room, but I seemed to be invisible. I guess I was just my soul at that point, and my soul still thought it was inside a human-shaped body, so that’s how I felt. When I had exploded, I’d vaporized into tiny yellow particles that were almost like feathers or foam, and they were still floating down all over the room. Three people were inside the room now — a woman and two men — and they were all laughing maniacally in the way that stereotypical movie crazy bad guys do.

I decided that I didn’t want to hang around while these nuts were laughing their heads off and bits of me were floating around the room, so I thought I’d see if I could leave. And I was able to open the door and walk out, just as if I was a person, although living people didn’t perceive the door as having opened at all. I felt GREAT. I was tingling all over, especially in my hands and the back of my jaw, and that sense of euphoria from the oxygen was still with me. I felt light as a feather, thin and wispy and gloriously naked, and I began to run down the hallway of this hotel. I knew that I could run forever and never get tired or lose this amazing feeling. I ran for a long time, all around the hotel, and then went down into the lobby and out one of the doors.

It was night, it was Seattle, and it was raining. I found myself on an enormous concrete patio surrounded by trees and shrubbery. A few people were out, standing at the edge, smoking and getting rained on, and a few more were coming and going between the hotel and the wet cobblestone streets and out to the waterfront. I watched people for a while, knowing that they couldn’t see me.

And then it hit me: while I was running around, enjoying my euphoria and trying to get used to the idea that I was deceased, I’d lost my mental connection to Doc. He was nowhere. There was no way I would ever be able to contact him or see him again. I knew that he had no idea where I was, just that his connection to me had abruptly ended, and he was probably freaking out.

I began to panic.

Then I woke up.

• You spend more time than the average individual ‘lost in thought’ or mind-wandering.
• You use your mind-wandering time wisely! You spend more time than the average individual planning or problem-solving while daydreaming.
• You spend more time than the average individual thinking about unresolved issues while mind-wandering (i.e., you are a problem-solver).
• Your daydreams involve more visual imagery than the average daydreamer. You tend to ‘see’ people, places and events ‘in your head’.
• Your daydreams are more creative than most.

So THAT’S why Katy stares off into space all the time! She’s problem-solving!

In one, I was on some sort of long hike with Doc and my parents and a bunch of other people. There was camping involved. The end of the trip involved a long walk up a grassy valley to a large building on a hilltop. It was the job of a 3-year-old girl in our group to scrub out the bathtub in this building, to leave it clean for the next group of people that might come by, but I knew that she wasn’t going to do a good job so I did it myself. I know there was a lot more to this dream, involving hang gliders and the military and things, but the details have escaped me.

In another one, I dreamed that McDonald’s had purchased the U.S. government. They replaced the border guards with angry-looking men in Ronald McDonald clown costumes, and they all had machine guns. They would rip people out of their cars at the border and poke them with bayonets while shouting at them. The image of a furious red-haired clown in a yellow suit, his face looming above me and screaming, is now burned into my brain. Yeeks.

This startled me, even in my halfasleepness, but I decided to just let my brain go with it, and I came up with two entire verses, complete with accompanying mental imagery.

Snakes on a chair
Snakes in a suitcase
Snakes in the drawer
Snakes on the floor 

Snakes in my shoes
Snakes in my brain
Snakes down the drain
Snakes on a plane!

Har!

Amidst a lot of rain, noise, and smoke outdoors, we were hurriedly preparing for war with the other store. Our strategy was to gather as many berries as we possibly could — blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries — and place them into small bowls with which we would later arm the catapults.

However, as I was artfully arranging berries in a bowl near the front of the store, the automatic doors opened in a swirl of smoke and a black-clad figure from the other store tossed in a live grenade that landed next to me.

And that’s when I realized, oh, it’s THAT kind of war.

Later, in the middle of everyone running around throwing berries and grenades at each other in the parking lot, I was sent out to the Jack-in-the-Box on the other side of the highway to pick up drinks and milkshakes for everyone. I got there and someone handed me an ice cream cone while I waited in line. And when I got to the front I realized I didn’t have any money.

We screeched into the garage, ran inside, and started gathering things to take to shelter, including the cats in their carriers. In the garage we had a doorway to a set of stairs leading down to a basement, very similar to my parents’ garage stairs to the attic (except down, not up, of course). I flung open the door and suddenly remembered that we were storing a lot of stuff for my parents while they were between houses. Three or four tall bookcases full of books and boxes and junk were piled haphazardly halfway down the staircase, to where it was impossible to get past them into the basement. I found a space for the cat carriers to sit and determined that Doc and I would probably be safe even part way down the stairs.

But it was taking so long to gather things, I couldn’t believe that the tornado hadn’t already hit us. I felt this incredible sense of urgency, like it could happen any minute and we were just wasting time trying to think what we should carry downstairs with us.

Like most of my dreams, the tornado never actually hits. I just experience the fear and urgency beforehand.

Mmmmm Chocolate
In other news, I got accepted to be in a taste test focus group study on chocolate bars! Next week I’ll get paid $60 to spend 90 minutes eating chocolate and giving my opinion. Can’t beat that with a stick.

Work Bites
I spent 8.5 hours at work on Saturday, finishing up a project that was supposed to launch today. We found out yesterday that it has been delayed for another week because the client, at the very last minute, decided that she didn’t like any of the copy we’d written. Just a global “I don’t like it,” no specifics given. I wasted my entire Saturday for nothing. At least I got a free lunch (or was it really free? I did trade my weekend for it!).

Dot-Matrix Printer Bike
I read a few weeks ago about a guy who custom built a bicycle equipped with a laptop computer and cans of water-soluble spray chalk. It received messages that people submitted to a website and printed them out on the sidewalks as he rode down the street. I think he was arrested before he ever got to use it (something about intent to perform criminal mischief/graffiti, and how coincidental that this was during the time of the Republican National Convention in New York City). It’s genius, though.

BLAM!-boo™, bamboo building material stuffed with explosives! If you want a house that can self-destruct when necessary, just build your walls out of BLAM!-boo™, and you’ll be able to explode it any time you want!

Somehow, being able to explode one’s house was a very important consideration in my dream.

In another part of my dream, I was in some scenario very much like an action/thriller movie. At the last minute we uncovered enough of an old windowpane to realize that instructions for stopping the airplane explosion were written in the dust on the glass, and I scrambled up to the top of the airplane’s tail and pressed a red button. The explosion had JUST started, but as soon as I pressed the red button, it was like someone hit a “rewind” button and the explosion stopped mid-explose, and then retreated into itself.

In yet another part of my dream, I was at a cocktail party in someone’s mansion that was also a bible museum, and I was supposed to go on the tour of the exhibit but I didn’t want to because my fingers and hands were very tingly and swelling and painful, especially the 4th finger on my right hand, and I was afraid that I soon wouldn’t be able to get my rings off. I thought maybe I’d eaten something I was allergic to, either at the party or in the cab of the semi truck/spaceship that had brought me and some friends from the island we’d been stranded on to the cocktail party, and it was making me tingle and swell up. Then I “woke up” in my dream, and realized that the reason I’d been “dreaming” about my hands feeling that way was because I’d gotten a spider bite on the webbing between my 3rd and 4th fingers. It was huge, about the size of a dime, and very painful.

When I actually woke up for real this morning, I was quite surprised to discover that my fingers were just fine. No spider bites. I wonder if maybe I was lying funny on my hands and they’d fallen asleep, and that’s why I was dreaming about that.

I was in a hospital, foll0wing around the “Dr. Cox” character played by John C. McGinley on “Scrubs.” I carried five fresh artichokes with me, and a paring knife. I would occasionally stop and cut off the bottom or top of an artichoke to reveal the insides. In my dream, artichoke middles contained little metal rods with beautiful sparkling glitter and glass beads on top.

I followed Dr. Cox into a patient’s room, and he said that the patient had total amnesia and had no idea who he was. We had to help him remember. I thought I recognized him and said “Brandon?” But it wasn’t who I thought it was. My cat Neko was in the room, lounging on the bottom floor of her cat tower.

A nurse opened the door to the patient’s room and the “Sun” and “Jin” characters from “LOST” walked in carrying baseball bats. The only way to help the patient remember who he was, was for them to hit Neko with the baseball bats. I was terribly upset about this but knew that it was the only way, and it was very important so we had to do it. They took turns smashing her with the bats. I could hear her little leg bones breaking; they made sounds like shattering glass. She wasn’t protesting; she just lay there passively letting them do their work.

I knew that if they hit her in the head they would kill her so I tried to turn her around so her rear legs were facing them instead of her head. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I threw myself on top of her, shielding her from the blows and crying “Please stop, you’ll kill her, please don’t.” Vaguely in the background I heard the patient suddenly remember his identity. I was too busy crying to care, and I couldn’t remember why murdering my cat would help this guy and why I would let anyone do this to her.

The absolute saddest part of this whole thing, the part that is making me cry even now, is that Neko knowingly sacrificed herself to help a complete stranger. She knew she was going to die and she did it anyway.