ugh and ugh

I've had several unpleasant dreams lately. Here are a couple (breaking them up so as not to overload the tag limit).

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I was on yet another group trip, this time to Hong Kong, with a group made up largely of young and youngish Asian women. We had just arrived, and our first stop was a large park on the top of hill so high it might better be called a mountain. There was a spectacular view, and the mountain/hill itself was covered with green vegetation. The park was very touristy, with a gigantic parking lot, a bus station (we came by bus), and lots of touristy amenities.

Instead of confining ourselves to gawking at the scenery, we were supposed to doing a craft activity. It was one of those very specific, structured projects with little room for individual variation (I think some kind of paper folding was involved). I had been vigorously reproached by the tour guide for my clumsy American lack of politesse, grace, and social nicety, and I was trying desperately to prove my worthiness by perfectly executing the craft project. This backfired on me, though, since as a result of my care I took too long and was still working on it when the rest of the group had finished. Of course the guide was unhappy about my slowness.

After the craft fiasco, we all went to a restaurant to eat lunch. Because I had been so focused on my project, I hadn't changed my money at the nearby exchange kiosk like everyone else had, so I had no Chinese money. Since the whole place was so extremely touristy, I was clinging to the hope that they might accept payment in dollars. On entering the restaurant, which was cafeteria style, I realized that wouldn't be an option, but the extremely nice girl in front of me in line offered to pay and I could pay her back later.

So all seemed to be going reasonably well, until I tripped with my plate of food and spilled it all over. I was confused at this unexpected catastrophe, and went to get a refill. I was so shaken by my showy accident (food went all over) that I didn't stop to think that they would want payment for my replacement food. I guess I consumed it, because the next thing I remember was a confrontation with a cleaver-wielding chef who demanded payment (and not in dollars). He insinuated that I would be pursued by gangsters if I didn't pay up.

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In another unpleasant dream, I was working as a secretary in a large and somewhat weird building. My boss was the woman who in real life is the boss for the business occupying the first two floors of my real-life office building. We all have the impression that she's much stricter than her predecessor, although that's not based on a lot of data.

I was working away, although my job (like my actual, real-life job) didn't require a whole lot. I wasn't actively loafing, so I had no reason to be on the lookout for a scolding of any kind, but the boss came looking for me, extremely angry. She started ranting and raving about how I couldn't "control the infrastructure". I finally realized that she was referring to some cars that were parked illegally downstairs, one in an actual space and a couple in a grassy area next to a sidewalk. None of these cars were in places where I could have seen them from any of the windows--I would have to have been outside, and thus not inside doing my job. I tried to tell her this, but there was no reasoning with her, and she insinuated that I might lose my job over not having called a tow truck*.


*In my real-life job we have limited parking space, and it falls to me to call the tow truck, which I must admit I sometimes do with relish if the car is expensive and parked directly in front of the very visible "no parking" sign. There has been some hinting on the part of a coworker that I'm mean for calling the tow truck (I actually have only called a very few times, and never for very battered, run-down cars that, to my mind, indicate someone operating on less than a full share of resources); other people are perhaps more strict than me regarding cars that don't belong there, so I feel like I'll be seen as not doing my job if I don't deal with it when a car is parked in one of our spots. Apparently this car-towing thing causes me angst than I might have thought.

a dream about a dream about a dream

I've been having a terrible time remembering my dreams lately. I keep waking up, noting something, thinking "there's no way I'll forget this", and then forgetting it. Last night's dream, though, I could have done with forgetting.

To start with, I had a terrible time going to sleep, which is unusual for me. My fingers kept falling asleep while I was still awake, which prompted me to fidget, which woke up my grumpy sleep companion, who was also apparently not sleeping as deeply as usual.

That was the real-life part. I realized that I was fidgeting a lot and disturbing the sleep of the bed's other occupant, and this started blending into my dream: I started to dream that we were sleeping, in our usual bed, and that I was moving around a lot. He (in the dream, and possibly also in real life) kept waking up and making progressively more irritated growling noises. Of course the more I tried to stay still, the harder I found it. This dream went on and on, punctuated by short periods of waking that mirrored what was going on in the dream. At one point, I woke up and realized that I had been dreaming that I was dreaming about a bad night's sleep. To add insult to injury, our dogs kept barking (in real life), which is something they don't normally do at night.

I finally woke up not long before it was time to get up, realized I was cold, and added some covers to my side of the bed. After that I must have slept better, because I then dreamed that, twenty minutes before we were due to get up, my husband woke up, looked at me, and said, "well, then, let's just order some breakfast from IHOP" (which is an odd choice, because neither of us likes IHOP). We started discussing menu options, and I was relieved that he had decided not to blame his sleepless night on me.

The real-life post-script is that, on actually getting up, I realized that the whole horrible night of sleeplessness wasn't really my fault. For the next hour, both dogs continued to have barking fits indicating that there was some kind of animal nearby (the neighbor dogs were doing it when ours weren't), and I realized that they had been doing it for most of the night. Of course that didn't give me back my lost sleep.

Chocolate

I was in a cafe somewhere in the gray Northwest, near the Sound. I had been sitting at the bar, with my book, and had gone to an automated kiosk to buy a ferry ticket. I suddenly realized I didn't have my wallet, although I'm not sure in retrospect how I was able to buy the ticket without it. I rushed back to the cafe, and my wallet was sitting right there on the bar, open, but not missing anything. There was a fragment of mirror there, and I realized that the mirror in my wallet had broken (although in real life, it doesn't have a mirror).

I don't remember if my dad came in after I had arrived, or whether he'd appeared while I had been gone. In any case, it was unmistakably my dad, but he looked extremely young, with unlined skin, a halo of wavy light brown hair, and huge eyes with dark eyelashes. He looked sort of like he did in the pictures I'd been looking at in my grandma's photo albums, and also kind of like my brother.

He talked to me animatedly and enthusiastically, as though he was really trying hard to communicate some point, but I couldn't understand what he was telling me. I do remember him saying that he had accidentally eaten "about six hundred dollars' worth" of chocolate; apparently the tiny candy covered gourmet chocolates were $20 (or was it $2?) per ounce. He showed me a few in a little box, but they had somehow been priced in bulk instead of by the box.

He thought this was kind of funny. Eating that much chocolate is totally something my dad would do; paying that much for it is not.

Alice In Wonderland

My friend came to pick me up and I told her I couldn't leave because I could only find one shoe. It was raining outside and I didn't want my feet to get wet. Finally she got frustrated with me and told me we were going to be late so to just bring the shoe with me.

She dropped me off at an old co-worker's house. In real life, this co-worker was someone that I had only worked with for just a couple of weeks and never really got a chance to know very well so I'm not sure why she would invite me to her house. I walked in and noticed that the entire house, floor to ceiling was covered in carpeting. After a quickie tour of her her home, I asked if I could use the bathroom because I still needed to put my shoe on. She told me I could use the one in the attic but I needed to squeeze through this hole to get through to the other side.

I climbed through and found myself in a restaurant. Everyone seemed to think I was their waitress and they were all quite upset with me. Some people were yelling because they hadn't gotten their food, others felt they'd waited too long for their bill, others wanted their drinks, etc. I walked around and found what I thought was the kitchen and found something else instead.

There seemed to be some kind of gathering of people here and I remember in the dream thinking that it was a dance but really, no one was dancing. People were just standing around socializing and having a good time. My mother was there but my father wasn't. I didn't recognize anyone else and my mother didn't seem to notice me there.

Every now and again I would look out the window and I'd see my deceased grandfather. He'd always smile and wave at me. I met him a few times although I never really got to know him growing up. At one point he seemed to be trying to show me something only I never quite caught on to what he was trying to tell me.

I'd like to think my grandfather was telling me he was watching over me and just saying "hi"

Mangopeño Pistachio Parfait!

I was at this fabulous ice cream parlor in Lincoln called Ivanna Cone, which I--sadly--haven't actually visited in nearly four years. Apparently I had ridden my bike there, and as I looked at my bare arms, I realized that either it was warm out or that I was completely crazy.

In addition to more traditional flavors of their homemade ice cream, Ivanna Cone always offers several exotic options, and the selection this day was no exception. I looked and looked, trying to decide what to order. I was about to get something traditional (chocolate, probably), when a small container of vibrant, shiny emerald green cubes caught my eye. This, I saw, was the mangopeño--a combination, clearly, of mango and jalapeño. I asked the guy behind the counter if it was very hot, and he responded that it wasn't bad--that it actually could be spicier. Next to the cubes was an example of a parfait that could be made with the mangopeño.

On a whim, and feeling very impulsive and adventuresome, I ordered the mangopeño, in a parfait layered with creamy pistachio ice cream (which had a pale green swirl and had that sort of gritty look of ice cream made in a freezer at home--though it doesn't actually taste gritty). I thought the creamy pistachio would cut the spicy mangopeño nicely.

They made it in a tall (10"?) cylindrical glass with thick ribs, and I remember wondering how I was going to get it home on my bicycle, and deciding that I'd eat it there--maybe on the bench outside that paint-your-own ceramics shop. It cost $5.20, and I pulled out a ten dollar bill. Sadly, it may have been finding the right change that cost me tasting the concoction; I looked for and found two dimes, and was just handing them over when my alarm went off. I woke up with Mangopeño Pistachio Parfait! ringing in my head, but not, sadly, remaining on my tongue.

Ice cream bar

I don't remember if I went to the drive-through because I wanted the chocolate-covered ice cream bar, or because I saw the ice cream bar on the sign and then realized I wanted it. Either way, I definitely needed the ice cream bar. When I got to the window, they said it was 24 cents. Apparently I had already given the boy at the window my debit card, though, because he handed it back to me when I tried to give him a quarter. Somehow the fact that the ice cream bar was $0.24 wasn't as surprising to me as the fact that they'd actually run my card for that amount.

The boy was very nice, though, and because I wasn't sure how to get back onto the highway, he drove me. Or had me follow him, in his white car. I don't recall now which it was.

He dropped me at a place that was supposed to be convenient to the onramp, but as soon as he left, I got lost again. On foot, I went looking for help, and found a church. Someone told me that if I went through a certain room and then through the garden, I'd be able to see the road I needed.

As I entered the room, an older woman seated just inside the door was crying. I hesitated, and wondered whether I should comfort her or if she'd rather be left alone. I put my hand on her shoulder, and said, "Ever since I was a dean, I can't just ignore someone who's crying." Or something like that. It seemed warm and compassionate in the dream, anyway, and she smiled at me and seemed to feel better.

Then another woman noticed me and asked, "Were you in Ohio?" She recognized me, and her face was familiar, but neither in the dream nor now can I think of her name (now I can't even recall her face, except that it was roundish, and that she had wavy light brown hair). I felt a bit like an awkward celebrity.

Panera

At my parents' house over the holiday, I've been both averaging about 10 hours of sleep and sleeping on an air mattress that tends to chill me while I'm sleeping, the combination of which seems to be resulting in frequent dreams--and odd themes. Including the last one I posted, for example, I've had three separate dreams featuring garages. Teeth have also been reappearing; two nights ago I dreamed I was wearing flexible rubber retainers, and three nights ago I was late to a dentist appointment.

Last night I dreamed I was at my Panera. The layout was relatively recognizable; I parked in the same place and I knew where the outlets were (one learns these things when one's laptop battery lasts for just four minutes). Outside, there were a lot of kids with purple hair.

As I was approaching the counter (which looked like a ticket window, with a Plexiglas barrier) to order, I got a call, from pollsters who had called me earlier in the dream. They were asking me about all sorts of Spanish names that I should have recognized but couldn't quite place. The woman at the counter tried to help me, but it wasn't working.

When another customer approached the counter, I moved away to give him room, and then got into line behind him after I finished my call, just as another woman was coming in. She pushed right up behind me, sort of squeezing me off to the side, although I kept my foot in line. When it was my turn, she drew up to the counter. "Excuse me," I said, also at the counter. "It's my turn." In real life, I generally let people cut in front of me, but in the dream I decided to stand by my rights. She was really angry--on the brink of tears. She said when I had greeted her and her friend outside the Panera weeks ago (I vaguely remembered this) that it had been a horrible, painful experience. I apologized and said I'd had no idea it had offended her so much--but that it was still my turn to order.

So I ordered, and headed for my favorite table, by the fireplace. A lot of the tables had been moved, though, and there was a raised seating area that's not there in real life. Up there, people were crowded around tables, rehearsing for a musical that appeared to be in Italian. The scene apparently took place in a cafe, with people singing out their lines from their own tables.

I went to set up my computer, but the power cord was a stretchy light blue filament, like dental tape. I was trying to figure out how to strip the ends to get to the wires so that I could attach it to my computer, and the outlet, when I woke up.