snippets

I had a weird assortment of dreams last night, but I only remember a few bits. I was crawling on my stomach with a few other people into a cave-like space under a concrete traffic underpass construction. I wasn't too excited about it and was starting to feel pretty claustrophobic, which led to a realization that I had never really liked caving. I announced that to my companions with a feeling of relief, as if I had been obliged to do a lot of caving (??) and this was finally going to free me of having to do an activity I didn't enjoy.

While we were crawling around, I was gathering dirt in addition to some other unclear objective (there was a reason we were under there). The next snippet I remember was a contest involving making a concoction with an inedible substance that would resemble as closely as possible a food or personal care product (??). My item was a skin cream simulacrum, made by whipping up the collected dirt with some store-bought lotion (apparently we could use a certain amount of ready-made product). I whipped it up until it looked like light-colored chocolate mousse (which begs the question of why I didn't call it chocolate mousse) and labeled it as a beauty product.

The judging involved normal consumers looking at the products (not knowing about the inedible ingredients) and choosing which they were most interested in buying. There was a lady who was very excited about my skin cream and wanted to buy some and use it immediately. I wasn't sure what the procedures were going to be for the rest of the contest, but I was very concerned that she was actually going to try to use some--I kept picturing her applying what was basically mud to her arms. I dropped several broad hints, but she wasn't taking them and I got more and more panicked about how to stop her from trying the cream.

After that I was stuck in traffic, which is a frustrating thing to dream about, since I spent about an hour stuck in terrible traffic on my way home yesterday. I was able to drive at almost full speed for a while in the dream, although traffic ahead was slowing drastically. Suddenly one of the tires on my car blew out, but I managed to calmly brake and pull over without rear-ending the car in front of me. When the insurance people showed up (insurance people show up to accidents?), they knew me already because apparently we had been ordering a lot of miscellaneous car parts and they had a lot of dealings with the parts people. What a boring snippet....

Aunt Pam to the Rescue!

I was driving down a familiar street (looked like Sepulveda Blvd in West LA). I needed to make a left turn onto another street (looked like Venice Blvd). There were two lanes turning left. At first, I was in the outer left turning lane behind a black horse. I looked at the cars in line to turn ahead of me and saw a few other horses in the lane. These horses had riders and were facing in the direction traffic was going; the black horse was riderless and facing backwards - toward my car. The look in the horse's eyes made me nervous. He looked like he could bolt at any minute and I didn't want him trampling my car. So I moved over into the inner left turning lane. It was a better move because there were fewer cars in that lane. As I pulled up to the intersection, I could see there was construction on Sepulveda south of Venice. Cars in the other lane could only go left or right; they couldn't go straight. The light turned green and I made the left turn onto Venice. I drove a little further then wound up at this rec center nearby.

My mother and sister were already there. They had heard on the radio about an accident involving many cars and a school bus. My nephew was on the bus heading to a field trip. The next thing I knew I was talking to him on the cell phone. He told me the bus skidded off the road and was stuck in a ditch. I asked if he were okay; he said yes, but the teacher had passed out. I asked him where he thought the bus was sitting. He didn't know his exact location, but thought the school bus was pretty close to the museum. He remembered passing a sign that said Chapel Hill. I was looking at a map, while he told me this. I found the museum on the map, which was not too far from the Durham-Chapel Hill line. I knew I could drive over there and get him faster than he would be brought back to us. I headed out - my sister was taking her time in getting ready - so I left her behind. I got to the car and thought that I may not be able to take him back since my sister wasn't with me and the people on the bus would only let him go with his mother. Then I remembered the teacher had passed out. I could pretend to be his mom and nobody would know.