A Week of Dreams

In the past week I've dreamed a plethora of dreams. One night was spent with me attempting to gain access to the David Sedaris household, only to find myself stopped short at the door (each and every time) by a rather aloof Sedaris and his dog. One night found me endlessly moonwalking to the point of awakening with aching feet. Another night had me swimming with a beautiful mermaid who loved my hair. An exhausting night was spent running with a pack of loud mouthed wolves. And one night .... the mother load! I really thought it was nothing when I woke up. In this dream, a gentleman who used to work for me came to my dreamland workplace to tell me he could no longer work there due to his recent engagement and a baby on the way. I woke up wondering why I even thought of him and why he would be getting engaged when I thought he was already married. I went to my real work the next morning and a couple of associates were talking about that very man. I said, "It's funny that you would mention him, I totally dreamed about him last night." "Really?!", they asked. "Yeah, I dreamed he asked his girlfriend to marry him." One of the associates looked at me in shock, "He sent me a text last night saying he proposed and she said yes!" "I thought he was already married", said I and the associate stated that she thought the same thing, but apparently we were wrong. She said that in Jamaica, dreaming of marriage usually means death. "Oh no!", I said. "I hope I didn't just kill off Malik, I really like him!" We giggled a bit and then I remembered the baby. I told them just for the record, in my dream there was also a baby involved. My associate really turned white and said, "YES! His fiance is pregnant!!" Wow. Now, perhaps Mr.Sedaris will let me in the house if I promise to leave the wolves outside!

I Don't Get It ....

Recently, my blog began changing my format. For the record, I am not writing every single post as one long, endless paragraph. I just can't figure out how to fix it! Perhaps that will be my project for today! :-)

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly

I love to read. I always have. I remember days and days spent curled up with a book as far back as remembering is possible for me. Once, when I was stationed in Wyoming during a terrible winter storm, we lost power in our beautiful antique dormitories. I took a candle and a magnifying mirror and attempted to read a book. I remember thinking, “Abraham Lincoln read this way when he was a kid!” (Obviously, I got a lot out of my education! All I remembered about Abraham Lincoln was that he ruined his eyes reading by candlelight and his wife was crazy …. oh, and he freed the slaves.) It's been a long time since I read a book. Any book. I miss them. I miss the escape. I miss taking short departures to other places while on a lunch break or the train. I miss having something other than my day to day stresses and challenges to fill the space in my head. So, I began reading Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever on a long plane ride to Colorado last month and finished it 4 weeks later. I'll admit, I read slowly, but this was a snail's pace, even for me. But it felt so good to read a book! This was an excellent escape from modern day Washington DC to our same beloved streets in 1865. It was a bit of time travel for me, and I love that! This book would be perfect for a teen or someone who thinks history is boring. It is fast paced and easy to read (so why did it take me 4 weeks to read it? That's my deal!) and lets the reader really feel the pulse of our country in the weeks leading up to Lincoln's assassination and the weeks following. History is not boring! Lincoln's assassination and the events surrounding it are not boring at all. Living in the area, I have had the pleasure of visiting the points of interest for this life-changing event in our history and I thoroughly enjoyed being taken back in time to the places I know so well … 147 years ago. Again, this probably is not the best book on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the events surrounding it, but it wasn't bad. And if you are just getting your historical toes wet … this would be an excellent wading pool!

Prozac to the Rescue

I get it. I know that millions of families live apart due to circumstances beyond their control every day. Or circumstances within their control. They do it. There are men and women serving remote tours of duty, leaving loved ones home without them. There are volunteers, missionaries, tourists …. there are all kinds of people who have to be away from their families for extended periods of time and they make it work. I'm not hard of getting it. It's just that that's not the way my husband and I have done it in our nearly twenty years of marriage, that's all. So when Jerry was abruptly called away to work in California for the summer, I was a little shocked. It's not that I am completely dependent or helpless, it's more that we are partners, friends, roommates and our lives mesh together like a fine ballet. Okay, perhaps our ballet is not all that fine, but it works for us and now it's out of whack! The first week my husband was gone, my car died. Dead. In the middle of a busy intersection on a rainy, dark Sunday night. After several offers of assistance by some less than desirable gentlemen and a somewhat unpleasant ride home with a neighborhood tow truck and his wife, I began driving a borrowed work van until I could secure another vehicle. Happily, three weeks after leaving, Jerry was able to come home for a long weekend. A long working weekend, but home nonetheless! His plane came in last Wednesday evening at 11:55pm into Baltimore. According to Mapquest and the little navigational lady in my phone, the airport in Baltimore is a mere 55 minutes from our house. But it didn't take 55 minutes. It took 158 minutes. Not that I mind, of course, but I had to get up at 4:30am the next day to go to work. I decided to take Prozac along for the ride. Prozac is our little rescue puppy and the only one of our three dogs who actually enjoys a good car ride! He's also extremely protective, so I thought he would be the one I would want with me if my van broke down on the BW Parkway in the middle of the night! So, we are crawling along. The Parkway was literally just that: a parkway. We were simply not moving. At one point, we came upon a vehicle pulled over by a policeman. Both lanes were literally moving at approximately 1 mile per hour, so I was watching this poor fellow for a good long time. I was shamelessly staring at the perp as he was being frisked and handcuffed. I mean, traffic was NOT moving and I was simply watching the only thing of interest on the road. The car was pulled over on the right side of the road. Prozac was sitting in the passenger seat and was warm, so I rolled down the window a bit so he could get some fresh air. I was petting and softly talking to him while I stared at the arrestee. I actually made eye contact with the guy for what seemed like, I don't know, five or ten minutes. An embarrassingly long time. You know how moments seem to stand still in time? Like when something is about to fall on your head and you can't move fast enough to avoid impact? Or like running in a dream? We were moving more slowly than that. And the scene played out before me with ridiculous clarity. I saw the man's sweatpants, tennis shoes, a spot on his tee shirt …. his eyes looked a bit blurry but he seemed calm. I am still embarrassed that I just stared at him! Rubbernecking at it's finest! I watched the officer pat down the legs, kick them apart with his own shiny shoes while he flipped his glistening handcuffs off his belt and snapped them onto first one wrist and then the other ~ meticulously routine. Methodically hypnotizing. WOOF! Zac let loose the loudest, most ominous big-boy bark I've ever heard come out of his little 10 month old mouth! Zac is all black and it occurred to me that while the officer and perp both saw me in the car, they probably didn't even know Zac was there! I jumped! The perp jumped! The cop reacted! And the last thing I saw as I made my mile an hour get-away was the besweatpanted wrongdoer hitting the pavement.