Snowy Cabin, Cowboy Frame Up, and two short ones.

Snowy Summer Cabin

This is a house I have dreamed about before. It is about two thirds of the way up the mountains on either side of a valley. There is a small lake and a strip mall in the floor of the valley. A two lane road goes through the valley on either end, and narrow blacktop roads wind their way through the hills on either side. Every few hundred yards or so, until you get about halfway up the mountain, is a small house. Up by where we live, the houses are sometimes a half mile or more apart. The house is a two story house, the bottom is a greatroom in the front with bookcases on either side, a walkway into the back kitchen/dining area on the right and a water closet on the left, both under the stairwells that flank a huge fireplace and eventually lead to the second floor. The master bedroom is over the entryway, with a loft overlooking the greatroom. The hallways have railings on top of short bookcases on the left and right of the great room and lead back to the other two bedrooms, which we had set up as offices. The two smaller bedrooms were connected around the back of the house by a small covered patio that has a path, with five or six switchbacks, leading down the hillside into the carport, which was directly below the front of the house. The back of the house rests on the mountainside, and the front is hanging out over the carport on four giant steel stilts covered with stone work. To the left, as you look at the house from the street below, there is a greenhouse that rests partly on the mountain and partly on stilts. The pathway between the two is either across a narrow bridge, or down the stairs from the house to a landing and then up some stairs to the greenhouse. I have a really cheesy drawing that I will scan in and post some day.

I was out on the greenhouse porch when I looked out over the green and silver valley with the blacktop road just visible through the trees on the mountain across the way. The lake in the valley was gray, reflecting the gray skies overhead. I noticed it was snowing. I went out along the porch in front of the greenhouse and grabbed a flake on the back of my gardening glove.

I ran into the house to grab the camera. Little John and Chloe looked up from their cat toys and stared at me as though I was insane, you could see them thinking about whether to run or not. I excitedly showed off the melting snowflake, it was nearly an inch and a half across. By the time I had raced upstairs and back down again with the camera the snow had begun to turn into rain. “You missed it!” I snapped a photo of the melting snowflake and a couple out the window and headed out onto the porch to see if there was some snow that hadn't melted yet. I grabbed a couple of shots before the rain washed it all away. I then took shelter under the house, in the carport. I snapped a few more shots of the rain falling across the valley. I watched the surface of the lake become flat from the impact of the rain, and then a minute or two later watched the parking lot turn into a rectangular image of the lake. I could see the rowboats beating frantically to the dock, except for a couple, and I could see the yellow rain gear coming out from under the seats, and the fishing poles never left their sockets. I laughed when I saw one of our neighbors slip the worm can under the seat of the rowboat, but I guess you don't want your bait to drown before you use it.

Cowboy Frame Up

I was sort of in the old west. Or the not so old west, I suppose, as the dream started with me approaching a middle aged woman in a dark Victorian outfit, high collar, hair in a bun, the works. I asked her if she'd heard anything recently about a rash of bicycle thefts. Next thing you know, I'm being smacked upside the head with a bag full of dirt. I never saw it coming and never expected such a slender thing to pack such a wallop. I dropped my pencil and pad as I hugged the earth.

I awoke to the sound of fire burning nearby. I was on the ground outside a settler's wagon. It was turned on its side and burning merrily away. I saw a couple of crumpled forms on the ground. I was in a hat, not mine, had a red bandanna across my face and a gun belt strapped to my waist. I am at the scene of a murder robbery, and I can see the dust cloud of the posse approaching in the distance. I heard a low moan. Behind me is a young woman in a yellow calico dress and bonnet. She was still alive, but bleeding from the arm and leg. I pulled off the bandanna and bandaged her arm, telling her to keep the pressure on it to stop the bleeding. I pulled up her skirt to look at her leg. She yelped a little, but relaxed when she saw the blood. I pulled off the checkered shirt and bandaged her thigh as best I could. I elevated her leg as best I could and checked on the rest of the family. They were not as fortunate as her. I brought out as much from the wagon as I could and set about to make the woman comfortable.

I looked up at the approaching posse and she spoke, startling me, “Don't worry mister, I saw 'em drop you off and buckle that rig on you.”

“Thanks,” I said, but I wasn't too sure she'd make it that long. I tightened the bandage on her thigh, the blood seemed to be stopping, hopefully not because she was out of it.

“If I live, you're going to have to marry me.”

“You just live first, we'll talk about marrying later.”

The posse arrived, and though she was almost ready to faint again she managed to talk them out of gunning me down. It seems someone in town had tipped them off that I was out to rob some poor settlers. The woman described what she had seen. I told them my part in it, what I knew. I could tell one of the deputies wasn't buying it. But her testimony went a long way in convincing them not to go looking for a tree.

“If'n they had bicycles, they's gone,” said one of the posse.

“We had four of them, and four oxen.”

“I'm sorry ma'am, they killed the oxen, too.”

For the first time she started to cry, then suddenly passed out. We put her on a deputy's horse and the posse raced back towards town with her. The deputy and I picked up what we could and started walking back to town. He gave me back the gun, “Just in case.” I didn't like the sound of that.

Cat Tail

Domino (recently passed away) jumped up into bed with us. His tail and backside were full of slugs and earth worms. (This is usually a T-Rex trick.) He got in a head bonk and then went and laid down at the foot of the bed. This was both disturbing, and somehow, reassuring. I woke up and there were no cats at the foot of the bed, they were wedged in between us. Fortunately no slugs or worms either.

Watching Finances.

We were out at dinner after the convention, in the poltergeist restaurant again. Alan and Jeff wanted to split a big group thing $12.99 each, but Mike S, seeing my reaction, said “I have to watch my finances.”