Reality Storm

I was stranded on an Island Nation, my plane had crashed and us few survivors managed to patch ourselves together and get the attention of locals. The Island Folk were perfectly aware of the modern world, and some had even gone off the Islands to college, but had returned to farm and fish. When the first group of rescuers came I stayed behind because I was on one of the smaller islands, learning about the various fish, fowl and flora, what they were each used for, and what to avoid. I was a little bit depressed that I had missed the "rescue" plane, but decided that my letter home would be sufficient to let people know I was alive and well. I helped the village by repairing their packet radio receiver and the village cell tower (not that the cell phones really could reach off island, but the islanders could talk to one another. Because I had repair skills I was admitted into the ranks of the priesthood. When I was asked if that made me a witch-doctor by a tourist I explained that it was more like an Electron Shaman. That got a confused look from the tourist, and lots of laughs from the Islanders.

I was quite content with my life there, and glad to have been accepted for citizenship; the elders of the island sitting around drinking grape crush and root beers saying "yep, he belongs here."

One morning I was helping replace the batteries in a local fisherman's Garmin Navigation system when I spotted some really odd lightning filled clouds on the horizon.

"Reality Storm, looks like a bad one." The fisherman hurried me along and asked if I wanted to ship out to sea with him to avoid the storm.

I was feeling echoing flashes in my head, like a migraine coming on, so I deferred. He shook my hand and thanked me for everything. In doing so, it felt a lot more like a permanent good-bye.

I made my way back towards my tree house in the hills, the Reality Storm overtaking me with bright flashes overhead, big splots of rain and echoing flashes in my vision. I never made it. I remember seeing my friends running towards me as I collapsed and then the world vanished in a white hot blur of headache and flashing. When it subsided, I was someone else.

Or, more accurately, I was somewhere else, I had never been a shaman, and those memories were rapidly fading, but I was still a technician, retired, and very confused. With the help of a friend I managed to get out of bed and walked to the balcony. I apparently had a micro condo in a tall high-rise. I couldn't stop talking about the Island and my life there, but my friend suggested that it was just a fever dream, aided by the unseasonal lightning storm we'd just had. The paramedics insisted, however that I dress and come with them. At the hospital there were lots of tests and poking and prodding. What my prostate had to do with cluster migraines was beyond my, but "I'm no doctor." I joked. My sister came to visit, and was the only person who seemed to be very interested in my experience. She even encouraged me to remember as much as possible of it. It was odd, in a way. I knew she was my sister, but we both couldn't tell a single incident from our childhood together. She said not to worry about it, she might be able to shed some light on that later.

On my third night in the hospital, oddly not missing my own bed, because I really had the feeling that it wasn't really my bed at all, in the sense that I'd woken up in it, but hadn't ever really been in it before then, a visitor arrived. Hew was dressed as an orderly but introduced himself as a friend of my sisters. I thought that odd because it was definitely plural, but I was sure I only had one sister. He asked me about my experience with the Reality Storm. I had, by then decided it had just been a dream, but played along and told him about it. He asked if I was feeling anything about like it still. I wasn't, he grunted and sat down to continue our conversation.

Now, I hadn't been, but as we talked I noticed the tiny flashes starting at the back of my brain, just at the base of my vision. I mentioned that, figuring he might be interested. He nodded, rose, went to the cabinet next to the bed and handed my my clothes. "Let's get you out of here now." As I scooted to the end of the bed he took the big machine at the foot of the bed and laid it down where I'd been laying. "Hurry, before the storm gets here."

He was very urgent about it, so I dressed, wondering if leaving the hospital before falling victim to the headaches was actually a good idea. As we walked out of the Hospital. "Where are we going?"

"The storm is heading for your sisters, we need to be with them if we're going to weather this."

"Weather this? You mean this storm might send me back home, to the Island?"

"Not likely," he explained, "Reality Storms, as you call them, affect different folks in different ways. Some get tossed about to different times and places so often they start to remember all of them, some get shifted once and never again, we suspect some get shifted and blend right into the new reality without ever even knowing, and some pile up. Like your sister."

We entered a large suburban home, my sister, and two other of her were waiting for me in the large living room. I knew I only had one sister, but all three of them were her. "Oh, my." The flashes in my head increased and I collapsed into a chair. The four of them were talking when police broke in through the front and back doors simultaneously. The Orderly and my sister (well, one of them) grabbed me and crushed themselves together with me sandwiched between them. The lighting flashed and thunder from outside drowned out the orders of the police to get on the ground and the three of us found ourselves under a threatening sky in an alleyway with trash cans overflowing and the stink of not having been collected for a couple of weeks, at least.

"Garbage strike," I informed my companions. One was dressed as an orderly and the other seemed to be a mildly attractive housewife sort, very suburban looking and quite out of place in a trash-filled urban alleyway. I vaguely remembered dreaming of an Island and a shining clean hi-rise world with a high tech hospital. I wasn't sure what had happened that had made me collapse in the alley. I checked, my wallet was still in my pocket, so I didn't seem to have been mugged. I was grateful that these two had come along to help me up. We made our way out of the alleyway next to my apartment building.

"It worked, sort of." They spoke to one another in front of me like I was supposed to know them, or what was going on. It was apparent they knew one another, and I thought it was odd that I was being helped by two people from my dream while unconscious in the alley. Though, that made some sort of sense if I'd noticed them before I passed out.

Success for Women

Dreamed I was still with N and she was sharing a canned (as in the materials were litterally delivered in a cannister like one of the big popcorn tins) set of lessons on "Business Success for Women."

The first step was to send your husband up into the rafters to install a set of 2x4's between the rafters at the place where you want to hang your progress ribbons.

Which I did.

I don't know why my brain does this to me.

River Trip, Reenactment, Memories

I dreamed that N and I were traveling along a river in a ruined post apocalyptic looking landscape. We came across a village nestled in the arms of full fruited orchards and well stored shipping containers full of merchandise that never made it to its original destination. They were threadbare and starving, none the less. I discovered, after a short while, that there was some sort of warlord in the region who demanded that they only take food that had fallen on the ground, and items that fell out of the containers to the ground as well. To do otherwise was to face certain death.
I also discovered that the group had not seen this “benefactor” in a very long time. I managed to knock over a rack full of long coats and jeans. N managed to dislodge several apples on each tree that she climbed. The townspeople were glad to have scapegoats in us and rushed in to take clothing and food. Their benefactors never showed up. I showed a bunch of them how to determine if the food they found in any sealed containers was good or not. (Look for the bulge, listen for the vacuum filling in.)
We tried to warn them that winter was coming and they needed to prepare both food and shelter if they were going to survive. In many ways it was if people just didn't remember about there being seasons. We took some of the fruit and dried it before packing up and heading out.

In another dream I was talking with a person who had a 1950's era warplane, and tried to get him hooked up with some 1950's costumers so they could come and fix up his hanger as a sort of living museum.

In yet a third dream I was digging through a bunch of old stuff at my parent's house, trying to find some old models that, as the dream wore on, I realized didn't really exist. There were plenty of interesting things, including about a dozen shirts my mother had cut out all of the pieces of, but had never sewed together, an old balsa airplane model, just needing to be skinned, a collection of wool jackets my father had amassed and I think every package of homework or drawings any of the three of us had ever brought home and put on the refrigerator door.

Random Images and Scenes N+1

       Last two nights have been so warm I have hardly been able to sleep. When I do, I sleep just a short amount of time at a stretch. My dreams have been similarly broken, mostly snatches of being at work, visiting friends, the little brat from the other night re-appeared. Sparrow Morgan, who I met at the SD Comic Convention appeared in one, with a couple of little white dogs.
       I was at M&Ss for one scene, I was eating M&Ms out of a frying pan, swirling them around and allowing the peanut and almond ones to escape over the edge of the pan back into the dish. I later tried that at work with the lid of the programmers M&M jar. It actually works way better than I thought it would.
       One image sort of stuck with me throughout the day. Purple sky, scattered plumes of indigo smoke with lightning bolts that shot through the pillar and played on the underside of the expanding plume.
       Dark almost walnut brown orange haze in the distance. Something large and triangular drifted silently overhead, lightning rippled over its surface and arced to the ground nearby, starting another plume of nearly black smoke rising towards the sky.
       I had the feeling that I was supposed to do something about it, but I had no tools and no weapons other than half a red silk shirt and a dark green canvas bag that had seen better days. There were some items in the canvas bag, an old 16mm movie reel (empty) and some other scraps of terry cloth towels. I didn't even pull them out of the bag. I think this is the dream where I didn't have any shoes on, either.
       I couldn't find my cell phone in one dream, even though I could see it sitting right on top of the book case where I plug it in every few days to charge up. I kept looking for it, even though I knew it was right there. Somehow I couldn't stop looking for it. I even stopped myself and said "Look, there's the cell phone."
       Then I would look at it, and immediately start looking for it again. Stubborn or stupid, I just can't tell sometimes.
       I woke feeling lest rested than I did when I piled into bed the night before.
       Oh, and cars, there was a dream with a pile of Matchbox sized cars, but more cheaply made, that I kept trying to move around without toppling any of them. I wanted to take them out and line them up and sort them out, but I didn't dare, they weren't mine.

Convention, Truck Bomb

       I dreamed I was at a convention (ComicCon starts tomorrow, so no surprises there.) The convention hall was small, much like it was when we only took up a half of the civic center for the Comic Convention. Like then, I was traveling with a woman who was only interested in the movie memorabilia. While I did have some interest, it exerted a lesser pull than the games, books and comics.
       In the dream I found a dealer who had comic versions of Fudge, Call of Cthulu, and Spare Parts. He recognized my name and wanted me to stop and sign copies of the Spare Parts rules for people. I said I was happy to sit for a while, my feet were in more pain than usual, and sign copies for anyone who purchased on. Pretty soon there was a small crowd around the table, people asking about other rules supplements, and how soon they would see them.
       I didn't really have a good answer for them, as I still had to go to work every day to pay my bills, Spare Parts wasn't able to do that. They were excited when I told then that the artist and colorist were here as well, and they would be quite the catch as they didn't attend many conventions, and weren't really industry artists (as they both worked for their own commercial art companies.)
       My companion was getting bored, and a little jealous of the attention I was getting, so she slipped off to the Hollywood Book and Poster booth along the back wall. That was fine with me, I'd realized much earlier than the dream's time frame that we weren't really suited for one another.

       The dream that woke me this morning featured a couple of backwoodsy sorts picking me and Little John up in their stake bed truck. They drove me to my temporary home at a motor hotel, the parking lot of which was full of running shouting children. While I was cramped in the back of the truck, I found a copy of the Unibomber's Manifesto, and the writings of the pair who'd blown up the Federal building. I remembered smelling diesel and fertilizer when I put Little John in the cage on the back of the truck. I got very nervous. I found a remote control with a single red button on it. I quietly slipped it into one of my cargo pockets. It looked to me like the receivers and detonators were actually stored under the front seats. I toed the switches on them and they flickered to life, fortunately there was no beep or anything other than a small LED on each of the four detonators. The driver and his companion kept yakking about the horrible state of the nation, and how our colleges were all to blame. I saw an invoice in the back where a delivery was listed for our local university.
       We arrived at the hotel complex, with new dormitories, under construction along the road in front of it. We had to drive through the site, and it was a bit bumpy, worrying me that if the bomb was too unstable it could be jarred into going off. I pulled the outside of the cargo pocket well away from the button on the remote, wishing they had built in an arming switch on the remote as well as the bombs. Before I thought to turn off the receivers we'd arrived. I thanked the men, jumped out and opened up the cage to let LJ out, he ran into the hotel room when N called him, the kids in the parking lot distracted by his long fluffy tail, stopped their game and ran over to N to ask if they could see him again. She started to say "no" but I stopped her and told her to let them in and just make them be quiet, LJ would come back out to see them.
       I didn't know I was going to do it, but as soon as the truck turned to go through the empty construction site (it was Saturday or Sunday no work was going on) to get to the road, I reached into my pocket and after the truck passed the manager's office I pressed the detonator button.
       There was a rapid ripping under the front seat, four bangs almost in unison, then one large bang that knocked me to my ass.
       Unfortunately, the front seat was apparently close enough to the home-made high explosives, and they went off anyway. The whole front of the manager's office was blown out as were all of the windows in the hotel. On the good side, the children were all with us, and the manager's office was empty this time of day. Except for the possibility of the Manager being there.
       I ran over, but couldn't get in the managers office. I sprinted out to the street to help with anyone who might have been driving by when the framing members of the construction site went flying. I was bleeding and the kids were shouting, running around. N grabbed the phone and called 911.
       I'd realized, as the truck was turning to go through the construction site, that I might not be able to get to the police before they actually killed hundreds of people. I felt bad about the damage, and worse about killing the bombers (they might not have been acting alone.) But I really couldn't convince myself that there was anything else I could have done differently.
       N caught up to me.
       "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"
       I didn't deny it, nor confirm it. "They were mighty suspicious characters. I could tell they hated the University, but I didn't know this would happen."
       I did know that I would be spending a lot of time with the local police and the FBI. I hoped there was enough of the papers from the back seat of the truck to back up my story. I didn't yet know if I was going to tell them that I had the detonator.

Alternate Reality, Comic Convention

       I awoke shortly after N slipped out to work. But I didn't recognize where I awoke. The bedroom window was looking in the wrong direction, and instead of an ivy covered hillside with wisteria, grapes an a couple of scraggly fruit trees, I saw a huge white gazebo, low flowering plants and a hedge of oleander a hundred yards away across a lawn that looked as manicured as a putting green. I looked around, stunned, thinking "where's the lawn jockey," but gratefully not seeing it.
       I turned back into the room to get dressed. There were two closets, I figured that the one with the blue lizards painted on the doors was mine, because the other was four bi-folds in a peachy pink with white lace over it. I figured that had to be N's, despite the pink part (N hates pink). It sounded like there were people in N's closet, rustling and breathing, so I decided not to open it.
       I didn't recognize hardly any of the clothing in my closet. I dug around, finally coming to a box on the shelf in the back. I opened the box and found a loud Hawian print shirt and some white bib overalls. The overalls didn't fit, the shirt was a double-X L so it was actually a little loose on me. I looked around and found a couple of utilikilts rolled up in the bottom of the box as well. I shook out the best looking one and belted it on. The sounds coming from my wife's closet were beginning to unnerve me, so I found a pair of lace up sandles strapped them on and then headed out for breakfast.
       I managed to find the door to the hall, but from there was completely lost. I had no idea where anything was. I found an office, too neat to be mine, then a book room, not really a library, but a room with books just piled around its perimeter with a couple of chairs and a small table with book binding repair tools on it. There were a couple of opulent bathrooms, again, one with the blue lizard motif and the other with the lace over peach motif. I slipped into the blue lizard bathroom and checked myself in the mirror. It was me, a little whiter and my hair a little wilder and somewhat shorter than it is now. I brushed my teeth and looked in the medicine cabinet. There were dozens of bottles, almost all of them prescriptions, and almost all of them completely full, most still looked like they had the cotton in the top.
       I made my way to the front door, and stepped out onto a porch. It was white, with vining roses growing over waist high white latticework across the front. I said good morning to the caretakers who were working there. After a moment's surprise they responded to me.
       "Would you like some water, or juice, it's already getting hot out her."
       Again, they looked like they were in shock. "No thank you, sir," one said.
       "Better not let the missus catch you in that," another one piped in. His partner shushed him immediately and began to apologize.
       "No worries, I was just feeling nostalgic."
       They nodded and, upon hearing voices from the end of the driveway dove back into their work.
       I stepped down to greet my wife and her entourage. I didn't see N in the crowd, and was very confused. A woman with a nearly perfect figure strode up to me, looked me top to bottom and then did a modeling twirl in front of me.
       "Well, how do you like it?"
       The outfit she was wearing was a clingy tube dress, flattering. I opted for the non committal "You're looking lovely, as usual."
       "Thank you dearest." She pecked me on the cheek. "What are you wearing?"
       "I was feeling nostalgic." This seemed like a safe reply.
       "It is old-school, but your legs are sexy as ever, it works on you." She turned to pose with me for the photographers in the crowd.
       "Smile, you're about to start a whole new fashion trend among my male admirers."
       I smiled, "Sorry, I haven't had breakfast yet."
       "Why didn't you yell something up from the kitchen staff."
       "I didn't know I could."
       "Let's get inside, something's wrong with you."
       I couldn't have agreed more. She blew kissed to the crowd and towed me back inside.
       "What's wrong with you."
       "This is not my world."
       "We've had this discussion."
       She called for some breakfast to be brought to our patio then hurried back to our bedroom.
       "Millie, get this on the exercise floor, it still seems a bit large in places. Bring my house body."
       As we walked through the halls, a woman in a maid's outfit brought up a headless body. My wife stopped and pulled her head out of the body she was in. Her spine whipped around into the "house body" which was a slender wisp of a woman with hardly any hips or breasts. She turned to look at me. "I know that bothers you, sorry dear, but you need breakfast and I need to work a little bit off of the new body before I report for filming next week.
       "I didn't see anything wrong with it," I offered, weakly.
       "Don't even think about it, that's just a work body."
       I followed her into the bedroom and she threw open all four of her closet doors. One held clothing, and the other held about eight headless bodies, all supported just off the ground by metal plates at their neck line with feeding and waste tubes running into and out of them. They were all of various sizes, none fat, a couple almost anorexically thin, and disturbingly, tucked in the back almost out of sight, one that could easily be a child's body.
       I was ready to run out, but held on for breakfast, I really was starving. I stepped out onto our patio and a maid brought breakfast. I thanked her, again, the surprised look was the reaction.
       "You're welcome," she whispered back and then hurried of as my wife entered the patio in her third body for the morning.
       "Let me drop you off on my way to the script meetings, you can see if that kilt company would like to come out with a retro line with our endorsement."
       "OK" I answered looking forward to getting out of here.
       "What's wrong, you look like you don't know who or where you are."
       "I don't. I was expecting to wake up to ivy, a hot tub outside the doors where I'm now eating breakfast overlooking acres of grass, thirteen cats..."
       "Who's Ivy?"
       "Ivy, a leafy green vining plant, growing on the hill behind the house I own."
       "I thought we'd sold all your properties so we could buy this place."
       "May be so, but what I'm trying to tell you is that I don't remember any of this. The last thing I remember is sending N off to work from a half asleep state."
       "Oh. Nothing since then?"
       "No, it's like I've slipped into an alternate reality. I don't even know your name."
       "Oh dear. I knew this could happen. We can fix this. I'll get you an appointment right after my script meetings and take you there myself."
       "Thanks. I've got to change for the meetings."
       There was a jump in time and I found myself in downtown San Diego, I did pop in to the Utilikilt shop and they put me in contact with their marketing people. They liked the idea of a retro release, particularly if I and my wife would appear in the commercials. Since I got the impression that was what she wanted I agreed to the concept and asked them to contact my wife's agency to work out the details.
       I checked my phone and discovered that the Comic Convention was in session. I rooted around and discovered that I had a membership waiting for me, so went to pick it up. The volunteers escorted me right out of the pickup line over to the pro tables. I tried to show them that I had tickets waiting for me, but they insisted that I should not have to wait in line for them. They sent a runner for them. They asked if my wife would be joining me.
       "Her schedule is pretty busy, new scripts."
       "New body, saw it on the view this morning. You're a lucky guy."
       "I think so." I said, grinning. Really, I had no idea if I was lucky or not.
       Runners brought my badge, I talked them out of letting me go without the pro folder, as I explained that I really wasn't a comics pro.
       "But your movies, we're even running a couple of them this con."
       "Thank you, but I guess I still think of this as primarily comics, even after all these years."
       I made my way into the hall, grabbing a list of the seminars. As I walked around I bumped into a gal I know who is a teacher at the school district where I work, or worked. I asked her what was going on. She looked almost like she did in her twenties, but we were in our mid 40's the last time I talked to her.
       "What do you mean?"
       "Last time I saw you was in your classroom at RHES, I only remember about 6 months after that."
       "Serous brain fade, have you seen someone yet?"
       "Not yet."
       She took my hand and pulled me into one of the emptier side corridors of the convention center. Before she could tell me anything there was a reporter and a photographer there. "Who is she?"
       "This is RG, one of my old high school friends, and one of the prettiest women I've ever known. Don't you agree?"
       "Will she be in your next film?"
       RG blushed at that. Making me think that my films might not be the sort of thing she would agree to appear in.
       "I don't know, she's never really expressed and interest." Again, I decided to go with a safe non-committal reply.
       "Are you lovers?"
       I didn't know entertainment reporters could be so brazen.
       "I was never that lucky when I was young.If I had been, I don't imagine my life would be what it is today."
       "So you are attracted to her?"
       "And you, and your camera operator there and about two thirds of the attendees of the convention. I'm a man, how could I not be attracted?"
       During the interview I was walking RG to the pro-lounge, and saying I would be happy to talk to them later. We ducked into the lounge and our reporters wandered off to make other people miserable.
       "Sorry about that, I suppose the real me would have known that could happen."
       A security person arrived, "Do you want me to escort them out of the convention center? They know they aren't supposed to interrupt without asking."
       No, it's OK, they just got a little bit excited, no harm done.
       "I'll be right outside when you're ready to leave."
       "I don't..."
       "Thank you," RG interrupted. Then when he'd stepped away, "You want him to be with you, we had a murder of a guest here a few years ago, you're famous enough and married to someone with a rather, um, rabid, fan base."
       "Am I famous because of her or me."
       "Actually, both, but it's hard to separate the two these days. She wouldn't be anything without you."
       "Do you think you could have been her?"
       I could tell the question shocked her, and was something she hadn't actually thought about.
       "No, there's some real talent there that I don't have."
       "Not sure that's true. You're one of the most intelligent and talented women I know."
       "Compared to third graders."
       "Do you think I miss the schools, in this life I seem to have now?"
       "I can't answer that for you, do you miss us?"
       "In my head I've only been on summer break two weeks, so no, but that's because I think I'm going back to work next week. I'm not, am I."
       "No, I can't imagine you are, though if you wanted to fund and teach ROP production classes or something, I bet they'd fall all over themselves to let you."
       "I'm getting the impression that might be a bit controversial."
       "Yeah, for our district, may be."
       "This is an odd question, but, do you know what happened to N?"
       I never got an answer to that question.

Battlestar Galactica, Waking up

       I dreamed that the fifth unknown Cylon in Battlestar Galactic was...the cat.
       I woke up, petted the cats, tossed some food out on the kitchen floor for them because I couldn't find their food bowls inthe dark. I then ran out front to get the paper, while clad only in my underwear, no one was out and it was really dark and foggy anyway.
       Running out to the front of the house caused me to break out into a sweat. I really need to start exercising more.
       I decided to toss my underwear into the washer, guess I'll be doing a hot load first.
       I fired up the computer to write this morning's Drog in KWrite, and then I posted it.
       I stopped at N's bathroom to start up the hot water. (We put two shower heads in her bath so we could share, or if showering alone a person would never have a "cold" side.) Then I tiptoed out to the kitchen to get some water and a box of raisins.
       After Breakfast I took a nice hot relaxing shower, but I still couldn't stop sweating. I came back into the bedroom and laid on top of the covers. Saturday mornings are nice that way. Ginger came in and licked me on the nose to wake me up.
       When I woke up I was under the covers, for a moment I wondered how I'd gotten under the covers, then realized I was still in my night clothes and N was still sleeping.
       The whole morning had been a dream. N got up to feed the cats, so I didn't end up repeating the whole morning. She was able to find the cat bowls.

Ad astra per technica,
FF

Found Purse, Frost Damage

       I was in the middle of a huge action adventure dream. All I remember is jumping over a wooden fence as I could when I was 11 or so. Then the cats got into a "you startled me so I must hiss" confrontation and I had to deal with that       After getting everyone calmed down and settled at their food bowls (It was only a few minutes before their normal weekday feeding time) I went back to sleep, and surprisingly had a couple of more dreams.

       One dream was of being in a room at an office I was unfamiliar with. N and I found a purse and a couple of pill containers, all three items tucked under a table cloth that had obviously been pulled down to cover them up. The pill containers were both two colored, blue and red, one of which had one chamber with mostly melted ice and the other with foil tubes of some medication. It was a mix of used and new tubes. The other plastic container had a wide assortment of pills in it.
       I opened the purse, there was no wallet, but there was a section of the purse about two inches thick with coupons and receipts. (When I told this to N later in the shower she asked if it was A's, but because of all the drugs I thought it might be his wife's purse.) The fact that the purse itself was a sort of red, purple and gold brocade didn't lead me to think of it as a 'man purse.' Since we were the only ones in the office we took the purse and pill boxes to the receptionist.

       The second dream of the morning found me and N again out on the patio of our house. We were going through the frost damaged plants of our potted plant jungle. One of the larger plants had broken down to just a stick out of the pot, with an older pot around its base. I took apart to smaller sun-brittle plastic pot from around the base of the small trunk. There were new shoots around the root line, and a nice green crop of variegated clover growing around the trunk as well. We decided to trim back the damaged parts and let the tree grow back.
       I suggested that perhaps we could turn it into a sort of Bonsai, as the clover was a miniature variety.
       This was one of those completely normal, solidly real dreams. A dream that, if it were not for the fact that we don't have such a pair of pots with a small tree growing out of the center, I would almost call it a memory.

SNL Nude on CNN, Poway's Zoological Ranch

       I dreamed the Jane Curtain era cast of Saturday Night Live was having sex live on CNN. I tuned in just as they were taking a break. Jane Curtain had slipped into a silky robe and was leaning over a chair, facing the camera, talking to a CNN correspondent while flashing her breasts as the robe flared open and closed with every breath. There were a couple still active behind her. The CNN logo and crawl blocked part of the view of the couple and Jane's breasts. The sound in the restaurant was too loud to hear what she was saying.
       "Slow news day."
       "Better than bombs and bullets any day."
       "You can't see anything, though."
       "You can always hope they come back after the break."
       I'm not sure who I was talking with in the dream. I wish all news days could be like that.

       Before that I had dreamed that I had the power to be invisible, and to then touch things and make them invisible, or to at least see through them. A group of us were at a hotel and I was idly walking by rooms and touching a fingertip to the hotel room doors as I walked by. I could see through them to the people inside. There's a lot less sex in hotels than I thought, and a lot more partial nudity.
       Later I was being chased by people on motorcycles. They had night vision or infra-red goggles and so they could see me. I jumped a wall around a corner and then pressed both hands against the graffiti painted cinderblocks. They vanished. The motorcycles came around the corner, and raced down the alley, directly into the wall. I could feel them strike the wall. I pulled my hands off and the wall filled in ripples from the edges to the spots where my hands had been. I walked out of the alley, visible, holding on to my jacket to keep it invisible, every couple of blocks I ducked into a doorway and allowed the coat to become visible. I got the idea that I could easily wear three different colored garments and switch which one was visible as a means of making a small disguise.
       Being fully invisible was difficult, people would try to walk or drive through you.

       After checking on all the sick cats I returned to bed. I dreamed of the ranch on Pomerado, long gone, that had hosted some of the hoofed stock that was bound for the Wild Animal Park. I loved to ride my bike out there and watch the buffalo and zebras. There was also ostriches and, in the dream, a half dozen lions. Now, in the history of my real life, this never happened, but during the time of the dream, and several hours afterwards, I would have sworn that the memory was the real deal.
        Even now, I want to say I used to ride down to the ranch across from the church and watch the buffalo and zebra herds. I know there weren't any zebra herds there. (The buffalo and ostriches were there, just not in that exact place, and probably not together.)