Those Crazy Dreams Again

Here I am, 6:30 in the am, awake.  Been awake for a little more than an hour now.

Dreams.

All night, the craziest, most vivid dreams.  I dreamed about my friend Scritch.  She had lice.  The oddest lice--some had hoppers like katydids, and there was one, looked like a regular head louse, but it was HUGE--at least a half inch long.  Looked mooshy  like lice, but felt hard, chitinous.  She was sleeping over, and I wanted to sleep head to foot so I wouldn't get her lice (I had my own, but hers were unfamiliar--better the lice you know, right?), but I didn't want to make her feel bad.  Finally, I offered to lice comb and nit pick, plus the hot air treatment.  And then her Grandma (who has been dead many years) came home.

Then we were hiking in the mountains.  I want to say maybe Minnesota?  Yes, the mountains of Minnesota.  Someone had been trapping and torturing deer.  Pet deer.  Found one, Armus (my old dog back in Utah), still alive, with a noose around her neck.  Rescued her, only to realize that the hillbillies were coming to kill us for ruining their camp (?).  We ran, but now it was me, Raylan Givens, and Tim Gutterson (characters from the TV Show Justified.).  We got to a high (maybe 8 foot) fence, topped with barbed wire.  I knew I couldn't climb it, so I told them to go first.  After they were over, I shook my head and said, "I can't."  They're shouting at me, telling me I have to at least try.  I get a brilliant idea--I jump up and grab the fence, yanking it down so it doubles over and is only four feet.  Then I climb it!

In case you're not familiar with Justified?  You should be--it's really a terrific series.  Start it from the beginning so you have all the background.  Seriously, you won't be sorry.




Then?  I'm in the desert at a small tourist spot/rest stop.  Somewhere in the mid-west (yes, the deserts of the mid-west--hang on, it's coming).  My husband and I have been resting up when a tour bus arrives, carrying dozens of drama students One of whom is Darren Ewing!  I haven't actually SEEN Darren (as opposed to online contact) in years, not since high school, in fact.  But in the dream, he was still a kid, even though all the years had passed.  He was hanging out with the other drama kids, including this painfully pompous guy in an awful striped suit.  Darren decided we were more fun to hang out with, so off we went, playing a game where we would throw a Frisbee, then belt out a classic rock or blues tune while the Frisbee was in flight.  Not sure what the point was.  But somewhere along the line, Darren figured out how to BECOME the Frisbee.  Which was super-cool, and I was really hoping to master that one myself, as it's been so long since I've been able to fly.  Sadly, I can't figure it out, I keep leaping, then falling.  Finally, Darren pulls a daring one, and lands in a puddle in the middle of the ROAD.  Two cars coming, but somehow, miraculously, each misses him, one missing his head by a half inch.  That takes ALL the fun out of it, and we wander back to the tour bus, which is parked next to an amazing flowering tree that smells SO sweet and is crawling with a swarm of tarantula hawks.  That's these:

The idea of swarms of tarantula hawks had never occurred to me before (thankfully--who needs that image?), but I went out and about looking for information this morning, and I found this fun blog:  The 7 MSN Ranch  And now that it's in my head, I'm offering it up to you. Because horror LOVES company.

I have a sort of fun tarantula hawk story (words you don't often see together, I know).  Back in 1995 or so, I was driving through the West Desert of Utah, on the Bonneville Salt Flats, on my way to Wendover, Nevada (yes, Stephen King had it right when he said the locals call it "Bendover").  I'd stopped at the rest stop about ten miles shy of town, bought a few pieces from the Goshute kids who used to sell jewelry at the stop (never could convince them to take their wares to the fancy shops in Salt Lake where they could make ten times what they were charging), and was checking out the salt crystals on the flats (which never cease to amaze me, and I never walk on for fear of damaging them) when I saw it.  You know, look up at that picture.  IT.  I was absolutely captivated!   I grabbed my brand-new Nikon and started following her.  Getting in real close for "the" shot.  Trying to capture the scale--I mean, she was obviously a wasp--even if the build and the aggressive, jerking way of moving didn't clue me in, the gigantic, third of an inch STINGER was a good tip off.  Understand, she was a little over two inches long (and my memory makes her even bigger than that).  I spent ten minutes or so stalking her--never poking or prodding, just following.

When I got my pictures back, I was thrilled, but also frustrated--no one knew what sort of awesome beast this was!  These were the days before free, brimming-with-information internet (it was there, but it wasn't the all-you-can-eat breeze it is today).  Finally, I took my picture up to the science department at Weber State.  They called their "bug guy" for me.  He took one look, paled, and said, "Jesus Christ, you didn't touch it, did you?"

Turns out these gals have one of the most AGONIZING stings out there (according to various sources, including the Schmidt Sting Pain Index).  Of the "can't do anything at all at first, but once you find your voice, all you can do is scream" variety.  Click the bright red AGONIZING link up there for a run-down of the top ten most painful insect stings.  Here's another on a favorite site: The Straight Dope   

Glad I didn't poke and prod, huh?

Well, our boy tests for his first Hapkido belt tomorrow.  Wish him luck!

More maybe later--there were other things I wanted to say, but it's early and I'm tired.  I've forgotten.  And yeah, I turned my links red in this one.  Just 'cause.  Made me happy.

Oh, hey--hoping for some really good bad paneling pics!  Stay tuned!

What a Hopeless Feeling

Had a really bad night last night.  So bad that I'm afraid writing about it will just bring it all back.  

I'm not usually given to fits of deep, dark depression or self-inflicted misery--there's enough on the outside to worry about without delving deep into my own self for hurt.  Last night, though?

Dang.

I was sitting upstairs with my boy when, out of the blue, it hit me--I'm almost certainly never going to go do all those cool things in Europe and the Middle East I've always dreamed of doing.  I'm not going to see the Northern Lights in Norway.  I'm not going to ride a horse in the desert to see Petra and the Pyramids.  I'm not going to discover some amazing Viking hoard in England with my trusty metal detector.  I'm not going to climb to the top of the tower keep at Dolwyddelan.  Hell, unless I'm lucky, I'm not even going to see Niagara frozen or fireworks in fog or snow.

I'm pushing fifty, and the odds of me achieving any of my dreams are pretty slim.  I've always dreamed that someday, we'd have enough "disposable" cash to just do things like that, but you know what?  My mom thought that, too, and she's stuck on a fixed income without enough spare cash (or a reliable enough car) to even head to Wendover for a few nights of hot slot machine action.

I cried and cried.  And then I told myself that I need to suck it the heck up and work on what I can hope to achieve.  Like finding ways to make my boy happy, keep him healthy, give him fun things to do and see.  I can do that.  That's worthwhile.  And maybe, just maybe, he'll get to do those things that I'm almost certainly not going to.

Welcome to my world.  It's a pretty bleak place right now.  It's the first time I've ever felt utterly hopeless about the future.  I've never been that overwhelmed by the sense that it's too late to realistically expect dreams to come true.

Okay.  So, here's my world tour as it would go, were I ever to get that chance:

First, I want to take my boy and hubby and wander the English countryside, looking for the next big buried Viking hoard, something from Alfred's time, you know?

No, I don't want to keep it, I just want to touch it, to find it, to live that.  Then I'll be happy to hand it over to a museum.  Just like Dr. Jones, huh?

After that?  Well, maybe swing over to Ireland to see friends and research family (A big shout-out to the Wards, Collinses, and McManuses!), then back across and north to satisfy my husband's love of all things Scottish.  I can't forget Wales, though--Llywelyn Fawr captured my heart years ago, and it's a dream, visiting Dolwyddelan.

Dolwyddelan

Notice the second, ruined structure?  Funny story.  The intact structure was built by Welsh Prince Llywelyn ap Iowerth, aka Llywelyn Fawr ("Fawr" meaning "the great").  That was constructed in around 1220, when Llywelen was almost fifty years old.  It was, no doubt, just a way of keeping the English (Norman) lords at bay (and maybe to keep a few disgruntled Welsh back, too).  The second structure?  The sad, crumbling away bit?  That was built, most sources say, after 1283 by Edward I (aka "Longshanks) after he killed Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (aka Llywelyn the Last) and seized Dolwyddelan from his brother Davydd ap Gruffudd (both being the grandsons of Llywelen Fawr).  After seizing Dolwyddelan, Edward fortified it by building the second tower.  Unlike the first, the second was definitely not built to last.  

And then?  Then I want to take my guys to Paris, where I had such a mostly-miserable time of things back in 1995.  Take them to Pere Lachaise to see the amazing graves, then to Sacre Coeur via the breathtaking stairs up Montmartre.

Pere Lachaise

Atop Montmartre

And Notre Dame, and Les Invalides, and the Louvre, and the Pantheon, and just a hot croque monsieur au jambon et au fromage.

From there, definitely north in hopes of seeing the Northern Lights (and just to enjoy beautiful Norway).  Tromsø is, they say, THE place to go for the Northern Lights, and here's a picture from there:  

That's the one least likely to happen, I think.  Because the Northern Lights aren't just hanging around up there, 24/7, waiting for you.  All the best planning, even having the financial wherewithal to hop on a plane the moment reports of a probable solar flare event come in, you could still wind up seeing nothing.  I once, when I was in college, saw the sky pink in Ogden, Utah.  Vaguely pink.  My then husband insisted it was somehow light from cars reflected off moisture in the air.  That night, the news reported it had been a rare lower-latitude aurora.  It wasn't much to see, but that may be the best I ever get.  

Sometimes, I think I'd like to turn south and east from there and hit some of the old Soviet Block countries.  And sometimes I think that, even today, things are maybe not particularly safe there.

Speaking of safety, the next leg of my dream is almost certainly not going to happen in my lifetime.  Not with the way my government keeps meddling in Middle Eastern affairs.  But I sure would love to take my boy through Jordan (for Petra), through Egypt (for Abu Simbel, the pyramids at Giza, the Valley of the Kings), and through Palestine.  Petra and Egypt?  I'd like to do those sites on horseback whenever possible.  There are also sites in Saudi that are much like Petra, but the fancy dancing you've got to do to get there is tough.  And expensive.

Petra, Jordan

Abu Simbel

Valley of the Kings

Are there other places I'd like to go, things I'd like to see or do?  You bet--I'd love to take the QE-2 from the States to England.  Maybe kick off the world tour that way.  I'd love to see the catacombs under Rome. I would so love to meet a manatee.  India, various African nations (Morocco!  Tunisia!), so many places appeal, so many I've dreamed about.

Oh, and I'd like to take Amtrak through the west in the winter, when the snow is thick and deep.  And I'd like to see Niagara falls in the winter.  Frozen, if possible, but even with just the amazing, limestone-cavern-like formations at the sides would be great.  And I think it's time for me to concentrate on those last two, because those are attainable.  Those can be achieved.  

Now, onto real life.

Found out night before last that my boy has been lying about his math work.  He's been, again and again, telling me that he's doing great, that today he did this or that, and I've been taking him at his word.

No more.

Turns out he's been lying.  He's been pretending to do his schoolwork but, instead, playing on his PS3 or the computer.  Video games.  I've been unhappy about the video games since day one (was solidly outvoted and out maneuvered on those), and now it stops.  New rule?  No video games (computer, PS3, phone, or otherwise) on weekdays.  Period.  not after school work's done, not after Dad gets home from work.  Just none on any day his father is scheduled to work.  No exceptions.  If he does as well this year as he did last year on the standardized tests, he can have the summer with loosened restrictions.  If he doesn't, school's going year-round.

I give him points for coming clean, and I give myself demerits for being foolish enough to trust a 14 year-old to work without constant parental "checking up."  Won't happen again.  And no, it's not that he can't do it, it's that he didn't want to, he'd rather play.


Heard back from the USPS about our tampered-with/stolen mail.  Their answer was so utterly unhelpful and so "butt-covering" that I can only laugh.  They're not interested in our mail being stolen, and they won't replace the lock on our mail box.  So much for "mail tampering is a huge, wowser federal crime!"  Sure, maybe it is, but the USPS doesn't seem to much care.  No wonder they're going under.

Now, here's something funny.  I've just spent a few hours looking at all these places I wish I could go and see, and instead of making me even more devastatingly sad, it's cheered me up.  How messed up is that?

Speaking of cheered up, looks like the atheist-hater's loud, cigarette-butt-flinging daughter and her stompy-stompy kids are moving out in a huff.  That works.  Good luck to you, and I mean that.  Think you could take the rats across the street with you?

Anyway, the wonderful, awful paneling so kindly offered me isn't going in today.  This is already a very picture-heavy entry, and I want it to really shine.

An Itty Bitty

So, I'm in the middle of this epic blog post, and I realize there's no way I can finish it in one night.  Very photo intensive.  So I figure I'll take a few minutes on the iPad before bed to just type up a "'til then" sort of thing.

Weird dreams again last night.  Dreamed hubby and I were touring the Wasatch Front in a small motorboat, cruising a strange, interconnected series of canals, rivers, and swamps running between Ogden and Provo.  A lot of white water and wishing I had a life jacket.  Oh, and the boat?  A small metal motorboat.  I was the motor.  Don't ask me how that worked.  Dunno.

Had to pull a tick out of hubby last night after he and our boy went bush whacking around some old batteries near DC.  Pics with tomorrow's entry.  Including a pick of the tick.  I hate ticks.   This was a deer tick, which is a change from hubby's usual lone star tick predilection.  I, of course, have now got the hopeless itchy-crawlies.

I was blog-crawling tonight when I came across a blog from Northern Utah.  My first urge, if course, was to leave a "Howdy, ex-neighbor!"kind of post, but I rethought it when I saw the "happily sealed for time and all eternity" bit on the side.  I'm an atheist.  I don't have an anti-Mormon thing going on, but I hesitate to put myself on folks' pages when I fear they would likely be pretty solidly offended by my atheism.  Maybe that's not fair, but, in my experience, the faithful do better with my atheism when it comes up later in the game, after they've gotten a chance to know me.  I dunno.  Maybe I'll throw caution to the wind and drop them a "how do?"

Hubby's nephew (we call him "Bad Rick" to distinguish from my cousin's son, who shares the name) has got yet another baby on the way.  I think this is number three.  Barely 18, works fast food when he works at all, didn't finish school, his mom had to go to court for custody of the first baby.  Anyway, he's got a new "baby mama" (wow, I hate that term), who is, if her Facebook can be believed, just as dramatic, immature, and dim as the last one.  She's four months pregnant, and they've chosen the name "Celica."  Yeah, like the beat-to-hell brown rustbucket my old roommate drove in college.  The one that required a screwdriver jammed between the terminal and the cable to start and would take a vicious hard left if you let go of the steering wheel.  "Celica?"  Heck, why stop there?  Why not "TownCar" or "Land Rover?"

Or Suburban?

Stupid baby names piss me off.  Names chosen because they're painfully cute or represent some insipid inside joke for the parents with no real thought for how that child is going to fare being named Pilot Inspektor or TeeLeeAnne or Celica.  I may just be hyper-sensitive about that.  Heck, I've always been driven batty by the "eight kids, and all of their names start with the same letter" gig.  Just seems uninspired and gaggingly cute to me.  Of course, of my four legitimate siblings/half-siblings, three have names that begin with the same letter/sound as mine.  And, yeah, I think it's lame and uninspired.  At least I'm the oldest "K" name.  That's some small consolation.

Forgive me if you're the parent of Jared, Jason, Jenna, James, Jocylin, Jesse, Justin, and Jello.  I'm sure you had your reasons, and my opinion on your kids' names probably means nothing to you.  That's likely as it should be.

The car is still in the shop.  Really liking the Camry (hey, maybe Bad Rick's next automotive baby name!), though I think I like the Sonata more.  Seats are more comfortable, seat belt less of a hassle.

And that's that, I think.  I'll wrap up the entry I'm working on tomorrow.  G'night!