Grandma; travel anxiety; Paris
ANOTHER CRAZY DREAM
This time brought to you by CAPITALIZING IN THE RIGHT PLACES, courtesy of being in grad school for a while and trying to e-grow up.
In the first part of my dream, I was at some sort of family event. My grandmother (on dad's side) was there as well. She had just been to some sort of beauty/fashion salon and she had been coated liberally with tanning lotion, so she was a bright shade of Snookie. She was wearing large sunglasses and a turquoise headpiece that looked somewhat 1960s, but also resembled the supposedly betazoid fashion of Dianna Troi in the first season of Star Trek. My grandmother was performing for everyone at the event -- she was not only singing (which in reality she loves to do), but was also playing the piano (which in reality she does not do). I was impressed by her amazing piano skills, despite moments of decreased finger agility due to her arthritis.
After the event, my grandmother and I were trying to get to the airport on the green line. On my way to meet her at the station, I passed a number of amazing-looking restaurants (one of which was Indian) and I wanted to stop and get take-out, but I didn't have time. When I arrived at the station, I discovered that my grandma had a rental car, a dark red SUV with black windows, that she hadn't yet returned. I didn't know where she had rented it and she couldn't remember, so I took the keys with me in the hopes of eventually figuring out where to return it. We kept missing one train after another because I couldn't figure out which train went to the airport (there were about 10 green line trains, each labeled with a different string of numbers similar to the prime forms of set classes I've been learning about in post-tonal theory, e.g., Train 0167 and Train 3-Z15). I finally figured out a) which train to take, b) which direction, c) how much each fare costs, and d) how to get two tickets of each fare from the ticket machine, which was confusing beyond belief. Then I had to get all of grandma's luggage over to the platform, because I knew that we would have to jump on the train as quickly as possible; but grandma brought about 20 bags. Finally I got everything organized and we managed to get on the train.
At this point, the dream elides with a different one -- grandma and I are on a train, but it's not a train headed to the airport. Rather, it's a mountain train curving through the French/Swiss Alps. Out of the window we see a vast, mountainous snowscape littered with little fern-like plants; I recall thinking that the flora here in Europe is different from plant life in the Rockies. There are huge crevasses in the snow etching out a sort of soft diagonal pattern, like this with rounded edges.
Eventually, the train takes us to Paris, where we decide on a whim to get off. My grandmother and I are walking through charming little streets and I am filled with a sense of awe at the city (which is how one is supposed to feel in Paris, and since I've never been there, my dream filled in the appropriate emotion). We pass by a university that is advertising an exhibition of art by a French printer. We enter, then wander up a narrow set of carpeted stairs. When we get to the second floor, there is a small exhibition of colorful, stylized prints by a (made-up) French artist in the 1930s. There are also a couple art students sitting at booths showing their work. One artist turns out to be German, so we are able to have a conversation. His piece is a sculpture based on the concept of the 16th-century madonna. He explains that, in the standard madonna, the face of Jesus is always displayed, but that it would be more personal and intimate if the baby's head were turned toward the mother. His sculpture, therefore, is simply the back of a baby's head. I look at the front, but the features are indistinct; the sculpture is only supposed to be viewed from one angle.
This time brought to you by CAPITALIZING IN THE RIGHT PLACES, courtesy of being in grad school for a while and trying to e-grow up.
In the first part of my dream, I was at some sort of family event. My grandmother (on dad's side) was there as well. She had just been to some sort of beauty/fashion salon and she had been coated liberally with tanning lotion, so she was a bright shade of Snookie. She was wearing large sunglasses and a turquoise headpiece that looked somewhat 1960s, but also resembled the supposedly betazoid fashion of Dianna Troi in the first season of Star Trek. My grandmother was performing for everyone at the event -- she was not only singing (which in reality she loves to do), but was also playing the piano (which in reality she does not do). I was impressed by her amazing piano skills, despite moments of decreased finger agility due to her arthritis.
After the event, my grandmother and I were trying to get to the airport on the green line. On my way to meet her at the station, I passed a number of amazing-looking restaurants (one of which was Indian) and I wanted to stop and get take-out, but I didn't have time. When I arrived at the station, I discovered that my grandma had a rental car, a dark red SUV with black windows, that she hadn't yet returned. I didn't know where she had rented it and she couldn't remember, so I took the keys with me in the hopes of eventually figuring out where to return it. We kept missing one train after another because I couldn't figure out which train went to the airport (there were about 10 green line trains, each labeled with a different string of numbers similar to the prime forms of set classes I've been learning about in post-tonal theory, e.g., Train 0167 and Train 3-Z15). I finally figured out a) which train to take, b) which direction, c) how much each fare costs, and d) how to get two tickets of each fare from the ticket machine, which was confusing beyond belief. Then I had to get all of grandma's luggage over to the platform, because I knew that we would have to jump on the train as quickly as possible; but grandma brought about 20 bags. Finally I got everything organized and we managed to get on the train.
At this point, the dream elides with a different one -- grandma and I are on a train, but it's not a train headed to the airport. Rather, it's a mountain train curving through the French/Swiss Alps. Out of the window we see a vast, mountainous snowscape littered with little fern-like plants; I recall thinking that the flora here in Europe is different from plant life in the Rockies. There are huge crevasses in the snow etching out a sort of soft diagonal pattern, like this with rounded edges.
Eventually, the train takes us to Paris, where we decide on a whim to get off. My grandmother and I are walking through charming little streets and I am filled with a sense of awe at the city (which is how one is supposed to feel in Paris, and since I've never been there, my dream filled in the appropriate emotion). We pass by a university that is advertising an exhibition of art by a French printer. We enter, then wander up a narrow set of carpeted stairs. When we get to the second floor, there is a small exhibition of colorful, stylized prints by a (made-up) French artist in the 1930s. There are also a couple art students sitting at booths showing their work. One artist turns out to be German, so we are able to have a conversation. His piece is a sculpture based on the concept of the 16th-century madonna. He explains that, in the standard madonna, the face of Jesus is always displayed, but that it would be more personal and intimate if the baby's head were turned toward the mother. His sculpture, therefore, is simply the back of a baby's head. I look at the front, but the features are indistinct; the sculpture is only supposed to be viewed from one angle.