Dream: A Series of Bizarre Trivialities
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
I went to the kitchen to get a plate for my supper. I noticed a big utility sink on one side of the island counter; I didn't think we had one of those. I glanced inside; it was half-filled with dirty dishes soaking in murky water. The pesto shaver lay unwashed atop the pile.
Alyssa must not have washed it after dinner last night, I thought.
I scowled and rinsed the flat draw-blade so I could shave some pesto for my pasta. I got a clean plate from the cupboard, then spent several minutes looking for the pesto grinder.
I finally found our gleaming steel pesto grinder in the refrigerator, its workings caked with pesto now dried into a dark green rind.
We always wash that as soon as we use it! Always!
I fumed quietly as I spent the next ten minutes disassembling and scouring the pesto grinder.
I crossed the hardwood floors of the dining room and living room and lay on the couch to watch a little TV while I ate. Andy G's dad stood in the corner by the television; he smiled and made a pleasant comment. Then he walked closer and tried to lay down in front of me on the shallow couch.
I was shocked that he was coming on to me. I was totally uninterested, and I was afraid that Alyssa would walk in and think I was unfaithful. I shouted at him and kicked him several times as he stood up again. He frowned and said something like,
'You don't have to kick.'
"That's so you remember," I shouted, aiming for his knees, "IT'SNOTOKAY!"
He wandered off, disgruntled, while I fastened the 2" buttons of my long purple housecoat over my white floral nightgown.
The doorbell rang as I walked past the couch after dinner. I raced a few steps to the front door and slapped the deadbolt closed, then flipped on the porch light. Peering through the curtains, I could just make out the back of a jacket as someone walked away into the night. I opened the door; UPS had delivered a pet kennel, which I somehow new was from Pat S. It was a single piece of molded blue plastic with slits cut in the sides, as if it had been home-made from an over-sized recycling bin.
I hauled it inside, turning around as I shut the door; our three empty kennels sat at the near end of the couch, by the base of the stairs. (We had a lavender plastic carrier-kennel [like my Mom had for Beeker]; a larger, collapsible nylon kennel [like Sharon has for River], and a standard metal cage. They were empty because we didn't have any pets.)
"Honey?" I called up the steps. "Should we keep this blue...." I realized Alyssa couldn't hear me.
I climbed the long rectangular stairwell. The flights between the 2nd and 5th floor were outside, looking onto the back garden, but not high enough to see over the fence. Afternoon sunlight played in the ferns. Butter and Walnut (the cats I had in Stevens Point) sat on the rough wooden railings between the 3rd and 4th floors. The cats wobbled, and I was careful not to shake anything as I passed them. Their balance had to be pretty bad, I knew, because it gets worse with age, and they both died ten years ago.
I got to the fourth-floor landing and saw Alyssa above me on the fifth floor's recessed balcony, talking to a friend.
"Alyssa?" I called again. "Should we keep this?" I held the huge bin awkwardly over my head for her to see.
Her friend left Alyssa standing at the railing, sorting through junk mail.
"Would you recycle these?" she asked, holding out the stack of envelopes and sale fliers.
I nodded, but she didn't give me the mail. I tossed the kennel-bin up to her so she could dump the mail in it, but she just walked back inside.
I went up to the top floor. The stairs came up in the floor of a large room. Realizing I was behind an improvised stage, I moved quietly so as not to distract the audience. And old woman and a young woman stood just in front of the stairs, their backs to me, playing music. Both wore elaborately-layered robes.
Bright pink, orange, and silver ornamented the young woman's yellow costume. She had a croissant-sized seashell with strings across the opening, like a harp. She held and played it with her left hand, her right hand at her side.
The old woman wore dark green and brown with a gray shawl or hood nearly concealing her face. She held a very long, narrow instrument lengthwise across her body, her left forearm entirely inside its mouth. Her right hand supported the instrument's smaller end. Overlapping drones spilled from it, washing the room in warm sounds.
The two women alternated playing quick, complex melodies on their strings; I imagined the old woman must have a set of strings by her left hand, deep inside her instrument. They sang slow harmonies that sounded to me like a mess of vowels, but I guess it could have been another language. They were certainly from another country.
Twenty or thirty people, mostly women, stood in the dimness on the opposite side of the room, some slowly waving their hands over their heads. I waited for the music to finish; each of their pieces was twenty minutes long.
The audience cheered and clapped when the music stopped, and the performers set down their instruments. The old woman gestured, and someone off-stage played background music over the PA. The old woman spoke about the type of Zen they had come to share. I turned and walked back downstairs, flipping through their brochure as I went.
The PA voice encouraged us to find good things and stand next to them. The brochure was all slick, color-saturated photos, but most of the big animals were shown in kaleidoscopic reflections, and it hurt my eyes to look at them. I considered saving the pages with the tigers.
The stairs ended at an auto showroom. I walked along the wall to the end, ignoring the cars, and turned the corner into into another auto showroom, this one full of RV's. Walking past the huge vehicles, I noticed one by the Colorado-based brand whose logo is an angular set of mountains. It was the Bison model, and they had made the mountain-logo hood ornament stand up prominently instead of laying flat. I thought that was clever because it looked like a horn [and in my dream "Bison" meant "Rhino"].
[Brad] lost control of the van and turned right, rumbling over the shoulder and the ditch before coming to a stop on the grass. As usual, the spare tire broke free in the process.
I drove [Chad]'s busted van to the Donovan Auto Mechanics. When I arrived, all the employees tried to wave me into the parking lot for the neighboring Italian garage. They said it would save Donovan money on their insurance if I was never officially there. I ignored them and parked in their service lot.
I got out as a mechanic glanced over the car, then shouted over his shoulder for an assessment from someone in back.
"We can reattach the spare tire," he told me, "but the muffler's bad, and that's going to be expensive."
I shrugged. I was just dropping it off for [Chad]; I didn't care what they did.
"I don't even like the guy," I explained.
A clerk read the menu aloud as I headed for the exit of the barbecue restaurant / convenience store.
"...and, of course, we've got the barbecue-fried crawdads," the voice concluded.
Someone stumbled against a display with a tinkling clatter. I walked around the shelf to look. The high school flashback version of Rachel Green had crashed into an assortment of glass and plastic spatulas and cooking spoons, each emblazoned with the barbecued-crawdad emblem of the establishment.
Rachel prodded her boyfriend and he lead her outside. I followed her to the door.
"You don't like them either, huh?" I joked lamely; we sort of knew each other.
I gave her a high-five; she held up her hand to receive it from the vestibule without even looking back at me, fulfilling the dictates of propriety while making it clear to any potential observers that I was beneath her. As they crossed the parking lot, I leaned out the door and sing-songed,
"Ra-chel-ll touched me," mocking us both.
I went to the kitchen to get a plate for my supper. I noticed a big utility sink on one side of the island counter; I didn't think we had one of those. I glanced inside; it was half-filled with dirty dishes soaking in murky water. The pesto shaver lay unwashed atop the pile.
Alyssa must not have washed it after dinner last night, I thought.
I scowled and rinsed the flat draw-blade so I could shave some pesto for my pasta. I got a clean plate from the cupboard, then spent several minutes looking for the pesto grinder.
I finally found our gleaming steel pesto grinder in the refrigerator, its workings caked with pesto now dried into a dark green rind.
We always wash that as soon as we use it! Always!
I fumed quietly as I spent the next ten minutes disassembling and scouring the pesto grinder.
I crossed the hardwood floors of the dining room and living room and lay on the couch to watch a little TV while I ate. Andy G's dad stood in the corner by the television; he smiled and made a pleasant comment. Then he walked closer and tried to lay down in front of me on the shallow couch.
I was shocked that he was coming on to me. I was totally uninterested, and I was afraid that Alyssa would walk in and think I was unfaithful. I shouted at him and kicked him several times as he stood up again. He frowned and said something like,
'You don't have to kick.'
"That's so you remember," I shouted, aiming for his knees, "IT'SNOTOKAY!"
He wandered off, disgruntled, while I fastened the 2" buttons of my long purple housecoat over my white floral nightgown.
The doorbell rang as I walked past the couch after dinner. I raced a few steps to the front door and slapped the deadbolt closed, then flipped on the porch light. Peering through the curtains, I could just make out the back of a jacket as someone walked away into the night. I opened the door; UPS had delivered a pet kennel, which I somehow new was from Pat S. It was a single piece of molded blue plastic with slits cut in the sides, as if it had been home-made from an over-sized recycling bin.
I hauled it inside, turning around as I shut the door; our three empty kennels sat at the near end of the couch, by the base of the stairs. (We had a lavender plastic carrier-kennel [like my Mom had for Beeker]; a larger, collapsible nylon kennel [like Sharon has for River], and a standard metal cage. They were empty because we didn't have any pets.)
"Honey?" I called up the steps. "Should we keep this blue...." I realized Alyssa couldn't hear me.
I climbed the long rectangular stairwell. The flights between the 2nd and 5th floor were outside, looking onto the back garden, but not high enough to see over the fence. Afternoon sunlight played in the ferns. Butter and Walnut (the cats I had in Stevens Point) sat on the rough wooden railings between the 3rd and 4th floors. The cats wobbled, and I was careful not to shake anything as I passed them. Their balance had to be pretty bad, I knew, because it gets worse with age, and they both died ten years ago.
I got to the fourth-floor landing and saw Alyssa above me on the fifth floor's recessed balcony, talking to a friend.
"Alyssa?" I called again. "Should we keep this?" I held the huge bin awkwardly over my head for her to see.
Her friend left Alyssa standing at the railing, sorting through junk mail.
"Would you recycle these?" she asked, holding out the stack of envelopes and sale fliers.
I nodded, but she didn't give me the mail. I tossed the kennel-bin up to her so she could dump the mail in it, but she just walked back inside.
I went up to the top floor. The stairs came up in the floor of a large room. Realizing I was behind an improvised stage, I moved quietly so as not to distract the audience. And old woman and a young woman stood just in front of the stairs, their backs to me, playing music. Both wore elaborately-layered robes.
Bright pink, orange, and silver ornamented the young woman's yellow costume. She had a croissant-sized seashell with strings across the opening, like a harp. She held and played it with her left hand, her right hand at her side.
The old woman wore dark green and brown with a gray shawl or hood nearly concealing her face. She held a very long, narrow instrument lengthwise across her body, her left forearm entirely inside its mouth. Her right hand supported the instrument's smaller end. Overlapping drones spilled from it, washing the room in warm sounds.
The two women alternated playing quick, complex melodies on their strings; I imagined the old woman must have a set of strings by her left hand, deep inside her instrument. They sang slow harmonies that sounded to me like a mess of vowels, but I guess it could have been another language. They were certainly from another country.
Twenty or thirty people, mostly women, stood in the dimness on the opposite side of the room, some slowly waving their hands over their heads. I waited for the music to finish; each of their pieces was twenty minutes long.
The audience cheered and clapped when the music stopped, and the performers set down their instruments. The old woman gestured, and someone off-stage played background music over the PA. The old woman spoke about the type of Zen they had come to share. I turned and walked back downstairs, flipping through their brochure as I went.
The PA voice encouraged us to find good things and stand next to them. The brochure was all slick, color-saturated photos, but most of the big animals were shown in kaleidoscopic reflections, and it hurt my eyes to look at them. I considered saving the pages with the tigers.
The stairs ended at an auto showroom. I walked along the wall to the end, ignoring the cars, and turned the corner into into another auto showroom, this one full of RV's. Walking past the huge vehicles, I noticed one by the Colorado-based brand whose logo is an angular set of mountains. It was the Bison model, and they had made the mountain-logo hood ornament stand up prominently instead of laying flat. I thought that was clever because it looked like a horn [and in my dream "Bison" meant "Rhino"].
[Brad] lost control of the van and turned right, rumbling over the shoulder and the ditch before coming to a stop on the grass. As usual, the spare tire broke free in the process.
I drove [Chad]'s busted van to the Donovan Auto Mechanics. When I arrived, all the employees tried to wave me into the parking lot for the neighboring Italian garage. They said it would save Donovan money on their insurance if I was never officially there. I ignored them and parked in their service lot.
I got out as a mechanic glanced over the car, then shouted over his shoulder for an assessment from someone in back.
"We can reattach the spare tire," he told me, "but the muffler's bad, and that's going to be expensive."
I shrugged. I was just dropping it off for [Chad]; I didn't care what they did.
"I don't even like the guy," I explained.
A clerk read the menu aloud as I headed for the exit of the barbecue restaurant / convenience store.
"...and, of course, we've got the barbecue-fried crawdads," the voice concluded.
Someone stumbled against a display with a tinkling clatter. I walked around the shelf to look. The high school flashback version of Rachel Green had crashed into an assortment of glass and plastic spatulas and cooking spoons, each emblazoned with the barbecued-crawdad emblem of the establishment.
Rachel prodded her boyfriend and he lead her outside. I followed her to the door.
"You don't like them either, huh?" I joked lamely; we sort of knew each other.
I gave her a high-five; she held up her hand to receive it from the vestibule without even looking back at me, fulfilling the dictates of propriety while making it clear to any potential observers that I was beneath her. As they crossed the parking lot, I leaned out the door and sing-songed,
"Ra-chel-ll touched me," mocking us both.