In which Jake's cousins are Jerks.

Jake and I were living in a fancy apartment that had an abnoxiously huge bathroom.  As in, it was like a whole room.  And the shower was completely separate from the rest of the bathroom, so it wasn't weird to have someone else in there using it while you were in the shower.

Anyway, I was taking a shower, when Jake's two female, sporty-jock-type cousins showed up.  They had just showed up to stay with us for a couple of days (I suppose).  Jake was giving them a tour of the apartment, and had finished it up with the bathroom.  He left to go take care of something in the kitchen, and the two cousins (who were tall and sporty and had awesome hair) were ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the bathroom, and they saw our fancy towels, and were like "Ooh, I hope we get to use these!" "They're so soft!"  But by then I was finished with my shower, and stuck my head out, and was like, "actually, that's my towel."  And they immediately dropped the towels on the ground, and were all "ew! We touched her towel!"  Then they scampered off, and I was left to pick my towel up off the ground.

Later I cornered Jake and told him how his cousins had acted, and he didn't really believe that they were that mean to me.  He kept telling me to give them a chance, but it was useless, because they were those type of girls, the kind that are mean to other girls, and the kind of mean that only other girls notice is happening.

Not a fun dream.

Disclaimer: Jake actually doesn't have any cousins like this.  His real life cousins are nice.

But what about the goat?!?!

A few days ago, I had a dream where Jake and I were flying back to the US from Scotland.  We had a choice of two routes, both had layovers and took about the same amount of time.  One of them stopped over at Easter Island, and gave you enough time to get out and explore a bit before continuing on to the US.

Now, you're probably asking me how this makes any sense, because Easter Island is nowhere near on the way from Scotland to the US.  It's not only in the wrong hemisphere, it's in the wrong ocean.

But you are forgetting how my brain works.  As I am beginning to believe from dreams I've been having recently, my subconscious thinks that EVERYWHERE should be where Canada is.  There was the dream where we road-tripped up to Scotland, there was the dream where I flew to the mysterious Hanavar.... and now the dream where I stopped by Easter Island.

Although, I do have to admit, that at least in this dream Scotland was where it belonged, over next to Europe.  Because I know this, there won't be an addition to my Brain-Canada map drawing, since then the flight plan would make even less sense.

So here is a rough screen capture of where Easter Island was in my head, and our flight plans.

Now for the actual dream.

We (Jake and I) were in Scotland, and the people at the airport check-in gave us two options.  We chose the Easter Island one, because, hey, more vacation for our money!

We landed at Easter Island, and got to leave all our luggage on the plane, which was nice, because we didn't have to worry about it at all.  We were walking around (landscape looked suspiciously like Scotland), and found a goat.  It had a collar, so we were like, lets take it with us!  And it just kind of followed us around, occasionally we'd tug on its collar to make it follow us if it stopped to eat or something.

Got to this weird area.  There was gently sloping land (just open grassland), and there was a rickety rope/wood bridge going across this opening- dropped down maybe 20-30 feet to a small pond or something.  The opening was circular, and the land sloped so that the opening was angled.  Left side of the opening was probably 20 feet higher than the middle, and the right side would be probably another 10-15 feet lower, except for a weird outcropping of rock that came from the right side and went up ~8 ft and then extended over the circle about a third.  The bridge was a third of the way in from the right side, and went across the circle, under the rock outcrop.  (So, if you were standing in the middle of the bridge, and looked to the left side of the hole, you'd just see the vertical wall that then slopes down along the edges of the circle to where the bridge meets the edges.  If you looked right, you'd see the vertical wall coming up and then arching over your head, and past it ~1 ft.)  If my artistic ability was able to handle more than squares and drawing flight paths, I'd just draw this, but I suck at drawing, so you get this crappy description instead.

Anyway, we got to the bridge, and for whatever reason, decided we waned to go across it instead of around the pond/hole.  The goat REFUSED to move.  It did not like the bridge and wanted no part of our shenanigans.

And that is where the dream ends.

When I woke up, I was like, "I should tell Jake about this dream."  But then I forgot.  That night, I had another dream where I was just freaking out about "what happened to the goat!?" all because I hadn't told real-life Jake about the dream goat.

Moral of the Manda-brain: Tell Jake about the goat dreams, or they'll bug you till you do.

Party at Weggies

Had two dreams the other day that were related.

In the first one, James and I got dropped off at the grocery store by our moms for whatever reason.  After we were done shopping (I assume, although we didn't have any bags with us), we went back out to wait for our ride to pick us up.  It was cold and snowy and gross out, and I was going to go back and wait in the lobby-ish area, when James noticed that the car we were standing next to was unlocked.  He was like, no, look, we can wait in this car.  He walked around to the driver's side and got in.  I was torn between waiting with him and walking back across the slushy parking lot to the store, and gave in and got in the car with him.  Somehow he got it started (with no key and no hot-wiring) and started driving off in it.  I yelled at him that he couldn't steal a car, and he was all, 'Amanda, you're no fun.'  He turned back around and parked the car in a different parking space from where we found it.

That would seem to be the end of the dream, but given that the second one also took place at the grocery store, I feel like it was more of a prequel dream.

In the second dream, I was wandering around the grocery store (which I'm just assuming is Weggies, since it's kind of the best grocery store) with Sheree and Jake.  We came across a whole bunch of other people there.  I guess we must have been meeting up just to hang out, but were buying lunch from Weggies and eating it there?  Not entirely sure.  Anyway, there were a ton of people, including Belinda, Aleeza, James, etc. all sitting together at a table meant for not as many people as were sitting at it, and I'm pretty sure we were all just waiting for our parents to come pick us up.

Boozy Dog Race

Jake and I were at a race track (think horse racing) but it was only about the size of a high school track/ football stadium.  There were little dogs, perhaps chihuahuas, although I feel like they were a bit bigger and definitely didn't have the chihuahua heads.  They all had these neat little harnesses on that weighed them down.  Before the race stared, fuses were lit that connected to the harnesses, once the fuse got to the harness, it melted something inside (solder/wax) that had a low melting point.  This released the heavy part of the weight from the harness so the dogs could take off.  They all had on different neon colored harnesses to tell them apart.

I was (for some ungodly reason) betting on the salmon colored one and Jake was betting on the neon yellow one.  Only one person was allowed to bet on a dog at a time.

When the dogs got to the finish line, the announcer guy called out that the magenta, salmon and yellow dogs had won, and for the people who bet on them to come down to the finish line for their Manhattans.  The drinks were in glasses that matched the color of the dogs.  I guess I grabbed the wrong one, because then there was a group of sorority-type girls grouped around the girl who had bet on the magenta dog, and she had the salmon glass, but it's not like it mattered because all three of us got the same drink.

Also, I think at some point the drinks were strapped to the dogs heads, but I think that the sorority girls may have just been trying to see if the dog was talented at balancing things on its head, because Jake and I picked ours up from a railing nearby.

Scotland and Stupid Sticky Notes

Let me start off by saying that despite not posting for almost a month, I have been having a ton of dreams.  The problem has been that I'll have one, wake up when it's over in the middle of the night, think it over, and decide that yes, I'll be able to remember this in the morning.  Then I end up waking up and not remembering it at all, or remembering one tiny detail that is useless without the rest of the dream, and so not worth writing up.

Luckily, I had two dreams last night, both of which I remember.

The first one was about and epic trip to Scotland.  But a Scotland that was located much closer to Canada than England.  Let me draw you a map.

Anyway.  I was at home and hanging out with Elliott and Gary.  We decided that we wanted to do a ten day trip to Scotland, and kind of bounce around cities and sights and maybe do a little sightseeing in Canada too.  So we plotted out a route.  Somehow though, word got out to people.  And then EVERYONE wanted to go.  Let me list just a few of the people who were involved in this dream: Kevin, Erik, some more SciOly kids (mostly just the guys), Stephanie, Sydney, Aline, Sheree, some other random SWE girls, Juliana.....and there were probably another 20 people.

Originally we (Elliott, Gary and I) were planning on just staying at hostels.  But once the millions of people decided they all wanted to come, we had to switch to hotels.  But then that got expensive, so we decided that we would camp and drive around in RVs.  So then we had to gather up camping equipment and food and stuff and pack.  But my dream skipped over this part and straight to being in Scotland.

It was night time, and time to set up the tents.  However no one wanted to do it, and so it was a pain in the butt to make people do what they were supposed to be doing.  I feel like Erik was supposed to be in charge of organizing people to set up tents, but he was too busy playing with a computer, because I remember yelling at him about being distracted.

Then, once everything was set up and people had eaten, Juliana waltzes (literally, she was dancing) in, carrying a super elaborate wedding-looking cake.  Apparently it was her birthday and she got a super fancy cake* and was bringing us (Stephanie, Sydney, Aline, Sheree, other SWE girls) the leftovers.  It was really good cake though.  Then I assume everyone slept, because the next thing I remember, we're trying to get everyone to pack things up so we can all get in the RVs and go to the next place we wanted to visit.  But then people were complaining about not knowing where to put the plates and that they lost something and couldn't find it.

It was at that point I got fed up with people and woke up.


I debated getting up for good, but I was still kind of sleepy, so I decided to go back to sleep.

In my second dream, Jake and I lived in what I assume was an apartment, although it could have been a house, because we were having other people move in with us too, we had just been the first ones to get there.  We had already set up the living room to have bookshelves EVERYWHERE, and had already put most of our books on them.  Our new roommates were Aleeza and Thomas.  In my dream, I'm pretty sure Aleeza was single and Thomas had a crush on her.  Anyway, Aleeza moved in next, and claimed her own bookshelf.  Between the three of us, we pretty much had all the shelves filled.  Then Thomas showed up** and wanted to add his books to the collection, but there wasn't an empty bookshelf for him to claim, so he was going to have to spread his out on all the bookshelves and use the empty shelves that Jake, Aleeza and I weren't using.  Then I started freaking out about what if someone gets confused and moves out and steals all my books?!?!  So then I tried to find some sticky notes to label which shelves had whose books on them, but none of the sticky notes were sticky enough, and so I finally woke up because I was angry at the sticky notes not working. :(

*The cake kind of looked like this but it was square and kind of a shimmering gold with pink flowers on it and no bow on top.

**Thomas also came with some 11x17" artwork that he wanted me to frame and put on the walls, but there was like, no wall space in this room.

Water tubing

In this dream, everyone (me, Jake, Keegan, Brent, Tyler, Lambert) were all at Sydney's for a beach trip.  Or maybe just for a vacation.  Or maybe there was some other reason to be there.  But we were there, and were kind of just sitting around the house not doing much, when Sydney suddenly demanded that we go water tubing down the river.  None of us were opposed or had better ideas, so we got ready to go do that.  But before we could do it, we ABSOLUTELY HAD TO go to the grocery store and buy a plant.  Like, I knew it was the grocery store in the dream, but it didn't look like one.  It looked more like if you took the outside plant area of Home Depot/Lowes and squished it all down into a much smaller area.

That's all I remember.

Transporter?

Last weeek/week before:

This one was so super awesome.  I will not do it justice in this writeup, and for that, I sincerely apologize.  I also have forgotten more than half of it, which disappoints me, because this was one of the coolest dreams I've had in a while.

I remember part of the middle, and the end.  If it was divided up in fifths, I remember the third and fifth fifths, and maybe like, a quarter of the first fifth, but probably not even that much of it.

Quarter of the first fifth of the awesome dream:

Someone, I assume it was Jake (because he is in my dreams so frequently, I just assume he's the one showing me this awesome stuff) was driving me in a beat up blue pickup to a surprise.  There was a parking lot with room for maybe fifty cars, and many of the spots had utility trucks already parked in them.  There was a cliff face on two sides of the parking lot, the building ran along the third side (into the cliff), and then the fourth side was where the driveway and courtyard/front yard of the building was.  There was a nice little fence around some of the grass with a flag pole and some flowers in old casks.  The building was mostly corrugated aluminum.  The surrounding area was farm land, so there were some cows hanging out.

We walked in the front door.  There was a guy at the reception desk, he was friendly looking.

And now I don't remember stuff.

The next thing I remember from it, I'm alone in a hallway that doesn't have any doors.  I'm pretty sure I was (yet again) being chased by bad guys.  So anyway, at the end of the hallway (where it dead-ends), the floor is either super intricately tiled or painted in a circular pattern.  I stood in the center of it, and then there was fog/smoke on the ground, and then suddenly I was outside at the base of the hill behind the building from earlier in the dream.  It was rainy and muddy, and water was cascading down the hill.  I started walking (trudging really) along the bottom of the hill to get to a part that didn't have water pouring down it to walk back up.  

Then there's some more not remembering-  I have a vague recollection that I wasn't the only person on the muddy hill.

Somewhere along the way I lost both my shoes (got stuck in mud), but I finally made it to the top of the hill and the front of the building by the entrance.  It was no longer raining, and the reception guy was outside with a pitchfork waiting for me.  He made some remark about getting ditched or lost or something, but in a joking manner.  I kind of ignored him and just kept walking back toward the parking lot.

The end.

So I know that that description doesn't sound like it was that awesome, but when I woke up, I had that feeling of having had the most awesome dream ever... I guess I just remember the boring parts.

Woop-woop!

Last Thursday (I think):

I had a dream (got to think of a better way to start this) where Jake and I had made plans to meet up with some people at an ice cream parlor.  We got there earlier than the people we were supposed to meet, so we got some milkshakes and sat down at a booth.  Because of how the place was structured, the people we were meeting didn't see us when they came in and sat at the booth behind ours.  We could hear what they were talking about, and heard them mention poisoning us.  Apparently we knew something we shouldn't know, and they needed to get rid of us.  Jake and I looked at each other and silently agreed that we needed to get out of there without them noticing, and fast.  We slowly crept out of our booth and made a dash for the other side of the restaurant.  When we were halfway there, the people we were meeting (who I have a vague feeling were Jake's aunts) started shooting at us, so we took off running.  

I assume we lost them, but I don't remember the middle part where we got away, but I know this next part is part of the same dream.

It picks up with me in the car with my dad and Kevin, and I'm driving.  I'm ranting to them about what happened at the restaurant, so I'm distracted, and run a red light.  As I run it, I hear the woop-woop of the police car that is two cars back.  I swear, and pull up on the sidewalk on the left side of the street (one way street, two lanes, sidewalks on both sides, so only place to pull over is on the sidewalk so traffic can go around) to wait for the cop to make it through the light.  As I'm waiting, I pull out my license and registration to get ready for the cop.  When the light changes, the cop pulls up behind me, other cars honk angrily.  The lady cop gets out of her car, and I roll down the window.  Instead of coming up to the car, she starts climbing up the fire escape of the building I pulled up next to.   I wait a few minutes for her to do whatever she's doing (messing with traffic cams?), but she doesn't come down for like ten minutes, so I just drive off.  There was a lot of traffic, and I was still trying to escape/get away from the ladies from the ice cream parlor.

I feel like the area I was driving through was India or something, because it kind of reminded me of Aladdin- the clotheslines going across the streets between buildings, they're all kind of clay and steel, and things are colorful.  But it's the same city as the ice cream parlor was in, and I have no idea where Jake went.  The drivers seat was on the left, just like in America (not sure what side of the road they drive on in India, so maybe it's not India, since I've never been there).

Catch up Post.

I have been slacking on writing these up.  Oops.

Last night:
Jake and I were moving out of our MD apartment, and going somewhere that was really far away.  After we had been on the road for 20 minutes, I realized that we never took stuff off the walls (photos, pictures, christmas lights), and started freaking out about it.  For whatever reason, Jake and I were in the same car, and he was driving and decided that we had gone too far to turn back.  Plus, we had turned the keys in, and no one would be there to give the keys back to us.  I got upset about not being able to go back, and was sulking about losing my posters, etc., when I realized that we could call Thomas! He lived next door, and could get the keys back from management when they were back tomorrow.  Then he could hold on to our stuff until we could pick it up!  Except management wouldn't believe that he knew us and was trying to help, so they wouldn't let us in.  I woke up and was all "Dream us are stupid."


Couple weeks ago:
I wasn't in the dream, just following people around in it.  Since this was a couple weeks ago, I don't remember much of it, but I was basically following some secret agent around as they were sneaking through this office that had like glass cubicles, so everyone could see through the walls.  Then the secret agent (don't even remember if it was a boy or a girl) had to pick a lock on a filing cabinet to get a briefcase out, but just as they got to the briefcase, someone started shooting and there was glass everywhere.


Last week:
For some reason, SWE decided that the regional conference should be in the fall, and national conference would be in May.  That's just stupid, because school is out in May, and so practically no collegiate members would go to it.  Anyway, the current GT SWE exec board had decided that it was best to bring all 150 members to regional conference.  I was talking to Sheree about it, and we were both all "STUPID STUPID STUPID."  But neither of us were an exec, and I was graduated, so our opinions didn't matter for it.  All gazillion people got to go, and somehow I ended up with them.  We got to 'conference' and everyone else was in awe of all the GT SWE people there.  It was taking place in some sort of underground mining/oil rig kind of place.  Cave walls with the metal catwalk/stairs that you see in those kind of places.  Everyone that came had to put on blue jumpsuits, and then line up and follow the leader person through an exhibit on Caterpillar dump trucks.

Same night as the SWE one:
Had a dream where the power went out and I had to pet the bunnies.  In a corner..... Don't remember a whole lot of this one.


A while ago:
I was in a hospital, and was like an intern or nurse or something, and there was this other group of doctor people who were all trying to save this other doctor.  Except they weren't trying as hard as they should be (blatantly ignoring the obvious thing he needed).  I felt that it was necessary to save his life, so I snuck him the drug he needed.  He started getting better, and one of the other doctors noticed his vitals going up, and went to tell the other doctors, and so I went in and was like "hey, you have to leave now, or they're gonna kill you" and so I helped him hobble out of the hospital while the other guys were looking for guns.  Then half the hospital exploded as we made it out.


There are some more from the past few days, but I can't remember them right now. :(
Maybe tomorrow they'll come back to me.

Sand people.

So I had an epically long dream last night.  I don't remember the very beginning, or like the last half, despite half-waking up periodically during it and reviewing it all to try & remember it all.  So here's what I do remember.

Me and Jake were in my parent's backyard, but had to run away for some reason, and ran through a forest.  We were being chased I think, or maybe just exiled.  But we ran so far, that we found a desert in the middle of the forest.  There were people camping out and they had their own little society.  By this point dream-us had to pee, but to get to the sand people's toilet, you had to crawl through a teeny tunnel, then squeeze through a hole to get to the bathroom part.  I was not up for the claustrophobia, so I think I just went and found a bush.  Sorry sand people!

Since the sand people were kinda weird, we kept walking, and I don't know what happened next. :(

Blue Shirts

Had a short dream last night.  Jake and I were waiting in a line full of people dressed business casual.  The guy behind us is talking to us, and then all of a sudden is all, "But guys can only own ONE BLUE BUTTON DOWN SHIRT! You're gonna get in trouble!"  Jake was wearing his one blue button down shirt.  So he started laughing at the guy behind us so much he was rolling on the ground laughing.  Then I woke up.

Hello, and welcome to my head!

Since I've been having weird-ass dreams all summer, Jake finally told me that I should make a blog about them all.  I thought this was a fantastic idea, since I've had semi-vivid dreams my whole life.  At one point I was writing them down, but that didn't last long.  Since one of the first things I do every day is get on the internet, a blog seems perfect.  This way other people can benefit from the funny ones too!

So, my plan is to update this on days I have dreams.  If it's been a really long time and I haven't had any, then I'll update with an older dream that I still remember.  Like the oldest one I can remember in which dinosaurs are terrorizing my house, and I have to escape to get help, or the one I had last week where Kate Middleton sent me on an adventure with Mongolians.