Live from the archives: Volume 1

As I attempt to collect and post old dreams, I would be remiss not to begin with the following.

It all began in the summer of 2002. I got my first real six-string. Bought it at the Five and Dime. Played it til my fingers bled. Wait, no, that was a different summer.

Ok, anyway, dream: My friend/co-worker/inspiration to covert deviance, Todd (of previous grocery store line fame), and his wife, Jen, flew to China to adopt a baby. They went, they found a cute baby, their beagle Gracie was jealous cuz Todd and Jen totally forgot about her when the baby arrived. At some point, I think I felt bad for Gracie and gave her some love.

Real life: At this point, Todd and Jen have no offspring. I tell Todd about my dream at lunch, half-jokingly ask him if there's something to tell us, and he says, yes ... you are crazy, and shakes his head in the "you-really-are-mental-but-I'm-secretly-proud-of-you-for-being-so-weird" kind of way, which I get from him every time I share a cah-RAzy dream or something ridiculous I said or did in real life.

(Still) real life: A month and a half later(ish), Toddy makes the announcement: there is, in fact, a bun in the oven. I do the math and figure out she was preggos when I had the dream and shared it—he says, yes, he was slightly freaked out when I told him, but he couldn't say anything because they weren't to the magical three-month/first trimester telling people stage. We all stand in awe of my new gift of prophecy. Kind of.

(Sorry but we're still on) real life: A beautiful baby Lauren is born on January 8, 2003. She is not Asian, nor adopted, but, nonetheless, the cutest thing ever. At the age of two, she is modeling; keenly observing her world ("Mommy that truck is backing up"); and with her great arm, raw talent, grit, and determination (you may have to refresh a few times to see her in the header, riding her bike), well on her way to a softball scholarship (or golf—help her out Uncle Gat).

Back to my subconscious. I have a dream that my friend Kari, of previous river parking lot fame, has two little blond girls and comes to visit me at my apartment. We have fun and play; the dream itself is nothing that spectacular, aside from the fact that Kari and her husband Eric also do not yet have any chillens in real life.

Fast forward to Easter weekend 2003, real life: I hang with Kari, and over dessert and coffee at R-place, I tell her of my dream. I then proceed to tell her that I now have a phenomenal cosmic power, aka, I can predict the future and secret present, and tell her all about my previous dream, how I shared it, they denied it, it was true at the time, yadda yadda. Isn't it WEIRD, I say, how I was right but they weren't telling yet? And also, hey am I right again? And yet a-gain, the hearer of the dream chooses to deny the power of the Oracle. She's all, nope (laugh), sorry (giggle), wrong (joke), (ha), (funny) (still funny) (ha. haha.).

Five days later, real life: I get the call. "Hey what are you doing November 21st?" "Uh, I usually don't plan that far ahead. I guess nothing." "Well maybe keep it free cuz that's when Eric and I are due to HAVE OUR BABY." So evidently, the actual rule is, you-must-wait-until-three-months-to-tell-people-and-there-are-no-exceptions-even-when-your-best-friend-has-a-dream-and-asks-you-directly-five-days-prior-to-the-official-three-month-date-in-person-when-she-can-hug-you-but-oh-well-you-have-to-wait-and-tell-over-the-phone-anyway. Baby Kjersten is born on November 18, 2003, is also the cutest thing ever, and at 19 months, knows way more about combines, silos, John Deere, and dairy farming than most people will in their entire lifetime. And I'm pretty sure she's gonna be a hoops star and her scholarship will be of the basketball sort.

In the words of Katie Holmes, sometimes dreams do come true.

The only reason not to vote for pedro

Dream told in reverse order, cuz this is how it's coming to me:

I was at the grocery store on Sunday morning (I'm pretty sure it was the Jewel in Danada, but not completely), I guess before church, and suddenly the clerk tells the line of people that it's communion time. He's like, I know you may be surprised, but we need to do it here, and here's how it'll work. And then I think he tells us about it, in case we're not familiar, blesses the bread and wine, and we proceed through the line--he of course gives it to us when we get to the checkout. I remember Todd (Watermann) and Mike (Herman) being in line in front of me ... and there was some kind of sports emphasis on this communion message. I'm pretty sure I was the only girl in line, and I think the rest of the guys were either coaches or athletes--or Todd or Mike. (Ex-coaches/athletes?) The whole time I was kind of upset cuz I just wanted to take communion at church instead of the grocery store, but I thought maybe this was an outreach program the store was doing, so I'm like, that's cool that the clerk wants customers to know Jesus so I'll go along with it.

Evidently I didn't take it right away, cuz I remember holding it in a car, riding shotgun and getting a ride to church from ... some combination of Marv Albert and Chuck Swirsky. Seriously. I remember thinking, he definitely sounds like Marv, but looks like Chuck, and Marv *probably* doesn't go to church. Hm. I also remember looking at the wine, and it was light with a light greenish tint to it, and I thought, huh, that's weird. It's white wine, I guess? Except the green grape color is still there? And I think that's when I woke up.

(Sorry this is like Memento.)

Before that, I was supposed to be in this variety show for West Lisbon Lutheran Church (a church from my hometown), and it was in the cafeteria of my grade school. There were lotsa lotsa people there, sitting in folding chairs, and I was supposed to sing a song from some play, and I think Shawna, Casi, and Sandy Gum (RA friends and my Resident Director from Judson) were part of this performance. When I was waiting for my turn, I realized I didn't know the words to this song, even though I was practicing a lot and singing my heart out in the car on the way there. After freaking out about it, the girls said, you'll be fine, it's not a big deal, you'll remember when you get up there. I got up there, still didn't know the words, excused myself with the whole crowd watching, walked into the hall and played this tape again, trying to remember, but I'm like wait, it's too late now. What should I do instead? Cuz I have to entertain these people. And then I'm like, I got it--a Who's Line Is It Anyway improv skit, since I have so much experience in that. I talked with the girls over which one to do, decided on the ABC game, and evidently I could only pick one person to be in the skit with me. After debating and initially thinking Shawna or Casi would do it, Sandy says, Diana Prange should do it--she's the best at the ABC game. So I'm like all right, Diana, let's go. So we got up there, did the ABC game, and rocked the house with our extensive vocabulary and humor skills.

And also, before all that, when I arrived, it was raining a lot and it started to flood a little, so instead of parking in the deep deep mud, we parked in the river, where all the cars floated in perfect parking-lot alignment. I wasn't sure about it, but I saw my best friend Kari's SUV floating and figured it was ok.

Ok. So before all that, I was ... somewhere ... and I got robbed, three successive times throughout the course of one night/early morning. (At first I thought I was in a house, but then it might have been a bank, and later it became Waubonsee Community College.) Each set of robbers seemed to get nicer--the first ones were scary with guns, and I'm like take all the money from the bank and the 20 from my purse (the biggest bill I had). The second set were still scary, but came when all the money was gone, so I'm like all I have is a five in my purse. I thought they left, but two guys were sitting in this chair still guarding us so we didn't go tell the police, and my two little sisters were there. (Note: I only have one little sister in real life.) I think we had to sleep there, cuz we were on mattresses, and I felt that I needed to protect them, so I like, huddled over them kinda. Later on, we started talking to the robbers and they ended up being kind of nice and funny. The third time, some random girls and guys came and robbed again, but they had no weapons or masks or anything, and this time I got fed up. I'm like, "What the crap--WHO are you robbing and WHY." This one chick is like, "We're not mad at you, we're mad at the Waubonsee College volleyball program, cuz they screw us over every year." I'm like oh, ok, I can understand that, then. And I became pseudo-friends with those robbers after that explanation, and even gave them two dollars from my purse. At some point before that, I think I was in a volleyball tournament or something, and after I couldn't decide which shirt to wear, so I layered them, but I couldn't decide which was the coolest way to layer these shirts--one was a brightly colored zip-up hoodie, and one was a long-sleeve gray shirt.

I think that's all. When I started typing this, I actually thought it'd be one paragraph.