Month: April 2006

I’m sure I can’t disclose the actual names and places I’m going to talk about, so please bear with me.

I have the pleasure to work, yes I said pleasure and work in the same sentence, for a large well known university who has a very large musical branch. That is the branch where I work. I’m really low on the ladder, but my boss is awesome and the work she does with the students is incredible.

Some of the older students, about 100, will be performing with a large eastern seaboard city’s symphony orchestra and some combined adult chorus’. It is awesome to see these students, ages 9-17 perform in this well known concert hall. The piece they are performing is basically a 9/11 requiem. The kids have just about memorized this entire piece and as the adults are furiously turning pages, our kids just burst forth on cue with the most beautiful sound.

Tomorrow we rehearse with the orchestra. That’ll be different for them.

I should mention, that at the same time as the 100 students are rehearsing for this performance, we have about 16 more across the street at the Opera House, where they are performing in the opera La Boheme. Too cool.

I’m so glad I have this job!!

This is starting to get on my nerves. Never did I want my blog to be nothing but a dream journal, but I can’t seem to find anything more interesting than my freaky and exhausting dreams to write about at times. I had another odd dream last night, occurring yet again in my parent’s old house.  This time my mother was in it and boy was she mad.  My paternal grandmother was there too, she seemed to be on my side. My mother kept going on and on about a three legged table.  I kept looking at it and I saw 4 legs.  (This is the kind of folding tv tray table that’s already unstable as it is.) She kept insisting and so did I. This was a crowded dream. My grand daughters were there, a “cousin” (that doesn’t look like any of my real cousins) who kept running around and hitting me until I got ahold of what he was hitting me with which looked to be a broken umbrella of all things, and whacked him back a few times, and an “uncle” I did not recognize, that I ran to for protection. Then I woke up.

And IF any of you doubted my sanity before (muhahahaha) then I’ll give you this dream from the past. I had this one years ago and I never could link this to anything that was going on at the time. Heck, if I can find my old recordings I’ll tell you all about the one with the babies scrabbling in between the walls of an old house…. but I digress. Here is the grandaddy-of-them-all wierd dreams that I’ve had.

I was (C’mon people, you should know this by now) at my parents house. (I swear the place must have been on bad ground or something) I was in the upstairs bathroom which is situated in the back middle of the house with bedrooms on either side, leaning up against the the window (which looks into the side yard of the house and now that I think of it, close to the sump pump area). There were electronic surveillance devices all over the bathroom, which had been set up as a command post to  explore the paranormal, which the house had been designated as.  I was part of a team that was to go into the hall and descend down a ramp. We went out the bathroom door ( I think there were 3 or 4 of us) and the people monitoring in the bathroom called “lights out”. Simultaneously, I saw my surroundings turn red and black in the hall and I was still in the bathroom observing myself in the hall on the monitor which had gone to infrared and I could see myself in red and black there too.

My perspective returned to me in the hallway and I started descending the ramp. My team disappeared off to the sides and I was alone.  I went down the ramp. There was nothing special about the walls at this time. I remember I felt pushed to go that direction. I made a hairpin turn to the left and went down the second ramp. As I got closer to the bottom, a huge cavern came into view.  I stepped off the ramp, into the cavern and saw the following. The cavern was round. There was an ornate carving of an angel on each post of a low dark brown railing that was on either side of where a pulpit should have been. (The kind of railing you would kneel at during communion in a church). I don’t remember what was behind the railing.  Where the pulpit should have been was a webbed lawn chair. The lawn chair was colorful, with a lot of blues and greens in the webbing. Suspended from the caverns’  ceiling, directly above the lawnchair, was a rowboat. To the left of the left railing was a round bed with a mirror. The bedspread was red.

For some reason, I felt the need to sit in the lawn chair and recite the Lord’s Prayer. I began, “Our Father, who art in Heaven..” and at about this time I looked up to see that the rowboat had caught on fire and was getting ready to fall. I launched myself off the lawn chair and flung myself onto the bed face down to escape the burning rowboat which had crashed into the lawn chair I had just vacated. Suddenly, I felt the bed shift and a pressure on my back and then shoulders. I was being pinned to the bed by my shoulders. I looked up into the mirror and I saw a maniacal looking man in an orange top hat and orange tux with tails. He was looking at me and yelling, “Scream Hallelujiah!! Scream Hallelujiah” I managed to throw him off of me and began running up the first ramp. (Running in dreams isn’t always very productive!!) I felt/heard a low deep rumbling roiling up behind me, chasing me up the ramp. I made the hairpin turn and  the walls that had been empty before now had doors lining both sides. I was still “running” up the ramp, being forced from side to side, when I saw a woman leaning against one of the doors. It was Marilyn Monroe and she was leaning up against a door that had the number 62 or  67 on it, I couldn’t tell. She looked and me and said, “help me, please don’t leave me here.”  I just kept running. The ramp seemed much longer on the way up and I was having difficulty getting up it. The low rumbling thing was still approaching from behind, seemingly gaining on me. Every couple of doors, Marilyn would reappear and say the same thing to me, leaning on the same door.  I finally reached the top of the ramp, screaming, “Lights on! Lights on!” The bathroom door opened and I ran to the window where I had started.  The door was shut and I was the only one in the room, but that rumbling force I had felt was now laughing in a low voice and was on the other side of the door. The door began to bulge, as if the thing was going to push it in, but then abruptly I heard the noise receding and I looked out the bathroom window to the basement window on the my right and saw the red light coming from the window begin to subside and then go black.  I woke up!

I dreamed I talked to my dad on the phone. (Both of my parents have passed away) I was sitting in a very white room that was tiled with tiny 1×1 tiles and I was playing with the wall in front of me with my bare feet as I was chatting with my father. He was telling me he was on the 6th floor of a hotel, or wherever he was, and that he was drinking and watching Friends. I thought he meant the tv show, but after thinking about it, maybe not. Then he started asking me about how we had found out that my mom had cancer. (She died from lung cancer) I told him that my sister, Laura, had gone to fill a prescription for my mom and the pharmacist became apologetic and asking how mom was. Laura, not understanding why he was so concerned over a routine prescription, asked him what he meant and the pharmacist told her that this drug was something they gave patients who had really advanced stages of cancer.  (That’s not how we really found out) Dad thought that was ok and didn’t have much more to say.

Easter was nice here. It turned into a two day event. We hunted for eggs on Saturday and played with our toys and then had everyone over for brunch on Sunday.  It was really nice to have all my kids together. They are my everything.

We have them everywhere.  In our lives, in the lives of people we care for, at work, in material things; they’re everywhere!

So how do you make sure you keep the ones that pay you in happiness dividends and how do you “sell” the ones that underperform.  Since they are emotional investments, it’s not easy to just cut one out, and sometimes – just like it’s hard to find those extra few dollars to put in your monetary investments – it’s hard to find anything left in your soul to put into the pot. What is the dividing line?

I have a few places in my life that I’ve been investing in emotionally, and to tell you the truth, some of my investments just are not paying off. Let’s just say the brokerage fee is much too high. I’ve reduced my portfolio greatly in this investment, and I’ve diversified into some of it’s spin-off companies. But still, the parent company has to be dealt with. I created this parent company and then let it grow on it’s own, until it was ready to be an independent corporation. It grew rapidly and expanded early, diversifying into a few smaller offshoots. Frequently, this company has had management troubles. The board of directors just couldn’t agree on where they wanted the company to go. There has been fraud and embezzlement and scandal, yet the company is still standing, albeit barely. This company of mine is ripe for a takeover. I can see a pharmaceutical coming in and just wiping it out. Or my company may fall prey to cheap or illegally obtained labor, which will devastate an already shaky financial portfolio.  There is also the current threat of a hostile takeover of the only promising things my little company has produced, being the few off shoot diversifications it’s managed to hold together. All that being said, I just feel completely drained and nervous every time I get an update on the company’s’ prospectus. I can’t keep funneling my emotional (and financial) investments into this company, but it is nearly impossible to stop as well. So, I go swirling down in emotional and financial debt.

The other places I have emotional investments are doing fairly well. My E investment in myself has ALWAYS been low and I’m trying to fix that. I’m a firm believer that you can’t withdraw from your own E stores if you are already E bankrupt!!

Some of my other E investments are of a turbulent nature, up and confident and flourishing one day and then down and in need of attention the next.  Problem with that is,  I don’t always have the extra to give when those investments need it.  That doesn’t seem at all fair to those companies.

Maybe I need to fire my own board of directors or retire a few, as was suggested by a very wise advisor, and reassess my situation. I’m just so deeply committed to my current investment portfolio that I’m not sure which of these directors to let go.

I have had a long day. I started my day early, awakening from the following dream and jotting it down before I forgot it.

I was in my Mom’s basement (most everyone knows that for me, all bad dreams take place at my parent’s old house) in the far corner by our sump pump. On the left I saw something that looked like particle board, but then realized it was my mother’s old and moldering mattress, brown and stained. I felt violently pushed out of the corner by something. I couldn’t pin the feeling of what pushed, but I was afraid. I didn’t want to see what was in the basement. I felt my mothers presence. I was very afraid. I didn’t feel comfort, just fear. I somehow left the basement and went down and around the block to a place outside the basement that was exactly behind where I had been in the basement. (hard to understand I know) I found a woman in white who I went to talk to. I told her that I had seen this in my basement. I was highly agitated and nervous, wrapping things around my hands, worrying. She said we should go back and see what was bothering me. We were on a platformed structure. We had to climb down. As I was climbing over the edge to get to the street I saw a pale entity that I knew was angry although it’s appearance was cartoonish. As I got to street level, it began to storm. Across the street from where I stood was a tree. The tree was thrashing wildly in the wind, the sky was dark and ominous and lightning was either emanating from the tree or the tree was being struck repeatedly. White and blue sparks started falling like rain. The blue sparks were very intense and the white almost blinding. The woman in white ran across the street to go on the sidewalk under the tree. I didn’t want to do that, but she was encouraging me to cross the street. Lightening was zapping all around the tree. I remember thinking that I would not be safe and was leary. I knew the spirit had sent the spark shower. I couldn’t tell if it was a warning or doing it to hurt me. I decided to start walking/running on my side of the street, but back towards my parent’s house feeling drawn to the other side of the street on my right. I remember considering crossing the street diagonally from the thrashing tree and was starting to step into the road when I felt a male presence on my left hand side, slightly behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a tall man in a vibrant blue shirt and black pants walking behind me. I felt very safe. I thought it was Frank, but I never saw a face, I just knew I was safe. I woke up.

After I woke up and had jotted this down in my paper journal, I went online to discover that at that time, 19 people had been killed in violent storms. I thought it was a strange coincidence. The last time my dreams and some event clicked like that was when one of the shuttles blew up. I had dreamed about a cat that was attacking a dog and the dog did nothing to defend itself. The cat literally shredded the dog. Then near what was left of the dog was a body, or actually a body in a space uniform and laying nearby was a helmet with hair hanging from inside it. I can’t remember the rest of that dream. I’ll have to go back and find it in my journal if I remembered to write it down.

I got up and did some computer work, made breakfast, went with Frank to his mom’s house to pack her things into a van we had rented, move her to Bowie, unpacked her stuff again, come home, made dinner, got a call from my daughter Heather saying she was going to be here tomorrow instead of the scheduled date of Saturday and then flying into action to get the office floor in shape for the laminate to be laid so the living room can be cleared so the kids have a safe place to be since we are in the middle of much renovation!! I know that was all run on sentences… but I’m tired and it’s 1 am, and without TONS of detail, no one will understand more than I’ve written about the situations anyway.

The wind is howling outside. It’s time for sleep, perchance NOT to dream.

Princess Pink!

Random musings.

What sick bastard decided that daylight savings time, where we all lose an hour of muchly needed beauty sleep, would be on the heels of April Fools Day. Was this just an extension of that time honored tradition of playing pranks on one another just because it’s fun to laugh at your friends?

Why is it I can think of a thousand things to post on my blog, but then as soon as I sit at the keyboard, I completely forget? Is that the same thing that happens when you have it in your mind to pick up a few items at Target and as soon as you walk in you go blank and then wander the store, searching for the elusive red clearance sticker on all the endcaps and clearance aisles and if you are lucky enough, happen to have a memory burst as you walk past what you went into the store for in the first place? And by that time, you have a cart full of red ticketed items , which means the 4.75 item you went in for is now going to cost you 127.36?

Have you ever noticed that trees live in their own graveyards?

I went to a farewell dinner for one of my friends last night and the dinner conversation turned to giant ants, cockroaches and mice poop. Bear in mind we were eating at a chinese restaurant. The food was good, but the conversation didn’t lend anything to my appetite.

I hate being the center of direct attention in large groups. Otherwise, attention is good, but not too much. I’ve been likened to a cat. I want attention when I want it. If you want to force your attention on me, I’ll likely pretend to enjoy it, and I may actually enjoy some of it for a little bit, only to rear up and scratch your hand (metaphorically) when you least expect it. And heaven forbid that you find me playing with my prey and enjoying it, because just like a cat, I’ll act as tho I wasn’t having any fun at all and stalk away. Or I may just decided to roll around on the floor and smack wildly at whatever weird thing comes my way and then jet down the hall to claw up your furniture. Meow.

At this dinner, yes! back to that, I was made the center of attention a few times. Once in thanks for organizing the shindig and once as the center for an announcement that told everyone that – crazy person that I am- I am assuming the duties of not one, but two of the attendees. Both of these were expected, but what was not expected was that my boss would publicly pick on my speech. GRRR. I, like most people of any language, can have lazy diction. She is all about diction. She is from Scotland and has been trained to teach people how to speak and sing clearly. Apparently, she didn’t like that way I said “can” .  She hates a nasally can. So, there at dinner, in front of everyone, she wants me to say cahn instead of can. Now, how stupid would I look if I went around saying, “Cahn you pahss me the sahlt please.” Maybe I mumble or something, but she corrected me more than once last night, prompting me to publicly tell her that if she didn’t cut it out, I just wouldn’t speak to her anymore or I’d do nothing but be extremely formal with her at all times. I can enunciate quite well…. I just don’t like being reminded to do so.  (‘course, now I feel guilty for saying something to my boss in a public manner…. sigh)

How did this happen?!? All three of my children living in Maryland, are awake, in the same room and are conversing nicely.  In fact, the boys are getting along! It is April 2, right? Don’t get me wrong, it makes me very happy to have a peaceful Sunday morning with my family, but after years of in-fighting it comes as a double blessing. Ahh, life is good.