Dear Clyde, I am so sorry about your favorite dining room set....

 NOTE:   Hours after I woke this morning from a strange dream, I remained so affected by the look in the ape's eyes that I wrote the story down, trying to get some control over my feelings.    Once it was down on the computer, I figured I'd inflict it upon you.   Enjoy

I walk into the Dimond Mall (correct spelling) near the zoo and see a sign asking for the donation of foam cushions and other flammable material.   I look into the sunken zoo and see hippos, lions, and various other creatures wandering around on the tiled floor in what looks to me like a swimming pool with no water in it.

 

A woman had fallen into the Olympic-sized swimming pool/zoo and was fatally bitten by a hippopotamus a couple days ago.   She had fallen from the open balcony of a fine-dining venue that overlooked the zoo.  (There IS a Dimond Mall in Anchorage.   It does not have a zoo or even a swimming pool.   It does have a skating rink.)

 

The zoo has decided to euthanize the hippo, named Hugo, and relieve the carcass of its head for examination.  The cushions are needed to provide space under the fallen hippo so straps can be installed to hoist the beast onto a table for autopsy and then for fuel to cremate the carcass.   All in view of the public, which has now crowded around the sunken zoo.

 

By coincidence, a girlfriend’s favorite dining set is nearby as is an old couch of mine.   I strip the furniture of the cushions and throw them into the zoo.  Each piece lands perfectly next to the others.   The animals, by this time, have been removed.   Only Hugo the Hippo is in the pit.  As luck would have it, that furniture is enough to cover the entire bottom of this large arena.

 

That done, I go in search of my girlfirend to explain what I’ve done and why.   I find her and her three children sitting in another part of the vast mall.   As I’m explaining, a large, sedated ape is asleep on some nearby foam bolsters.   She stirs, rolls over, and holds out her left hand to me. 

 

The look in her eyes is one of pleading for empathy and help so I reach out and touch the heel of her hand. This ape, named Joy, is the mother of Hugo (who is a hippo, mind you) and she is frantic with worry about him.

 

She stands and offers her arm to me.   I take her elbow and she leads me down the mall to the security entrance of the zoo.   She holds her hand to a scanner, then holds her eye to the optical scanner.   She passes the check, but we walk around that entrance and go to a wide-open public entrance, manned only by a receptionist.

 

Joy and I walk past her and descend part-way into the zoo/pool by a staircase.  One of the biologists stops her and tells her she should not be here.  The deceased Hugo, whose head now resembles a rhinocerus, is already on the autopsy table.

 

I leave Joy with the keepers, ascend the stairs, and ask the receptionist if an animal behaviorist is available to talk with.  I’m asked to leave my name and number, which of course I can’t remember.   I think the behaviorist would be quite interested in learning of my inter-action with Joy, but I am dismissed.

 

I return to my friend, whose favorite dining set I destroyed and will be used to fuel a fire to cremate Hugo’s remains (all in full view of the public).   Shortly, a medical tech appears and asks me if I am the one who walked with Joy, and when I respond in the affirmative, she tells me that I must come with her to be put into quarantine because I might have been exposed to some (twenty-letter) bacteria.

 

I will have to spend the night until staff has an opportunity to test me for the (twenty-letter) bacteria and get the results.

 

I’m escorted to Room #4.   When the door opens, the room is no wider than a regular elevator car, with doors on each end like some elevators cars.   A handsome young man occupies one bed.   There is a short, half-length curtain meant to provide privacy, with maybe two feet in between the cots.   I am told to change into the hospital garment.

 

I decide that if I’m going to spend the night here, I am going to get something to eat first, so I wander off into the mall again.   I wind up in an area where several other people are waiting for the zoo medical team to see them.  I tell staff I’d like something to eat and shortly someone arrives with a huge hamburger piled high with fries and with more fries on the side.   

 

There are also a Coke in an 8-oz. glass, a six-pack of Heineken beer, and a large bottle of red wine.   I devour the burger, the Coke, a bottle of beer, and a third of the wine.   (That should be enough to put me in a coma for a week, if not kill me outright.)

 

Suddenly I’m in a wheelchair.   I start offering beer and wine to the other patients.  My “roommate” Bob is there, but he declines.   I pass out the remaining five bottles of Heineken and open them with a tiny bottle opener hanging from my backpack. (Yes, a backpack.   I also have a duffle bag, and another satchel.)

 

I learn Bob’s story.   He is a safety guard on a new extensive toll road/bridge that crosses Westchester valley in Anchorage, from 15^th Ave to Fireweed Lane.   (This completely imagined road/bridge has figured into several other of my dreams.)

 

One night a few days ago, Bob spotted a man trying to sneak under the bridge without paying the toll.  The man jumped from the bridge.   Bob also jumped off the bridge, after reading all the Miranda, safety warnings, of course, and landed on the man.   The 50-foot drop almost kills both of them.   Instead of going to a hospital, Bob has come to the zoo medical staff for assistance.   He is in tough shape.

 

Still overwhelmed by the interaction with Joy the ape, I go in search of a notebook so I can spend the time in my cell writing it all down.   I find a bookstore that sells notebooks.   One that had about four pages sells for $17.95.   I keep looking.   A used notebook, with all the pages written on, is $.80 and I decided to buy that one.    (This notebook thing is another recurring theme in my dreams.)

 

Before I get to the cashier, though, I spot a red, leather-bound notebook with Margaret R Wood printed on its cover.   I look inside and there is a small woolen scarf carefully folded inside a pocket.  I remove it, intending to send it to my friend Marg.   I buy the notebook for $.90, and return to my “cell.”   Down in the sunken zoo, staff is cremating Hugo.

 

My gear is on a trolley that I’m pushing in front of my wheelchair.   When I open the door to my cell, the rear door opens also and my gear trolley, along with Marg’s notebook, go sailing through and into the zoo pit, which, unaccountably, is filling with water even as Hugo is being cremated.

 

I look around my cell as staff rush to snag my gear from the water, overlooking Marg’s bright red notebook.   Bob, in his agony, has peed his bed, the walls (including mine), and the floor clear out into the mall aisle.

 

I wheel my chair to the zoo receptionist and tell her of Bob’s mishap.   “You’re supposed to be in quarantine,” she scolds.   I don’t tell her about my foray to get lunch or passing out beer and wine to the other patients, who now are contaminated also  if I’m contaminated.

 

A couple guys arrive with a mop bucket and start cleaning up Bob’s pee mess.   That’s when the dream ends.

 

 ***

 

 No wonder I woke up tired.

 

 

 

 

File Directory Error, Case No. 1

A flu shot in the left arm, a pneumonia shot in the right arm = two sore upper arms and a dream about flying in a dirigible though fantastical villages in the Antarctic, interspersed with hurtling down perilous cliffs on a Chinese narrow gauge train at the speed of a bullet train, while avoiding  penguins with hawks-bill turtle beaks and rabid pug dogs.

Film credits:

1.       “Voodoo River” by Robert Crais for the mental image of a hundred pound turtle’s beak, the book I was reading before I fell asleep;

2.       The apparently lonely man at the veterinary clinic’s reception desk who obviously didn’t want to end the quality time with the vet and talked incessantly about the chubby, bug-eyed pug on a leash at his feet, for the fifteen minutes I was there.

3.       My integrated, 24/7 dream software for the rest.

File under:

ALL NIGHT, EVERY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES            

 

Current Events

I was shocked beyond belief when someone’s cell phone rang during the hearings before the United States Supreme Court.  The justices were protected behind bullet-proof glass, to be sure, but how could a live cell phone have gotten past security?

And, now that I mention it, just where WAS security?  I didn’t recall going through security to get into the courtroom where the Supreme Court had chosen to hold the Affordable Health Care Act (Obabacare) hearings.  Historic hearings, at that.  Three days of hearings, each day on a different aspect in the challenges to the act.

I’d missed the first day of hearings because of illness, I told my boss—my editor at the Anchorage newspaper where I work as a reporter covering the courts.  (I coughed frequently, just to show him  how sick I was.)  Then I promised I’d make up for it.  I had a plan to interview several local attorneys who had attended the hearings the previous day, and to make certain I was being fair, I planned interviews with both Republican and Democrat lawyers, asking each to give me a synopsis of the previous day’s arguments.

Then off I went to the Federal Building, which was behind a row of storefront cafes and shops.  By following the crowd, I found the proper auditorium courtroom.  I’d never been in this particular courtroom before and didn’t know where the press box was until I spotted well-known reporter Sheila sitting in a special section at the right front.

There was one problem with the plush over-stuffed press box seats:  they all leaned to the left so much I couldn’t stay in my own seat, but found myself leaning on my neighbor to the left.  That neighbor, by the way, was my actual neighbor, who just happens to be a Democrat and used to be a reporter.

I kept surveying the spectators filling the courtroom, looking for the attorneys I wanted to interview.  A few rows back, I heard a bunch of women chant, “Free Mr. Zimmerman!  Free Mr. Zimmerman!”  Good grief, I thought.  Demonstrations in front of our Supreme Court justices and inside the courtroom, no less.  What has this country come to?  I had no idea what their cause was, though the name seemed familiar.

The hearing was supposed to start at 1 PM.  All the justices were seated and apparently ready to hear arguments.  A woman I assumed to be an intern began microphone checks by singing a couple lines, to a smattering of applause.  Then each justice tested his/her own mic by doing the same, each to great applause. Chief Justice Roberts has a great singing voice, by the way.  My neighbor and I began discussing which blonde was Sandra Day O’Connor because there were two blondes in black robes.

I was still puzzling about this while trying to keep from sliding left off my seat--some vague memory about Justice O’Connor retiring a few years prior--when the cell phone went off just as it was Justice Ginsburg’s turn for a mic test.

I looked behind me, aghast at the effrontery of someone leaving their cell phone turned on during arguments before the United States Supreme Court, even if they were in an Anchorage, Alaska, courtroom.

That’s when I realized it was my phone ringing.  My land line, not my cell phone.  I was at home, in bed, and sound asleep.  The whole thing had been a dream--metaphors, current events, and all. 

I woke up laughing, laughed through my shower, laughed while getting dressed, laughed as I uncovered Pablo’s cage—who immediately took offense because he thought I was laughing at him. 

“No, Pablo, I’m not laughing at you” I said, “I’ve just been watching too much news lately.”

(This kind of stuff never stops.)

Putting Dreams to Rest

I have recurring dreams with various subject matters, if the utter nonsense that makes up these dreams can be referred to as subject matters, thereby erroneously bestowing them with some veracity.

I am really, really tired of some of those dreams yet they play on the dream screen with the annoying repetition of “ring around the collar, ring around the collar.”  For those of you who weren’t around in the 60’s, replace that ad with one of today's more annoying auto insurance commercials.

Last night was a review of the decade's finest.  Times and locations were lumped together in a large bowl without regard to chronology and reality.  Into that, my dream-baker combined  the owning of a restaurant, an RV park, the log home my parents built and in which I grew up, the log-sided playhouse there, my husband, litter clean-up, and firing an employee for theft.  Wee pieces of reality that become completely unrecognizable in this new batter.
 

That's me in 1952 sweeping the walk in front of my playhouse.

Fold in a guy who gives horseback trips out of a nearby town, windows that wouldn’t stay closed, window blinds that wouldn’t stay down, firewood, my John Deere riding lawn mower, and ear plugs.

Frost with multiple layers of idiocy and sprinkle with improbable connections.

Stir well, half-bake at 98.6 degrees, and stand back.

I won’t go into the moronic details.  What I want to tell you is that during that dream I had a rare flash of brilliance, and my dreams are not known for brilliance of any kind.

This is what happened:

Several years ago, I dreamed my John Deere riding lawn mower suffered a serious mechanical problem.   My husband was out of town, so I dismantled it down to the last bolt and o-ring.  Ever since then I’ve been dream-nagging my husband to reassemble it so I can mow the lawns. 

Forget reality.  There’s nothing wrong with my John Deere riding mower and my husband died four years ago.  Yet, I survey the mass of pieces and nag ad nauseam as I watch my lawns overgrow.  Remember:  He's deceased.  Even in death he gets no peace.

Except for last night.

Last night, I looked at him and suggested we haul the billions of pieces to the John Deere dealer in Soldotna and have Vern, the head mechanic, reassemble it. 

My husband, though a gifted mechanic, was always reluctant to take on basket cases (the mower, not me), so he thought that a great idea.

And then came my flash of brilliance:  “You know,” I said, “It probably will cost as much in labor to have Vern reassemble the mower as it would to buy a new one…”

OMG!  I sure hope that idea puts that recurring dream to rest.

Bizarro

Last night I dreamed I was on the 80^th floor of a high rise building. Suddenly, wind caused the building to break in half right at the 80^th floor, and the top half fell over. I walked, jumped, and slid down ruined stairwells to the ground.

When I went up to my loft this morning, all the drawers on my filing cabinets were ajar.

Must have been an earthquake during the night.

I find it fascinating how real life events become incorporated into dreams, but how to explain my diligent rescue of numerous packages of frozen Green Giant veggies as I made my way down that ruined dream stairwell?

In my case, dreaming is much like watching bizarre movies all night long.

Hard Rock Dreams and Dreamers

I'm a dreamer. I'm a dreamer in every sense of the word, but especially a night-time dreamer.

My dreams are vivid in color, texture and content. Sometimes they scare me, fraught with every negative emotion known to humans that they are. Sometimes they amuse me, sometimes they comfort me, and sometimes they lead to endless confusion and uncertainty--like the story I'm going to tell you now.

For years I've had a memory of being a frightened passenger in a vehicle struggling through snow along a steep, narrow, winding road, climbing higher and higher in the mountains, and wishing I was the driver. The next two memories in this particular circumstance are of climbing a narrow wooden staircase to the second floor of a very old building, and of opening the door to a room holding a narrow cot. The next blurry slide is of a small room where food was offered for sale. Then, snow, a rope tow, and skis.

That's all. I never remembered who the driver was or whether or not I actually skied there, yet a insubstantial thought of poor snow conditions struggles to rise from the inkiness of forgotten memories.

Then a few years ago I was reading through some letters I'd written in 1965, and came across a brief mention of a friend named Bill inviting me to go skiing at Independence Mine on a particular weekend.

Since then I've been trying to remember if I did. Was that long ago trip the nucleus of my memories? Did I go? Or was the outing canceled and I just dreamed I'd gone? Could that feeling of fear I remembered as the driver tried to keep the car from plunging over the steep mountainside be real, or a dream memory?

And what about that bunkhouse, the stairs, the room with a narrow cot? What about the other fleeting images? Is my brain making them up to fill in the spaces between the stronger ones?

When I woke up in the bed of my pickup after cruising around the Alaska State Fair a couple weeks ago, a soft rain--more like mist--was falling. I packed up and headed north from the fairgrounds. I pulled into a gas station and topped off the tank, and drove north again.

Some miles later I made a left turn onto Hatcher Pass road. I was heading for Independence Mine, a place I know I haven't been since 1965--if I ever did go there to begin with. Soon I reached the Little Su river (Little Susitna).







And some signs about Hatcher Pass.








The road narrowed and began to climb into the mountains. I passed several bikers, in-line skaters, and their escort car. I think these were high school athletes in training.



Higher and higher I climbed, looking down on the switch-backed road and the Little Su far below.



Then, nearing the four thousand foot level, I reached the parking lot of the mine, which is now part of the Alaska State Park system.


Well, I thought, there it is--the bunkhouse I remembered. Or did I? Had I simply seen photos of the mine and incorporated them into my dreams?


I climbed the steps of the bunkhouse, the building with the red railings. All the doors were locked, but I was able to see through one window what appeared to be a small meeting room. That's when another memory surfaced--one of ordering food in this very small room.





I walked around the grounds, waiting for the Main House to open at 1 o'clock. I had some questions I wanted to ask. Finally I saw lights on and went inside.

That's gold in that ore.

The young woman at the counter couldn't answer my questions. "It's only been part of the state park system since 1989," she said. "I don't know anything about what was here in 1965."


Eventually I back-tracked out of the parking area and towards this road.



But first, I stopped at Hatcher Pass Lodge. I thought maybe someone here would know.



I placed an order for a turkey sandwich to go and wandered around the cafe. I asked a young woman if there had been a rope tow at the mine in the 1960s. She didn't know, and mentioned that Hap, the owner, had just left.

"Hap," I said. "Hap Wurlitzer?" She answered yes. I laughed. Hap is someone I know only in that I know who he is. I doubt he'd recognize my name, but his has long been associated with the skiing world in Alaska.


And then the lady who was preparing my order came out of the kitchen and led me down a long hallway. She pointed at the following picture.


And there it was--the rope tow in my dreams.

Out in the dining room was another picture, one showing the current metamorphosis of the area--cross-country skiing.


When my sandwich was ready, I went out to my truck and headed for the Hatcher Pass road just down the road.


I opened the lunch box. Well, REAL turkey. That's something I haven't seen from a restaurant since I sold my own place in 1996.



The turn off. This is substantially steeper than it looks in this picture. I wish I'd stopped and taken a picture of the road conditions after the turnoff, but I thought keeping the truck moving with both hands on the steering wheel was the better idea. Suffice it to say, I did a lot of boulder-dodging, and I do mean BOULDER.




No, there are no guard rails on this road.




Driving conditions.



On and on I drove, usually at ten to fifteen miles an hour. The scenery was spectacular. The mist and rain set the perfect ambiance for my dream/memories. I knew I'd never been over this section of the road, and I still wasn't sure about the mine part.

An operating mine.

A beaver lodge in a small pond on the tundra.

A closer view of the lodge and dam.

I drove on and one through misty mountains and tundra.

Then suddenly, in the space of one switch-back, I was back down below the timberline.


The rest of the drive was boring. There were lots of moose hunters parked and camped at various places along the road. Eventually I reached the Parks highway intersection in Willow, turned left and headed south--back through Wasilla (Sarah Palin's home town) and on towards Anchorage.

I thought about the journey I'd just made. My memories, or dream memories, of skiing at Independence Mine matched the weather--shrouded in mist. I still don't know if I ever went there, or simply lived that adventure in a dream.


(I leave today --Monday--on the first leg of my trip to China and Tibet, and don't have time to do justice to a story of the mine, so I'll post the following photos of informational signs. If you're interested in knowing more, click on the pix to enlarge them so you can read them. Or, Google Independence Mine.)















This sign is placed where you can identify, by comparing the photo with the terrain, the very spot on the mountain where the first gold discovery was made.

Invoice for movie rentals from Columbia pictures.