Operation Mickey

As I mentioned yesterday, at least one mouse was visiting my home.  Being not at all cool with those arrangements, I'd set a bunch of traps to remove said visitors.  Late last night as I was falling asleep I heard one of the traps fire.  That didn't take long.  But no way was I going to go deal with the situation at that exact moment.  I'll just dream about it instead.

So I had this dream...
I woke up to a big black rat in the trap.  The mouse trap wasn't quite strong enough to kill the rat, but the rap was quite trapped.  So when I came into the living room to turn on the television the rat made eye contact with me and rolled it's eyes as if to say "this is ridiculous, can I go now?"  Because I had no desire to address a live trapped rat I just left it there.  In walks a live possum.  That thing looked at me too, before it sat on top of the rat in an attempt to keep it warm and comforted.  I got an eye roll from the possum too.  And I'm all "how did a possum get in here?!?" and "what is going on?!?" 
So I start chasing the possum.  It's not in a trap, it can run.  And it runs into some door that I didn't know existed that leads to the stairs and the people who live upstairs, but also to a window in the stair well.  The window is notable because everything else in the house is nice, but this window is in disrepair.  It's opened and the screen is straight up torn out.  Which leads to a discussion with my roommates about getting the house fixed.
To recap - I had a dream where I made it someone else job to fix the house but never delegated emptying the rat from the trap. Priorities?

Back in real life, this dream kind of woke me up.  Shortly after I woke up, I decided to go face Mickey.  I reasoned it was early enough, my brain was probably still too tired to figure out what was going on so that would make it less awful. Why?  I think the big black rat comes from the imagery in this video which I watched yesterday to figure out how to load the traps.  It's one degree less obvious than you'd think.  For reference, the rat in my dream was slightly larger and less plastic than "Mister Mouse" but roughly the same in all other aspects.

The internet also tells me that rats are about evaluating the clutter around you, relevant because I spent so much time last night cleaning.  Possums are about taking a passive stance in things that are happening around me.  I love the imagery of my dream of the Possum coming in and laying on top of the rat.  Trumped.

It will be good for me to be bad at something for a while

Item 1 - life is rough.  I'm at that stage where I could best be described as a sleeping monster.  Seriously.  I am like a bear.  I only want to sleep.  Which culminated in a dream this morning about me kicking out a chipmunk from a double paned window (it was time for it to go) and then discovering I'd also upset an animal that can best be described as part baby tiger and part hamster.  The little animal was panicking and crying and then I started crying when I realized it didn't have any teeth and no mom to give it milk.  I was planning on how to give it milk through an eye dropper when I woke up.  Thank goodness too.  That wasn't a good dream.

Item 2 - don't poop your pants is a phrase most runners know.  I entertained the Bolder Options training group last night with my use of that information. 

Item 3 - It's hot.  It's 9pm and still 90*.  I was thinking about a run tomorrow morning but may decide against it.

Item 4 - it will be good to be bad at something for a while.  I just started to share my time between my current job and another department at work.  In the new department I am brand new and in that stage where you have to completely learn everything again.   It's hard right now and perhaps contributing to the sleepiness.  Ultimately it will be good for me.

Item 5 - I'm dating a new bike.

I asked the Bolder crew if they knew anyone with an extra road bike.  While a mountain bike is better than nothing, it can be pretty rough slow.  My mountain bike is slow.  I took the new bike out on a long first date around the lakes (way too crowded) and headed home on the Greenway and Bikeways.

How fast was I going?  A billion times faster than on my mountain bike.  For reference, see how slow I was here. 

Things I liked about this bike:

• The gear shifting situation is much better than my bike.
• It's faster than my bike.
• It weighs less than my bike.
• It's meant to be on the road but not freaked out by the total crap pavement situation we have going on in some places up here.  40th street between Lyndale and 35W, I'm looking at you.

Things I didn't like about this bike:

• Clips on the pedals.  Is this sacrilege or something?  I'm not a fan of the clips.  When I'm in them they make my toes numb and I'm worried I won't be able to get my foot out of them.  When I'm not in them, they hit the ground when I'm turning.
• Honestly not sure if the frame is the right size.  My back and shoulders were killing me on the ride.  It could just be that I'm out of practice.
• Also in the minus column is the speed because now I have to work harder to stop.  So afraid of flying over the handlebars...

 I'm going to date this bike for as long as I'm allowed.  It is fun to have a bike I feel good about and will look forward to riding.

How's Life Been - stomach; training and freaky dreams

How's life been?  I keep having weird dreams and my stomach hates me.

The dreams: I keep having dreams where I'm chasing down wolf spiders and killing them (sorry Chris, you're welcome Dani) or accidentally stepping on snails and salamanders.  If you have some free time look up the symbolism of these animals.  It can't be good that I'm trying to kill them.  I also had a dream where Chris went nuts in a Claire's type store and started taunting the staff and playing with a foursquare ball (serious) with his friends.  Somehow my old school was connected to the mall.  He got in there to hide but I got him out eventually.  (If you know Chris, being a jerk is pretty much the last thing he'd ever do so it was really odd.  Maybe he has an evil twin.)

My stomach: It does this every once n a while.  Tummy and I have entered into negotiations and it seems to be taking food normally at this point.  Yesterday I was on clear liquids.

Training:  This half-marathon is going to be something else.  (It's only a half!?!  Why do runners say that to each other?)  After I ran on Sunday my stomach was mad.  It made me take Monday off.  I took this morning off too after Beth *ahem* couldn't get to her shoes because her floors were being redone (yeah, sure) and Robin excused me from getting out of bed that early.
Tonight I ran with Team:Work.  We're coming up with some good team uniform ideas.  I'd tell you what they are but I want them to stay private until the big day.  Team did good tonight, their first time running eight minutes without stopping.  Congratulations! After that I went to the gym and made up the four miles I didn't run this morning.

In a sick way, I'm looking forward to Thursday's hill run.  I have a couple different courses in mind.  I think I need to stop hill running because the Pikes Peak Marathon is starting to look interesting.  Seriously.  Stop now.

Had a bad bad half-marathon dream

In my dreams...

I was running a half-marathon with Bonnie, not Deb, my actual Flying Pig partner. And the race started inside, in like a gym/sports complex. (Dreams where I'm running indoors never turn out well anyways.)

Bonnie and I went like, a tenth of a mile, and she had to stop and pee. (Wtf?) So I waited for her. Mind you, we were at the back of the racing pack anyways so I wanted to GO.

And here she comes, walking back in her street clothes, "oh, you go on, I decided not to do the race". And I said, "are you kidding, I paid all this money and drove down to Cincinnati to see you, you can't just change your mind like that". And she just sent me on my way.

I was far enough back from the pack that I lost my way and had to run inside a different building. There were all these guys walking around on horses as I'm looking for which path (skyway type deal) to take. And I got stopped when a man on a camel (not a horse, a camel)crossed my path.

Mercifully then I woke up.

I hate dreams where I'm running and can't get anywhere, or where I'm running and can't find the race course. Also, what do horses and camels represent?

So I had this dream and now I'm registered for the marathon...

I realized last night as I was falling asleep that registration is now open for the Twin Cities Marathon. Apparently that thought influenced me because I had this dream... Someone I knew took me to the starting line of the marathon (in my dream it was the Twin Cities Marathon, but the course totally wasn't our marathon) and cheered for me. The course took us through this castle/labyrinth/something and I kept going through it the wrong way and getting bounced back to the beginning. Understand now that I'm running through the halls trying to keep up with the marathoners. And every time I got bounced back I had to wear some different costume, all of which were hot and involved a lot of fur. It was like ground hog day on an acid trip. And I was getting further and further behind everyone else. I also remember one other part of the course that looked kind of like Cathedral Hill and my friend was there too. I don't remember actually finishin the marathon in my dream but I'm sure I did or I woke up from thinking about running in all those costumes.

Today, after all that, I decided to actually register for the marathon. (Hey, now I'm economically invested.) I also registered for the Flying Pig Half Marathon, known by some as Hill Training. I was thinking about running the Minneapolis Half Marathon like last year but I think I've spent enough on race entries for one day. (Though, seriously, to all of you from Minnesota the Minneapolis Half or full Marathon is a great race and a great course.)

This has been a rough week for running and working out in general. Between the snow and my attitude about the gym in the winter, not much is getting done. I might try just going for a walk this weekend. Walking in the snow is fun right? It's not supposed to be that cold.

I just had a really weird dream

And I'm only half awake right now, so this might be a little like those "blogging while drunk" posts. Anyways, at first I was in an operating room while these other doctors were helping an old white guy. For some reason a guy shot the white guy while he was sitting up in his hospital bed. But the shooter didn't mean to hit him. Then the shooter started shooting at whoever he did mean to hit. And the doctors did all this surgery on the old guy. I definitely wanted him to live and didn't like that he was shot.

Then suddenly, I was the one who had to have an operation. It was something about my heart but they had to go through my back. There were two doctors. The young doctor was really cute and I definitely had a crush on him. Anyways, it was emergency surgery, so they just started getting me ready and then they had to lay me there while the anesthesia took effect. Which is not my usual experience with anesthesia which knocks me out in seconds. I admonished them to "poke hard" to make sure I was asleep.

While they were waiting for me to fall asleep, I kicked some girl off the head of my bed so I could lay down. Then the doctors asked me who I wanted as an anesthesiologist. They both wanted someone different and I yelled at them for even asking right then. But then I worried that they didn't get who they wanted and they might not do as good of a job. And then I started worrying about having surgery. You'd think it would have happened sooner. And then I remembered what Amanda said about catheters in surgery so I started imagining that being put in, Oh good, I have to pee anyway, and then I started remembering all these stories about people who hear the surgeon when they're asleep, and hear what they're saying. And then I started thinking about sleeping, and how I'd just wake up in a minute and not know what happened and there would be wonderful drugs. And then I started thinking about trusting god during all the time in between.

And then my alarm went off. And now I don't know how people ever get on the table for surgery.

The worst dream ever

I just had a pretty rough dream. It could be payback for cleaning out the attic.

In the dream, I was living in my old apartment, where I first lived when I moved to Minnesota. I'd just bought half of the house and I was going to share it with Joyce, my old land lady. I had everything I needed, the house was kind of set up and I was trying to avoid clutter.

And then I remembered I had this other apartment in another part of town. I thought, "how am I affording this?" and "I really did just buy part of this house right?" After all those answers came back, I decided I needed to get rid of the other apartment. I think it was in Northeast Minneapolis, which while lovely, has no appeal to me at all. I thought, "Ill just pack up or sell everything in that apartment, I wonder how fast it can happen".

And then I got to the apartment. And in it was all of my grandmother's stuff. In the dream it was a lot nicer and bigger than the stuff she had in real life. There were beds and bed spreads and dressers in just about every room and a gigantic china cabinet. My first thought was "how did this all get up to Minneapolis?" and then I thought, "well, we're just going to have to send it back to Cincinnati" followed by, "oh crap, that'll take for ever. I'll have to pay another month's rent. How am I affording this?"

And I started to pack and was completely overwhelmed. It's important to note that I've moved several times (about half of them in 2004) and have never been simply too overwhelmed to pack. So anyway, I tried to pack and it just wasn't working. I got a little bit done. And then my Uncle Jerry showed up and he helped me go through some of the things and decide what to do with them. (So this would have been his mom's stuff too.) I also couldn't figure out the last time I'd actually lived in the apartment or why I had an apartment in that part of town. I am a South Minneapolis girl.

The most notable thing in the dream: Uncle Jerry showing up and helping me decide what to do. I liked Uncle Jerry when I was a little kid. His son (my cousin) is about six months younger than me and we were always really close. We would spend like all day on Saturday together when we were kids. And then we hit junior high and that stuff was less interesting. I really grew away from them. It seemed like we never had much in common. Adulthood had mildly changed that. Both Jimmy and I work really hard and now Uncle Jerry sees my Mom and Dad more than he used to. It's not like it was when we were kids though.

When I was home I took out a whole bunch of Grandma's stuff and brought it down so Jerry and Mom could look at it and decide what to do with it together. Uncle Jerry's reaction to the pile? "Burn it all". (No. Seriously) I have a few things of my Grandma's, mostly her cooking stuff. She had a lot of nice stuff that Mom will never use. She was one of those great old women who would "entertain" with the crystal and the silver tea sets and the fine china. Mom feels bad that she'll never use it. I feel bad that Mom feels bad. And now I'm dreaming about it.

About my dreams

I've had three most unusual dreams lately. Just so long as they're not telling me that green aliens are going to come down and posses my body, you can interpret to your heart's content.

Dream 1: Basically I was pregnant. Ok, stop. It wasn't a sex dream. You think I'd put that here? But I was pregnant and I was fine with the whole thing, on an even keel. Some people were more excited than me but I felt like it wasn't really any of their business. The dad was around too but I didn't recognize him. Anyways, I was surprised by how ok I was with being pregnant in my dream. If that was a really pregnancy I'd be totally freaking out.

Dream 2: I was taking care of a little boy. He was not my little boy but he did like me better than his mom who was mostly clueless but not mean or abusive. The little boy had an alergic reaction to something, I think his lip started to swell up. At first I didn't call for help (I don't know why not). After a minute or two I tried to call for help but I couldn't make any of the phones work. Eventually I was able to call the ambulance and they took him. And when he was feeling better he came and sat in my lap and not his mom's (which is how I know he liked me better).

Dream 3: This one was last night by the way. The dream started with my having the kid. The next time I saw the kid, it was like toddler size. I thought "wow, that's a big new born, it can walk and everything". And I was nursing in the dream. (I cant believe I'm sharing this.) That seemed to be an important part of the dream. And there was another lady in the dream who was trying to help me take care of this kid. Although, she was not the mom and the little boy still liked me better. I kept getting really tired from nursing all the time. Every time I laid down to rest in my dream, I'd realize all the stuff I couldn't say or think about other parents since I now was one and that made me really panicky, but at least I liked the kid.

Common threads on all these dreams: Most importantly, the kids were normal sizes and shapes. Even the kid who was older than a newborn was the right size for a one or two year old. Every once in a while I have these dreams where the kids are shaped like barbie dolls and I loose them between cushions or it's just a head and the feet are supposed to grow out of the neck. Those are the worst.