Guilt alleviated? Probably not

Well, they have that poor reporter up on Sylvan Hill again this morning.

It's 34 degrees out right now (that's 1 to my readers outside of the US), which means it isn't freezing. It's also not raining. The forecast calls for rain, but it isn't raining right NOW, it will probably start later in the day. So my morning companions at the Channel 12 newsdesk are scrambling: the lead story is snow, freezing rain and treacherous driving conditions. Except it hasn't rained in a week, so the ground is really dry, and though it has been in the 20s and 30s (you can do the Celsius conversion yourselves here) all week, generally speaking when the clouds roll in around here it means the temperatures rise. So as the anchorman and -woman bait us early risers with frightening lead-ins about wintry mixes and advise us to wrap our pipes and put socks on our pets and stay off the roads, the weatherman's segment is all about what would be happening IF it started to rain right now at ... 34 degrees. Not much, but I'm no meteorologist. And poor Marilyn Deutsch is trapped up there on the Sylvan overpass with nothing to do.

Didn't I hear something about a war going on a little while back?

So Thursday night I had one of those really vivid dreams where you are sure you are not dreaming (I even asked myself several times IN the dream if I was dreaming, and the answer each time was no) that was more like a nightmare but had a little subconscious message hidden away in there. I dreamed that I missed a whole week, and suddenly found myself in Mexico - not Isla, where I am going next Friday night, but Cancun, and VCI (which makes sense, been there plenty of times). I don't really know HOW I got there, I just found myself there. The problem with this was that once I realized I was there, I also realized a few things I missed along with that extra week: I didn't clean my apartment, I didn't buy more kibble, I still had my keys and didn't give them to Tracy (who is checking on the kits), I didn't have my passport. Apparently I had luggage, because that wasn't one of my dream-concerns, and I had no problem finding my way to the bar (that was the opening scene of my dream drama), and furthermore, I hadn't forgotten Mark, who was over there under a palapa taking a nap. Mark? Yep, Mark. Apparently I did forget that I am travelling with Dave and Marita.

Despite people from my past that often pop up in these kinds of dreams being peppered around the bar area (one in particular, Viki L., who was a roommate about 10 years ago, with whom I shared some beers and my lamentations of all the stuff I didn't do during this week that I missed), I was still convinced that this was not a dream (do you ever have dreams where you are, like, being chased by Big Foot or something and in the middle of your fear you think to yourself, hey, this might be a dream, and then you realize, well shoot, it IS a dream, so really, I don't have to run so hard, I'll wake up soon enough? I kept asking myself, this has GOT to be a dream, but the answer was the same - no, it's not, this is really happening. How can I trust my dreamself NOW?).

Being the problem solver that I am, I figured out how to handle the problem, and phoned my mom back in Beaverton. I told her, okay, so I missed a week and I still have my keys. I need to FedEx my keys to you, and then I need you to go into my apartment, get my passport, then call Tracy, and get the keys to her. Then I need you to FedEx my passport back to me so I can get back into the US next week. And while you're in my apartment, can you feed the cats and spruce up a bit so Tracy doesn't think I'm a slob?

Here's where the message comes in.

She answered, You know, you never call me, you never come by unless you have to, and now, you need me to do this stuff for you because you're in a jam. So no, I'm not going to help you. And then she hung up.

Woops. Hello, guilty conscience! Did you think I wouldn't listen to you without the panic of the crazy dream? Oh, right, probably not.

How did it end? I imagine I called someone else and had them do whatever and all that, frankly, the dream lost all vividness after the message was sent. Eventually I woke up and realized that I was in my own bed in Beaverton in January. But the message hasn't gone away. So you can imagine what I will probably do later on today (call my mom, duh). I won't tell you why it takes a vivid dream and the retelling of said dream over and over again to get me psyched up enough to make that call, that's a story for another day (or not. That's probably a story for a memoir). But be assured, somewhere between my Target run, thoroughly cleaning the apartment, pre-packing and tanning, I will phone my mother.

I know a sign when I get one.