Dreams

I dreamed the other night that I was at my sister's house. It was filthy, as usual, but there were commodes (toilets) all over, like some giant outdoor toilet (except it was indoors). These toilets weren't separated from each other--they were only a foot or two apart, and there were toilets of all sorts, including some that haven't been invented and never will be. And each one of these toilets was about as dirty as it could get. My sister's daughter, who has cerebral palsy, was sick again, and this time it was mono. In reality, my sister's house has two toilets that are always filthy and her daughter is always sick. In the dream my sister was packing up, planning to visit me for a couple of weeks. She and her daughter were going to ride back with us to Michigan, and I was telling her no, she couldn't, that she needed to stay there while her daughter was sick, and she needed to clean up these filthy toilets.

Last night I dreamed that my younger son and his wife were getting a divorce. She wouldn't change her mind, and he didn't seem too unhappy about it. I was really distressed, though, trying to get them to reconsider. In reality, it's a constant worry to me that one day she'll get fed up with his sitting at home, not working or going to school, while she supports them at a job she isn't nuts about. A few nights ago, I dreamed that they were moving into a trailer (it was padded all inside with pinkish carpeting) and could no longer keep their two cats. I asked them what they had done with them, thinking they had given them to her mother to keep for them, but no, they said they'd taken the cats out to the woods and released them into the wild. I was screaming at them that the cats would die, that they couldn't live in the wild.

Of course, I could get all psychological and wonder about the meanings behind those dreams, but it's easy to see that the dreams reflect very real worries. One of my great desires is that my younger son and his wife will both wind up with good jobs and that they will be happy. I feel that my older son and his wife are on the road to success, and I'd love to be able to stop worrying about the younger ones. As for my sister, her constant depression will sit on her until she dies, I fear, and as long as she feels the way she does, she won't have a house that passes an inspection by the health department. Some things I just cannot change. I can only wish and hope and dream.

My husband e-mailed me from his mother's house in Louisiana. He'd spent the day helping his younger brother clean out one of the storage sheds in her back yard. They encountered heat, humidity, lots of ants, and lots of evidence of rats. Books were ruined from rat chewing, and there were droppings everywhere. He said he had to get a shower afterwards to try to wash off the Hanta virus he felt was enveloping him. I wish they'd worn masks, but I doubt they did.

He'd had a dream in which I was arguing with Charles Nelson Reilly over formatting margins. I e-mailed him back and said it should at least have been William Safire. I doubt Reilly cares one way or another about margin formatting, but Safire would have a dozen or so rules about it.

It was kind of quiet this morning. I did the usual stuff--got up, made coffee, petted the cat, read the newspaper circulars and comics, watched the Sunday morning show on CBS. The cat is under my desk sleeping, which is where he has been most of the time since my husband left. He does manage to wake me up at least once a night when he jumps down onto the floor from the half-wall outside my bedroom, where he sits guard. It sounds like a bowling ball has fallen out of its bag from about four feet up. And of course, then he has to walk around and meow pitifully for a while. I've learned not to say anything to him. If I do, then he'll "talk back." If I wake up during the night, I tend to stay awake for a while, so I haven't been too happy about the cat chat.

On a positive note, the weather forecast of snow has managed to get better. The forecast is omitting precipitation during the day tomorrow, and it's possible there will be no snow at all, just a little rain. I can always hope. And dream. S.