Last night I had the strangest dreams….

Yep, my quiet, forgettable dreaming nights have ended far too soon.  Once again, I’m taunted by dreams which remain in my mind long after I’ve achieved wakefulness as a result of both my musical cat and strong doses of caffeine.  Once again, I’m waking with the first thought in my head being “Huh????”

This morning’s dreams seemed to focus around bathrooms.  (OK, so my bladder was also telling me to get up, in not-so-subtle ways!)

In the first dream, I had to return to Target for something.  I had been there earlier and the place was pretty empty, but this time, the parking lot was a mess and people were waiting in long lines for rest rooms which were placed outside on the north wall of the building.  I really needed to go and noticed that there were a couple of them which had very short lines, so I joined one.  The woman in line before me went in and the next thing I knew, she had picked the whole toilet up and turned it upside down and was shaking it!  She said she was unclogging it, but in an utterly novel manner!!!  As I waited, I started talking to a young woman I didn’t recognize, but somehow knew worked for my old employer.  She was telling me about a task order they were getting for $208,000 which they’d been expecting as it used up the money from something-or-other.  I told her I already knew about it as I’d run into one of the owners of the company when I was in Target earlier, and he’d told me about it.  (weird as they’d have no real reason to bring up company business with me, especially in the middle of a store, but I did say the dreams were weird!)  As we talked, people apparently cut in line ahead of us without our realizing it, and there were now a couple of dozen people ahead of us.  I finally said, “screw it!”, told my bladder to wait and went into the store to get what I needed.

Back at the house, I was having some trouble with my bath tub, and a plumber just happened to be there to shut off the water by crawling under the tub (ok, so I can’t figure this one out either, but wait!  It gets weirder!)

We fixed the problem and I assume, turned the water back on.   Meanwhile, we had a pad of cement in the back yard on which we were installing some kind of mechanism.  Later in the day, when I turned on the shower, no water came out.  A man who just happened to be there suggested that it was electrical and, in fact, there were wires under my tub, though heaven only knows why!  There was an opening under the tub, but it was no longer big enough for anyone to crawl under to turn the water on or off.  I also mentioned that it had been working just fine in the morning!

The man told me that we had a limited amount of time to find the problem, though I wasn’t clear as to whether it was because he had to leave, would only fix it for free for a certain amount of time, or because it would prove dangerous if left for too long.  At any rate, I remembered the pad in the back yard, so we went outside to check on the installation.  There was a single lightbulb on a pole and when I turned it on, it caused a spark, then went out.  He determined that that was the problem and went off to fix it.

So I’ll be left wondering how electrical and plumbing can conspire to cross each other’s wires and result in failure while finishing the last of my Christmassing and trying to remember where I put a particular gift which needs to be delivered!

On another note, I failed to find an acceptable Chinese restaurant for tomorrow’s festivities, so we are deviating from tradition tonight to have Italian food for dinner!  These days, the Chinese aren’t the only ones who work on Christmas Eve, thanks to good old, American greed!  But I am going to feed into that greed to honor or family tradition of Christmas Eve dinner out.  I will not, however, buy into this “shop around the clock” mentality that companies are establishing this year!  I feel bad for the people who have to work when the rest of us are snug in our beds, just to satisfy some corporation’s idea of grabbing that last buck!

But the choice belongs to the shoppers.  If not enough shop in the middle of the night to warrant keeping the lights on all night, I’m sure that those corporations will rethink their strategy for next year!

I can still wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and hope that everyone’s holiday is bright and filled with family, friends and, most of all, love!

My gratitudes today are:
1. I am grateful for the love and humor with which I am surrounded.
2. I am grateful to be able to provide a safe temporary home for my friends beautiful, fluffy boy.
3. I am grateful for all of the blessings I have received this year.
4. I am grateful for the new life I have undertaken, and all of the opportunities it is giving me already.
5. I am grateful for continued opportunities to help make the world a better place, and the examples my daughter sets for me.

Love and light