Where is my bag?

So I flew to Chicago last night, and amazingly, my plane landed early. AWESOME. I made my way from the gate to Nuts on Clark where I procured an obscene amount of popcorn, then made my way to baggage claim. Upon arrival, along with 327 other people, I stood mesmerized in front of the monitors looking for my flight to determine where I should go stand and wait for my brand new red bag to begin circling. And so I located my flight, and it said it had arrived, but there was no baggage claim posted yet. So I waited. And then I called my mom. And then I waited, and still, nothing was posted. Finally I just decided to go down to the 3-4 Southwest baggage claim areas and just watch for the flight to appear on one of the boards. And it wasn't there. And so I waited. And waited some more. And still, the San Jose flight wasn't showing up. And then the flight number showed up, but it said it was from Ontario, but I went to stand by the carousel anyway.

And then I remembered that I flew out of Oakland...not San Jose...

In my dreams, I'm friends with Green Day

So, here's what happens when you fall asleep watching the Green Day biography on, well, you know, The Biography Channel...

My friend Marianne was having a party for me, and there were going to be about 30 people, but then the number of folks doubled to 60...I have no idea why. So I'm at this hotel where there's a large pool, waiting for my friend and this party to start. I have no idea what the party is for, just that she wanted to have it for me - thanks Marianne! You rock!!

So, I'm sitting there with some other friends, I think Jill was there but can't remember any others, by the pool, watching lots of, well, let's just say it, very good looking guys, play in the water. I believe America Ferrera (a.k.a. Ugly Betty) was there, and she was also my friend, which was cool. She went swimming I think. And then, out of nowhere, there's Billie Joe Armstrong and the rest of the band, just hanging out, talking to me. And they're so excited to be the surprise guest at this party. So they're only talking to me because apparently I'm the only one that knows they're the surprise guest.

We're just sitting by the pool, hanging out, and then it morphs into them practicing in the bathroom - huge bathroom by the way. And wow, they totally rock! So I watch them practice and then we're back at the pool, and there are other people around, but for some reason, they don't know I'm sitting there with Green Day. 

And then Billie Joe high fives me. And then I woke up. And now I just want to go back to sleep and hang with the band some more. Dang it!

In my dreams, I drive crazy and take care of babies

I have no explanation for any of this...but it's what my brain created overnight...

Dream sequence one: Driving a mini and parking it in the tiniest enclosed garage I've ever seen in my life...backing up far enough to make the back doors of said garage come open, then pulling it up and manually closing those doors. Why? Who knows?

Dream sequence two: Driving an old-school SUV, like a Chevy Blazer or something through a very narrow street which could have been a sidewalk and almost driving it off a cliff; the SUV literally balanced on its nose for a second while I yelled to a guy standing in a store right next to the occurring event and asked for his help. By the time he came out, I'd managed to get all four tires back on the ground, but he got in anyway and then we just drove around.

Dream sequence three: Friends had a baby and for some ridiculous reason they asked me to take care of it while they were away, and not just for an evening, but for days. Another friend was there and he was helping me, and then it was a different couple and a different baby, and then there was a cat.

I think that final segment is what finally woke me up because there's no way in life anyone would ever ask me to take care of their baby for more than an hour. I can't figure out if I need more sleep, or just better sleep, but man, these dreams lately are insane!

Welcome, once again, to my own personal crazy...

In my dreams, I work with Rick Castle

That's right. Last night, I dreamed I worked with Rick Castle, you know, Nathan Fillion's character on the show Castle? Yeah. That's right. And frankly, despite his overall awesomeness, it was not a pleasant job. I can't be sure, but I don't think I was the Kate character, but I was very detective like. And there was blood. And dead bodies. And we were in some sort of old farmhouse with a huge kitchen. And pretty much the whole dream was wandering through this house finding blood and then something/someone dead. And then at one point, we were at a basketball game and people were serving us food. 

OMG, I'm completely cracked!!

But if a job opens up where I'm required to wander around a house with Nathan Fillion all day? I'm totally in.

Trains, Popcorn and a Stolen Laptop

So apparently, when you're traveling by train through the small towns of Wyoming, you can go through a drive-thru where you can by movie popcorn. Oh yeah. Awesome. At least in my dream it was. But then it got all crazy - because of course, drive-thru movie popcorn is in no way crazy. Because we were on a train, and there were strange random characters roaming about, but then we were in a car. And when we exited the drive-thru, we were on foot. And there were four ways to go but I couldn't figure it out, and my friend who was with me just made her own way and didn't talk to me about it. The four ways to go were based on letters, but I wasn't sure what the letters were for or why we would choose one over the other. But I gotta say, I love the idea that you can buy movie popcorn at a drive-thru.

Apparently at some points on said train trip, you can also lay down on benches and talk to people who will tell you where on the train ride you will be the most lonely. You will also see friends you haven't seen or heard from in years that are suddenly taking the same journey as you.

Prior to being on my own personal crazy train, I was driving through a parking lot at a university - not the one where I currently work mind you, nor one that I've ever worked at, but I was in a huge parking lot where cars were coming and going, and I passed up one space because it was far away from where I was going, but then I never parked the car. The dream just evolved into this whole train thing.

This was all after waking up from a horrible dream where someone stole my laptop from the trunk of my car, but I saw him do it and ran out of the building screaming at him. Mind you, I'd left the trunk of the car open when I went into a building to take someone some mugs, and I was watching, but also distracted by writing notes about the mugs and who they were for. And when I saw the guy walking toward the car, I ran out of the building and down some stairs. And I was screaming so much that I scared him so he gave it back to me. And then I gave him a lecture about how it really wasn't that expensive to just go and buy his own laptop, and he was seriously scared of me and walked with me back to my car where I put the laptop back in and closed the trunk, but then I was afraid he might have a gun and woke myself up. And now my throat hurts.

Lost...and forced to empty dishwasher of knives

I'm not exactly sure what it says about me that I dreamed about Lost...you know, the TV show...other than I'm possibly a little bit TOO excited about its return in a couple of weeks, but I'm really not sure what it says about me that I was on the island and somehow forced to empty a dishwasher full of knives and random dishes.
 
Seriously.
 
This is the dream I just awoke from.
 
Oh yeah, and also in this dream, there was an animatronic donkey that looked and sounded like Donkey from Shrek, and he was getting hitched to some sort of robotic man that looked and sounded a lot like Lorne from Angel. It was like because Shrek wasn't there, Donkey needed a new friend. To be fair, Lorne is also green, so maybe that's the connection.
 
Oh My Gosh. My brain is cracked!!
 
So yeah...I'm hanging out with the Lost people, and we're going back to the island, and no one really wants to, but of course Ben is there and his crazy convincing powers convince us all to go, and as soon as we land, someone shoots at us, but they don't kill anyone because we're expecting it and have placed a decoy jacket on the beach for them to shoot. Then the pilot guy, Frank, is actually killed. And I'm stuck in the corner of the beach trying to unload this dishwasher while this Lorne/Donkey partnership ceremony is being performed, and I almost cut myself with a knife because whatever genius has loaded the dishwasher has put the knives all facing pointy side up.

And oh yeah, Sawyer was there in all his nearly shirtless glory, so at least that was a teensy bit delicious.
 
Number one, I clearly need to watch less TV and number two, really? I'm lost on the island and have to empty a dishwasher? Really???

Yes. That window's still broken.

Why is it that when you know something's broken, you will attempt to use it more frequently than you ever used it before it actually broke? All kinds of crazy.

On Christmas Eve, when pulling out of a parking garage in San Francisco, my window made this horrific clicking sound as it neared the top when I was rolling it up. It echoed so badly inside the garage that I thought someone was either shooting at me or had just set off firecrackers. I pulled out when I realized it was actually my window and then tried to make it stop. Note to self: release the button and the noise will actually stop. I figured the problem was that the window wasn't getting to the top and that it was getting stuck on something. I couldn't see what it was, and it was mostly up, so I headed back down the road...with a slight breeze on my head from the tiny crack between the top of the window and the actual top of the door.

When I got home, I manually pushed the window up and hoped that would fix it. I tried rolling the window down and then back up only to be surprised that the noise was still there. Yes. Stupid. I pushed it back up manually and actually didn't deal with it again for several days as I borrowed a friend's larger car while I had Christmas company in town.

When I retrieved my car I sort of hoped that the problem would have magically repaired itself. Look, I already told you I was crazy, so just go with it. Clearly the problem was still there, and I drove it right to the repair shop to see if they could tell me what the real problem was. I demonstrated the noise and they knew right away what I needed. Unfortunately, they couldn't fix it right away so I made an appointment for about six days later.

"Just don't use that window," he said as I was leaving. "That might make it worse."

"Right," I said. "No problem."

Of course, I don't think I need to tell you that I completely forgot that when I decided I needed to run through a drive-through and get a snack. And of course, the second I hit the button to automatically roll the window down was the exact second I remembered that I wasn't supposed to do it. Lucky me, I got to hear that fabulous clicking noise again when I rolled it up. Thankfully, it didn't actually break. The really dumb thing was, that wasn't the last time I did it. Seriously. I needed one of those childproof window switches so I couldn't touch it.

The window's fixed now, but good grief. I was ridiculous. I can't believe how hard it was to remember that yes, the window was still broken.