non-lucid

I've gone to visit my mother. She's working as a nurse at a hospital, and I can't go back to see her where the patients are, so I'm in the waiting room. I look over and see a large four-post bed in a corner next to some double doors. It's made of some very nice cherry. I hear a man explaining to passers-by that it's what hospital beds used to look like, and he demonstrates how the surface can tilt, and the built-in traction assembly for broken legs. He seems to be a meausium tour guide type person. I walk over to take a closer look, and realize that the man is Norm Abram. We shake hands, he explains how he built the bed and I explain how he got me interested in woodworking over 20 years ago with his TV show. When my mother finally gets a chance to take a break and come out to the waiting area to see me, I'm beaming with excitement as I relate my experience.

I'm driving home through a small town. I see someone important like a senator a little ways ahead, and see his secret service detail fanned out around him as they move. Somehow now we're all walking on foot. We seem to be headed in the same direction, so I take the opportunity to watch them. Our path leads us away from the main street of the town until I realize that there's almost no one else around. I notice that one of the agents has his pistol in his hand. I shout "gun!" since I don't see any other threat and the agent is looking at his principle. The other agents rush the senator away, and I'm left facing a very angry Harrison Ford, gun still in hand, demanding an explanation. As I try to explain that he's the one that looked like a threat to me, he doesn't get less angry.

It's the big day. I'm marrying friend B's sister H today. A bunch of people stayed over at my parent's house last night, including most of her and my families. This morning I'm putting on my tux in the downstairs half bathroom. I'm trying to straighten my tie and attach some kind of self-tightening battery thing around my neck at the same time, but I end up loosening one as I tighten the other. Around my waist I've got a sash thing that has carrots and tomatoes in it. Finally I decide I look presentable enough and walk out to the kitchen. I wave to all of the family people sitting in the living room and thank them for coming. My mother and several others are cooking breakfast in the kitchen, and I decide to give them the carrots but not the tomatoes.

Now I'm at the climbing gym where the wedding is going to be. It's the climbing gym I always go to IRL, but the layout is completely wrong. I avoid the seating area where all the final preparations are occurring and instead walk around near the wall. A mother is teaching her son how to use an autobelay. I decide to go around them and go into the bathroom. The urinal is 5 feet wide and has an opening that goes through the wall into the loading dock area. When I come out, B is standing nearby holding a clipboard. He asks me if I want to help save the arcade cabinet games section, and I can't tell if he's joking or not. I reply that no, I'm going to go marry his sister instead. He just stares blankly at me.

I'm in a large open space in an office building, trying to find the elevator to get down to the ground floor. I find some open stairs in a lobby area and decide it's only a few floors so I could just walk it. I realize as I reach the stairs that there are holographic interfaces over the railings. The interface on the landing should have a map I can look at, but I can't quite seem to line myself up with it; I keep seeing the one for the stair portion, which only has the time.

Finally I make it to the bottom of the stairs. Through the earpiece of my radio, I hear that the operation is almost complete. Men in suits looking serious are walking around. CJ Craig, the President's chief of staff, is confirming things to people over the radio. I hear her say that yes, she really is Amanda Tapping. She's in charge of the operation and wraps it up.

Now I'm in a large room full of people who look like reporters. The staff room is crowded around because we've just finished the operation that was really long and hard. We're finally done, and a guy gets down on one knee and proposes to his girlfriend, who says yes. We get some news that the income tax in our state has indeed finally been repealed, which is related to the big project we've all been working on. Someone tosses the happy couple a present that they were holding back until the news went through because they didn't want the couple to have to pay the taxes.

The mood is quite cheery. I'm making my way around the perimeter of the group towards the back wall, climbing up on some desks in the cramped room to get around people. Mackenzie McKay, feeling like the general who has just won the war, shouts out to no one in particular that she will receive the finest of the deli meats from the conquered, as well as some nice cheeses. I'm climbing out the window to get on with my next assignment, and I say I will bring you the flesh of their beasts! I also somehow say aye aye, and a coworker tells me quietly that they've "tried that talk before, it didn't help" meaning that implying she's a captain only made her more pompous.

I try to think of better phrasing for my beastflesh comment when I'm rudely interrupted. I'm now most of the way out of the window onto a stack of crates on the tarmac, and there's a llama here that has bitten and pulled away the navy blue jacket I was holding in my hand. It's unsatisfied with my jacket and proceeds to bite at my arm insistently, which is quite alarming. I try to think back how a horse would react and find it strange that it's not skittish.

I'm in a grocery store, looking around for the bacon. I see blister packs hanging on metal pegs in a non-refrigerated area, containing bacon that is cut into trapezoid shapes of various sizes. I want bacon that is cut into circles but I cannot find any.

It snowed about 2 inches. I'm driving my red pickup truck on a 5-lane road. Despite the snow I'm not having any trouble maintaining traction. I'm coming down a small hill towards an intersection with another big road. There's a giant sinkhole taking up about a third of the intersection, blocking the right lanes of my direction. In it is a large earth mover dump trunk, nose down in muddy water. I have to get into the left turn lane to move around it. Maneuvering there is harder, I start to slide, and have to goose the clutch a little to get through the intersection.

Through the intersection, I'm headed up another hill. There are lots of fire trucks around, some long, some not as long. They're having a much harder time going up the hill than I am. Their lights and sirens aren't going so I know they're not in a hurry.They're all turning left at the top of the hill by the QuickTrip. I wonder if there's a giant fire station over there that could accommodate the 8ish trucks I've seen so far heading this direction.

I'm in a parking lot of a church. I am walking towards the church. A large pickup truck towing a trailer is coming towards me. It looks like it's going to turn to its left, so I decide to move to my left to go around it. It turns out to actually be turning to it's right. I make apologetic faces to the driver because I ended up in his way.

Now I'm between the truck and the church. The truck has stopped because the driver needs to run inside to get something. Another truck, this one bright blue with a lift kit, is backing up towards the first truck. The driver has his window down. He's getting really close to the joint between the first truck and it's trailer. I shout for him to stop several times and he just smiles a big grin at me as he runs into them. Then his tailgate moves down, squashing the connection.

Now he's driving away, and the trailer is somehow attached to his truck. I'm mad that he did the damage on purpose and isn't staying to talk to the other driver, and now he seems to be stealing the trailer. He can't go very fast in the parking lot, so I pull out my phone while shouting out the numbers and letters of his license plate, which is very difficult to read. I explain to him that the church surveillance cameras have the whole thing on tape plus me and two other witnesses. I can't understand why this doesn't dissuade him from trying to get away.

I'm sitting in a hotel restaurant having lunch with my mom. We hear a rumble sound and the walls shake. I look out the window to see big chunks of concrete sidewalk pushed up in the air like a newly forming mountain range. I conclude that water in the ground under the sidewalk has frozen and expanded, pushing the concrete up. Somehow this has knocked the hotel's elevator air filtering system offline. They hire me to design and build a new one that is made from easy to find parts and can be maintained by someone with no experience. Right now they only need one so that people can get down from the many stories above. My friends and I build it inside of an elevator and we ride up and down with it to make sure it continues to work as people move around the floors. One part had to be cast out of metal by my dad, scaled up from a prototype I sent him. I'm worried that this violates the off-the-shelf parts requirement, but I figure the part is painted bright red so no one will notice.

I'm in an airport, on my way to catch a flight. I'm wearing my travel backpack with my laptop and other items on my back. I'm in an open space in a concourse, waiting in line for the escalator. There are floor to ceiling windows to my left, letting in a lot of light, but I don't look through them to see beyond. Waiting for the escalator is out of character for me, so I look around for stairs, but this is the only way up the 6 feet to the rest of the concourse. People are going up the escalator one at a time, waiting for the person ahead of them to get off at the top before getting on themselves. I realize this is not how escalator etiquette works, and at the same time everyone else in line ahead and behind me realizes it as well, and we all push forward and use it like normal.

Now I'm at the top and walking fast. I don't feel particularly rushed, I just want to get where I'm going. As I walk, the rhythm of my steps puts a song in my head. I start humming the tune quietly. In my left hand, I'm holding a coil of 2.5" shop vacuum hose, and in my right some kind of weird blue-green rubber hose. I don't think this is strange in the dream. A good part of the song comes up and I do a little 360 turn without breaking stride. As I'm facing backwards I notice that some of the other people walking with me from the escalator, strangers, are looking at me funny. I realize that walking through an airport with strange hoses in my hands is a bit abnormal and they may be concerned, so I finish turning around and hum more quietly.

I'm coming up to a right turn. Ahead of me pointing left are some automatic walkway conveyer belt things, like moving sidewalks. I see Michael J Fox walking to get onto one. I'm surprised by how smoothly he's walking. I decide not to say anything because I think it would be rude. I hear someone behind me say "Oh, it's Marty!" pretty loudly behind me. I repeat the phrase under my breath with a smile on my face.

My route now somehow requires me to go through some restaurant seating areas. I think I must have made a wrong turn somewhere. I look up and see a sign with my gate number 17 and an arrow telling me to continue this direction, so I do. An adolescent male sees me and says "Hey, you look like MacGyver." I realize he's talking about how long my hair has gotten. Just then, Richard Dean Anderson turns around looking just like he did in MacGyver season 2, mullet and all, and he starts a bit when he sees me. I say "Hey, it's me!" He still looks surprised as I walk on, weaving my way through people and tables.

I've had to go up to the second story. There's an empty little bar section here. Some previous patron has left his drink on the bar. I need to get down to the first level to continue to my gate. I move over the bar and grab the upside down cloth handle to a reusable shopping bag suspended from the ceiling. It's got an automatic winch in it that slowly lowers me to the floor. As I go down, suspended by my left hand, I wonder if I should have put a tip next to the abandoned glass at the bar above. I don't know if I'm causing the restaurant trouble by doing what I'm doing.

Now I'm in a generic inner hallway, and I bump into E, whom I haven't seen since his Army Special Forces graduation ceremony. He's muscly and has the Army haircut. He seems to think we had planned to meet during our mutual layovers at this airport, but I don't recall setting up a plan like that. He wants to ask me about our matching USB thumb drives we keep on our keychains, and how 8gb isn't enough so he's going to upgrade to 32.

I'm standing behind a white pickup truck holding a shovel. The tailgate is down and the back has about 100 turtles in it. I scoop one up with the shovel and it's about the same size as the metal part of the shovel. I set it down in the sand on the ground next to the truck.

I see 13 arcade cabinets from the back, all in a row, showing how the wood of each one has been repaired and refinished.

I'm in an English pub. Two guys I don't know are playing with a metal arm attached to a board. There's a spring, and when they press the arm it pops back to its original position. I realize it's a telegraph key. They're laughing at it and don't understand what it is. I look over to a nearby table to see Samuel Morse and a friend of his looking on with disappointment. Apparently the two men laughing were potential investors and they don't seem impressed. The four regroup at the table and I wander closer to hear what they're saying. Morse is trying to explain how he thinks it will revolutionize communications, but one of the investor men interrupts and asks why he didn't use a "single blast," presumably a dit, to be 0 to making calling long distance easier (never mind that this clearly predates the telephone). Morse sheepishly tries to explain that this isn't about telephony, and the investors snort derisively and walk away. Morse is dejected and his friend looks troubled. I sit down at their table and tell him that he's got to learn how to sell his idea. It's not inferior to telephony, it's superior to the Royal Mail. I launch into an example of shaving 3 weeks off of resupply requests to Africa, but I keep getting tripped up by not knowing if they have a king or queen at this point in history, or if they're using miles or kilometers.

I notice that water has pooled in the doorway into my bedroom. I look up to see that where the top piece of the door jam should be, there's instead a slot about an inch wide cut into the top of the door frame. It's filled with grey open-cell foam that's soaked full of water. The water is slowly dripping out of the door frame onto the floor. Now I have collected a bucket and two plastic trash cans to catch the water while I decide what to do. Together they aren't wide enough to span the entire doorway, so some parts of the floor are still getting wet. I decide to use some duct tape to tape two dust collection funnels over the crack in the top of the doorway to redirect water that would have fallen on the floor into one of the trash cans instead.

I'm sitting on the couch trying to work on my laptop. My little sister is trying to by cute by bonking me on the shoulder with the handle of a hack saw. I try to be calm and tell her I'm not enjoying it. She persists, and I get angry and yell at her, take my laptop and storm off. I almost trip over her infant son on my way through the door into the kitchen. My father is in the kitchen. He's heard the whole thing and tries to tell me that I need to be more calm because my nephew is growing up fast and I need to have a good relationship with him. I don't want to hear it and I start up the stairs to my room.

Getting to my room is tricky. I get to the stop of the second flight of stairs and get to a large window. Outside it's dark and rainy. I have to open the window and step over a gap to get to the room. I do this. No memory of getting wet or the room entry. As I enter my room, I absently try to flip on the switch to listen to some music, but I miss the switch. I look back and get it the second time. I remember "music" but don't recall actually hearing any sound. I put my laptop on my desk and walk around the room.

Now my friend B is here. He and someone else want me to come with them to play around in the university courtyard. Now we're there. I'm in some kind of brick tunnel that runs under one of the campus buildings. I'm walking through it towards the courtyard. I pass by two people in the tunnel. Now I'm in a large loft area with B and someone else. We're talking about what we're going to do in the courtyard. B has a set of stage wires and hooks me into them. I'm not sure how I'm going to control them. I'm back in the courtyard. There's a hill in the middle with a cobblestone sidewalk going all the way around it, joining the tunnel at one side and increasing in elevation on the opposite side. Parts of the hill have a retaining wall between the grass and the cobblestone. No one can see the wires. I'm on the middle of the hill when someone in the tunnel calls to me. I start walking down the hill towards her, and then the wires catch and I pretend to be walking on an invisible platform jutting out of the hill. She's surprised and then we laugh about it. I continue with the wires playfully as she talks. Apparently she was one of the people in the tunnel that I had passed earlier. She's doing a psychology experiment where she films people's reactions when a stranger walks up to you and says... something. We talk briefly about the experiment as we walk around one side of the hill.

Now it's gotten later. We're still talking and seem to have become friends. Other people have gathered around. Apparently there are going to be fireworks. James Marsters is part of our conversation, and perhaps another person. I look up into the sky to see B's face projected there like the Matrix. He asks if I want to come watch The Matrix with them and I say no to the sky. People around chuckle. I ask James if he remembers doing a monologue during Buffy, or actually it was Angel. He was looking down on Angel and random girl Angel had just saved and was making fun of them. James remembers and does an imitation of Angel on the spot.

My family is going to have a get together to celebrate my little sister's pending new child. I am in charge of bringing some nice plates. I have ordered them online and they have just arrived. I take the cardboard box with me to my mother's house where the party will be held. She isn't expecting me so soon, so I sneak into the house to surprise her. I don't see her. I open the cardboard box. Instead of the fancy porcelain dinner plates I had ordered, they sent me cheap paper plates with flowers around the raised edge. I worry what my family will think. I decide to show them to my mother to see if she can suggest somewhere nearby I can buy replacements. As I walk into her bedroom, I see a newly assembled crib for the baby. There's a large cardboard box on the bed that the crib parts must have come in. Her big brown dog Hoover yawns at me from across the foot of the bed, and I see my mother's feet peeking out from behind the far side of the crib box.