task of the month

I'm awake several hours before usual because my little girl had nightmares as well last night and just couldn't get back to sleep. As a result, I only have two dreams to share right now, and the first one is merely a fragment.

All I can remember of the first dream is an outdoor maze. It's made from stone just taller than my head, and it's outside in some sort of garden. There's broken stone and grass creeping up all around it. Also, the colors in the dream were really bright and cartoony. Thinking back, it's very similar to the garden walls when you go through in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to meet Princess Zelda in terms of colors. There's also a girls face that was in my mind when I woke. She's not someone I recall ever seeing before. She had chin length blond hair, and was smiling with her face tilted to the side like anime/video game characters ofte do, and that's all I can remember.

The Second Dream: My second dream is more of the type I usually have, where everything seems super realistic, but I'm not aware I'm dreaming and there are all kinds of fantastical things happening. It starts out I'm in a local historical town with my best friend Ambies who in reality lives several states away. The town is small, only about 5 blocks, and the buildings are all about 2-4 stories high made of brick back in the early 1900's late 1800's. There's an courthouse in the center of town that now serves as a museum of the towns history. The lighting and colors in this dream are very creepy, like the Legend of Sleepy Hollow movie with Johnny Depp in it. Ambies is walking, but I am on this big zero turn lawn mower that makes a ridiculous amount of noise and vibrates like crazy. We turn left around the corner of the court house, and I see a man in a suit with a grey bird perched on his finger posing for a picture. The photographer is my step dad, and he's using an old looking tin box type camera. The bird flies up off the mans finger, and hoovers at the mans hat until the man lifts his finger higher and the bird perches again. I can hear the man and my step dad talking about the picture, just typical "Almost finished" and "this bird and I go way back" type comments. I stop the lawn mower to avoid scaring the bird, and tell Ambies, "That's Brad, lets go talk to him when he's done talking to that man." When they are done talking, the man tips his hat before turning around and walking off. My step dad bends down and picks up a bag off the ground before turning around and walking off himself, in the opposite direction. I start up the lawn mower and starts to follow him. I call out to him, he turns and looks at me, then keeps walking as though he doesn't know me. I stop the lawn mower and tell my best friend that it's weird he didn't recognize me. She says that it's been almost a year since I've seen him, he probably didn't recognize me because of my hair cut. I nod and tell her she's probably right, and we follow him around another left corner. I catch up to him, and yell his name again. He turns around and looks at me again, and says, "Oh hey! I didn't recognize you with your hair so short!" Then he turns into my biological dad. He says he is taking pictures to test out this neat old antique camera he found and asks me if I'd like to have my picture taken. I say sure, as long as I don't have to hold still for long because holding still is pretty much impossible for me. He laughs and says, "Yeah, you've never been able to hold still, ever since you were a kid, all you do is run run run and get into trouble like a little monkey!" we all three laugh, then he says he will take my picture in a moment, but he needs to use the bathroom first. He asks if we need to as well, and we say yeah. He leads up to the right this time across the street and where the bank is is normal life, there's a big bath room building. All I see is a ladies room, I don't see a men's room, and my dad walks into the ladies room. I kind of freak out internally thinking he's not supposed to be in here! Then I wonder if it'll make Ambies uncomfortable that if she has to pee my dad will be in a stall nearby. Then I realize Ambies isn't there anymore. I hear a flush, and my dad disappears into the first stall just as a lady walks out of one of the stalls towards the back. The lady is one of my aunts. She says, "Hey! I didn't think I'd meet you here! What are you up to?" My dad hisses from his stall, "Don't tell her I'm here!" and apparently I'm the only one who hears, so I try to lamely make something up and tell her I am just walking around looking at the scenery. She nods, and then changes the subject to the baby clothes I recently gave her daughter (my cousin) for her little girl since my own daughter has outgrown them. She tells me how lovely they were, and that they had so much fun going through the bag and looking at them and how cute her grand daughter is going to look wearing them. Then she tells me she has to get going and tells me to have fun, I thank her, say I will, and bye! Then As she leaves, there's a flush and my dad steps out of the stall. We start hearing a lot of noise outside. It's really loud, like a roaring sound, so we rush out to see what's going on. We don't see my aunt, but what we do see is crazy strong wind, big black clouds in the sky, pouring rain and the streets are flooded up to my knees. Also, the buildings have changed, they've stretched three times their height and become real "big city" type buildings. The courthouse is the tallest building of all, and strongly resembles a real building in a city about a hour from where I am. There's nothing behind this row of buildings though, no other buildings or trees or anything, just black clouds and grey sky as far as I can see. Then a boat is coming in from the Distance. A fairly large tug boat looking boat. The bottom of the boat is black and rubbery looking, and it is blown into the building that was once the courthouse. All at once the wind blows even stronger and literally lifts the boat up, scraping it along the back side of the building until it reaches the top. It teeters at the top, upside down for a moment, then there's a loud moaning sound as it starts flipping again and falls towards us in front of the building. I duck ad dive forwards, and the boat crashes behind me before somehow being carried away by this water that's only knee deep. I sigh in relief and tell my dad that was crazy! he nods, but then says, "Watch out!" and points to the building. This time there's another boat, but it's HUGE, like cruise liner sized, and it's blown against all of the buildings. The wind keeps blowing it, and the water surges beneath it, slowly pushing it up the back sides of the buildings, until it too reaches the top. I think for sure we are screwed, there's no way we can dodge a boat that big and as heavy as it must be it'll probably land closer to the buildings than the tug boat that just barely missed us. There are several creaking sounds, and the tops of the buildings begin to collapse, then the wind blows extra hard and miraculously blows the boat over us so close that if I hadn't been ducking in fear I could have reached up and touched it. The water splashes behind us, and I see myself in third person for a moment and notice my hair is shoulder length again (in real life it's not even past my ears) then I'm back inside myself and standing up. I'm shaking, but before I can be relieved again, I look up at the buildings, and they are blowing to pieces. Beams and windows and panels of some kind are raining down around us, I'm leaning left and right and forwards and backwards, avoiding the debris like Neo from the matrix, only no where near as calm and confident. As the last of the buildings collapse, my phone starts ringing. I think it odd that my phone is ringing, with all the crazy things going on, a ringing phone seems too normal and every day. I answer the phone, and it's my grandmother. She asks if I'm alright, and I say yeah, we're in the storm, but somehow we aren't hurt yet. She tells me that the whole town I'm in is being evacuated and that I should come to her house about 20 minutes away by car to seek shelter. I thank her, but tell her I'm going to find shelter closer to where I am because I don't have a car and I don't want to be out in the open during this insane storm. She tells me that she understands, and to just be careful. I tell her I will and hang up the phone. I turn to my dad to tell him we need to find shelter, and that's when I was woken up by my daughter screaming in her bed because she had a nightmare with a "Vewry vewry scarddy monster"