Dreams

I dreamed last night that I had decided to become a fashion designer, and my designs were pretty well-liked and I'd been signed up to work with a major label, so I was bound to be successful. Then I went to tell my dad. He had a golden retriever with him, which I knew was "his dog" although he doesn't have a dog. The dog had a scarf around her neck and was quite cute, running around our feet. Then I told Daddy about my new job, and he flipped out, telling me to go back to my original plan and I was an idiot for giving up my life like this and I should go back to studying biology. The dog ran off, scared.

I cried, explained to him that this was a good thing, etc but he just stayed mad, so I stormed off in a huff and drove away. I had just left his line of sight when I heard a thump and I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw a flash of golden hair and the red scarf around it's neck, crumpled in the street.

I tried to brake but couldn't, the car lost control, and I was crying and scared and then I drove off the shoulder...

And woke up, and spent several minutes repeating "It was just a dream," over and over again in my head until I calmed down.

Then I fell back asleep and my next dream involved Clark Kent from Smallville. No it was not dirty, thankyouverymuch.

I'm always bad at these during the summer.

So Monday I was driving along, speeding, as I often do; I then drove over a little hill in the road and saw that a car was crossing my path. I braked. It was insufficient. Next thing I knew I felt the jolt of car hitting car.

She had been pulling into a parking lot, so she continued, and I pulled in as well, getting out and running over to apologize and ask if they were okay. The woman got out and started not-quite-yelling at me, saying, "Didn't you SEE me? How fast were you GOING?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, are you okay, is your car okay..."

WE rounded to the back of her car and checked it out-- a little dent in the bumper and a lot of paint from my car. "Oh, that's not too bad," she commented. "I don't think we'll even bother to get that fixed."

"There's a piece of a light over here," her daughter, who had been in the car, commented. "Well, it's not from my car," the driver replied. I then checked my car.

Unlike her large SUV, my little Contour had two broken lights and a bit of a dent in the hood on the passenger's side. "Oh, that's not too bad," I commented, in my youthful ignorance. "I can get that fixed. It's my fault, anyway."

"Okay," the woman replied, calmer now. "Hey, don't I know you?"

I paused, studying her face. "Oh, right, I think I do..."

"Yeah, from Girl Scouts? I know your mom. You bridged to Adults last year, you were the oldest girl at the ceremony. I'm D- S-."

"Oh, yeah!" I replied, remembering, thinking, Right, this is the woman that called the house like 20 times a day...

"So you're okay? I don't think I'll bother with getting my car fixed, but if my husband insists, I have your number already. WE can sort out insurance then, if need be."

I nodded, apologized again, put the pieces of the light in the seat beside me and drove home.

One call to my mother and an estimate later, I was getting a much better idea of how "not too bad" the car was- $481 bad. Turns out that the lights needed replacing, the plastic piece behind them was cracked and also needed replacing (and that one couldn't be bought at a discount like the lights), and the pressure on the hood was bad enough that it would all have to be banged out, and that was just to make it pass inspections.

I waited for my dad to get home, panicky. I expected the worst, because my dad tends to flip out when I screw up. I thought for sure I would have to pay for the damage, and get yelled at, and I couldn't think how I could afford it since they cut my hours at Discovery and I can't get cleared by a doctor to work at the daycare (stupid clinics). Thank GOD my dad understood. My folks have agreed to cover it in exchange for me being generous with chores and more careful next time.

So that was my adventure of the week...

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Oh. And I love him.

"No simulated brains! I want real brains." -Voyager

Today is the second day of the Quinquatrus Minores. It lasts three days total.

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So today was a royal pain in the ass.

I mean, I got to go eat sushi with Shrewd, which was cool, but also led to the whole problem...

So this morning, my mother woke me up by sticking her head into my room, because there's no privacy in this house, and informing me that the Brother had the car. I promptly fell back asleep, not really caring that much, since I expected I could get a ride from my sister when I went to the gym.

However, at about 11:30 The Brother returned home, having finished his finals. I talked to him a little, then he got a phone call, and informed me that he had to go volunteer at the elementary school or something. I said, "Do you need the car?"

"No," he replied, "I'm getting a ride."

"Okay, I was going to go to the gym later, that's why I asked. Sure you don't need it?"

"No, I'm good."

I went out to sushi, went to the gym, got back, and The Brother said, "Oh, you're home. I needed the car. Missed a Spartans parade."

"Oh, god, really? Man, I'm sorry. You should have said something."

"Nah, it's okay. I have more time to do my English project. I didn't really tell you to get back, s'not really your fault."

This all seems straightforward, right?

Then, Daddy gets home. He asks why the Brother isn't at Spartans. The Brother says he didn't have the car.

Daddy proceeds to yell at me for ten minutes. Did I point out that it wasn't my fault? Yes. Did I point out that there was absolutely no logic in blaming me for his failure to inform me that he needed the car when I asked him? Yes. Did it matter? Not a whit. Apparently I am, in fact, my brother's keeper and I am supposed to keep track of his schedule so he doesn't miss anything. Like I don't already answer the damn phone for him all the time.

Then Shrewd sided with Daddy, at least partially, and said that I should have known better than to think that I could get a straight answer out of anyone in this house. So basically it's all my fault because I assumed that "No I don't need the car" meant "No I don't need the car."

My father's selective hearing is on full-blast today. For example, the following conversation:

Daddy: [Shrewd], would you mind terribly if your mother and I went out to eat tonight?

Shrewd: Oh, sure, I mean, I have food here, but...

Daddy, to my mom on the phone: [Shrewd] wants us to eat dinner here.

Ryter suggested I dye my hair a funky color. I tried to explaining that I don't actually want more attention, just to not be yelled at for something I didn't do wrong. Grr...

"We should fear the coming reign of the Idaho Global Domination."

Today is the Vestalia, a festival to honor Vesta/Hestia, goddess of the hearth. On this day the Vestal Virgins drew water from a sacred spring and made sure the water did not touch the ground, which would contaminate it; to do this, they had a special narrow-bottomed vessel. They would take salt specially made from brine brought in a salt pan and ground up, then baked in a jar and cut with an iron saw. Ears of grain gathered on the 7th, 9th, and 11th days of May were used for flour, and that, the salt, and the water were used to make the mola salsa, the holy cake, which was used in the celebrations.

Women would then make offerings to Vesta in her temple with simple food sacrifices, and would enter the temple barefoot. Men weren't allowed to enter Vesta's temple, save the Pontifex Maximus.

The day was also holy for bakers and millers, and they would adorn their millstones and the animals that turned them with garlands of violets and small loaves of bread.

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I went to visit Ryter today. Since the bumper incident he needed to go get a rental car, so I took him over to the Enterprise place, where they gave him a shiny Nissan Altima, complete with optional stick shift and an ignition that only requires the key to be inside the car somewhere, it doesn't need it to be in the ignition itself.

The part I was jealous of was the CD player (my car doesn't have one), but his old car had that too.

It took him a while to get used to the Car of the Future, partially because it took a call to his dad yo figure out that the stick was optional, so at first we were wondering what kind of crazy rental place gives a person a standard without checking to make sure they could drive one first. But it worked out, and his rental is very nice, and I trust he'll fight the urge to wreck it just because it's a rental.

We tested it by going and getting the crickets to feed Ryter's bearded dragon, which he's getting Sunday. We also went to IHOP, since I asserted that I hadn't been there in forever, and I tried every kind of syrup, even Boysenberry. Mmm... syrup...

Nonaestima, who is Loquelo's housemate and a friend, came over and we went out for ice cream, then watched Futurama for a while. It was a fun day.

"I and my decapitated popsicle will now retire upstairs, THANK YOU VERY MUCH"

So I have discovered that it's very hard to drive home when you're crying for the last 45 minutes of the hour-long trip.

And now, I'll make you wonder, and start at the beginning.

Let's see... My Day, by Basiorana. After a quick trip to the gym and a shower, I headed over to the school to meet with my old guidance counselor, who was thrilled to see me, showed me the image of me she stitched into her quilt (the little tiny pencil in my hair was priceless), then gave me information to pass along to Shrewd and the Brother about jobs while offering nothing for me.

Figures.

Anyway, I proceeded to drive up to Dover for my therapy appointment, and after that, headed over to Ryter's. I was driving along a long, straight stretch of road at about 50, 55 mph in a 35 mph zone and I passed a cop. Thinking, Aww, damn..., I slowed and kept going, watching as he did a U-turn and followed me to the highway on-ramp, whereupon he turned on his lights and I immediately pulled over.

I got a warning. I mean, he put me into the system and nothing came up, I'm sure, so I got a verbal admonishment and was sent on my way. I've been driving kind of slow since then; I was always kind of proud of the fact that I'd never been stopped by a cop for anything and that's no longer the case, which I find mildly depressing, but I didn't get a ticket or even a written warning so that's good, at least. Ryter mentioned that he'd noticed the Durham police are able to devote much more time to catching speeders once school gets out, so I'll be especially careful this summer.

I met up with Ryter, anyway, and we went to go get stuff for his new lizard tank. He's getting a bearded dragon, got it approved by his landlady and everything. He's really excited, it's cute. He's going to name it Jesus (Hay-SOOS, not JEE-sus), for Jesus shall be his name (He said it, not me...). We got the tank and all, stashed it in the back of the car securely, and then went to get more climbing wood at another pet store, a few towns over. We had just passed the exit we would have taken to go back to his house when the skies opened up in terrible, torrential rain. Ryter decided we might as well keep going, and I didn't object.

We got to the parking lot, headed in, and a few seconds too late Ryter noticed that the lot was flooded. He realized this because his car was in a very, very deep puddle. Like, caulk the wagons and float across kind of puddle. After a few tries, the car moved and he parked. "On three, we run," he declared, and on three, I sprinted out of the car and over to the covered sidewalk, where a man was waiting to inform me that the front bumper of Ryter's car was currently floating in the waters of the Giant Puddle of Doom.

Much rain, bumper-fetching and bumper-cramming-into-the-back-seat later, the water-swept part was secured in the car, and we went to the pet store. Shoes squishing, I also stopped by Fashion Bug to grab a dry shirt for when we got back to his apartment. And, on the way back, it started to hail, too, so I was suddenly petrified I'd come back to see my car damaged or something. And, tornado watches, flashes of lightning, nonstop thunder... Yeah, not so fun.

Plus we got back to his apartment and the power went out, which displeased him greatly. But we set up both the terrarium and his bookcase, then went out and bought a chess game in a lull to occupy ourselves (he checkmated me in three moves, then in four moves-- I fail, but hey, I voted for Pretty Pretty Princess), but as soon as we got back, the power went back on.

None of this has anything to do with why I started to cry on the way back home, though. I'll go into it more when I'm not so tired, but suffice it to say that I'm very frustrated for my inability to ask for things I want. Need, yes, I'll ask for that. Want, not so much. It's driving me crazy.