Saturday, January 23, 2010

Snow Games

These were no ordinary games but instead were an intense competition. There were two teams of people competing against each other in an elaborate competition, sort of like a triathlon, but all weird events instead of swimming, biking, or running (thank goodness, then I had a chance).

Each group had about 20 people, none of whom I knew. I also did not know where we were or why I was in this competition, but it did not matter. We all started out in a gym together; we had eleven days to train for the competition. I was going to start on the treadmill and then do kicking and punching drills (oh yeah, it was that kind of competition), but the trainer recommended otherwise, though I don't remember what he said.

The first event was a doubles team test where you have to steal a certain item from a house without being attacked by the dog or prompting the residents, or any nearby residents, to call the cops. My partner and I had to steal a yellow gardening glove from this woman's garage.

The only problem was the dog. It was a doberman but it was about the size of a lifeboat. It had a normal head and legs but a huuugely fat and ridiculous looking body. In reality, it would not have been able to walk. It was undecided about whether to bite us or sniff us; I as encouraging sniffing. We ended up arousing suspicion among two of the neighbors (as we ran from the dog), but they did not call the police. The woman who lived in the house was fast asleep (we could hear her loud snoring), and we won the dog over enough to escape without being detected. Challenge one: check!

The next challenge was more difficult. We (same two partners in the competition) had to chase down and tag two men in the snow. It was sort of like hide and seek except that the people we were chasing were like native snow people and could maneuver and hide in the snow like nobody's business. So they set off and a few minutes later we were allowed to go chase them.

By some fluke I found the first guy before he could hide somewhere. He was sliding down this little hill with this crazy scythe-like instrument that he used to dive into the snow. I caught him off guard and tagged him and took his little scythe to help me in the snow. Yeay!

The second guy was going to be more difficult to find because there were three guys that looked very similar and I couldn't remember which we had to find, and because we totally didn't see which way he went down the hill and there were many forks in the snowy hill road. After finding that we were after #19 (or was it #17?) I chose one way to go and ended up in some sort of facility at the bottom of the hill. There was a cafe, but behind that was some sort of manufacturing facility where people from the competition were working for some reason.

I waited in hiding while spying on the people to see if our guy was there. I saw him working, but he saw me also and hid in some locked room where no one would let me in. I waited a really long time for him and he finally came out and I ambushed him and tagged him. We had won! I'm not sure if we won the whole competition because I think other people had finished faster than we did, but we still had accomplished our tasks.

For some reason my Dad was suddenly there with me and helped lift me out of the manufacturing facility because there were no stairs and I was exhausted.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Star Trek Convention & The Wrong Shower

I was at a sleepover at John Paul's house down the street, all ready to go to the Star Trek Convention the following day. There were about half a dozen other girls at the sleepover, I have no idea where John Paul or any other of the folks who actually lived there were.

Also at the party were two kids who used to live across the street: Kevin and Chris W. In real life, they'd now be the same ages as my sister and me, but in the dream Chris was only 6. I asked Kevin how it was that I remember Chris being older than that, but he wasn't sure.

When a peppy little blond girl knocked on the door to see if we were all ready in the morning, waking most of us up, I realized we were late to the convention. I told the girl to go on without us; we'd meet her there after we all got ready.

I jumped up to take a really quick shower and ran to the master bedroom to snag one before they were all taken. For some reason I didn't want to use the main master bedroom shower and instead was happy to find another shower behind a random door in the master bedroom. The space this "extra" bathroom was in was huge, and seemed to connect to a whole other apartment.

I started up the shower and hopped in just as a man walked in: apparently it was a whole other apartment attached to the main house and I was in his shower. Awkward. I showered as fast as I could, somehow knocking the shower curtain into the tub in the process. I then jumped out (wrapping myself in my own towel, I had imposed quite enough on these strangers) and re-assembled the shower with many apologies to the tenants.

Just as I finished fixing up the shower, it turned into a bed that I was making (and I was suddenly dressed), and the man's mom came in thinking I was the maid getting the room ready for her. So I played along, starting to fake a Mexican accent, but realizing that my blond hair would probably give me away, so I switched to a sort of unidentified Nordic accent. Because apparently maids cannot be native of the country they are in (and incidentally, these people were Australian).

After that fiasco, I later found myself at the Star Trek Convention with my Dad. Who knows what happened to those other girls at the sleep over, they looked way too cool to appear at a ST Convention anyway. We walked through the area with all the booths selling goods, then found the auditoriums where the speakers are. I realized too late that we had gotten there in the middle of the day and we probably missed one of the key speakers (William Shatner and Patrick Stewart are there this year; we're going in real life at the end of the month).

My friend from Cal Poly, Andrew Z., was waiting for me outside the auditorium for some reason, so I met up with him and we tried to figure out what we had missed. Apparently Patrick Stewart was on right then, but I knew that there would be no good seats left, and we had missed William Shatner earlier in the day. Dang!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Wedding Bells

I had an interesting dream last night. It took me a while to cotton on* even in my own dream, but I was getting married. And not to Kane, really, not to anyone featured in the dream.

The dream took place on the day of the wedding but before I arrived at the actual ceremony. I don't remember it all now, but I do remember sending Jon off, who had been staying at my house and was now going back to Germany. Then I was suddenly in my whole wedding garb and scrambling to complete the finishing touches for the wedding.

I walked out into a parking lot where a white limo waited for me - I was surprised to see it since I wasn't aware that we were doing a limo. Then I went into some lodge where Tiffany escorted me around trying to get everything finished at the last minute. It was about then that I realized that it was actually my wedding day, and I started to wonder why I had no recollection of planning any of this or why it was not really how I'd like my actual wedding to be.

To start, I was in a real wedding dress and it was a bit too big for me. Which sucked. And I never really envisioned myself in a real, pearly white, strapless, puffy number, but there I was. Next, on the way back out to the limo, I realized that I didn't invite Carissa. And that Jon had left that morning. And there was someone else that I forgot to invite.

I was beginning to become upset, but I woke up. Bullet dodged there. Whew!

*Not sure if this phrase is common in the U.S. - I learned it in Australia, and I like it.