So Close and Yet, Jafar

When I was in 10th grade I loved (from afar) a boy in 11th grade who worked for the movie theater.

One night I went with a group of friends to see Aladdin. When I approached this handsome, red-headed older man to pay for my ticket, he waved me through and smiled at me.

He knew who I was? He let me into the movie for free? I almost fainted.

The theater was packed. Almost every single seat was taken and I had to sit separately from my group. I found two seats on the aisle near the front. I left the aisle seat open and dreamed up this great fantasy in which my true love came into the theater and sat by me. Like a date. I dreamed and wished and hoped and prayed it. I could feel his invisible presence in my imagination and it was as if he were really there. Sitting by me. Like a date.

Have you ever wished for something so hard that it came true?

He came into the theater just as Jafar made his appearance on the screen (I'll never forget that detail.)

HE SAT BY ME.

LIKE A DATE.

I almost fainted.

He and I never spoke. Not that night and not ever again. To this day, I can't see an image of Jafar without remembering that moment, the most romantic of my entire life.

Pure Romance.

Hanna's Dreams

I cracked up so hard at this dream of Hanna's. I guess she has some pretty detailed dreams and so she started writing them down. Here are just one months' worth, and now I'm totally convinced this girl is Cray-Cray:


July 3, 2012 - I dreamt that Cher took a whole bunch of little boys (ages 10-13) to a construction project in a limo. She had to ride in the back of a cop car for allowing the boys to get so rowdy. At the project the boys stacked a bunch of scrap wood into a pile.

July 4, 2012 - I dreamt that it was a post-apocalyptic world where everyone was poor and everything was old and destroyed. People were assigned their jobs. I was a plumber but there were no usable pipes anywhere so I quit because we had nothing to do. I started off with a small group of kids (including Skete and Mouth from The Goonies) and we lived in a car but then we joined with some older girls and their little brother living in an old bus. We moved to an old house which was much cozier.We found fudge dipped marshmallows in the cupboard. Some people ate two so we forgot to save some for Skete and Manoah who were out scouting. I felt really bad about it.

July 6, 2012 - I dreamt that robbers used the inside pokey part of an old doorknob to stab my Grandpa Hal in the face and neck. My Grandma was complaining about it to us and my dad told her he worked on a place one time where the neighbors were like that. Any time someone made them mad they would stab and stab them and stuff salt in their eyes for revenge. He complained that there was always bloody bodies with salt filled eyes left all over the place. 

July 8, 2012 - I dreamt that a bunch of little boys were walking down a hallway dressed up like little pimps. They were wearing colorful suits and little top has and walking with fancy canes. They were strutting along strongly. Then a little dwarf boy ran after them because his little legs couldn't keep up. He was so short he had to hold his cane in the middle and hold it above his head because he was running. Then the girl I was walking with in the dream asked, "Why are all those little boys walking with canes?" "I guess they just have swagger," I replied. We continued down the hall and walked outside to find a group of old people laying on the ground wailing. An old man was struggling to crawl to his wife's side. We rushed to her and asked, "What happened?!" "A gang of little boys stole all our canes!" the old man cried. "Why? Why would they do such a thing?!", his wife wailed.

July 9, 2012 - I dreamt that a bunch of people were zombies like on that episode of Community where they spread their zombies through bites. All the zombies were in my living room. I liked them but I chose to live in the maple tree out front because I didn't want to be a zombie. All the zombies were only afraid of one thing, which was a mysterious zombie who lived in the woods. When the mysterious zombie showed up everybody freaked out. He was a weirdo in a bomber hat with ear flaps. Then Gus from the cartoon "Recess" showed up and saved everyone by asking scary zombie not to kill everyone because the guy was his uncle.

July 10, 2012 - I dreamt that I had crazy huge boobs. At first in the dream I was like "Great! I've got huge boobs!" But then I was like, "Wait, these things are TOO big!" Then I was unhappy.

July 11, 2012 - I dreamt that I was working at Subway and my mom came and picked me up. After we got home I realized I was supposed to close but left Subway empty. Then my boss Lisa stopped by Subway with a bunch of her friends and after looking around realized the whole building was empty. I was at home freaking out that I would be fired and my mom was like, "eh, whatever."

July 12, 2012 - I dreamt that I was wearing a diaper and then I pooped in it. It was a ton of poop, like gobs and gobs and it was all over the place. Then I was trying to change myself and I threw the diaper in the garbage but the bag came off the can and fell down inside and poop got all over the can. Then I was trying to wipe myself and it got all over my hands. Finally I was so full of poop I just gave up and decided I needed a shower. Instead of using the shower in the bathroom I was in I went to a public sauna at a beach. There were a million people there and I was embarrassed to undress because I was so smeared with poop.

July 13, 2012 - I dreamt I was in a children's prison that was like a Nazi concentration camp. All the little girls had their heads shaved and were wearing brown. Everyone only got a couple crackers and a tiny bit of Coca Cola a day. The prison wasn't meant to kill all the children. It was just severely mismanaged. There was lots of dead babies. We had to go to an in-prison school. The teacher was a very fat lady. I complained everyone was starving to death. She rolled her eyes and huffed that we were getting all the food we required so quit complaining. Then I showed her how much we got to eat each day and said, "If it's plenty why don't you try only eating that much a day, Fatso?" Then she got mad.

July 14, 2012 - I dreamt there was a restaurant where anytime a woman worked there alone at night she would get raped but nobody cared or took precautions because it was so "everyday" to them because there were so many rapists running around. In the dream a woman was working alone, and a guy came in and raped her. As he was leaving she cried after him, "Would you like cookies with that?"

July 15, 2012 - I dreamt I was hanging out with Shaq and was flirting with him. He was a big baby in the dream and whined a lot. He got hit in the nose and he started whining, "My nose is broken!" even though there was nothing wrong with it. So I made fun of him and was like, "Oh God! You're right. It's so hideous and messed up looking and crooked!" And then he was like, "Nuh-uh! There's nothing wrong with it!" And then everyone laughed.

July 17, 2012 - I dreamt Mikayla had a new Barbie doll with a butt made of rubber instead of plastic "for a more authentic feel."

July 20, 2012 - I dreamt that an Asian girl was living with us, like a foreign exchange student or something. She was nice and sweet and quiet and we all liked her. Then one day Murphy was shot a bunch of times with a nail gun and she admitted it and then she went crazy and screamed, "I hate you all!"

July 25, 2012 - I dreamt that there was a window leading onto a roof at a school. Sometimes when you went through it it would take you to a very Oz-like world. Then I dreamt that there was a little machine that dropped 6-inch diameter colorful bubbles. You could drop one in one place and one in another place then you could jump into the bubbles and come out the other one.

July 26, 2012 - I dreamt that it was a post-apocolyptic world. In the dream there were a bunch of hill-mountains, and there were two groups of people. One group lived in houses at the bottom of the mountains, and the other lived in burrows in the middle of the mountains. Wild baboons lived on the peaks. I was the middle group, and we were fighting against both the house people and the baboons. It was really dangerous fighting against both groups so that's why we lived in burrows. We would go on raids against the house people and then come running back to hide in our holes. I was hiding out with Joe and another guy after a raid and they left for another one. I stayed behind to sleep. The other guy came back without Joe because Joe was killed by baboons. In the dream I was like, "That's weird, he was one of my best friends and I don't even feel sad that he died. I wonder why?" Then I woke up and realized it was because I was dreaming.

July 28, 2012 - I dreamt that my family bought me a cake for my graduation party, but ate half of it for lunch. I was sad and upset that they would ruin the cake because I couldn't serve half a cake at my party, but they said it wouldn't matter. They laughed and said no one would be surprised by the cruddy half-cake since only a couple people would show up and they would expect everything to stink anyway.

July 29, 2012 - I dreamt I was helping Joe pick out deodorant by smelling his armpit after he tried them on.

July 30, 2012 - I dreamt I was trying to steal a drug from a research company. I had to make a key to get it. Then I had to sneak a way into the most secret part of the building where they kept it. I had to go really fast because alarms were going off. When I got to the place where they kept they secret drugs I also found a room full of people they were testing their drugs on illegally. They were being kept prisoner. As I was leaving guards showed up. I beat most of them up really easily as I was leaving but when I was almost outside they locked a door and trapped me. After a short fight they arrested me and took me outside to their police car. Since I was outside again I beat them up and escaped. I got in a van and was driving away through traffic but they were chasing and attacking me. Then a bunch of my criminal friends showed up and drove so I could jump from roof to roof on their cars and escape.

August 1, 2012 - I dreamt that they made little plastic children's snowblowers that really worked. I was trying one out and saying, "Wow! They actually work, and are easy to use! Kids will love these things!" But then I ran over some toys left in the driveway and it shredded them to bits, and I kinda wondered to myself what would happen if you gave such dangerous things to children and wondered if they were really such a good idea.

Nuttier'n a Peanut Factory

Hilarious. In My Dreams.

I was laying in bed with Brad Pitt in my dream last night.  You see, I was in the bed because he and Angelina Jolie offered for me to sleep on the fourth floor spiral staircase tower but when I got up there it was only barstools and totally windy I was afraid of heights, so the only other place for me was in the bed next to Brad Pitt, obviously.  We were only looking at a photo of him and a bunch of kids lined up on some 1970's basement stairs.  In the back, there was a framed picture that said, Minnesota.  I was hilarious when I said *out of the side of my mouth, in 1930s-newspaper-worker-accent and with hand up like a mock Vlassic pickle*, "Minnesota?  I'm pretty sure I've been in that basement."  He laughed.

Angelina Jolie came in the room and jumped to an incorrect conclusion.  She was wearing a very strange outfit.  When I saw it, I quipped *out of the side of my mouth, in 1930s-newspaper-worker-accent and with hand up like a mock Vlassic pickle*, "Wow, that outfit is like equal parts Rosie the Riveter, G.I. Joe, and Pippi Longstocking."  Then she dramatically loaded a double barrel shotgun -- the kind you bend in half to put the shells in -- and I begged her not to shoot me but she did anyway.  Right in the shoulder and even in the dream it hurt real bad.

I started to sort of scream and make weird noises, and then I decided that was embarrassing and cut it out.  As I was bleeding to death, I asked them if they didn't mind if I called my mom.  I called her, dying, laughing about how I was totally calling from BRAD and ANGELINA's cell phone.  I told her I was  probably dying but still cracking jokes about ending up in some gossip magazine like the Star Trib (even in my dream I realized this was in error) in a weird love triangle that didn't exist.

Then Angelina Jolie ran outside like a crazy person and threw the shotgun in the snow.  I looked at Brad and said, *out of the side of my mouth, in 1930s-newspaper-worker-accent and with hand up like a mock Vlassic pickle* "that's a really bad idea", and we laughed.

"Kady, you are hiLARious in your dreams."

Ryan Gosling, the Man of My Dreams

Last night I had a dream that Ryan Gosling and I were breaking up and as a result, he had to move out of my house.  Well, Ryan Gosling has a lot of hanging clothes.  So I packed all of them up and moved them to the far away location for him.  (I don't know why.  Maybe I needed the closet space.)

A friend who I suspect was Summer was helping me at the undisclosed far away location to hang up all of the hundreds of identical garment bags.  When we finished we decided to stalk him at the restaurant where we knew he'd be dining out with his new lady.

My friend informed me that I had nothing to be afraid of, that we would just show up, be fabulous, tell him where we left all of his clothes and make him regret his bad bad decision.

The new girl was gross!  She had on silk tight printed pants and a matching bare midriff top that tied at the waist.  My friend convinced me to go right up to them and introduce myself.  Why should I be ashamed?  So we did, and by then the girl was sitting on my ex-boyfriend Ryan Gosling's lap!  With her half-ponytailed, frizzed-out hair and bad makeup.  I could not believe he left ME for HER.  I looked at Ryan Gosling, and motioned towards her with my eyes and said,

"Weak chin."

Hey Ryan, I can no longer be your storage unit, OK?

*image stolen from downtowndolls.blogspot.com

A Cryptic Message

Summer arrived in New Orleans just two days before me.  I got a text from her that said, "btw I have a piece of info about some of our neighbors.  I'm worried you might die."  I was like, "what?" and she said, "It's too good.  I wanna see your face."

When I arrived, Ashley and Summer took me into our bathroom and had me look out the window.  "Over there is the convent.  There are real nuns living there."  etc.  "And, see that pink house?  With the green shutters?  OK.  See that little grey one to the left of it?  With the black shutters?..."

She wasn't getting to the point fast enough and so I was like, "who lives there?"

Summer looked into my soul and asked, "who would make you die?"

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

I am living less than one block away from the Jolie-Pitts.

I don't even know what to do with this information.

I think Summer was pleased with my reaction, as I hyperventilated and collected myself and then hyperventilated some more.  Here is a photo out of our bathroom window.  Their house is the little gray one in the center.  With the two dormer windows.

I swear I saw Brad watching me go pee last night.  What a creep!  (Just kidding.  They're not home.)

Here's a picture of the front of their house, which I walk by every morning and every night when I go to and from my car.  I stole it from another website, since I will not be caught dead photographing their place (in the open).  I only keep my face straight ahead while my eyes stare the whole way by, looking for signs of life.

Photo stolen from bittenandbound.com

If you know me, you know that I think of Brad and Angelina as personal friends and frequently have daydreams of running into their family by Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, asking them "what are you doing in town?" and then inviting them over for dinner.  Of course they come.  In my imagination, we laugh and talk.  The kids get a kick out of my made-up-on-the-spot poop songs, such as Fishing in the Toilet for Poop and Pee.

LOOKS LIKE MY DREAMS ARE ABOUT TO COME TRUE, FOLKS.

Hanna's Dream. Warning: Gross

Skype conversation between my 16-year-old niece Hanna and me:


[2:04:08 PM] Hanna: wanna hear about a dream I had last night?

[2:04:40 PM] Kady: mary poppins?

[2:04:48 PM] Hanna: no

[2:04:59 PM] Hanna: I was riding the school bus.  A girl named Marissa who used to ride my bus was on the bus and had an Agatha Christie book, and in the book Miss Marple solves the mystery and discovers who the crook is because she discovers that a man is actually a woman, which she discovers by finding a bloody tampon in the toilet in the men's bathroom.

[2:06:41 PM] Kady: now that's good detecting

[2:06:47 PM] Hanna: so in the book there was an illustration of Miss Marple peering into a toilet filled with bloody tampons

[2:07:01 PM] Kady: hahahaha  "I always catch my man. Even when he's a woman."

[2:07:25 PM] Hanna: the bus driver got disgusted by this picture and forced Marissa to throw the book away, he thought it was inapropriate.  I saved the book from the trash and gave it back to her because I really liked Agatha Christie books.  Then we had a good laugh over men and tampons and how silly they are about it



HILARIOUS.  And yes, men are very silly about tampons.  For a good example of this, do yourself a weird favor and click here.

"Ladies and Gentleman!"

I had a dream that the real Julie Andrews was my aunt.  She and I were walking through a lush green park arm-in-arm.  I began singing Mary Poppins songs, as we walked along to make her proud.  She smiled as I sang at the top of my lungs.  Then suddenly we turned a corner and there were a ton of people waiting and clapping.  I exclaimed, "Ladies and Gentleman!  Julie Andrews!" and they clapped some more. 

Ben Affleck, You're the Man of My Dreams

About a month ago, I had a dream that I was getting ready to fall asleep in my Costa Rica bedroom, like face-down.  I remember that my elbows were at my sides and I made fists by my face.  Picture that position, because it's very important to the story.  Anyway, Ben Affleck came up, got into the same exact position, and cozied up right next to me, snuggled in, resting his head by my left armpit.

I was worried that my breath stunk, because come on, it's Ben Affleck, so I turned my face away from him, but still allowed the snuggling.  But I forgot about my armpit.  Because then he went, "ahhhwwwhhhh" in horror and disgust at the smell, pulling his head away.

Sorry, Ben Affleck.

The Weirdest Thing

Last night, I was standing near a stainless steel container house where some homeless people were sleeping, and this super dirty guy was climing up the side of it.  The house became very tippy, and before I could scream out to him to CUT IT OUT, the whole house tipped over.  People were screaming and I saw a man totally fall onto his face.  The guy who was climbing up it sort of just laughed it off.  What a jerk!

Then the whole container house drove away and I realized my pizza was still cooking inside of it.  I was so angry I started to cry.  Then I remembered not a lot has been happening in my life lately and I haven't had a ton of stuff to blog about and then thought, "This is totally going on my blog".  And then I felt better.

And then I woke up.

Dreaming 'Bout Celebs

Last night I dreamed that Jennifer Anniston needed help with changing a light bulb on her ceiling fan.  I knew my mom was really good at that and so I recommended her services.  Then Brad Pitt showed up.  (Odd, since I thought I was on team Angelina).

In a subsequent dream, I told Johnny Depp about the Jennifer Aniston dream.

Sleeper Car on the Train

These are some photos from a sleeper car on the train. (This was after we left Bergen and travelled to Oslo for our last full day in Oslo and last night at Bjart's. The following morning we flew to Stockholm.) I'm using parentheticals because I think that this blog is a little weird, what with the back-in-times and the non-linear story telling. Not that it matters "what" night we rode the train from Bergen to Oslo, what matters is that night's terror was thinking that the train was going to completely leave the tracks and go careening down the mountain that we were obviously driving over due to the popping in my ears. And I was trying to sleep. It didn't help that the train designer people put in a seat belt in my bed.

As you can clearly see from the photos, most places we slept didn't leave much room for male/female cousin privacy...dressing in the room was not an option. That night I slept in my jeans and t-shirt. I shimmied myself out of my bra after lights-out.

Pretty romantic, though (not romantic like fall in love romantic, but romantic like traveling in a foreign country, sleeping on a train romantic). Might have been more amazing had I decided to just get that Xanax. Too lazy. Plus I got the Xanax for fear of flying, so I forget to take it other times when paralyzed by fear on boats or trains. Probably it would work in those cases as well, but the bottle clearly says, "take before fight" (sic). I thought that was pretty funny. Like, if I was just about to get in a fight, pausing to take my Xanax. So tough. Also, it's not Xanax, but Ativan. I learned that because the first time I went to get them, it was just before I left for China. The doctor gave me 30 of them, and I only take them when I fly, so I didn't run out of them until two and a half years later when I was about to leave for this trip (and that might only be because I told Nancy and Summer they could help themselves). A couple weeks before I left, I went in again to get a 'refill' and told the doctor that I was clearly addicted and could she please give me more this time. You know, for my friends. She didn't think that was funny, but gave me 90 anyways. So, I kept calling them Xanax, and she was like, "you were prescribed Ativan". So there you go. Guilty! I take Ativan! Right before a flight! If I take a Melatonin at the same time, I can sleep on a plane for like 10 hours. Once, I fell asleep in Los Angeles and woke up in Beijing.

And if anybody ever messes with me, I'll take one, and then fight them.