Tom

I won a contest with the prizes being millions and millions of dollars, and Tom Hanks being your butler for one day.

He helped me fold my laundry.

The address book

I had a tan tri-fold leather address book, but when I picked it up and opened it I saw the inscription in capital letters, "IAN MCKELLEN". Somehow our address books had gotten mixed up and I had his and he had mine.

Space shuttle safety

I can see the space shuttle outside my window. It's not being used; it's just sitting there basically in storage. There's a storm, though, and it is getting worse and worse, and it looks like people are starting to get worried that the shuttle will get damaged. So they strap it to a plane, the plane takes off, and the shuttle disconnects and goes into space. All to keep it safe while the storm surges below.

John Deere

My husband and I are walking around a strange city, when we come across the entrance to John Deere's headquarters. We walk inside and notice immediately that in addition to it being a place of business, it's also a huge hotel. Evidently this allows the business people who come to John Deere for meetings to have a place to stay that is the most convenient possible. We take a seat in the circular lobby and start people watching. A business woman dressed in white is saying goodbye to a young, blind man who obviously was there for a job interview. She smiles and shakes his hand, and turns around and walks away. The young man goes to the sofa just across from us and, after sitting there for a few moments, looks over at us and starts a conversation. So I think to myself, "He fooled the woman who interviewed him! He's not blind!"

Then we walk back outside into a run-down, empty carnival-type place. Imagine Disney mixed with a state fair and a circus, but abandoned. It was super-creepy seeing clowns with their heads dangling, dark buildings, and dust over everything.

Don't just stand there

I'm standing on the curb with a group of people. We all need to get somewhere, but we're not sure how to get there. I stepped off the curb and started walking, and everyone followed me. After we had been walking for a while, people started complaining about why we were walking this way instead of that way, and why was I the leader, and did I even know where I was going. I informed them that I merely stepped off the curb and they began following -- I did not invite them to follow me. I also informed them that I may not know where I am going, but at least I was willing to step off the damn curb and attempt to make it to my destination, which is more than I could say about the rest of them.

Creativity Schmeativity

I'm very angry at society for the high value placed on creativity. Creativity is a wonderful thing, don't get me wrong, but it does not need to permeate the normal workplace environment -- at least not to the point of it being valued and prized above all else.

If  you have a company full of creative people, nothing will actually get accomplished. People will sit around all day and think up wild (impractical) things, which is all well and good, but in the meantime nothing is getting done.

I'm the one who knows how to balance a checkbook, how to use directions to find my way around, and remembers to take out the trash -- no one can tell me I shouldn't also serve a valuable resource in this creative-focused society.

Wrong size shoe

There's this white sandal, and I'm trying to force it onto my foot. I'm really confused as to why it's not fitting. Every time I squeeze my foot into it, my big toe starts to curl and it's ripping the shoe. I look at the size and it says "9," or is that a "6"? Either way, it's not my size. It's time to stop trying to force it to fit.

Prize money

There's a small island off the coast of Bermuda, and if you can survive living on it by yourself for a month, you win $75,000.

I'm gonna do it.

Don't eat the owls

There is a group of owls eating the apples on our apple tree in the back yard. Every once in a while some strange, huge monster of a bird comes to attack the owls and I have to bang really hard on the glass window in the back door to frighten the monster bird away so the owls can be left in peace to feast on the apples.

The roach

I notice there are some yellowish stains on my cream-colored sweater. I put it in the washing machine and give it a good wash but the stains are still there. So I take out a rag and get it hot and soapy and scrub each of the tiny stains, but they are still there. Then I look closer and see what looks like a grain of rice. I get a pair of tweezers and get it out of the sweater and onto a table and see that it's an insect egg of some sort. I look around for something to throw it away in/with and by the time I look back it's grown into a larger cocoon, and the bug is definitely a roach with wings -- about to make its escape.

The grain of rice is now a gel capsule-sized cocoon. I knock the table as I'm scrambling and the roach has now fallen into something like a shopping cart, with odd-sized boxes and containers hiding it from view and making it impossible to get a clear angle to smash. I start throwing some of the boxes at it but the cocoon has rolled into an open space beneath random other things in the cart and is completely safe.

Then it comes out of its cocoon and flies up out of view, and then I feel it on my back. I shake the back of my shirt as best I can to get the nasty thing off me and finally I see it fly away.

At that point I realize it will make babies, and they will make more babies, and now I've got an infestation on my hands.

Lady of the evening

I went to see a hooker for a neck massage. She charged me $14.

The murderer in the kitchen

I'm running a large, hectic kitchen. There are more things to do than there are people to do them. In the middle of the kitchen are several prison cells, with glass walls so we can see the inmates inside. I open up the door to one of them and I put the prisoner to work. I'm not afraid -- I'm too busy to be afraid. It actually helps a lot to have them there, working, but I am still nervous about it.

* * * * *

I actually know the meaning of this dream. The "murderers" are Oreo cookies, currently sitting on my kitchen counter in a little plastic snack-bag. I eat two a day -- one after lunch and one after dinner. I used to eat them by the box, so I guess my brain sees them as the enemy. Currently I have them under control and am putting them to work for me.

Walnuts and spiders

I dreamed about malted milk balls, and fruit salad with walnuts, and my mother had a HUGE spider (the size of her head) as a pet and she didn't understand why I wouldn't hold it and pet it.

Mr. What?

I'm on the phone with our loan officer. His name, apparently, is Mr. Hodge Podge.

The little pet

I don't know what he is, but he's alive and he's my pet -- along with a vast menagerie of other pets. He is so small and so fragile (maybe an inch and a half long), I have him in my hand to keep him safe and warm while I'm tending to the needs of everything else. There are mice, rats, dogs, and other animals all loose around the main compartments where they're all usually kept. The animals are loose while I'm trying to clean and feed and fix things, but it's taking too long because I only have one hand. The little pet keeps getting more and more hurt as I try to tend to all these emergencies. There's no time to even yell out for help; it's all happening too fast to stop it from happening.

First the little pet almost drowned as I'm trying to save a couple of other animals from drowning after they wandered somewhere they weren't supposed to go. He was immersed in the water just momentarily but he's so tiny that he just can't survive these things. Now he's gasping for breath and soaking wet and cold in my hand. He's limp and his eyes are closed but he's still breathing. Then something falls and I must catch it and I realize it's a weight of some sort and after I quickly lift it off this little thing, he's able to take in a deep breath again but I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he's dying and will not live. He's gone through too much to be able to survive.

I'm sobbing while trying desperately to keep him warm and dry, and I keep thinking -- if only I can get the rest of this under control somehow, I'll be able to tend to him directly. But since I've got him in my one hand, I can't adequately attend to anything else either. Both things require two hands and total concentration -- and both are equally as important. If I tend to him alone, the rest of the menagerie will get completely out of control and will be impossible to recover from; If I don't keep him in at least one of my hands, he will die from the elements. Both situations as just as important, and yet I'm failing miserably at both simply because I only have two hands.

Another tooth dream

This time my front tooth split in half and I could feel the pieces in my mouth. After I spit them out, I looked in the mirror and was happy I couldn't see any open area on the underside of the tooth -- no nerve exposure to air. I was calm; I'd get a crown and move on with my life.

A trip to the grocery store

I have a cart and am going up and down the aisles at the grocery store. They have blocked access and set up ropes to force people to go only one way (like in shopping mall parking lots during the holidays), which makes some of the aisles completely inaccessible. I start to get extremely frustrated that I can't get to the aisle I want so I push aside their blockade and go up the aisle I want. Everyone looks at me in disgust and I don't care.

As I'm moving through their maze, I see KZ on the other side. She sees me but acts like she doesn't know me. It's been 12 years since I've seen her, but I know she remembers me. We pass twice as we move through the maze, and both times there's no sign of recognition. I waved at her both times.

Then I get to the cereal aisle and I can't decide if I want Sugar Smacks, Peanut Butter Crunch, or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I tried to look at their nutrition labels to pick based on the lowest sugar count, but instead of number values, they've changed to letters to indicate a range and I have no idea what range the letters represent. Also, they moved them to the front of the box instead of the side. In the end, I chose Sugar Smacks.

Forgotten

It was time to take my son to school. It was very early in the morning and I'm walking around the house opening up the blinds but it doesn't seem to be letting in any light. The sky is very dark. I look outside and see that my husband has moved our car so that it's on the street, which is easier than backing out of the steep driveway.

I go outside and get in the car and realize a family friend is in the passenger seat, which reminds me I'm to drop him off at an appointment this morning. I'm worried that I don't have everything I need but I'm in a hurry so we leave. I drive a very short distance before I realize I've forgotten my son. I turn left into a small driveway to try to make a u-turn but it's too small so I have to back up and readjust. It takes a lot of pushing on the break to stop the car but it slowly stops, then I put it in drive and have to push on the gas pedal for all I'm worth in order to then make it go again.

I get back to the house and see my son on the front step, sobbing uncontrollably. I park my car in the neighbor's driveway and run out of the car to him and gather him in my arms and hold him and keep saying in his ear, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." Then I give him a key to the house and tell him to run in and change his shirt.

China

My husband was going to China on a business trip. We were in Walmart picking up groceries and the cashier was Chinese, as well as the woman in front of us in line. John tells her he is going to China and asks if she is familiar with the area he would be traveling to. She told him yes, and that it's not far from the airport and that most Chinese people walk instead of taking a taxi or a shuttle bus. Then she kissed the cashier and told him she'd see him later at home.