Hi, Buddy. Good Morning.

I had dreams last night that I remember as if they really happened. Does that happen to you? I know your mommy likes to hear about your dreams. And sometimes when you tell me about them, you are dreaming them as you speak, inventing images and ideas on the spot. What an imagination you have. If Ellie stands leaning against my hip, her dreams appear in competition with yours and then all dreaming stops and storytelling begins in earnest. Is there a difference?

I experience them quite differently. My dreams are like the little flakes of calcium that dislodge from the inner lining of my teakettle. They are small fragments that come together is odd, strange, funny and sometimes disturbing ways to make a story ” behind my eyes” as you explained once about dreams. The flakes are not connected at all and then sometimes become one related story.

Last night behind my eyes I was at Seymour Center, UCSC’s Long Marine Lab, for a celebration of some kind, people were dressed up, but I wore shorts and t shirt and flip flops. I was hungry but the food was so fancied up I couldn’t tell what it really was, so I couldn’t eat a thing. I slipped off my flipping and flopping shoes to sneak into the kitchen for something to eat and joined a party of workers having a party of their own. They were eating huge tuna sandwiches they had made, there were platters of them, with grated carrots and grated beets and tomatoes piled high. They asked me to join them. But then I had to help departing guest find their cars. I was barefoot. My flip flops were not where I had left them. My backpack was gone, too. “I am a fancy guest” “I donated money. I am…(I really said this in my dream)….a millionaire. Don’t judge a book by its cover” Why would they believe me? I was barefoot, had no identification like my driver’s license or anything. So I had to go outside in the dark and escort people to their cars and my feet got scraped, bumped, and bruised.

After everyone left, I said good bye to the sharks in the tank, the otter without and ear and the sea lion cub. And found my flip flops in the tank. They had sunk to the bottom ( rules of science don’t apply in this dream). I am not a good swimmer, but I dived down and got them. The sea lion cub, slid along my body, and like Mickey in the Night Kitchen I somehow had become naked. The slippery cub was lovely, warm and it’s touch welcomed. I dried off, picked up my pack, opened it to check for my wallet but my pack was full of cash, paper money bulging out. I pulled it out by the handful and put it all in the clear donation box by the door. Found my car and drove away. Stopped, went back and Returned to the kitchen party and got one more of those tuna sandwiches. THE END

Some links to real life:

I bought new flip flops for my trip to Brazil. I love them.

My wallet was bulging with money after I exchanged my reals for dollars.

You are going to a Sea Explorers summer camp in June at Seymour Center.

I loved the tuna sandwich at the acai place in Florianopolis, Brasil.

I went to bed a bit hungry.

The crazy house cleaner threw out toys, sox, papers and clothes that she dug out from under your couch mixed with mouse droppings. We discovered that the two pairs of shoes Id gotten each of you kids before I left on vacation were missing or half missing. Yesterday I found only one of yours, your brothers and one of your sisters new flip flops.

I re parked all the cars yesterday so the dump run guy, Rocky, could take away one shoe from each pair of your shoes along with other things I cannot imagine. Other things that will prove to be missing at some point.

I am not a millionaire.

I am a misfit in fancy social settings.

I am and always will be a working class kid.

I have a vivid imagination and dream in color.

Happy Dreaming, buddy. I hope you remember your dreams from time to time and will enjoy trying to make sense of them. gma