A Confusing and Uncomfortable Workout

Friday, 8/22/2008
Last night's dream

There's a lot that happens before this, but it's already disappearing.

In the last part of the dream, I drive up to some sort of festival or fair outdoors in a country area. There are booths set up to sell stuff. You are supposed to pay to enter it but I am not there for the festival. I park my car there anyway and walk up to S- Hall, which is on a ridge nearby (not in its usual place). I am early for Taekwon-do class. My instructor is already there, stretching on the floor. My sister is also here for class and possibly my mother. I am feeling tired and I don't know how my Taekwon-do suit will fit over my pregnant stomach. I go into the women's bathroom to change clothes. After I get undressed I discover that I don't have a tee shirt to go under my Taekwon-do top. I feel exhausted. There is a bed in the room with white sheets and a quilt so I lay down on it. After a few moments there I realize someone else is already in the bed! It's some guy! I don't know who he is, he looks maybe around my age, youngish, probably with some Chinese ethnicity. I kick him awake yelling at him, and attempt to cover myself with the quilt (he on the other hand is wearing something). He wakes up slowly, and I ask, "are you a man?" (He looks like a man but I've been mistaken before on occasion, and this IS the women's room). He says that yes he is. I point out that this is the women's bathroom and he should get out of here, NOW! He is sleepy and somewhat amused looking, and says that he knows it's the women's bathroom. After additional prodding and yelling he hauls himself out and leaves. My instructor and my mother come in due to the yelling and I point out indignantly that he was in there. They don't seem as concerned, like they thought my yelling was about a real problem, and indicate I should get dressed.

I go to put on my Taekwon-do suit. At first I decide to put on the top without any undershirt since I don't have one (I don't know what I was wearing before but apparently it wasn't suitable. I don't have a bra either though, so this will be uncomfortable. Then I see there is a rather ugly yellow and black patterned shirt in the bathroom with snaps up the front, made of a thin material. I actually think this probably belongs to the guy who was in here, but it seems clean and I decide to wear it anyway, and I put it on under my Taekwon-do top. I go out and join the rest of the class. My instructor calls out the first forms and I try to get started, but everybody is going every which way overlapping my area and confusing me, they all seem to be doing different things. There is loud music playing in the background too which starts when the form stops, and stops again when it stops. After some mistakes I finally finish, after everyone else. My instructor acknowledges that it must have been difficult with everybody getting in the way (as opposed to me having not done my forms in a while) and tries to space us out a bit more. We do the next form, the loud distracting music starts again although the people don't get in the way as much, so it's very confusing.

We take our Taekwon-do tops off, then I discover that the shirt I'm wearing under it has popped open in the front. It seems they aren't really snaps but little hook things. I call over my instructor and tell her that my tee-shirt has come apart. I am hoping she has a backup tee shirt but apparently she doesn't, so I decide to just go to the bathroom again and put on my Taekwon-do top with nothing under it. She is concerned that I will overheat with my Taekwon-do top on, in my condition, but there is nothing for it. I go into a stall and change. When I come out, I see my mother and instructor are there chatting with two older guys who have set up a little table in the main part of the bathroom with food. This is special stuff they've brought in for our class. There are three dishes: a pot of spicy chili with crackers on top of it, a milder sort of soup or bean dish, and a vegetable dish which is rather odd, it's made with several different whole roasted vegetables, one of each. The man who cooked them said he personally doesn't like to add the green pepper, but that is the way his parents used to make it so he still makes it that way to remember how. After I change I come out and sample two of the dishes (I avoid the spicy chili due to my recent reactions to spicy food). I also find a discarded bunch of slightly dusty but very firm green grapes and eat a handful of those. Everyone else files out to class. The cook of the food tells me that I need to talk to him about getting proper nutrition, in a disapproving sort of way. I say I will but will have to do it later, making excuses, and go back out to class.

There's another part of the dream slightly later which involves climbing into some kind of attic or loft, and my sister and her boyfriend are up there with me... but I don't remember exactly what happens.

Building a College Fantasy

5/6/2008 Tuesday morning/Monday night

I arrive at my old college, EWU; I am going to start going to school there again (maybe for another degree?). For some reason, I am disguised as a boy. I have my hair styled so it looks like it is short and hanging over most of my face, with a bandanna and a white tee shirt with an illustration on it that is mostly green. This makes my eyes look green.

I walk up to the dorm from the outside, it's apparently my old dorm (although it looks nothing like it, but in the dream I am familiar with it). I have arrived on the very first day, and although I haven't made the necessary preparations in advance or picked up my key, I know that the door will be unlocked for all the students moving in, so I am able to get in. The door leads to steps immediately going steeply down, and then going up again on the other side, then up up up further. I follow them and when I come to the top there is a large gap to step across to the doorway, which if you didn't remember to step across would be dangerous to put your foot in. In the dream I remember needing to step over this gap when going out and down the stairs, from when I was there before.

The door opens out at one end of the hallway in the dorms. There are students wandering everywhere, moving their stuff in and out. In the first room on the left, the door is open and the occupant is seated at the computer, and another person is sitting next to him in a chair with his back mostly to the door. It is my old friend S-, who I haven't seen for so very long. I knew/hoped he would be here, but I wasn't sure. I suppress my excitement and walk past (he will not recognize me in the initial disguise, I think, plus he is looking the other way). My heart is pounding.

I go down the hall looking for an open room. Rather than having rooms assigned, people just choose them and move in on the first day, and many people are already moved in. I realize that this is a bit of a problem, since I am kind of getting back into this at the last minute (I haven't registered for classes either or anything). A girl that I apparently knew before at school recognizes me and says hi, how's it going, etc. and I respond in kind. I realize that my disguise is totally ineffectual if she recognized me anyway, so I may as well take it off. I duck into the nearby bathroom.

I look at myself in the mirror, I don't think I am recognizable in my disguise but apparently I am, so I take off the bandanna and put my hair back where it belongs. My eyes look very green, which I attribute to the influence of the green on the tee shirt. Even the whites of my eyes look tinted with an almost florescent green, apparently a reflection. I wonder if S- will recognize me like this.

I use the toilet, being in some gastric distress. It appears that I have consumed a lot of long plant vines like pathos and onion greens, and I'm in quite a bit of discomfort.

That taken care of, I go back down the hall. People have cleared out a bit. I stop in the doorway of another room near the end of the hall, but on the other side from where he was before, and S- is sitting there, waiting for me. He did see me go past before, and he smiles and is happy to see me after so long. We say hello and other small things. I want to rush forward but I hang in the doorway, unsure of his reception. Now I can't picture him exactly as he was in the dream, but it was very clear then.
I say "well, it looks like I may not get a room on this floor after all, I should have come earlier," or something like that, ruefully, since everybody is snapping them up. He says that he reserved one for me, just a couple doors down from his. I say "Ah you're such a sweety," surprised and pleased. He just smiles, but I see that he has tears sparkling in his eyes, he is, like me, choked up with happiness and emotion at our meeting again. I've never seen him like this before. I know now that it is not just me aching with the fulfilled longing of seeing each other again, and this makes me deliriously happy.

I go down to the room he saved for me to put my stuff there. I am thinking, feeling slightly guilty at our meeting and the fact that I am here with him and enjoying this time and feeling so good. But then I think, it's just a dream, after all. I don't have to feel guilty, I'm not really cheating because it's not real and it's out of my control. Strangely even though I actually THINK to myself that it's a dream and use this to justify my time with him, the dream doesn't become lucid and I can't control anything, plus everything still feels completely real. It's a strange setup. I feel a little sad thinking that it's only a dream, and I'm not going to be here with him all the time. But then I tell myself I should be happy it's a dream. If it were not, he wouldn't be all welcoming to me and certainly wouldn't have gotten me a room right next to him, he would be trying to drive me away instead, rather than acting like I'd always hoped for. Plus I would be cheating on my husband since I'm married now. I think, in real life this is impossible and I'm happy that I have such a better relationship with my husband than things went in the past with S- in real life. At least because this is a dream I can come back and visit it again and again and spend some of my time here, under the dream conditions of our affection. (Even though generally you can't just choose to return to and keep going on the same dream at will, in the dream I think this will work).

I leave my bag in my room and tell S- that I'm just going to go back out to my car and get the rest of my stuff, we will meet up then and go eat or register or something. I go back out to the parking lot. When I get to my car, I see that there is a NEW large dent in the side. It is quite large, and looks like somebody fell out of the sky and landed on the car crushing a dent the shape of their head and upper body. A person standing nearby in the parking lot points it out to me and says that some people were having a fight nearby and one of them must have been thrown against the car. Also for some reason my trunk is open.

I'm somewhat perturbed by this but still in a pretty good happy mood because of S-, so I close the trunk, and hop in the car to get my stuff. I think I will straighten it up a little bit in case S- and I go somewhere in the car later, I'm not sure if he has his car here or not. Then I realize that there is a person in the car, of an unsavory sort... dirty looking with long stringy hair and bad intentions. I don't think he was expecting to see me, just stealing stuff, but the guy pulls me in and locks the doors. I think he has some kind of weapon, but I'm not sure. He starts driving. I am being kidnapped! I am a bit panicky. He goes through my stuff but fails to find anything useful, although he takes my cell phone.

I grab a paper with financial information when he isn't looking and put it into my purse. He drives for a while, it looks sort of like the area near where I grew up, but it's not. I am thinking how I can get the cell phone back and call or message for help while he is distracted. He shows me the phone where he has downloaded additional ringtones and I pretend that I like one of the tunes and want to set it as the default on the phone. He buys this and I fiddle with the phone. Unfortunately while I'm doing this he finds the financial paper in my purse, and tells me so, but I pretend not to be disturbed. I have to call or message for help. He has rearranged everything on my phone though in the course of downloading stuff, and so the normal keys don't go to the same places. I pretend to be setting the ringtone but frantically search through and find recent calls. But S- of course is not in the recent call list, since I haven't called him. My husband is there but I don't call him becuase he is far away and wouldn't be of much help in this situation. I go to the address book on the phone, and S- is there (Not sure when he got there though). I was going to call and whisper but then I realize this will be really obvious and the kidnapper might retaliate, so I send a message saying I'm kidnapped, call the police. Then I just sit back and hope.

I end up being taken to some kind of farm that has dog kennels, and the kidnapper locks me in one of them, presumably while he makes off with the stolen goods. But in a very short time S- arrives with the police and rescues me. I'm impressed since I hadn't actually been able to say where I was. Then I wake up before anything else happens.

Somehow I'm able to enjoy the fantasy of this unrealistic reunion even though I know it's not real (and that I don't even want it to be real since that wouldn't work), and most of the dream I'm just indulging in that and the feelings that accompany it

Many strange goings-on in a busy night

1/16/2008 - (Out of order, yep :P. I saved it on the wrong computer then forgot to post.)

Sad and looking for a place to stay

In the first part of the dream, I was coming from my parents’ house, but going to P- to stay with my aunt K-. I'm not sure why I couldn't stay at my own house, maybe I didn't live there yet. I didn't call in advance but ended up in downtown and wandered around trying to find a place to call. There was a library named Io Jima. I stood outside of it and called. My aunt was surprised that I was there, and I was embarrassed to explain that I needed to stay with her. It seems like maybe it was my house and she was just watching it for me while I was away, but hadn't expected me back so soon. I hadn't lived there before though, it was a brand new house for me that she was watching. We arranged for her to meet me downtown where I was. I went to a restaurant nearby and waited. There was a little boy there and I followed him around the building for some reason. I think my aunt picked me up and took me to the house, but then she was in the attic. There was a crawlspace there through a hole in the ceiling, but the cover that hid it was coming loose. It was like a door on a long strip of white leather, which was wearing out. I mentioned that I would get it repaired. We established a place for me to sleep up there, on a pallet near a big window, and I slept there. I seemed to be running away from something or had to stay there because of some kind of unpleasant situation that I was trying to get away from and had not had any place else to go.

The next day my siblings and cousins met me at the same restaurant downtown. It was an empty, old building all painted white, which didn't seem to be actually serving anything. Apparently this meeting indicated I needed to go back to my parents’ house.

When I got back I went over to Grandma’s for the weekend visit. We were all sitting around when my sister saw my mother coming back from a walk. She had my brother (young) with her and also some little kids including one in a backpack, which weren't hers but a friend's. I was surprised to see them. Someone commented that I had no sooner left than she'd replaced me with new kids. They came in and helped themselves to cookies and juice. I tried to smile at one of the little girls but she was solemn and suspicious of me. I saw my brother come in from the kitchen and spit on the floor. I got up and went into the kitchen and called him after, beckoning to him, and when he came I told him in a whisper that he needed to clean up the spit. He was chastened and moved to do so. My other aunt N- had already noticed it but he got to it. However, when I got back to the couch, my mother and the girls were sitting in my place and there was no room. I tried to sit but she didn't move, so I got up and went upstairs and sat sulkily by myself with my book, feeling excluded. I could hear my father talking downstairs about some woman who'd made great advances in her life, and it sounded like he was talking about me, and he described this book he'd read that was really good, called something beginning with P. Propet or Portent or something like that. The title was strange but a real word. He seemed to be sticking up for me, I thought, perhaps comparing me to the person in the book. My mother hadn't read the book and said he should have told her about it earlier. To which he said he had tried to get her to read it, and five times she had refused, tapping her finger on the book’s title, and said she “wouldn’t read a book with that damn title.”

Next dream:

South American "research"

I was in some country, I think in South America, there to study. There were two groups of young men there who were competing in some kind of coming-of-age ritual, although they were already close to my age. I was going to follow along with one of the groups for research. We trekked across the countryside. One of them was tall and close to my age, with pale skin and dark hair, handsome. The next was short and sort of fat, with curly long red hair and a long faded beard, looking sort of like a coworker. Another one was tall and darker, and the fourth I don't exactly remember but he was unattractive in some way. None was a leader; they all had to work together.

At one point they came to a river. They showed me one of the rules in their culture. They floated a small animal down the stream and the others watched from the opposite bank. But then they floated another animal that looked sort of like a dumpy green fruit-like frog, which turned its back on the watchers from the bank. Because of this, they yelled and threw things at it. I commented that the animal didn’t understand facing them or turning its back, but they explained that this was their tradition. Another one came by and faced them and they did nothing to it. Later the one that had turned its back floated in the water with a greasy stain coming from it, as if it were sick or dying. I am not sure if this was a way to identify dying animals (that they had seen it was sick beforehand) or if they had injured it. The entire scene with the floating animals I had seen before in another dream, but undeveloped as to its meaning and the surrounding story.

We got a move on then, one of them chastening the others for dallying there so long. We ran up hills, along narrow trails, etc. I ran to keep up, they were able to move faster than I. It was some kind of race against the other group. We camped for the night in a small tent with all of us. I wondered how we were going to spend the night like that, but the dream skipped over it so I never found out. In the morning I found myself waking with the handsome guy that I kind of liked still there, preparing to pack up. We talked and he ended up kissing me, and I got carried away by this and tried to go further. He protested that this would be a huge problem in the competition and get him and his group disqualified, but didn't resist very much. But immediately the other team member with the red beard popped in. He was totally shocked. I was embarrassed, and the other guy started moaning and praying and asking forgiveness for having done this. The other guy was angry and pointed out he'd put his whole group in jeopardy, but you could also see he was hurt that I'd picked that guy and not him or the others. We continued on and finished the race.

The two people on the council who awarded prizes picked their team to win despite the indiscretion, which apparently they were open about to the judges, but they fined the guy who had kissed me to 185,000 and possibly also a time in their jail. I was taken aback and felt very bad about my part in it, and thought the punishment harsh, but everyone was very relieved by it (apparently it could have been worth) and relieved that their group had passed.

Radioactive seepings downtown at work

Next: I am back in P-, possibly at work. I have been sent into another room to retrieve something. It has a big window across all one wall. I look out as I go there and see a big funnel cloud, but I can't tell if it’s a tornado or just a cloud shaped like that. In the room, I see the city landscape and I see a nuclear tower in the middle of it. It's normally quiet or not in used, but now it starts generating huge clouds of steam. People are in a closer room, watching, which I can also see through a glass wall into (I can see through the glass wall and the real window to see outside the building). As I'm watching wondering what is going on with the tower, is it going to explode? Some military people come in. some are already watching. They wear tan uniforms, and might not be military but work for the nuclear plant, but are somehow official. A short roundish woman in uniform asks me if I would like to come into the next room next to the window to get a better view (indicating there's no option about it). I go in with her and watch and ask some questions about it but don't learn much. After a bit I leave via going to the bathroom (as a kind of excuse to leave the room). But when I look at the toilet, instead of water, it's filling with blue stuff similar to toilet bowl cleaner, which is thick and sticky and everywhere. I try to wipe it off the seat but it comes back. It's somehow connected to the activity at the nuclear tower. I decide it won’t work and leave the bathroom and manage to get out of the room too, since now I want to leave instead of being stuck watching with the others. Then I wake up.

Thwarting a motel evildoer

Later the same day morning, I fall back to sleep and I have another dream where my husband and I are floating down a river in a canoe or other small boat. We stop and we want to spend the night at some kind of hotel. The place beside the river bank is like a miniature wooden house, with several parts, just barely big enough for a person to get inside and lay down. It’s like part of a fun park. We end up going in anyway. Somehow we have more space inside the house. There is a big guy in there too. I take a little boy, my brother or son, into the bathroom and go down the stairs. When I get down the stairs I get an awful feeling that something bad is happening upstairs and I race back up. I envision the big guy going into the bathroom after the little boy and trapping him in there. When I get up to the top I see he is not doing that but something else threatening, I don’t remember what. I somehow get up the banister, and manage to jump to the landing he is on, and stab him with a knife. I call to my husband and he comes and helps and we kill the guy. I only caught him because I had had that thought at the exact right moment to avert disaster. We run away out of the house after killing the guy.

Meetings in the Restrooms

1/6/2008 Sunday morning's dream

The entire part of this dream that I can remember seemed to take place in a large public bathroom. There were numerous people, men and women, flowing in and out and getting into discussions with me about one thing or another.

Oops... forgot to post this. Posting out of order *gasp**gulp*

Visiting a Park with a Holy Cliff

Last night's dream (Monday night/Tuesday morning) 11/20/2007

I went with my husband to a famous park and we spent a long time exploring it. It had beautiful thick woods and abrupt gulleys, and we found a small canyon cut 15 feet deep in the mud of the streambed, as if a flood had come through and filled up the valley with mud at the water had cut it down again. It seemed to be summer or spring time and there were lots of small plants growing and white flowers. To continue our exploration we got a guide. Several were available, ours was a young girl with bobbed blond hair and a red and white shirt. She was friendly but not flirtatious, and I did not feel jealous of her and was glad we had gotten her and not one of the male guides.

After this part of the tour was over, my mother, sister, and for some reason a friend of my husband and formerly of me, AM. I think there were some other relatives of mine as well. They parked their cars and we all gathered to visit the most important part of the park, which was a holy place. The guide showed us where to go, there was a sheer rock cliff with a small ledge wide enough to drive on, and we were supposed to drive out. Some of my relatives I think drove a vehicle, and the rest of us walked ahead. The shelf was only just wide enough for the car, and plunging over the edge would mean disaster (this had something to do with why it was a holy pilgrimage spot, you were supposed to have enough faith and bravery to make your way along the edge).

We came to a point very quickly where the floor of the shelf had a lump in it like a small landslide had come down at some point, and it would be difficult to drive the car over without it tipping off the edge, so we decided to leave it and walk on (it would have to be backed up along the ledge to get back too). I went out to the most important point, which was a finger of rock sticking out, and sat there for a while. The rock was sort of a pinky granite. It was very peaceful and yet exciting.

Then, we started to head back and I returned to a hotel room we'd rented nearby, but AM came back with me. My husband and relatives would be following shortly. I was uncomfortable being there with him and realized that when my husband came home he also wouldn't be happy with the situation. So, I claimed I had to go to the bathroom, and went in and stayed there until my husband and mother and sister came back, then I emerged after they walked in, and we all reunited. The sun was just setting at that point illuminating the room with a rosy glow.

The park was well-known in the dream but I don't know of any place like this or that looks similar in the waking world, let alone being some kind of pilgrimage spot.

Strange sinks and wandering

11/7/2007 - Tuesday night's dream
I can only remember a few isolated scenes from this dream.

In the first one I am in a large building with tiled floors and several levels, sort of like a school building, with my sister. We walk around up and down stairs to different floors. We go into a bathroom. It's jam packed with other women waiting to use it, but when I get to the start of the line I realize that the toilets look like two sinks, very high. The one on the right is smaller than the other and becomes available next. I consider my options and how I am going to squeeze up there next to the person on the other sink. The sinks are not only next to each other and not separated by stalls, but basically visible to everybody else waiting to use the bathroom. I eventually decide that I'm not even going to try because I wouldn't be able to relieve myself in this situation, and I make my way out. We find another bathroom eventually.

Unlike most bathroom dreams, I didn't wake up directly afterwards and didn't have to go when I woke up

In the later part of the dream, or the second dream, I am walking around a rural area which is sort of like where I grew up in vegetation, but nowhere I know. The area looks kind of like the end of the road where I grew up, with lots of plants, and a creek, but nearby there is a small neighborhood built on a slight hill. I walk up through the residential area, which is somewhat hilly but not steep. There's also a nearby wooded area with an old flat wooden bridge across the creek. I think I am looking for someone who has run away from his home (as in, he was angry and stormed off and started walking), a boy younger than me, not in my family. I think I meet up with him. It might also have been me that ran off ... it fades back and forth. A cat or kitten is involved at one point or is out there with me.

A mysterious teacher and a gifted girl

9/13/2007 - Last night's dream ( Wednesday Night)
Dream 1
A young teacher returns to a place that she taught before, in order to pay special attention to one student in particular. This student is a small girl between 7 and 10. She has short black hair cut about to mid ear all the way around, and has much potential. But, she has been difficult for teachers to work with and is now labeled as a problem student, and possibly delayed a level.

The young woman who has returned is probably about my age, also dark haired. She remembers the girl from teaching here for two years or quarters, etc when she was much younger. The teacher has some sort of special abilities herself, in a mary poppins sort of way, and will pull this girl into her full potential.

She only tells the girl that she is here to be the new teacher, and tells her she used to teach her when she was much younger. The girl doesn't say anything, somewhat shyly. Not sure if she remembers this woman (but she likes her already). She goes to play with the other few students in the school. It is set in a somewhat remote area in the woods.

The new teacher observes them playing outside, and begins to formulate her lesson plan. She will be teaching all subjects. Rather than teaching each one for an hour or so each day, she devotes a different day to each subject (or most of the day).

The girl is fascinated by two large old airplanes that are landed in the clearing. They seem to be antique, and are very huge and heavy flying machines (not built like typical airplanes here, but on a large X shape). She is fascinated by them and filled with longing to fly in them, climbing on them and gazing at them.

The teacher watches all this, smiling to herself. When she goes into her cabin that evening, she places a small bowl of simmering green liquid, like a candle, in the corner of her cabin on a small table by the bed. A local man with sandy brown hair, who is smitten by the new teacher, watches this and asks her about it. She explains that this will make the little girl comfortable here. The liquid smells like the wet outdoors and the airplanes, and fills the cabin with this smell. When the little girl stops by to talk to her, while the teacher is formulating her plans, she does smell it but doesn't know where it's coming from. This is some of the teacher's magic.

That morning the little girl and the teacher awaken to the sound of chainsaws. The girl looks out her window to see that the large stump outside is being cut into pieces. There is also another stump at the next house which is being cut up. The view is blocked by the first stump, but she can see pieces of it roll out. The problem is, the stump blocked the view of the toilet. As she goes to sit on it, she can see that once the stump is gone, the toilet will be visible from the next house. It's not an outside toilet, it's part of the house, but it doesn't have walls all around it.

I am "inside" the heads of both the girl and teacher in this dream, like they are characters in a story I'm writing. I felt very attached to it in the same way, as well, although once I woke up (as is often the case) the storyline seemed less coherent than it had in the dream

Dream 2
This one is quite a bit murkier in my memory...

There are some shoes and a tree, or branches of a tree, that I carry and put on a bed, which has a light pink bedspread. I am spending a lot of time there, either in the bed or just in that room. They are branches of a sensitive plant (mimosa), and I have picked them from a larger version of it. I am explaining to someone, a boy around my age, that you have to be careful of the vicious thorns in these branches (true!), but the ones I am carrying don't seem to have many of these. They look more like they are off one of the tree relatives than the actual sensitive plants. I think that I may be in this room because I am sick with something. I think that I enlist the boy to sneak more things up to me, which he doesn't follow very well.

Trip to Algae Mountain

I have gone to visit my sister at a place she has been staying for a while, and we go to see the main attraction. It is a big rock set at the edge of a bay or inland sea. The waves wash up and crash over it but you can walk to it in between. She tells me that the rock is best accessed at high tide, which doesn't make any sense, because you can only get to it when there is some ground exposed between the land and the rock. The ground around the rock (normally underwater) is covered with white shells and rocks. The surrounding land is hazy with mist or sea spray and is smooth and mounded with bluffs covered with thick green grass. The rock itself is completely covered (almost upholstered) with that thick, cushiony grass-like algae. It looks like it would be slippery but I manage to climb up it, following my sister's lead, without slipping, and we cross it between waves crashing on it.

We go up to a smooth dark gray small slab of rock, partway up the side of the bigger rock. There is a young man with a backpack standing in front of it scratching something on it with a small stone. When he leaves, my sister follows suit and when it is my turn, I see that people have recorded their names or initials and when they visited the rock. There is a line of alphabet letters and most people have scratched their name/initials and date under the appropriate letter. But some people who have visited many times, like my sister, have their names separate with a list of dates underneath. There is not a lot of extra room to write in and I look for a place to scratch my name and the date. There is not enough space under the letter for my initial. My sister tells me to hurry up, and I realize that a line has formed behind me of several boys (maybe 10 years old) waiting to scratch their names. The first boy in line has dark hair and blacked rim glasses, and looks Asian. Finally I find a small empty space and scratch in my initials and the date (all the dates are years, as I recall). The stone is soft like claystone and easy to carve in. When I finish, I realize that the boys are being rounded up to get back into a van, which is parked nearby on another part of the rock. I realize they have to leave without having time to leave their marks, in an apparently very short but important trip out to this rock, and feel sorry for holding up the line.

After they are gone, an old woman comes up and asks my sister if she found something that the woman's brother or husband (not sure which) left her some weeks or months ago. I had the impression that the man who left it here has passed away or something. It seems that my sister has been coming here often. She looks behind the scratching rock, which has a back sort of like a podium, and removes a pouch, looking through it, but does not find the missing object. My sister is very helpful and eventually determines from talking to the slightly tottery old woman that the object is a Leatherman (one of those folding knife/pliers things). She shows the woman her Leatherman and the woman nods enthusiastically. Then from her purse she digs out another Leatherman, more worn looking, and this one has an enormous screw attached to it, maybe 6 inches long and proportionally thick (it was not part of the Leatherman, just tacked on afterwards). The woman is delighted and thanks her profusely.

We return to a house which is somewhat like my parents' house and somewhat like a house that my grandparents used to have. Several people are taking turns using the bathroom. When I go in, I think to myself that the house is big, fancy, has 7 rooms, and yet it only needs one bathroom. It's certainly sufficient, I think (notwithstanding all the people who apparently keep needing to wash muddy clothes in the bathroom), and comparing this to the real life fact that we recently were looking for a 2 bedroom apartment that my husband insisted had to have 2 bathrooms as well... surely unnecessary.