I had a dream

Last night I had a very strange dream. This is the first dream in a while I've been able to remember in any detail, so I thought I'd record it while I could still remember. I used to try to figure out some meaning to dreams, but stopped when I stopped remembering them.

In my dream, I was at a motel on a family trip. My parents, siblings, cousins, and aunts and uncles were there, among other people. My wife and kids were there, but they were safe in the room I came from at the beginning of the dream. It was a small motel, and we were basically the only guests. The first detail I remember is that I had changed clothes and tossed my white shirt down to my dad's truck. I missed, so I was about to go down to pick it up and put it inside when my older sister showed up with her family. She apparently didn't like how my dad's truck was parked, so she started to move it.

At first, she wasn't driving it; it was like she was using a mechanic's dolly or something to move it, and she immediately ran over my white shirt. Then she was driving it, and ran it straight into the side of the hotel. I remember the part of my dream where the truck jumped the curb was actually in slow motion. That was the first slow motion sequence in this dream. After running into the motel on the ground floor, the part above the demolished rooms sort of fell in. It looked sort of like earthquake damage, but it was just the middle part of the hotel that caved in, directly above where the truck had crashed.

I went through the rooms on both of the damaged floors, and people were in the rooms on the second and third floors. On the second floor, they had been able to get out of the way. On the third floor, a bunch of my young cousins had built a blanket fort, and were amazingly unhurt underneath it. After making sure everyone was ok, I walked down the street a little ways for some reason that I can't remember, but it involved a construction site. It made sense in the dream, of course.

On my way back to the damaged hotel, I realized someone was following me in a dark SUV. Since I was walking, I was sure I was caught, and several times I was inches from being abducted (or run over, that part is fuzzy), but I always got away just in time. I got back to the hotel and found the back door and went inside just as the dark SUV pulled around.

The back door was like a fire escape, and led to the fire stairs inside. There was a window that I had to pass to actually get into the hotel, and the SUV pulled up next to it just as I was about to pass in front of it. The driver's window was down, and he pulled out a gun and started to point it into the stairway. This is where the second slow motion sequence started. I was literally right next to the window, as he pulled his gun, but he hadn't seen me yet. As he started to turn the gun towards me, I stabbed him in the eye. In my dream, I actually saw the knife blade go into eyeball. He turned away and covered that eye, then started looking for me with his good eye, and turned the gun back around towards me again, so I stabbed him in the other eye. I don't remember pulling out the knife, or even thinking about it, but I have relatively clear memories of stabbing this guy in both of his eyes. Then I went into the hotel.

Inside, I passed through a large hallway, in a much nicer hotel than I remember coming from, when two army guys, who were sitting in fancy armchairs, stopped me. Instantly it made sense that the man who I stabbed was an army guy, too, but one who had gone rogue or something. Both of the army guys in the chairs knew what I had done somehow, and one was bothered, while the other thought it was funny. I was actually more concerned with the knife I was still holding (which was not bloody, by the way), because I had folded it up like a pocket knife, but the blade was square, almost like a carpet knife, and a sharp corner was still exposed, so I wasn't going to put it in my pocket, but I was trying to figure out what to do with it. The army guys were trying to reassure me that everyone was safe, and that I wasn't in any trouble, when the guy with two stabbed eyes came into the room with his own personal guard, and took all of us prisoner. That's about when I woke up.

I think part of the dream was brought on my the Psych episode we had just watched, which incorporated many Alfred Hitchcock horror plot points. I also clearly don't think highly of my older sister's driving skills. Other than that, I'm not sure what to think. But it was a weird dream.

Family pictures

This morning, after we were ready for church, and as I was looking up how to get to the baby blessing we were going to, Kelsea came up to me and said "I look nice and we have a few minutes." I figured she was most likely fishing for a compliment, so I started out with "you do look nice...." She acted impatient (though flattered), and said, "no, I mean we should try to take some pictures." So we did.

That was the best one. We got another decent one or two, but I had to include this one because of Holly's expression:

Pretty good, right?

Peas porridge hot

This is the time of year I really love Las Vegas weather. The peas that I planted sometime last year are doing great.

This is what they look like to a five-year-old. Holly took this picture.

Peas are delicious, and the kids love to eat fresh-picked peas. At least they are getting some vegetables.

too many to count, but close to 90

I have to wear a tie to work most days. I wear a tie to church every Sunday. I served a mission to Italy, and I anticipated both of those things, and therefore I bought a lot of ties while in Italy. I only took 6 or 7 ties with me when I went into the MTC, and in my first area, there was a closet that had a built-in tie rack, for 30 or so ties. I thought it was a pretty nice way to hang up ties.

It looked a bit like this, only instead of pegs, it had little hangers that rotated in against the inside of the closet door. (Picture it on the inside of an armoire door.) Well, I bought several ties in my first area, and in later areas, but I never had a tie hanger as nice as that first one. When I got home, I found tie hangers like this one, and bought a few for my tie collection. Each hanger holds 24 ties, and I needed three of them to hold all of my ties. That means I had somewhere between 48 and 72 ties when I got home from Italy.
After buying so many ties over the course of 2 years, I was hooked, even though my initial plan was to never buy any more ties in my life. It got worse a year or so ago when I found out that there was an Andrew's Ties store here in Las Vegas (it's in the shoppes at the Venetian/Palazzo upscale mall). Andrew's Ties was my favorite tie store in Italy, so last Christmas I finally checked it out, and bought three ties. They cost a lot more here than in Italy, in case you wondered.

Well, eventually, I needed more tie hangers. Right now I have four tie hangers and they are almost full (four of those hangers will hold 96 ties, but I do have a few open spots). I have two more hangers in case I need them.

Kelsea always thought my tie collection was a little weird, and always tried to convince me to get rid of the oldest, or loudest, or any that were worn out. I let her use some to make patchwork pillows once (though she actually wanted to make a quilt, I didn't let her destroy that many ties). So now she suggested I wear each tie once, until I wear them all. I started yesterday, and it is going to take a while. At 5 ties a week, I think it will take me until July or so to get through them all. I do have a few ties that are kind of loud, so I know I will get comments on them (and I am hesitant to wear a few, like my toilet tie), but there are probably only 3 or 4 like that. Before anyone asks, I have worn every single tie in my collection at least once already (yes, in public), a few just get into the rotation much more frequently right now. I'll let you know how this little project progresses.