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It's interesting how our dreams - well, MY dreams anyway - like to juxtapose people and places and generations in bizarre new ways, like two time-machine spaceships passing in the night. This morning I actually remembered the details of two dreams I'd had during my REM-sleeping hours.

In Dream 1, I was on a bicycle, cycling along what I think might have been Walkley Road, on the left-hand side. My daughter was there on her bike too, except she was still a kid of about 12 or 13. And my dad was up ahead on what I gather must have been a kind of self-driving bicycle. Anyway, it had a trailer behind it, like a child-carrier but adult-sized, and that's what he was riding in. My dad got off or out of the bike at one point and said he would be taking a nap in the back of the bike for a while so not to disturb him for a while. By whatever logic or laws that prevailed in my dream-universe, this didn't faze us at all - apparently this was a perfectly safe and sensible decision for him to make!

After a while, a cop came along and told off me and my daughter for various violations of road safety we were committing. I think part of the problem was that it was starting to get dark and our bikes were not adequately lit. They confiscated her bike altogether and gave her a sheet of green paper, detailing all the various infractions. They let me off with a warning. They didn't even seem to notice my father up ahead.

After the cop left, I decided I would just walk my bike. I told my daughter that I blamed myself for getting her in trouble with the police - after all, I was supposed to be the adult here! She just sort of shrugged in a let's-just-get-on-with-it kind of way. Meanwhile my dad, still up ahead, seemed to be maintaining a constant distance away from us, despite the fact that we were now walking rather than cycling.

A few minutes later, a former co-worker came cycling up behind us, along with her daughter who looked to be about 4 or 5. They looked exactly like they looked at a long-ago office Christmas party. We chatted for a few minutes and then they moved on. And that was the end of Dream 1.

In Dream 2, I was riding in some kind of vehicle, which was either a long bus or a train. I think it was quite locally-based, in or around Ottawa, Gatineau and the surrounding rural areas. But what made it unique was that we were getting some kind of culinary course en route, complete with tasting sessions. There was an array of foods or mini-courses on a table on one side of the vehicle, which we had to sample in a particular order. I do remember that the first tasting involved two slices of cucumber per person. Perhaps kind of palate-cleanser? The other foods on the table looked interesting and I was looking forward to tasting them and getting to know a little more about their distinctive properties. But it was not to be.

They were barely into introducing the next tasting when I remembered something important. Apparently I was living with my mother in this dream, although I think it was more a case of her living in my house rather than me still living in hers. Anyway, she hadn't been home (or perhaps had been asleep) when I'd gone out. I had somehow neglected to tell her that I'd recently brought home a cat, which I'd installed in a spare bedroom. I had put some food down, although I thought the cat would soon be getting hungry again. However, I had completely forgotten about a litter box. I knew we did have spare litter boxes and litter down in the basement.

So what should I do now? Try to phone my mother and let her know? It was a conversation I'd envisioned having in person rather by phone or voice-mail. Maybe I'd better get out at the next stop and get home. I wasn't sure exactly where we were but if there were no bus routes nearby, surely I could call a taxi?

I think it was roughly at this point that I woke up. On CBC radio, there was a special edition of Ontario Morning, since today is a holiday in Ontario and much of the rest of Canada, though not in Quebec. They were interviewing someone who's a "water sommelier" - yes, apparently that's a thing (who knew?). Not sure if that was influencing my dream.

Dreams are odd sometimes.

I know I'm not the only person to report remembering more, and more vivid dreams, since the pandemic began. And this past week has been a particularly vivid dream-week for me. Here's a sampling. together with a few explanatory comments & asides.

Dream #1 - I invited my parents over to our place for dinner. Except in the dream, "our place" wasn't the house we've been living in for 40+ years but rather the house in Gatineau where our daughter, son-in-law and grandkids live. They were living there too in the dream, presumably along with the cat & the chickens.
Comment: This is highly unlikely to happen any time soon, not just because of pandemic restrictions on gathering size but also because both parents have been dead for a number of years. I'm not sure if ghosts count as part of the maximum gathering size...

Dream #2 - I went back to my office (not sure WHICH office, or even if it was anywhere I'd actually worked in my awake-world), which clearly had not been occupied in quite some time. The furniture was dusty and there was an odd mish-mash of people's abandoned possessions and dirty coffee cups. There were two or three other people around, though no one I recognized. One of them had an enclosed office and was clearly a fairly senior public service manager although I don't think she was my boss. Anyway, I figured since it was quiet, it would be a good opportunity to catch up on things, as I had a lot of catching up to do. The time was moving pretty quickly and eventually the woman in the enclosed office came out with her coat on and told me she was just leaving and since I was the last one in the building, could I please make sure the lights were off and things were locked up as they should be before I left. But before she could actually leave, my partner arrived to pick me up (as we had arranged) and the two of them got into a discussion. I think Important Manager-Lady was really just meaning to make polite conversation but somehow my partner got into a big political argument of some kind with her. Manager-Lady eventually extricated herself from it and left and I started putting things away and gathering my things together to leave, but I was inwardly fuming. I was trying to think how to broach it to my partner that in my job, I was expected to be politically neutral and I was likely to get suspended or even fired as a result of my partner's rash mouthing-off. At some point as we were going out of the building to the car, I segued into an awake-state. But because the dream had been so real to me, I was still feeling very annoyed and it took several minutes before I realized it had all been a dream.

Dream #3 - I was walking somewhere on or just off Bank Street in the Glebe when I noticed our car parked nearby. But I knew my partner, the only driver in the family, was at home so I figured someone must have stolen the car. I do keep an emergency set of keys in my purse so I used those to get into the car and decide what to do. I figured the car thief would eventually return to the vehicle and probably drive it goodness-knows-where and it would be unrecoverable. So I decided to drive it as far as Billings Bridge (gambling I wouldn't be stopped by the cops) and park it somewhere in their parking lot. Then I planned to take the #88 bus home and my partner could pick up the car at Billings Bridge whenever. I made it to Billings Bridge without incident and I was heading up to the transitway to get my bus but everything had been moved around. I had to catch an elevator to get up to the stop, but the elevators were surrounded by all kinds of obstacles like newspaper boxes, coatracks, cartons etc. that I had to clamber over and around just to reach one of the elevators. It was while navigating that obstacle course that I woke up. Again, the dream had felt very real and it took me a while to get my bearings.

Dream #4 - For some reason, I was in charge of picking up mail for both OSFS (Ottawa Science Fiction Society) and ApaPlexy (an every-6-weeks zine I used to belong to & write for). But the house where I had to go to pick up this mail was worthy of a horror film or a murder mystery (secret passages, trap doors, unexpected things that go bump in the night...) Location-wise, it was in our general neighbourhood, possibly where the president of OSFS used to live and hold some meetings, but the house itself was totally different. I had to go up and down a bunch of passageways and at one point even had to swim through some sort of underground swimming pool to collect the mail. It was like some sort of scavenger hunt, relay race and obstacle course all rolled into one. I woke up before I figured out the rules of the game and I don't think I ever did manage to find any mail!

Not sure what any of those dreams mean.

I had a dream last night where I was sitting in a fairly generic-looking government office (possibly a government library) when two people came in, wearing those day-glow yellow vests. One was carrying some sort of white and blue hand-held device. He said they were going around all the offices vaccinating people against Covid-19 and asked if I was interested.

I said I was, so he asked me to hold out an arm and then he held the device maybe six to eight inches away and pulled a lever or trigger of some sort. It let out a little beep and that was basically my vaccination - no needle, no fuss, no muss. Then the other person got me to sign a sheet of paper and add my PRI so they'd know not to approach me again (evidently it wasn't a two-dose vaccine?)

I think they then asked about who else was in the office today who might be wanting to get zapped as well, before moving on.

All a bit bizarre, but then many dreams are.

The anxious-coloured dreams continue. Here are two dreams I had just before waking up this morning.

The First Dream. I was downtown to meet up with some friends (possibly at the Museum of Nature) but first I had to go to some sort of appointment in a building along Elgin Street. There was a long line-up outside and eventually we were herded into the building and into a long narrow elevator (like a freight elevator or a hospital elevator). It started moving quite erratically: haltingly at first but then careening about quite quickly. It was moving in a kind of spiral trajectory around some mezzanines or balconies until it reached the top. I finally got out and found myself in another hallway where I had to change out of the clothes I was wearing and into what looked like a costume of some sort (white and with gathers in it but it didn't really fit me properly). I understood that I was to leave my regular clothes there and they'd be returned to me at the end of the procedure (whatever that was). However, I never got my procedure done and never got my clothes back. Instead, I got lost wandering a maze of corridors. I finally found a door to a stairwell and went down as far as I could until I found an emergency exit which took me out to a deserted area at the back or side of the building. I made my way around to the front of the building again and saw people thronging out of the front door and surging along Elgin Street (away from the Parliament Buildings). I sort of merged into the crowd and I overheard someone telling someone else about her experience in the elevator (which sounded fairly similar to mine) and her neighbour said he'd been in one of the building's elevators too but that everything had seemed quite normal so maybe it was just the luck of the draw.

The Second Dream. I was inside a former office in the basement of Place de Ville. My office was in a library and located near some of the stacks. But in the dream, the shelves were almost bare and there were stacks of cardboard boxes behind them which I assumed contained all the books and other library materials. The library was deserted. Sitting at my desk, I decided there was nothing useful I could really do at the moment so I thought I'd go and grab a coffee somewhere.

I was sitting in the coffee shop with some papers in front of me when I got a notification that I was late for a meeting. I was just gathering up my things to leave when I noticed that the right lens of my glasses was cracked in multiple places and I wasn't sure how long it was going to last. I didn't have a spare pair and I didn't think I had time to attempt even a temporary repair so I just put them back on and headed off to the meeting in the boss's office. In real life, the office was tiny and windowless but in the dream it was huge.

When I got there, there was a celebratory atmosphere with plenty of food and drink but I had no idea what or whom we were celebrating (although I was pretty sure it wasn't me!) I did see some people I knew but they didn't seem inclined to fill me in on what was going on. I was sort of milling about and trying to interpret the situation when I woke up.

And the moral of the stories is... ? I've no idea! I definitely view the dreams as pandemic-induced, even though there was definitely no social or physical distancing involved and no one was wearing a mask. Is this my subconscious brain's version of the New Normal?

I still have no access to my Reading Page, Recent Entries, Archive etc. so the only way I can see if I've already written about something is to pretend I want to edit my entries and then go into them one by one. It's rather a cumbersome process, but I'll press on.

Yesterday I had a precious couple of hours to myself, although a large part of that time was spent on mundane tasks like laundry. My partner got the tires changed on the car and a new battery installed so hopefully the poor old car won't be quite so reluctant to start when we venture out for groceries or prescriptions or whatever.

And I actually managed to get a decent night's sleep last night. I did have a rather odd dream in which I was in a department store with one of my sisters and we were looking at coffee makers. There was one on display and it was set up so that the customer could actually try it out. There were two things you could put into it, though - one was a package of coffee and the other packages was of something you were supposed to use just to clean the machine - a kind of cleaner/descaler. But the thing was, it LOOKED just like coffee, but you were not supposed to drink it! So anyway, I had just put some of that stuff through the machine and my sister was going to take a cup of it, thinking that it was coffee. I warned her off it but she was annoyed that there was no coffee ready to drink. So I went to get the necessary ingredients (i.e. water and ground coffee) to actually make a pot of coffee, but then I had to somehow get rid of the non-coffee. I think I just decided to pour it into a bunch of empty mugs but as I was loading the coffee-pot, I started worrying about what if other customers came along and started drinking the non-coffee. Would they be poisoned? And were there enough clean mugs around for when the real coffee was actually ready? I was mulling over all that when I woke up and realized it had just been a dream.

This week in Ontario, Ford announced that schools would not re-open until September. But in Quebec, schools are now available to the younger kids if their parents want to send them. And apparently Quebec is now allowing gatherings of up to 10 people from no more than 3 different households. I'm hoping Ontario will do something similar before long.

And in other news? Well, I'm still reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. I've always wanted to read it, but it's taken a pandemic to get me this far!

We're well stocked now for most grocery items, beer, charcoal briquettes for barbecues - and the weather is finally getting nicer and warmer.

It feels like perpetual limbo, although life is still pretty good.