Menage à Trois Bingo

A couple weeks ago, Tammie said she wanted to do something special for Valentine's Day. So she booked the family an AirBnb night at a place not too far away (about 20 minutes from home).

It was the most incredible AirBnb I've ever heard of. A guest suite with mini kitchen attached to the home of a family, so far so ordinary. But... it was connected to the main house via an indoor pool and hot tub area lush with live plants and a koi and turtle pond (there was also a bearded dragon in an enclosure in that area), the pool was a 25 yard lap pool wide enough for 3 people to swim side by side, entered (from the guest suite) via a glass balcony seating area and spiral staircase. Then we also had use of a three-season room with full kitchen and dining table, library wall with rolling ladder, the outdoor tennis court (not that the weather would have permitted playing tennis), the upper deck and hanging chair, the basement game room-slash-fitness-center which had 1) a multi-function squash/racketball/volleyball/halfcourt basketball court with computerized shifting wall and nets/etc, 2) a fully-equipped fitness area with all the machines you'd expect, 3) seven pinball machines 4) a pool table 5) an arcade-style video game machine with 25000 games on it 6) a foosball table 7) a bar 8) a sectional couch and another full kitchen. And all that isn't going anywhere near the family's own living area, which we didn't go through although the pool area was surrounded by windows so we could see them sometimes going about their day.

For about $150 for the night. We'd have spent nearly that much at an arcade on the pinball and pool table. But the games were set to free play.

We got there, settled in, ordered dinner from The Cheesecake Factory via DoorDash, and went swimming until it arrived. Then we ate at the poolside table, cleared our dishes away, opened Valentine's presents (my Tammie got me a Harry Potter Smash Journal Kit: stencils, stickers, fancy pen, "leather"-covered journal), and then played pool and pinball until we were tired. In the morning, we had more hot tubbing and packed up to leave.

We were visited several times by the son of the house, a cute 4 year old, and occasionally by the dogs, 2 galumphing sheepadoodles (Old English Sheepdog x poodle).

I keep saying it was like spending 16 hours or so living like multimillionaires. And secondarily I'm reminded of the multivoice podfic I put together recently: Anthony J Crowley, Retired Demon and AirBnb Superhost. I keep trying to describe the place in terms like Crowley's reviewers used. "A vampire den, but make it sports!"

--

And this morning, I had an interesting dream. For some reason I was participating in a filk circle with Jaskier, and I was going to sing one of his new ballads. But I didn't know the words, so he gave me a book with the words in but I kept losing the page. It was an illustrated book, small drawings all around the text. Then a break was called before our turn came, and we spent it making out under a table. Never did actually sing the song, but got some very nice snogging. Lol

--

After leaving the AirBnb we drove to Rolla to meet up with Tammie's friend Tammy and her daughter. We had Mexican food for lunch, exchanged Valentine's gifts and some other assorted objects, and drove back home. Tammie and I had tickets to a salsa dance date night at 7:30 and we wanted to have time to get ready.

However, as I had kinda suspected would happen, Tammie was too tired to go out. I had tried to tell her before we made the plans that three things in one day was too many.....I was right. So we didn't go.

But we have been taking dance lessons for a few weeks now! We've learned (sort of) the foxtrot, salsa, and (one variety of) swing. Back in January, a friend of ours, David, organized a 1920's themed ball which we all attended. We watched other people dancing, and decided it was finally time to take those ballroom dance lessons we kept talking about taking.

On reflection, I'm sure it was a dream.

The Ambercon hotel called and told Chris that my reservation had been cancelled because Rush Limbaugh needed the room for someone in his entourage. "But she can have this other room that's twice as expensive if she pays the difference!"

I got so angry. Cue ranting and raving about how he can afford the better room if he wants somewhere to stay, about how I was there first, about how the hotel should give me the better room for the same rate if they're going to bump me, etc etc.

But I'm sure the whole thing was a dream.

- the hotel does not have Chris's number to call him
- and anyway they would not call anyone but the name on the reservation to discuss it
- and there are no missed calls on my phone
- and in the real world they don't tell you the name of the person in whose favor you were bumped
- and generally if you're offered an upgrade in the case of a bump, they eat the cost

I think it's because we're doing a lot of work on the house this spring/early summer--what with Emma moving in--I've been having dreams about a house. It's not this house, it's not a house I've ever actually seen, but it's HUUUUUUGE, has all kinds of hidden rooms and balconies, a freaking parking garage in one dream...

In today's dream I re-discovered or reopened a whole floor in the house. Reopened a room with a wooden floor painted pink, where the windows had been left open but somehow nothing important was damaged. Just a lot of disused woodgrain plastic 3-ring binders. "I can use this as a craft room!"

Outside the pink floored room was a balcony that from the outside looked like a Disney castle covered in flowering vines. There were some neighbors out there, we had a conversation I can't remember.

Back inside, the next room was full of ancient and deteriorating Japanese and Korean stringed instruments. An elderly Japanese lady was trying to repair them--she wouldn't accept payment unless the repairs succeeded, and they didn't seem to be going well. She was tying off each individual string to a woven fabric piece that was dry-rotted; I couldn't see how it could hold the knots for long.

There was an enormous bathroom with a big shower. I remember thinking how good it would be not to have all six of us sharing a single shower anymore.

More details escape me at this late hour. Should have made notes immediately.

Dreamed I had a book contract sent to me. Signed it, and went around to all my friends waving it around. It was a write-to-outline romance; there was a several paragraph precis of the plot, which involved lions in some way. I remember saying something like, "See, that saves me having to decide what happens, which is always the hardest part of writing for me!" (True, that.)

The contract itself, of course, was in my own name, but the "author" line on the documents listed "Becky Wagon", the name under which they planned to sell the book. I remember thinking several things about that: 2) what a horrific choice for a romance-writer-name. It had something to do with the title of the book, which was not "Paint your Wagon" but had something about wagons in it; 2) it wouldn't do anything to establish a name for me, but then 3) if I ever did write anything of my own I wouldn't want this associated with it anyway.

For a while in the dream I was hanging out with matociquala while she was chatting with fans and signing books, and she congratulated me on my contract.

In the packet as well was a description of a (fictional) town in England called Shenthorpe and some ads (fake) for local businesses there. All the same, I told lavendargrrl and ohari that this meant we could go to England and call it a business expense.

So later in the dream, we were in Sheffield across a very busy street from our hotel. Nearly got killed by a lorry trying to cross the street, but eventually made it in safety. I remember saying that Ray and I had stayed at this hotel once, years ago (although in reality I don't think we ever went to Sheffield). The computers were down at the registration desk, so they had to use paper, which they put into pale blue file folders.

Weirdly enough, at no point in this dream did I ever actually fax or mail back the signed contract. Maybe my subconscious edited that part as uninteresting, or maybe my subconscious doesn't really believe I'd ever in a million years get a book contract.

ETA: I forgot to mention something important. The contract and all the related papers were fluorescent hot pink, except the page of fake Shenthorpe ads, which was white.

After the quake this morning, I fell back into a semi-sleep, and dreamed that I was looking through my house for damage. The upstairs was similar to my actual house, but the downstairs was a very complicated house with many rooms and staircases, and strewn with broken china and glassware.

Also, about 10:15 we felt an aftershock. USGS is calling that one a 4.2. It didn't last as long, either.

Further to Monday's post about consent and my subconscious...I had a dream last night/this morning in which I had lots of kissing with someone I've crushed on for nigh fifteen years. At a point at which it might have seemed things would go further, my brain instead imagined me turning myself into a gorgon and being bitten by my own snakes. If that's not a subconscious Don't Go There flag, I can't think what would be.

***

Today was a good day. I was driving Chris nuts on the way to the stadium because I kept being all smiley and happy and wouldn't let his "are we there yet"'s get to me.

Even the fact that I'm still up, after getting home from the ballpark at midnight and then having to do actual *work*, isn't getting me down.

Nor even the distressing phone call from Diane (aka Nurse KnockYouUp) at the clinic this evening. She says the progesterone blood test Friday does not show levels consistent with ovulation, and has called in a higher-dose prescription of Clomid. But she also said it's possible that the test was too late in my cycle, and the progesterone might have already decreased. So I still don't know anything for sure, except that I haven't gotten a period yet.

I was shopping with Tammie at a little boutique giftshop. We found a series of prints of art collages with flowers--and some of my old writings from highschool. My name was even on the pages. Even though I had actually thrown away these documents (in the dream, anyway), I felt I should be getting some recompense for their use, that the artist's use was far beyond "fair use" of them. So I confronted the store owner to get the artist's name, and found out she had a studio upstairs in the very same mall. Tammie and I went up to her studio, which was full of students, and I asked "Do you have some time to discuss a legal matter?" She looked horrified. Then I asked her about the papers. She said, "Aren't they all in public domain?" I said, "Remains to be seen. Did you try to find the owner?" She said, "You'll be disappointed. She died in 1882." Um, no. "No," I said, "she's sitting right here, very much alive." I told her, though, that I wasn't interested in stopping her from selling her art, I just felt I should have a share of the income, having been the creator of part of the content.

Finally getting around to writing about this morning's dreams, from the sketchy notes I made for myself when I first woke up.

First I dreamed I was cooking breakfast for Jen. I was cooking oatmeal but she wanted malt (i.e. Malt-O-Meal, something my mother used to feed us and I haven't even thought of in donkey's years), so I turned the oatmeal off just as it was getting done and we headed out together to buy some malt.

Then I was playing three-handed pinochle with Liz and Matt on a table beside a lake with a rickety bridge across it. We were just getting started, she dealt the first hand and couldn't figure out what to do with the extra cards. I told her they needed to be put aside for the person who takes the bid "instead of passing cards like you do in four-handed". There still weren't the right number of cards, and we discovered that there were a lot of extra instruction cards that had gotten shuffled into the deck. I am just about to redeal after pulling all those cards out when Rosa screams. She's swimming in the middle of the lake with her little life vest on, but it has gotten stuck on the bridge and pulled off of her and she's sinking fast. I run around for a few seconds trying to decide whether to run across the bridge or dive in and then just dive. She's still screaming and sinking. I get to her in time, she grabs me but she's okay. As I'm swimming back to shore I get caught in a current I can't escape.

Then my parents are visiting me at college. I've designed a t-shirt that people are selling (quite successfully, I might add; one of the salespeople has a fistful of cash that she shows me). The shirts are light blue with a black design. I can't remember the wording but I know I was embarrassed about my parents seeing them, and I have a vague notion it was a joke slogan likening someone to Hitler. Someone else is also selling blue and black shirts with a blackletter S printed on them. (truefireflower, the exact same S that Puck had, except black on blue instead of red on black.) My parents and I are having lunch at the cafeteria/dining hall. Dad's still hungry because his food was inedible. He and I go back through the line to get him something else, but all the stainless steel heating trays are empty. We try getting him some snacky stuff. Then we have to be somewhere and the dream is over.

A night of strange and unsettling dreams. Not for any real horror in them, but for their realism and accuracy of targeting. And I had a second dream where I remembered the first one! That was new to me.

I dreamt that I was puttering about on Wednesday morning. I drove a minivan past the driveway I was heading for, had to go down the hill and turn around to come back up. Then I was riding bicycles with dj. We plopped on some grass and just relaxed. He took off his shoes and had one extra toe on the left foot and four extra on the right. (Sorry dj, I know your toes are perfectly normal. It was a dream.) Then I was in a minivan with my in-laws. I realized that it was nine o'clock and my flight left at ten. I was nowhere near the airport and hadn't even packed yet. I got frantic and asked her to take me home right away. We started off but had to go through a cemetery. It was packed with the biggest and gaudiest funeral I've ever seen. Flag twirlers, phalanxes of people with matching umbrellas, crowds in white dresses. The way we wanted to go had a gate across, so we went a different way. Soon there was a gate there too. We opened it and went on, down a narrowing lane that turned sharply and became a narrow staircase. We were hemmed in by stone walls and masses of people. We got out of the vehicle and tried to walk out of the cemetery. Everyone else was going the other way. Armida dropped her camera in a puddle. She fussed for a bit. I told them to pick it up right away and maybe it'd be okay. Ray reached down and got it. It was still displaying the date and time in LCD on the back so apparently it was all right. We went on, passing through a big dining room. By now it was 9:53. I tried to borrow their cell phone to call the airline and reschedule my flight, but could not reach the airline "Jerunet": it was not office hours for them. I couldn't find any numbers at all, for the airport or anything. We went on. The only way onward was across a canal or something, which had a flat raft-like ferry set up. They used ti for the trash. I got on the ferry and wanted to just push off immediately but had to wait for Hank and the busboy from the dining room to get on. They poled the raft across.

About then I woke up in a panic that I had in fact missed my flight. It was still very dark, so I convinced myself I had been dreaming, ran over the dream tin my mind to remember it for later, and went back to sleep. Only to dream that it was later that same day. I had missed the plane. I was still trying to make new arrangements, without success. I was in an office. I remembered the name but have not forgotten, but it seemed like a cross between a counseling service and a telephone survey firm. They let me use their phone. I called the airline again, still didn't manage to get through. Then they suggested I call a retired travel agent they knew. I called him, he answered the phone a bit grumpy at being disturbed during his dinner or nap or whatever, but he was very kind and grandfatherly to me. He talked me through the whole ordeal, asked about the tickets, said, "I didn't think Jerunet flew here." I told him I thought my ticket might be the first flight or at least today was the first day. Somehow or other we figured out that today was not Wednesday yet, and that I had only dreamed of missing my plane, and he laughed for a long time, until I finally laughed too.

Just when I was trying to fall asleep from this second dream, the phone rang. I ran downstairs to answer it; it was a wrong number. I went back to my room where the clock read 6:30 and got back into bed to argue with myself about going back to sleep or getting up to write morning pages. Finally I decided to get up and write out these dreams on the computer rather than in my morning pages notebook.

Interesting. The correlation appears to be true. I've been complaining lately that I have not remembered any dreams, and also that I haven't been getting enough sleep. Last night I went to be quite early (10:30) and I had a vivid dream that I remember. I remembered more before I spent the last couple hours cuddling and holding Rosa. She's having a rough morning--she has a very bad cough and a fever--and so am I, because of it. She's demanding even more of my attention than usual, and got up very early. Morning pages did not happen, but at least I woke up feeling refreshed and alert, as I have not for a couple weeks now.
Anyway, the dream involved some terrorist attacks, both of which happened in Wisconsin, one in Chippewa Falls or some other town that starts with a C, and the other in Sheboygan. I remember feeling quite indignant after the second one, that Wisconsin had gotten far more than its share of injury. The Sheboygan attack was nuclear, on the airport, and I saw the place afterward. Images seared on walls, and much wreckage of planes. For some odd reason they had a Concorde at this airport.
Details are escaping me, but no one I knew was harmed.