Dreamlife March 31 - Robin

First Dream

Type: I'm just watching
People: Richard Strauss, Patricia Racette
Featured: Strauss is a jerk

Strauss was rehearsing with full orchestra a piece he written for two women's voices.  One of the singers was Patricia Racette.  I didn't know the other.  Patricia had a problem at one point and asked to do it over (though the orchestra played over her request.)  Strauss gave her a mean look and continued.  Later at the end he said, "You don't stop the music; I do."

The Breakup (updated-winner's info at this post's end )

(by Robin--though this should be obvious to anyone who knows her)

As I have already mentioned in an earlier post, the breakup is just another name for spring here in Fairbanks. It refers, of course, to the breakup of the rivers, but also the breakup of snow-turned-ice all around. The most storied river breakup in Alaska is on the Nenana river. It isn't because it is the longest river (that is the Yukon) or the most spectacular, but because people gamble on when it will happen and have been doing so since 1917.  It's called the Nenana Ice Classic.  It's a thing. A very cute thing.

Dreamlife March 30—Leslie

Dream 1:

Type: reminiscing
People: my mom
Featured: memorabilia and orange sherbet

My mom and I are looking at a long bulletin board covered with memorabilia from a party—Deedee and Pabah’s (my grandparents’) 50th wedding anniversary, I think. We’re at my parents’ house in Santa Monica, in the dining room. Mom shows me the table which had been set up for the celebration, and we’re reminiscing about it. She shows me where the punch bowl made of ice was, in the fireplace. “Oh yeah,” I say. “The punch had orange sherbet in it, right?”

Dreamlife March 30 - Robin

Type:  Food
People: Leslie and a bunch of nameless others
Featured: me cooking

I was responsible for making a big dinner for a number of our friends.  I didn't do any of the prep, actually.  My job was to fry it all up for dinner.  I was using a number of electric skillets and everything was being done at the same time.  I was frying mash potatoes, breaded peppers, ahi, chicken fried-steak and eggs.  I was horrible at doing it efficiently and was worried that things would be over-cooked (particularly the ahi).  Leslie was there but talking and not helping.  I don't think I asked for her help, but I did wonder how I got stuck doing this job.  I served people one at a time and they began eating as they received the food.  They all seemed to like it.  Each person got some reading material with their meal.  The reading material, too, had been fried, lightly.

World Ice Art Championships, Part 3

(by Leslie)

Robin and I have been back to the Fairbanks Ice Park several times since I last wrote about it.

Dreamlife March 28—Laura Karst (Guest Blogger)

Type: Atmospheric conditions (? or just weird)
People: Doug
Featured: Aurora Borealis, mysterious blobs

Doug and I were asleep in our room in San Jose, in the dark of the night. I woke up and saw a greenish glow coming in the window. I looked out and saw the aurora borealis, pretty much as it appears in Leslie's pictures, except that some areas of the light were so bright that I had to squint. Some of the dancing light shapes were even coming through our window, intense, saturated, vivid green.

Dreamlife March 28 - Robin

Type:  Stress
People: Leslie
Featured: an argument and coffee at the Old Catalyst

I had a lot of errands to do in Santa Cruz and a pile of stuff I needed to organize in order to do the errands.  As well, we needed some food.  I asked Leslie if she would get the food while I did the rest of the errands.  She said she didn't need any food yet.  I said, "but I do, and it's your job". She refused.  This really pissed me off.  All my errands were for us collectively, so why wouldn't she do this one thing?  I grabbed my pile, showed her the cellphone and left in a huff saying, "if you decide to be a partner, call me."

Dreamlife March 28—Leslie

Type: Trying to get somewhere
People: Laura and Ziggy
Featured: a bus

(Just a fragment of a much longer dream, but it was interrupted when we got up to see some aurora activity, and I promptly forgot the rest.) I’m in Santa Monica with my sister Laura and Ziggy. We’re walking back to our parents’ house and are tired, so we decide to take the bus the rest of the way (one block). Laura gets on and pays and walks to the back of the bus. I get on with Ziggy, but have a hard time dealing with the leash and getting my money out of my wallet. I finally hand the driver a ten dollar bill, and am surprised when he only gives me back a five and some change. It turns out we’re on an express, which costs more. Plus, by the time it stops again we have a ways to walk back to the house.

Dreamlife March 27 - Robin

Type: game playing
People: Leslie
Featured: a complicated cross of Scrabble, Crossword and activities/grocery shopping

Leslie and I were playing Scrabble. You could only do words that were activities and then you had to do the activity.  So, if you put in the word "run", you had to run for a bit before continuing the game. These games took a long time...

It's melting! It's melting!

(by Robin)

We have been here for more than a month and I have got so used to the cold and the snow that when I saw my first melting snow yesterday, I found it quite alarming.  Ziggy did too.  We were stopped at a traffic light and she started barking at something.  The only thing to see was water dripping from a pile of ice and snow.  It somehow seems wrong! And scary!

Dreamlife March 25 - Robin

type: stressy with a bit of sci-fi
people: Sharon R
featuring: alteration of DNA through a spark and a sunflower seed

My friend Sharon said she didn't have enough money for retirement so she was upset and bought a $150,000 car the day before.  I said that was absurd and she should take it back.  She didn't want to.  I told her to pull it into my garage so we could talk this through—and it wouldn't be damage while we did that.

Dreamlife March 25—Leslie

Type: not sure
People: the Obamas
Featured: shoveling snow and an upside down map of the world

Don’t remember a lot about this one: just that the Obama family had moved in next door, and I was shoveling a path through the snow to their house. Later on, I was trying to buy an upside down map of the world (i.e., showing the South Pole on the top). I was thinking how cool it would be to see the land masses and countries from a different perspective that we’re used to seeing.

Dreamlife March 24 - Robin

Type: travel
People: Tara C, Mary and Don M.
Featured: an Ohio trip with food

Tara C. and I were on a trip and we arrived at our apartment, but I realized we were in Ohio near Mary M and I could see her.  It was very cold and we were in the process of putting away food—the French bread wouldn't fit in the freezer so we put it outside to freeze—and I just ran out the door with no explanation to Tara where I was going.  I went to Mary's house (running into Don on the way) but Mary was getting ready for a trip.  She had to leave in an hour so we couldn't do anything more than say hi.

I went back to the apartment and apologized to Tara for running out.  She forgave me.  Some gay guys with a dog were there.  I brought Ziggy out to show my dog.

Dreamlife March 23 - Robin

Type: political
People: Jerry Brown, Bettina Aptheker
Featured: Bettina challenges Jerry Brown in the Governor's race

Bettina threw her hat into the Democratic primary ring against Jerry Brown.  I was surprised given that Bettina hasn't been overtly political in many years.  Jerry asked her to be on his weekly show at 6:00 pm.  That was going to be followed at 7:00 pm by a debate between them.  I thought that was interesting and looked forward to the show and the debate.

Dreamlife March 20—Leslie

( a little late)

Type: class reunion
People: Linda N., Linda F., and Robin
Featured: a photo of the Beatles

I’m at a Stanford Law School class reunion, and Linda N. (a classmate who is now a high mucky-muck in the LA pop music scene) was giving a talk to us in one of the law school auditoriums. She holds up a photo of the Abbey Road album cover, which has a picture of her superimposed on it. I yell out “Paul is dead!” and several people in the audience chuckle.

Dreamlife March 21 - Robin

Type: Just weird
Featured: venomous horses

There were three horses in a corral.  I went to pet them and the owner said, "Watch out, they are venomous." Venomous horses?  Well, they did have spade-shaped heads.  He said, "I don't keep them to ride but just to stomp vermin in the pasture".  I let them out to do that, and indeed they did stomp some vermin.

Dreamlife March 20 - Robin

Type:  Dental appointment (stress)
People: Dr. Bock, Leslie
Featured:  Hip shots to treat dog-borne teeth problem

I drove to my dentist after dropping Leslie off across town at another doctor's appointment.  She didn't want to drive.  We were supposed to be done around the same time and she was going to wait.  But Dr. Bock was very late.  In fact, it turned out he wouldn't get to me for many hours, until 5 pm.  This stressed me out as I was going to keep Leslie waiting for so long.

When it was my turn, he and an assistant came into the room.  The assistant started pointing to her hip with a know-it-all expression on her face.  Dr. Bock said—without even looking in my mouth—that I had a serious problem that needed to be treated by a series of shots in my hip.  I assumed this was some sort of post-radiation dental problem but Dr. Bock said that I got it from my dog, from letting the dog sleep in the bed.  I thought, well, it's worth it and I wasn't going to change.

Dreamlife March 19 - Robin (going lucid)

Dream One

Type: Sci-fi/ relationship issues
People: Leslie and a band of Burning-man like hippies, Laura
Featured:  Moon colonization requiring a lot of pee

We have colonized the moon (maybe Gingrich is President??).  They have found—and in the dream I saw a vivid graph of this—that anywhere someone has peed, vegetation grows.  So they want a lot of people to immigrate and pee.  They are giving away 40 acres per person (no mule).  Leslie wants to do it and I, reluctantly, agree.  For some reason Leslie wants to let a group of hippie-artist types use the land (more pee!) I say that is ok as long as they are not near us.

Dreamlife March 19—Leslie

Dream 1:

Type: medieval adventure
People: no one I know in waking life
Featured: a castle with fighting, a pub, and some beer

I’m involved in some sort of battle with bows and arrows and swords—a bit like a scene from The Lord of the Rings. But it’s not scary; I’m just fighting, as if it were the most natural thing in the world (dream sign!). I don’t remember anyone dying or even being injured.

Lucid Dream Aids

(by Robin, with some additions by Leslie)

As mentioned in a previous post, one of the things we're spending our time doing up here in Alaska is trying to learn to lucid dream. What that means is that you realize in your dream that you're dreaming, so that you can act upon it by, say, deciding to fly like Supeman, or play killer lead guitar with Spinal Tap, or maybe just be able to realize that the nightmare you're experiencing is merely a dream.

There are a whole lot of things one can do to help the process of learning to lucid dream. Here's a how-to list for lucid dreaming. For those who don't hit the link, note that keeping a dream journal is crucial. We are doing that.

Moose Turd Pie

(by Leslie)

We’ve seen very little wildlife since we’ve been here: mostly just crows, and a few enormous ravens at the transfer station (i.e., where you bring your garbage). I imagine there are lots of other critters about—bunnies and foxes and other non-migratory beasts—but they’re all either hibernating or just well hidden from us city slickers.

We’d been hearing tell about the moose, and had seen lots of photos of them in the newspaper, so we were constantly on the lookout for one on our walks and from our windows. But we saw nary a one.

Then the other day I looked out the window and saw tracks in the snow. “Those must have been made by a moose,” I said to Robin.

Dreamlife March 18 - Robin

Dream One

Type: Everyday life (with fictional details but true to our life)
People:  Nancy and Steve L, Leslie
Featured:  a $10,000 loan to our friends

I introduced my good friend Alphonsa to another friend.  But she corrected me and said, "My name is actually Phonsa".  Really? I had been calling her by the wrong name for years??  Yes, so it seems.

Phonsa morphed into my friend Nancy L., who was depressed.  I asked why and she said that it was time to pay tuition (for the expensive private school for their child) and they were $10, 000 short.  I said I would be happy to lend it (though I needed to check with Leslie).

Dreamlife March 16 - Robin

Type:  Sci-fi movie-like
People: George Clooney, Michelle Obama, Marcia Brady
Featured:  a amusement part ride that can change time

A brilliant American engineer (played by George Clooney) is touring a new amusement park designed by a Japanese genius.  He is the Disney of this century.  George and his wife (played by Michelle Obama) get on one ride which is a tour of the future.  It has the ability to change time, make it faster or longer, relative to the rest of the world.  When you get off the ride, you have gained or lost whatever time it was set for.

Dreamlife March 15 - Robin

Dream One

Type: work semi-stress
People: Alex
Featured:  a chapter with an aquarium running through the paper

I was editing Alex's latest chapter but I found it hard because there was a whole lot of smoke in the room and there was an aquarium on the paper.  It was hard to read the word—not to mention edit—with fish in the way.  This was taking place at a College 8 dorm room for some reason.

Dreamlife March 14—Leslie

Dream 1:

Type: high stress
People: no one I know in waking life
Featured: an SF law firm and a death

I’m at a San Francisco law firm, working on a case file. But I’m scared, because I’ve killed someone—or at least I’m suspected of having done so. But in the dream—although I wasn’t sure one way or another—it felt to me like I had in fact committed a murder.

Dreamlife March 14 - Robin

Type: clothing anxiety
People: mom
Featured: a new clothing ensemble

A friend was on trial and I had to testify.  I thought I should wear a dress.  I put on this frumpy mid-calf prin dress and over it put a full-length knit beige coat.  I looked really stupid.  My mom said I looked so nice in a dress!  I rolled my eyes.

More Aurora!

(by Leslie)

As detailed in Robin’s last post, we were treated to another fine display of the northern lights last night. In anticipation of the possibility, Robin swept off the deck yesterday afternoon, so we could go out there to view the aurora without tracking snow into the house. Notice how little she was wearing, even though the thermometer read 15 degrees. One does get acclimated to the cold.

the display last night was better in the front yard,

so the sweeping ended up not being necessary

This and That

Robin post

I've just become lazy as all get-out.  Well, obsessed and lazy.  I spent most of yesterday's waking time madly refreshing the Iditarod facebook site to track the race.  By nightfall, I alternated that with refreshing all the various aurora prediction sites.  (Yes, there are quite a few.)  And checking weather sites, to make sure that if there was an aurora out there, it could be seen.  And, just to see what is happening in the world, throwing in the New York Times site and Andrew Sullivan's blog from time to time. And, of course, email and facebook.

Dreamlife March 12—Leslie

Type: travel and argument with Robin
People: Robin and Sandy L.
Featured: an airport and some Steiff stuffed animals

We get off an airplane and chat with the pilot and crew in the cockpit. They’re very jolly and friendly. It’s a Russian airline and they have Russian accents. Sandy and I walk down the airport terminal hall. She wants to go and gamble (I guess we’re in Las Vegas). There’s some promotion going on that she knows about, where if you gamble six dollars you get some kind of good deal.

Dreamlife March 11 - Robin

Type: working through unresolved feelings
People:  Pam and Peter, Anne, Leslie
featured: apologies

I went looking for Pam and Peter (yes, I needed their contact information for the high school reunion).  As I was driving with a lot of Mexican food in the car, I saw their names on a sign by a driveway.  I turned down the driveway and they were there.  I said I was confirming their address for an invitation to the reunion but that I also wanted to apologize for what I said the last time I saw them.  Pam accepted the apology and I gave her some of the food.

Dreamlife March 11—Leslie

Dream 1:

Type: being on stage and completely incompetent
People: me and a ragtag group of musicians
Featured: a really bad band

I’m on stage playing bass guitar in a band. But I’m about as good (i.e. bad) as I would be in my waking life. So even though it’s just a simple blues progression I’m supposed to be doing, I totally suck. Although it’s just a group of beginners, I’m really embarrassed, and am trying to figure a way to get out of the situation.

Dreamlife March 10—Leslie

Type: minor anxiety
People: some kid from my elementary school
Featured: a new passport

I’ve just received my new passport in the mail. A new thing is that you need to submit not just a current photo, but also one from your childhood. I see that the photos on my passport are of someone else (though it is in my name)—she’s a girl I don’t know, but I know she’s from my elementary school, as the photo is from our yearbook back then. I had sent the yearbook page to them to use my photo, and they’d obviously used the wrong one. And to make matters worse, the girl is rather ugly.

Annotations:

I did recently get my passport renewed. Our elementary school did not have a yearbook. I have no idea who the girl is; she did not look the least bit familiar (but the photo totally looked like one from a yearbook back in the mid-1960s).

Dreamlife March 10 - Robin

I was awoken by a phone call and it just knocked that dream out of my head...I know the last thing was that I was singing "You are 16, going on 17."  Before that I was trying to find classmates for the Fairfield High Reunion and was pleased to find Dara Kempka and Sonja Duerst, names that I have not thought about for 40 years...

Big fail, but I wanted to note it for the record...

Snow Happens

(by Leslie)

Being California and Hawai‘i gals, Robin and I have not been around much snow. Sure, I spent six years in Columbus, Ohio as a kid, but since we moved to California when I was eight, those cold mid-western winters are only a distant childhood memory for me. So I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d react to winter in the coldest city in America.

When we arrived in Fairbanks a little over two weeks ago it had recently snowed, and everything looked like a fairyland to my newcomer eyes.

fence near our house here in Fairbanks

(notice how the snow droops and forms a ribbon, defying gravity)

Dreamlife March 9 - Robin

Type: frustration
People: Karen McDuff and Dad
Featured: helping my sister-in-law and a whole lot of spilling of stuff.

Dreamlife March 8 - Robin

Type: fish-out-of-water
People:  Leslie and, only in annotation, my brother Russ
Featured: Robin as a pastor in a dress

Ziggy Obstacle Course

On those cold Fairbanks days, I have been working on obstacle courses with Ziggy here in our house.  We start downstairs:

And move upstairs:

Any ideas of what we should add?

Dreamlife March 7 - Robin

Prelude:   The point of the dream journal for purposes of learning to lucid dream is to both keep you focused on your dreamlife and enhance your dream memory. It has worked really well for me, to the point that I have more dreams than I really want to write here.  So, from now on, I will just do my favorite snippet from the night.

Type: Sci Fi (ish)
Featuring:  A spray that melds two people together

Junior Dog Mushers Competition

(by Leslie)

Last weekend Robin and I made it out to our first mushing competition since we’ve been here, one put on by the Fairbanks Junior Dog Musher’s Association.

a competitor praises his Alaskan Husky, post-race

It was held north of town, at the Jeff Studdert Racegrounds, where most of the mushing and skijoring events take place in Fairbanks.

Dreamlife March 6—Leslie

Type: looking at a house to buy
People: an older woman
Featured: an old, run-down B&B

I’m in San Francisco with a woman I know (a friend’s mother?) who wants to look at a property she’s interested in buying. It’s an old B&B that she’s thinking of resurrecting. They’re asking $750,00, which is really cheap for this big a lot in SF.

Dreamlife March 6 - Robin

Type: Episodic
People: My family and Ziggy (she is a person, right?)
Featured: "spring in a bag," a family play, and rats

We were preparing for the Alaskan break-up of winter where slush and mud are abundant, and a salesman offered us "spring in a bag."   It is a service, sort of like a diaper service.  They bring you all you need to mud-proof and drop a new one off every day.  We got the dog service: mud booties, mud coat and towel to clean.

Dreamlife March 5 - Robin

Type: interweaving of the everyday with more fanciful elements
People: Sandy L, Cynthia Nixon
Featured: getting a housekeeper, a rich Japanese resort, and the drive-in that gives me comfort

Sandy recommended a housekeeper to us by the name of Tia.  I went to talk to her about what we wanted her to clean, and she was already taking apart an area with a bunch of junk, tying to make it neater.  I told her that I didn't want her to do any projects unless I actually gave them to her.  She was showing way too much initiative for my taste.  But I decided to use her because she needed the job.

Ron Paul Visits Fairbanks

(text by Robin, editing and photos by Leslie)

Leslie and I went to see Ron Paul today. Thinking it might be a pretty popular event given the libertarian bent of the Alaskan “interior” (as they call this part of the state), we showed up about a half an hour early. We only just managed to get places near the front of the standing-room area.

we were lucky to be standing right at the aisle

Dreamlife March 4—Robin

Type: episodic
People:  cameo by Mary Tyler Moore circa the MTM show era
Featured: Ziggy as underwater creature and R-rated material

Ok, I knew the day would come when I would have to censor this thing.  I mean, my mom and dad have the link.  All the good dreams of last night were R-rated and this is a PG blog.  But I will give a brief overview, nonetheless.

Dreamlife March 4—Leslie

Type: Trying to get somewhere
People: Cathy and Jamie
Featured: a bar, a train, and an elevator

Cathy and Jamie and I are in a bar/restaurant. Someone shows us a newspaper with a photo of the bar we’re in. It’s a picture taken from above the bar, of a guy who had died, or maybe he killed someone? But what we notice is that Cathy and Jamie are also in the picture, sitting at the bar to his right. (I’m not with them in the photo.)

World Ice Art Championships, Part 2

(by Leslie)

The first competition at the Fairbanks ice sculpting competition is the single-block event. Teams of two people get one 3’ x 5’ x 8’ ice block, and have 60 hours to complete their piece. Robin and I stopped by to see their progress on the last afternoon before the deadline (last Thursday).

Competitors cut their blocks into pieces, and then carve and “glue” (by melting) them back together to make awe-inspiring creations.

you can see the seams in the wings in this one

(the supporting board will be taken away right before the judging)

Dreamlife March 3 - Robin

Type:  Episodic
People: Jan R., Sue C, Ziesel, Joan Sutherland, Whitney Houston
Featured: a whole lot of ex-partners given that I have been with Leslie for 27 years

I was packing frantically, trying to get ready for a trip to Seattle to see a concert.  I didn't need to bring everything because I was borrowing clothes from the people in Seattle.  It was 5 pm in Santa Cruz.  The concert was at 7 pm in Seattle.  I feared I couldn't make it in time. (Duh!  You would think I would realize I was dreaming with this math...)

Dreamlife March 2 - Robin

Type: Alaskan fiction
People:  Steve from Hawaii
Featured: a 2000 "race" by newcomers through Alaska

I was reading a brochure about a 2000 mile "race" for people new to Alaska to learn about the state.  The rules are that any form of ground transportation is fine and, really, everybody is a winner so no need to do it quickly. It is the Alaskan race for no-talent newbies from the lower 48.  In the glossy brochure for the race was a picture of a friend from Hawaii, Steve, who had done the race and recommends it to all newcomers.  I thought, "yeah, but Steve is really fit and iron-mannish...he is not a no-talent."  It looked uninviting to me.

Aurora!

(by Leslie)

Last night as I was brushing me teeth getting ready for bed, Robin came down to tell me, “The aurora webcam is showing activity—we should go out, now!”

“Okay.” I set down my toothbrush. We’d already been here a week but, because of the persistent cloud-cover, had yet to see the northern lights. Robin—who as many of you know can be somewhat obsessive about things once she gets them in her head—had been checking the aurora webcam and notification websites every night (and sometimes every two hours at night), and was champing at the bit to get out there to check this one out.

We hurriedly put on all our winter clothes—base layer, fleece sweater, overcoat, three pairs of sock, snow boots, fleece hat, mittens—and headed out in the car to the spot not too far from our house that we’d scoped out earlier for good viewing. And there it was: the aurora borealis!

these photos were all shot on a tripod at 10 seconds,

using my Canon Powershot A1200 set on its “night” setting

The display was exciting, especially since this was our first sighting of the lights. But from past experience we knew they could get better—way better.