December 11 – Driving Cross Country

So for some reason I was going to be driving cross-country with my father, his wife and my sister. I think we were going to be driving a truck so there really wasn’t any room for more than 3 people in the front cab. It’s not clear whether my sister was already in a wheelchair or whether we decided that it made the most sense for her to be in a wheelchair to come cross-country. So we start driving and she has to keep up with us, which she seems to be doing, though her biggest complaint is how dirty the wheels of the wheelchair are. I tell her it will be a great workout for her and ask if she wants gloves to help with the dirt, but she says no.

Next thing I know, I am in the back of the truck, where there is some sort of theater troupe that we are taking cross-country for some performance. I look at my watch and notice that we have been driving for 3 hours, but figure we can’t be much further than Monticello because my sister in the wheelchair is making us go slower (Monticello is about 2 hours from NYC). I look on a computer that has a GPS and notice that we are just west of Allentown, PA, which is also about 2 hours from NYC, but that within the hour we will be west of Chicago. I am surprised that my father went this way and not through Monticello, but obviously he knew of this incredible shortcut.

Next thing I know I am cast in the performance of the play, which they are rehearsing in the back of the truck, and I am also helping them rewrite it as we go along. Somehow I discover that the back wall of the truck is more like a force field, and that you can stick your arm through it and feel what it is like outside, although there is a lot of resistance as you push your hand through. Others try it as well – it’s a hit, they love it.

Then, I decide I need to take a shower. Some woman from the troupe comes into the bathroom with me and pleads with me not to take a shower because they are not supposed to be taking showers and they don’t want to get caught. I tell her that we can wash the towels in the washer dryer, which is in the bathroom as well. We argue and struggle a bit, and somehow the towel falls into the toilet, which for some reason has not been flushed and has some excrement in it, which gets all over the towel. The woman starts freaking out, but I say we can just wash it in the washing machine. I wash the excess feces off the towel and put it into the machine, then look for detergent. There are bottles of detergent in the bathroom but they are all empty. I say I know where there are bottles of detergent – I leave the bathroom to go find it. But to get to where I think it is, I need to go through the force field/wall at the back of the truck, and while I can move my hand through it, I cannot pass through it in total. So I come back and decide to wash the towels with no detergent. This greatly upsets the woman.

Then the alarm goes off.

DECEMBER 7 2008 - Monticello Flood

I wake up and hear about torrential rains forecast for Monticello, NY. My parents ask me to go check on the house upstate. I jump in my brand new car and pick up my sister. She is impressed by the car, which has a Hemi engine (V8 I suppose) so very powerful (very much like my rental in San Diego). For some reason she does not come with me.

So I drive upstate alone. When I get off at the exit, I proceed toward the house. As I get closer, crossing over the Silbert’s creek, there is a flash flood – water is rising. I try to drive up the last little hill with my powerful Hemi-powered car. I veer to the right because I think I see a way to get through but the water quickly is becoming too deep. I get out of the car – it is stuck, I suppose, and try to walk/wade/swim the rest of the way. I see 2 women doing the same thing, and the call out to me and tell me to follow them – more to the left than I had been. I follow them and able to get to ankle-deep water and proceed up the hill.

Then I woke up.

December 4 2008 - Coffee in Monticello

I was visiting my sister at the end of the summer at her job in camp. But her camp happened to be located in Monticello, NY, where we spent many summers and my parents used to own a house (my father still has a house near there in Swan Lake NY).

We’re driving down the hill on route 42 and I see all these unfamiliar restaurants. One I point out is a coffee place – my sister says she isn’t familiar with it but that there is another really good coffee place ahead. We go through the traffic light and look to the left, and there is a restaurant called Jeff’s (which used to exist) – I asked my sister if it had reopened but she didn’t think it had – we looked inside and it looked like they were training staff. We pass the coffee place and my sister says my mother loves that place (my mother died in 2003).

Then we stop into what looks like an indoor/outdoor cantina that has pool tables outside but under a roof that had like that straw hanging down like in the Caribbean. We put our name on the list to go play pool, but then she decides she wants to leave. I tell her I need to use the bathroom and when I go to the bathroom, I run into a guy who I knew in high school and recently reconnected with on Facebook. We man hug and I tell him I will e-mail him when I am headed down to Florida (where he now lives) in January or February to visit my father and his wife.

Then the alarm goes off.