previous - next

November 23, 2004 - Tuesday 11:00 p.m.

I am not even sure what time it was when I turned off the television and fell asleep. I didn�t want to know, so didn�t check any clocks. It was a restless night of sleep. A long night of complex dreams, so convoluted that I can barely recall them with any accuracy. It was a terribly repetitive dream. There was this scenario and decisions were made and bad stuff happened. People died or whatever, and then the dream would restart and the decisions could be made differently in an attempt to prefect the outcome of the dream. There were princesses and their mother the queen, and people trying to usurp power, etc. Wildly strange dreams... the princesses were making the decisions and they were making the wrong decisions and everything would be a disaster... at one point (I can recall) the queen revealed a 'wrong' decision she'd made... due to a punctuation error she'd appointed a vizier. In a replay she corrects that decision... he was the cause of a lot of the problems in the first couple of rounds of the dream... As the dream would replay the same �people� would be in the dream, but they would have changed. For instance, the wicked Vizier was just a nice gentleman in a later version of the dream where he wasn�t appointed Vizier. In the dream I recall looking at him twice and thinking, �wow, what a difference�. In the dream I was aware of the repeating of the scenario and had the ability to compare it to the earlier versions. It was exhausting. Rather then waking up refreshed, it seems I am more tired now then I was before I fell asleep.

I sit in an area with no windows at work. There could be a blizzard raging, or rain falling torrentially or the sun merrily shining and I�d have no idea. Some days it drives me crazy. I can open a java window of a camera facing Pikes Peak that updates every minute or so. My �window� on the world takes up 3 inches square on the corner of my monitor. It shows gray clouds obscuring the peak. There seems to be some light to the west, perhaps sunshine in Woodland Park. www.weather.com tells me that it is 33F but feels like 25F. Gah!

I have to go to school tonight. I�d really like to just skip the night, but my team needs to meet in MGMT. I could blow off OPTM, and the temptation is GREAT, but most likely I won�t.
Eighty years ago, this week, my grandmother and grandfather, Lottie and Vernon, got married, November 26, 1924. They were married in a double ceremony with Vernon�s sister Ethel and Theodore Sitz. They were married for just over 34 years when Vernon died. This year will mark the 46th anniversary my grandma has spent without him. Nearly 46 years that my mom�s dad has been gone. Thirty-four years is a long time to be married, but forty-six years is a terribly long time to be alone. Both of my grandmothers lived a long time after their husbands died. Grandma B lived 45 years after Lynn died in 1937. Gah!! What a long time for both of them to be alone. Grandma B was pretty independent, but Grandma S leaned on Wayne pretty heavily, probably due to their age differences when they were widowed. Stella was only 36 years old, but Lottie was 55. Stella had a 6-month-old baby when Lynn died, but Lottie�s baby, my mother, was 23 years old when Vernon died... a huge difference.