contemplativeOne of Liz's customers came in showing off her medicine bottle art. She melts down medicine bottles in the toaster oven and shoves beads into them and calls it art.
In my dream last night I saw this beautiful pair of earrings made similarly. Instead of big blobs of medicine bottle, there were smaller circles, probably half the size of the one that Liz's customer had. They were strung sort of mobile like around a gold core core with a thin coil of gold wire around them.
In the dream, they'd been made by a different person, and I wanted to show them to Liz's customer so she would see what it looked like when it wasn't busy looking hideous and she ended up breaking the earrings. And then, since she'd broken them already, she took them apart to disassemble them. I tried to explain to her that it was bad manners, but she ignored me. I apologized to the woman who made the earrings (Who operated under the trade name 'Disney Girl' how bizarre is that?) and offered to pay for them or make it up to her somehow. She did not allow me to do pay for the earrings, but instead decided I could make it up to her by things from her at retail prices for the rest of my life (we were at jewelry show of some type which usually requires the participants to sell at a certain markdown, usually 25%). I was about to acquiesce meekly, when I suddenly was furious and responded that guilt was one thing, and I offered to make it up to her reasonably, but I did not break the earrings, and even I'm not the babysitter of the person who did, even if I did show her the earrings, and furthermore taking advantage of my niceness is just being rude and annoying, and I considered that a violation of my offer to make it up to her.
In another dream, I was on a business trip with
solies to a post apocolyptic London. At one point, I was in the Ministry of Education building, a stunning building that had suffered no damage at all, and I got a call from lain_mac just as I we were talking to the Minister of Education. I tried to conduct both conversations simultaneously. I have no idea if I was successful. I suspect not.Yesterday was not a real successful day for me. I did finish Fong's bracelet, and, after much work, found my father-in-law's birthday labels for his birthday bourbon (and you never saw someone so happy in your life. Apparently it has been a particularly stressful week and they were all out of Old Forester at my in-laws when we got there, but there were other things that really prey on my mind.
1. I wanted to slap someone at my Hagaddah class. She was sitting across from me and being stupid. Her first question (which turned out to not actually be a question, but an observation, was moderately irritating because she said, "I have a question, then proceeded not to ask a question) and the Rabbi politely told her to hold her comment till the end, it was a good thought and would not be neglected. Thus emboldened, she then continued to interrupt throughout the class with her patented "I have a question." line. I'm not saying she was the only one who stopped the flow of the class to get a question off, there were a couple of other people who asked questions or made observations, but not as many, I guess. One or two per class is okay, but the Rabbi has like 2.5 hours of material and the class is a one hour class. My advice to everyone in the class, is STFU until he's done, and then ask questions. Write em down, and then ask later, because then he won't feel like he has to rush through the material, which invariably happens, because AGAIN, lots of material, small amount of time, don't make it worse, people.
So like by the 5th interruption, I'm thinking I will smack her. I won't be able to help myself. Or I'll say so calmly, so coldly, "Those of us who didn't come to class to hear the sound of your voice would like to move on now." Hoppie asked me if I felt that all the interruptions were bad, or just hers, and I think she struck me so hard because she just kept doing it. There was one interruption that I thought was of great value and insight and depth (obviously it was not from her.) It was from a Russian immigrant who had this say:
It is easy for you to philosophize on a Sunday morning. But here's what I know. In the Soviet Union, it was hard to be a Jew. And people worked their whole lives to blend in, to become good Communists, and then leave it all behind to start over, just to feel free. When I was in Hebrew class. There was a professor, a well respected man, a scholar who worked at the university. His whole life he never was Jewish. He worked hard, climbing to the top of his profession and he'd made it. And he was learning Hebrew to move to Israel to follow his grandson.
And I thought. Wow. That's powerful. That's the pull of freedom. Things you never thought you'd miss and in an instant, suddenly you want it.
So then the Rabbi leads us inexorably around to his conclusion and then asks what all normal people recognize as a rhetorical question, which of course, evil bimbo across from me just HAD to answer, which is okay, really, I'm thinking to myself, "finally, one intelligent thing she'll have to say, because there's only one idea here that can be the answer to the question he's just asked. I can feel some of the tension leaving my body as she starts to answer and then suddenly, it ratchets WAAAAAAY up again.
Her answer: We are able to retain our individuocity and independence as we walk through the sea.
INDIVIDUOCITY!! WTF! SHUT UP, DAMNIT before I'm ded from the stupid! Hoppie said I should have asked her how to spell that. That would have been funny.
2. I paid too much for Jewelry because I'm a sucker. I like the jewelry, but no way is it forty dollars worth of jewelry. Jean was upset with me for allowing myself to be manipulated like that. Jean is right of course, and her stuff is way better, but I don't know. I felt so bad for her. Her designs are clunky, I bought the only one I could stand, and those medicine bottle monstrocities. Brrrrrr. I wonder if I could show her my dream vision and see if can make things like that.
I found myself looking at my medicine bottle this morning and wondering, why the hell are they such an ugly color? In my dream, she had more of the monstrosities in various colors, like blue and pink where she'd dyed the bottles before melting them, and even those, in my dream, were hideous. You can't hide the original color. It's not bad for a bottle to be an ugly color, it's never struck me before that they had a color at all. They were just sorta..well there, but now that I look at them...that hideous opaque orange. Terrible stuff.
Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I got some cleaning done this weekend. I sorted a bunch of old mail and threw out 2 bags of old trash and mail. And generated 1 bag of financial records, 1 bag of things I want to keep, and 1 bag of things I want to shred with the shredder when I find the darn thing. I like my shredder, but I need a new garbage can for it. I also desperately need new heavy duty trash bags.
I got in a fight with hoppie about last week's trash bag. I took out the the 2 bags of trash I generated this week, but last week's is still by the door where I left it. It's where I leave full trash bags that need to be thrown out. Fight is a strong word, I guess.
Me: Hoppie, not right now, but soon, I'd like you to take out the trash that's by the door. I can't lift it. (I got it there by sorta scooting it across the floor)
Hoppie: Oh, is that what it's about?
Me: Yes. I wish you'd taken it out earlier.
Hoppie: I thought it was a challenge.
Me: A challenge?
Hoppie: To see how long it would sit there.
!!!*O&(^(*#&$(!&@(!
Is this some new torture where I have to beg to have the trash removed. I'm doing all of this spring cleaning by myself, with no help from hoppie. I haven't really asked him for anything, and this is actually the first time I've left trash for him to get in the four weeks I've been cleaning. That's the thanks I get? "I thought it was a challenge." It's not a challenge! It's your freaking house. Help clean it!
Me: It's a request. Please, take out the trash. I would have done it myself (LIKE I'VE DONE ALL OF THIS, EVEN THOUGH I DO NOT GENERATE CLUTTER IN A Vacuum!), but it's just too heavy for me to lift. You don't have to wait for me to ask you. If you see something that needs doing, you can just do it. I will be appreciative later.
Most of the fighting was in my head, I guess.
Seeing Robin was, of course, magnificent. We always have fun together, and I'm glad she was able to squeeze us in. Hoppie was too. He got up early to help me see her off. That's love. We had this conversation on the way to the airport:
Me: I'm really glad you're coming with me. Robin wanted to along.
Hoppie: Did she? I'm never sure she likes me.
Me: She adores you. She was always me to harass you forever.
Hoppie: Harass?
Me: Well, marry.
Hoppie: Ah.
Me: If she hadn't suggested it, I wouldn't have even thought to invite you, it being so early and all.
And I did finish my present for Paula. I'm rapidly crossing stuff off my list. That's got to feel good, right?