19:44 - 22.12.08
Solstice Dreams
It has warmed up since last I posted to you, dear diary. -31 C instead of -40 C, each with the windchill. It's all relative how we measure things, isn't it. Still couldn't open the balcony door in order to take out the garbage today - the cat litter reeeeally needed to go - until my youngest arrived home just now. He has the advantage of height to lift the door over the ice in the track, you see.
As you can guess, the weather is still affecting travel. My youngest gets off work around 5, then arrives home about an hour later. Not in these conditions though. A+ offered to pay for a taxi if I would come to see him last week. The cabbie was telling me road horror stories on the way there, with another cabbie taking up the tales later when I returned home. One of the drivers had spent ten years driving truck all through North America and was amazed still at how stupid some drivers can be. One should not try to drive 70 km/hour on sheet ice no matter how much of a hot dog one thinks one is. Words from a professional driver even, not just me.
I've had some unusual dreams and nightmares the past few days. Maybe it's the winter solstice or the approaching dark of the moon. Maybe it's Mr. Pluto - god of the underworld - speaking his piece on the shortest, darkest week of our year. The first dream was about my old supervisor. It was located in a city that boasted a boardwalk for it's main street. I seemed to be about ten years old, but, for whatever reason, I was responsible for the care of about three younger children. There didn't seem to be an available adult to help me out. I kept trying to buy food and essentials - like clothing - from those shops located on the boardwalk. They were the only retailers in town it seemed. I would choose the goods we needed, then approach the storekeeper to pay for what I wanted. Each time, my old supervisor - family in tow - would rush in and convince the store owner that they should not now nor never take my money or allow me to buy their goods. He made a game of it with his family to come up with new reasons and ploys to stop me and my family from living in that town. They seemed to derive a great deal of amusement from the entire process, even though they could see how much harm it was doing to the children under my care, as well as myself. The shopkeepers and clerks were all confused by the behaviour, but those stories that the supervisor and his family had concocted were apparently convincing enough to make them afraid to help us. Seemed to be invoking something about faith or race matters that were currently hot button items at the time the dream was set. I recall crying with frustration and begging a policeman to help us. He said he would look into it, but I woke then afraid that the lies would just be told to him too.
Next dream was really brief, thanks to certain cats. I seemed to be caught in two time periods - one of the old west and one current. One foot in each reality - or at least my legs were. You see, there was this cowboy who seemed to hold a lot of power over me. He wanted to advertise his services and he wanted to use the back of my legs as the billboard. He forced me to go to a tattoo parlour where he had his message burned into the back of my calves, while in the modern times there were business cards being embedded in the same place by some method that is totally unknown to me. That's when the cats started quarrelling over who got to sleep next to "mom". Just as well.
The next dream was extremely upsetting and it took me hours to come back completely into this reality. It started with the announcement of the suicide of a young teen girl. She had been in government care and was being abused by and through whatever program or people administering it. Despite her pleas over a very long period of time, she was ignored, her concerns denied or diminished and then, when she wouldn't stop asking more and more publicly for help, threatened with retaliation if she didn't stop. Finally despair overtook her and she killed herself. There was some reference to porcupines or quills at that point, but I don't know if it referred to an area or maybe was a representation of needles being used in the act. The news broke and the provincial government official rsponsible for that service was asked to respond to the scandal. It turned out the girl was related to her and had approached her several times for help. The minister in question was too busy playing the "bottom line" game for her electors to help and even added to the threats and isolation of that child in order to preserve her - the official's - "popularity among her peers". When that was revealed in the press she resigned with a mea culpa, but I doubt it had any real meaning. The dream shifted to the same time and place, but now I was in a private jet that had been commissioned to fly home the survivor of a another suicide pact among a group of siblings who had also been under the same government's "care and protection". The one surviving boy was recounting the death throes of his older brother to the uncle who had been brought in to take over care of the child. The uncle had already known how dire the children's circumstances were, but had said it was just "too inconvenient" for him to take care of those children - "even though he truly loved them". As the plane winged it's way toward it's destination he - the uncle - was trying to kill himself in order to avoid the censure of his own community. The surviving child was begging him not to do it because he had no one else to protect him. Couldn't the uncle become a leader to help change the evil in the system? I seemed to be a flight attendant and was trying to help the child stop the uncle from injecting himself with what ever was his toxin of choice. I was so distressed at the circumstances on the plane that I woke up at that point.
The last dream was about some sort of idyllic retreat up in the mountains. It seemed to be late spring. Oddly, there were only women and children at that retreat. Even among the children, there were only girls. There seemed to be no distress about the lack of males though. It was as though there had been some special ceremony "down in the valley" that all the men and boys were required to attend. Although the women were all in long flowing dresses, it did not seem to be set that long ago with respect to the time. It could have even been the present or the future based on the very modern housing that those families lived in. Running water and centralized heating, but natural building materials used throughout the homes. The women had gathered for some joint project with the remaining children when an avalanche occurred. I could see them trying to escape, but very few did. Even though I "witnessed" the avalanche, it seemed as though I didn't physically arrive in the settlement until some time after the event. One of the surviving females greeted me at her home, which had been spared by the tragedy. She took me, and the others with me, on a tour first of her home, then the remains of the settlement. Finally, she took us to a chain link fence that was the barrier to walking on the rocks that had crashed down onto their village. Red cloth markers had been placed over the points on the rockslide where the survivors believed the bodies of the victims now resided. They seemed to have some way of detecting their remains that made the location of the markers very accurate. It seemed that the women believed that when the men returned then those who had died could be retrieved and rejuvenated. Just very strange and eerie.
While I was visiting A+ we watched three movies in between reading books that we both have been working through. I'm reading "Stupid to the Last Drop" - about the Alberta Oilsands - by William Marsden. An early Christmas gift from A+, as well as "With Every Mistake" by Gwynne Dyer that deals with the media's failure to communicate with the public appropriately about the events of 9-11. Both are bad for my blood pressure, but they are also both validation of my own perspectives on those issues, so they balance out I guess. A+ is reading "The Golden Compass" as well as a book that is trying to debunk a lot of the information that is presented in films such as "The Da Vinci Code". Hmmmm. He says it is interesting reading too.
I spent today researching and writing. A long talk with my sister's sister-in-law on Saturday generated a lot of the work, while I also did some research on the training issues I had raised with the area manager during my performance evaluation. I had promised to send him a summary of that discussion and finally had the time and the energy to cobble it together. Last week was miserable because of bits of wisdom tooth falling out of my mouth you see. Made it hard to focus on anything but reducing the pain and keeping the inside of my mouth sterilized. I know, whine with cheese please. Time to go follow up on both activities and to tuck those cats into bed before they get into any more mischief. Crashing dishes are being heard in the kitchen you see. Good night dear diary.
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